A recent extract posted on his blog talks about the tell-tale signs of a ‘gone native Account Director‘ (an Account Director who feels they work for the client organisation rather than their own, is building a true partnership with their customer, and is embarrassed by any overt attempts to sell to the client because they believe the client will bring opportunities to them rather than the other way round).

Now I’m putting words into James’ mouth here, but he seems to be saying that going native is a good thing for an Account Director – and ultimately for the sales operation they work in – because a true partner will end up with more (or better quality) business than they would have done through hard selling.

I would suggest that Marketing needs to think about the same principles too. We know for a fact that the campaigns we run work best when they “don’t feel like marketing” to the end audience – that’s a key principle of course for social media and it’s always been valid in real life too. But it’s very difficult to achieve, and only possible I would argue if you start from

• a real interest in the issues of the marketplace;
• combined with a deep belief that things could be better for that marketplace if they thought more about what you have to offer;
• and an interest/affinity for the people you believe you can help.

Those are the defining beliefs of pretty much all the best marketers I know. Start from anywhere else, and the sales objectives you’re trying to support will be blatantly obvious – to such an extent that they will switch off the audience. So much so that I find myself getting embarrassed when I see examples of marketing that add nothing to a bare sales message, or are obviously trying to promote a course of action that will result in a sale. (I’ll pick out some examples of this from advertising in this month’s Harvard Business Review in an upcoming post.)

Now this isn’t to say that Marketing shouldn’t be about supporting sales objectives – if it isn’t helping to sell today or creating a better sales environment for tomorrow, then it doesn’t have any reason to exist. But the point is that – for the ‘gone-native Marketer’ – successfully driving sales is inextricably tied to the belief that their product/service can make the world a better place, a desire to find opportunities to make this happen, and a deep interest in the people whose world they can improve.

There may not be any particularly pronounced differences across categories – but the overall numbers show yet again how clearly the case for leveraging social media is growing. Consider that less than a quarter are completely inactive (i.e. not making any use of social media), and sizeable proportions are active in the various different categories (anything from just having a profile on LinkedIn or reading information on a blog through to creating their own content).

Having acknowledged that the buyers are out there, the question becomes how to engage and then nurture their interest in the way most likely to achieve your business objectives (for a starting point, see our B2B web 2.0 marketing campaign planner).

McKinsey’s article (Data to dollars: Supporting top management with next-generation executive information systems – free registration required) highlights an opportunity for CIOs to ‘make their roles more critical than ever’ by making the benefits of Business Intelligence directly visible to the Board. [Off the topic of this post, the article contains some great examples of models to visualise complex BI in action]

The article uses an example to show precisely how poor information can become a personal and emotional issue for the CIO:

“Executives intent on reviewing key performance indicators (KPIs) had to sort through a jumble of onscreen data, so the CIO needed to take several IT analysts offline every month to comb through the figures and create the desired analyses. Frustrated, the company’s board pressed the CIO to explain why group reporting costs were climbing upward and so much IT support was necessary. As the chief information officer, the CIO should play a more central role in designing next-generation executive information systems that can help a company’s top managers extract value from the data that surrounds them.”

Considering this kind of personal argument can often lead to the best response when we’re taking a proposition to senior buyers. It’s where the heart (in this example, ‘I need to be seen to do something’) can multiply the effect of the head (’there’s a better way for us to work as a company’).

Other more ‘emotional’ sales angles could include  playing on how you can make their department into a hero, or help it to prove its worth. Staying with the example of Business Intelligence, it struck me at our recent S&M Forum that the Finance decision-makers would be keen to invest in BI simply around the promise that it could help them track the performance of all the other investments they are making (ability to measure results being one of the main things they are looking to improve). This kind of thinking doesn’t normally come into a BI proposition, but it may be closest to the buyer’s heart.

This more ‘emotional’ angle  to selling can be matched by a more ‘psychological’ approach to marketing. When we look at the programmes that are delivering the best results, we can see that they are tied to some level of psychological or behavioural insight.

For example, people are more likely to respond to a lead generation activity if you make the next step ‘visible’ (giving a phone number to call if people want more information is one thing – but explaining the first stages of your sales process could actually be more powerful in helping them to see how they can take their interest forward). We also know that response or interaction can be prompted by factors like a fear of falling behind (ultimately tied to job security), a desire to be seen as posessing (and sharing) greater knowledge than peers, feeling indebted for a valuable experience…

It’s certainly too simplistic to apply B2C models of emotional buying behaviour to B2B purchases, but we do need to remember that decision-makers aren’t simply automated decision-taking machines. Our work will always be more powerful if we consider the people as well as the business that we’re marketing to.

It’s fascinating to note just how many of the top 25 to have made the grade are technology brands, or brands from closely-related industries. More than half (15 of the 25) fit into this category. CMOs from Oracle, Avaya, Cisco, AMD, Siemens, SAP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, HP, Accenture, AT&T, Verizon, Motorola and Sybase are all named in the list.

I’d highly recommend downloading the supplement and looking at how these different CMOs are tackling their marketing challenges. It reveals why AMD have reduced 900 global campaigns down to 4 core ones, why FedEx chose to drop its spots at the Superbowl in the face of the economic downturn, through to how an ex-Disney marketer is using the web at HP and will soon be leading a repositioning of the brand. From IBM’s focus on smarter planet technology, the Sybase CMO’s provocation-based marketing strategy and Oracle’s organisational focus on delivering opportunities to the sales force, there’s a lot to ponder. There’s also interesting insight from companies such as UPS, General Electric and Aon for a bit of non-IT inspiration.

A couple of choice quotes from the piece:

• Judith Sim, Oracle’s CMO saying, “There is no doubt, at the end of the day, that with Oracle marketing – and this is direct from Charles Phillips – we win when the cash register rings. We know what our end goal is, and that’s to support the sales organization. It’s not as much about winning those brand awards.”
• Mich Mathews, Microsoft’s VP Central Marketing “In the case of our business campaign, it was working; but we thought it could work harder,” she said. So Mathews and her team talked to customers and got feedback from Microsoft’s global subsidiaries and, ultimately, decided to retool the campaign, which targets business and IT decision-makers. In just 21 days, the company update various campaign assets—focusing messaging on how Microsoft technology can help people run their businesses successfully, particularly in a down economy.”
• Jeff Hayzlett, CMO, Eastman Kodak “In tough times you have to focus on the value proposition. The fluff, the funny campaigns, go out the window.”
• Mark Wilson, VP Sybase “We had a very compelling value proposition around risk management and risk analytics. If you looked at capital markets at the time, they were going through huge turmoil. Instead of asking companies what keeps them up at night, we would tell them what should keep them up at night. It was a very different way of selling.”

The 2009 B2B Barometer report, from the IDM, ABBA and Circle Research has just been released. It’s been designed to give an insight into the goals, trends, channel preferences, areas of budget allocation and investment priorities of B2B marketers.

A specific section of the report focuses on what the 100 B2B marketers interviewed for the study are working on right now, and has uncovered 5 major areas, based on an entirely open questions. I’ll go on to cover these 5 in detail at the end of the post – but first some thoughts on the study’s broad findings. 

My major conclusion is that marketers appear to be attempting to demonstrate ever-more rapid and cheaper results (especially around lead generation) without claiming the time and investment they need up front to support the delivery of those results in the first place. For example, the study shows that long term programmes such as research, marketing strategy and brand identity are losing favour in the face of competition for budget from social media, email campaigns and website development.

Whilst it’s true that online is cheaper, faster and one of the first places that prospects will go to look for something, B2B marketers must be cautious to keep the baby in its bathwater. In this digital rush, we mustn’t forget that we still need to say something compelling over these channels (that’s where market research comes in, even if we need to use new channels to conduct that research)… and that we need to be saying it to the right people (clean and accurate database with agreed sales interaction processes). Without the right platforms in place – data, propositions, mechanisms – marketing programmes are doomed to failure, be they online, offline or a blend.

As I said in the intro to this post, the ”Key marketing priorities” section of the report is one of the most interesting – focusing as it does on the 5 big things your B2B peers are struggling with right now.

These 5 biggest priorities cited by the study are reproduced in bold below, grouped into 3 major areas (data, online and ROI). I’ve interwoven these with suggestions on how to get tackle each priority:

 -Strengthening online presence through improved website content, visibility and interaction and enhancing the effectiveness of email marketing

-Obtaining a better understanding of new media and how best to integrate this with more traditional forms of communication

Enough of the new/social media black magic! Surely the most useful understanding of new media any of us can possibly gain comes from truly getting under the skin of how our clients and potential clients are using it now and will use it in the future. Your time to engage new prospects is short enough without demanding that they use an unfamiliar site or technology to boot. We need to think through the lifecycle of interaction during the go-to-market process and build online and offline tools to support that.

Speak to customers and prospects face to face about the way they’re really using the web. Whilst they are unlikely to blog or contribute to websites, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t reading them. They are still highly likely to be searching for articles and downloads to help them create a presentation or research a new tool or service. Ask what is meaningful and useful to the prospect, what will support the campaign’s goals and what makes the prospect’s life easier.

Don’t get hung up on generating an online debate or getting oodles of feedback – Jakob Nielsen highlights that only 1% of any online community actively contribute and the rest effectively “lurk”. The goal with online is ultimately the same as online - position the offer and attract people to it in the first instance, then support the building of a relationship, the sale, and the growth of that relationship going forward. Do this through the provision of great content and fantastic service.  Also, what about the prospects and customers of the future? Having grown up in the web generation, you need to keep an eye on what they’ll want in the future too.

-Cleansing and maintaining accurate and up-to-date customer and prospect details

Data is the foundation of any great marketing programme, and an essential nut to crack for both customer and prospect programmes. Most programmes fall down when they say “we must sort the data issue” and then acse investment immediately once it’s been cleansed. It’s something you should budget to make a never-ending investment in. Brian Carroll makes the point that “the quality the marketing database can influence your lead generation or nurturing program’s success by a factor of 50 percent.” Keep it current through continuous campaigning and a good information sharing process. Data is also one of the ultimate crossover points between Sales and Marketing, so it’s critical to put good people on data projects and commit to them in the longest term.

 -Deriving the maximum value from marketing budgets – making them work to the fullest extent- at a time of budget cuts. 

-Measuring the return on marketing investment – but in reality often the return on sales investment – at a time when budgets are tight and marketers are being asked to justify and substantiate marketing spend.

Consider allocating budget by priority rather than channel or activity (I saw data from AMR Research recently that showed “lead generation” as the primary marketing objective of 70% of B2B marketers, but it was rated third in the list of activities by spend allocation). Also, ensure that you’re budgeting from scratch for this quarter’s or year’s programmes and ask hard questions about everything on there (the old adage, do what you’ve always done, get the same results).

Don’t fight against programmes measured by sales-driven metrics, in a recession they’re here to stay. Instead be sure that you don’t sign up to a lead target in the absence of solid knowledge. Look at the sales cycle, the buying patterns, the previous history of the prospect or customer group the programme is targeted at before committing.

We are pleased to be able to offer clients of The Marketing Practice a free copy of the B2B Barometer report, normally £100. Please speak to Paul Everett on +44 (0) 1235 833233 to obtain your copy.

Clearly considerations around audience, message, objectives and brand will always play a role in deciding whether comedy might be the right route to take. And while we have had great success introducing it into campaigns over the last few years, it is arguable that comedy could be used more often than it is. If you are thinking about whether video could form part of your web 2.0 marketing strategy, and what story you might have for your audience, our planner (available here) may help to put it in context.

I’ve listed here a few videos that spring to mind as examples of organisations that have taken the first step, but please do suggest your own…

Perhaps the classic high-production-value video is the EDS Superbowl advert from 2000:

Which does have a less well-known twin (with a slightly more involved business message):

Then there are vendors who have a more specific axe to grind, as in the case of Lawson, making a case for ‘Simpler is Better’ when it comes to software…

And while Lawson’s first video from 2007 (above) has 65,000 views on YouTube, the latest installment (below) from April 2009 now has over 300,000. Clearly, lessons to be learnt around the determination to see through a new media campaign.

Outside of IT, there are some very imaginative examples like this one from a supplier making the point that the time has come for their product (I won’t say any more to avoid giving away the secret to a very clever, very rewarding watch):

But what video round-up would be complete without Mr T? Especially Mr T promoting virtualisation: “I pity the fool who doesn’t use Hitachi Data Systems virtualisation”…

Reporting on the release of the study in Marketing Week, the CIM released  few statistics:

• 74% of CFOs agree marketing has its place in an organisation they also say that the marketing department’s primary responsibility is marketing decisions and nothing else
• Both CFOs and CMOs also agree that marketers rarely show how their customer needs can be taken into account in strategy (79%). They also agree that marketers “are failing to engage both the analytical and creative side of their brain” while many feel their marketing lacks “novelty” and promotional strategies are routine
• Interestingly, CFOs have a higher regard for the quality of information processed by the marketing department than marketers themselves (65% versus 51%)
• The paper suggests that the marketing department must make sure that it is viewed as a facilitator that helps the whole organisation realise “that their business survives and thrives by serving customers.”
• The marketing team needs to stress customer proximity and the ability to convert this to commercial opportunities. It also needs “to get out of its silo and to champion customer needs across the firm and insure that customer needs are a foundation of corporate strategy.”

This chimed with a recent Harvard Business Review article entitled “Getting Brand Communities Right” which discusses the huge success of Harley-Davidson in this arena. So if Wyeth, Reuters and Harley are doing it so well, why can’t IT companies? The answer, or one of them, seems to reside in the HBR article – where the author says, “Too often, companies isolate their community-building efforts within the marketing function.” As a result, it’s not inclusive or authentic and the IT companies’ business audiences are turned off. As Wyeth’s CIO said at the event last night, ” if the blog or content sounds like a corporate push then it turns me off immediately.”

The same goes for any really successful marketing initiative – the thing that’s remarkable is that it’s so rarely anything to do with pure marketing, it’s something that comes out of the business that marketing can build on. If marketing isn’t playing a role to spot (or create) these opportunities and react to them, then it’s always likely to be hamstrung. However many communities it tries to build, it’ll never be the B2B Harley-Davidson.

This ties in with HBR’s interview with Fiat’s CEO, who says: “There was also a lot of young talent locked up in marketing and other functions that historically were not considered high-potential career paths. The guy who runs the Alfa division now is 40 years old. The guy running the Fiat division is 42. Neither has an engineering background, but both were first-rate consumer-products marketers, and the company sorely needed their talents.” Based on what our CIOs were saying last night – that their successors are the 20-somethings with the mix of marketing savvy and technical wizardry – it won’t be at all long before an interview with an IT CEO says the same thing.

The 110 UK IT decision-makers we interviewed said that “information from existing suppliers” was their preferred way of finding out about new IT products and services. They rated this information source as highly as they rated their own networks (and above analysts and consultants). 

But at the same time, nearly half of all those surveyed said, “Current suppliers are quite poor in their account marketing and management”  and a similar percentage agreed that, “IT suppliers do not really understand how to communicate information about their products and services to me”, highlighting a huge missed opportunity.

So, your existing customers don’t just highly rate you as a source of information, they expect you to market to them. But as these verbatim quotes from the research show, there are a number of considerations in getting it right…

1. A joined up approach to sales and marketing communications (that finishes what it starts)… “Too often we are contacted several times by different people in different divisions of the same supplier who don’t seem to talk to each other and there is usually no follow up process. There are no solutions, only proposals.” Senior IT Manager in a Financial Services Organisation

2. And end to the “one hit wonder” marketing communications campaigning approach (by promoting once, and moving on, you’re mising a number of opportunities)… “Sometimes you get an Account Manager who starts to wine and dine you as they think they may get new orders out of you. When they realize there are no more orders the communication stops again.” Head of Application Development in a Media Company.

And…“If [a supplier] phones me today, it  might not be relevant to me at the moment but if they phone me in three months time, I might be interested in that topic.” Head of IT in a Financial Services Organisation

3. A clear account plan that’s shared with the customer (with a marketing plan that sits alongside it)… “They have to approach us at the right time with the right solutions; existing  suppliers have a better opportunity of interacting with us compared to new ones.” Head of Engineering and Infrastructure in a Finance Company.

And… “Existing suppliers are in a very privileged position in that, if they are communicating with their customers as well as they should be, they will know what solutions customers are looking for at any time.  What good marketing looks like from existing suppliers is a call, e-mail or letter offering a solution just when you are looking for it.” Head of IT in a Government Department

Whilst it’s understandable to focus on lead generation in the current climate, don’t let it blindside your strategy. Paradoxically, it’s the very campaigns that take the long view and look to build relationships that uncover the sales opportunities that others don’t even make the shortlist for.

You can download a free copy of the research findings here.

For the second quarter in a row, McKinsey’s economic snapshot survey shows senior execs saying that things haven’t got worse, but they don’t expect an improvement any time soon. This chimes with what you hear out and about; business isn’t brilliant, but it isn’t bad either - a lot of people are waiting it out, to “see what happens”. McKinsey’s report calls it “a gloomy economic stasis”.

But short of gagging Robert Peston to increase the country’s optimism levels, how to beat the economic stasis, and keep the leads coming in and converting?

It’s interesting to note that whilst the McKinsey report points to continued cost reduction, it also highlights a heavy focus on operational efficiency and improving productivity. Plus, when executives were asked whether they were seeking external funding, most said they were not, but that the bulk of those who were, were using it for investment, geographic expansion and innovation. Additonally, half of all companies surveyed expected to shed staff in 2009.

So the drivers are there for spend on IT, outsourcing and services. But how to get those leads and convert them? Here are some points to consider:

-How about offering access to great content and ready-made, industry specific business cases? (doing more with less, how to maintain customer service levels after cutting staff, building remote workforces…) Go further than traditional marketing content and sales support tools – get in touch with project teams and ask for their solution-based content to give real war stories and meat to campaigning materials.

-Perhaps provocation marketing would bear fruit with some targets. (see the earlier article “Lead gen in a downturn: is provocation the answer?”) This involves going beyond solution selling and provoking the customer to buy through a series of highly-researched and targeted joint sales and marketing campaigns.

-Gather like-minded people together from different target industries to learn from each other. Develop the content of the workshop from new, fascinating and fast research and get a facilitator who’s been through the mill to ensure that a genuine and honest exchange of issues and ideas happens. Feed this content back to delegates with a detailed description of how you can help, with tools and documents downloadable/available to help them sell it within their own businesses.

-It follows from the above that supporting sales teams through account-based and narrow-cast marketing activity will bear fruit. By researching specific account needs in detail and building a plan of attack with sales (from lead to win) you stand a much better chance of shaping leads before they get to RFI stage. You can download our free ABM planner here.

The McKinsey survey results are available here, but please note it is premium content.