BtoB Magazine has named its top 25 marketers of 2009 in a supplement you can download here.

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.

As the Edinburgh Festival Fringe gets underway, with comedy continuing to grow across popular culture, perhaps more B2B organisations will take the plunge and find new ways to use video to cut through to customers or even to engage their own employees?

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”…

This month the CIM unveiled a survey to help marketers in the boardroom. Entitled “Marketing’s Decline: A Wild Exaggeration?” it is reportedly designed to help marketers strengthen their influence and value in the firm.

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.”

There was much debate at last night’s S&M Forum about the increasing usage of the “participative” web by CIOs. Both our our CIO speakers (CIOs from Reuters and Wyeth) mentioned that they use Twitter, blogs, and other 2.0 type media to find information to help keep abreast of trends. They also mentioned that both had come under increasing pressure to allow the organisation as a whole to interact with the company’s brand communities via these tools – their consumers were increasingly demanding it

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.

Research carried out by The Marketing Practice shows that IT companies are overlooking, and in some cases wasting, sales opportunities with the very companies they are closest to – their existing customers.

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.

A recent survey of CMOs by Jupiter and Verse Group asked a group of marketers about their top priorities for 09 and found that traditional approaches to marketing are increasingly broken. Two major themes run through the findings:

First, that  “an across-the-board push for greater marketing accountability is adding increased pressure on marketers to prove the worth of their marketing dollars.”

Second, that “as media consumption shifts online, marketers must find a better way to manage brands across multiple platforms in order to create a coherent brand experience across all platforms and customer touchpoints.”

The following are the top priorities CMOs and senior marketers have for 2009, according to the study:  

1. Achieving measurable ROI on marketing efforts.
2. Developing marketing programs that integrate online and traditional media.
3. Translating brand experience across different touchpoints.
4. Cutting marketing budgets without cutting performance.
5. Optimizing portfolio of brands.

The research uncovers a big gap between marketers’ priorities and their current perceptions of existing tools. Nearly three-quarters (71%) say that managing their brand across multiple platforms is a big challenge for their organization and that there is a large gap between need and capability. This echoes many of the themes from John Quelch’s recent article in Harvard Business Review (see previous post).

We’re currently creating a presentation download which will lay out how continuous opportunity generation programmes can get more from budgets and increase marketing performance. Drop us a line if you would like to register to receive it.

John Quelch’s article for Harvard Business Review highlights new research that says CMOs are holding onto their jobs longer, suggesting that closer alignment with the CEO is the main reason. In a broadly B2C focused article Quelch says, “The best CMOs stay low-key and aim to make the CEO, who is often from a non-marketing background, comfortable becoming the chief cheerleader for the brand.”

He goes on to argue that, if the CMO is hanging around longer, then the recession has actually elevated his or her standing. He thinks there are 4 things that the CEO is looking to marketing/the CMO for in the recession. We’ve taken these thoughts and reinterpreted them for B2B marketers.

Revised approaches to segmentation.

For B2B, marketers need to focus more around client and target data, and allow that to inform and ultimately drive the communications strategy. By targeting at a micro-vertical or even account-based level, comes become more relevant and more compelling for the recipient.

Core benefits re-emphasised in the face of recession-driven price sensitivity.

For IT marketers especially, it’s important in a fast-paced world to remember your company’s heritage. Look for strong messages, opinion-leading thoughts that reinforce the good things about what you’re already known for, and apply them to the world’s new challenges. In doing so you engender a sense of trust and reliability.

 More from the marketing budget.

Focus on what matters, consolidate core programmes and make sure they are operating at an optimum level. Invite your team, the salespeople and your suppliers to think with you on this issue.  Adopt a strategy of long term, continuous campaigning where there’s a blend of added value communications with stronger “call to action” pieces to build up a value exchange and increase credibility. This has the added advantage of providing you with multiple opportunities to contact, increasing the likelihood that your timing will be just right.

Digital consideration

We’re completely channel agnostic at The Marketing Practice but it can’t be denied that the recession is accelerating the move online. It’s cheaper, faster and increasingly well-used by even senior decision makers. However, don’t fall into the trap of the move online only being about email marketing and monitoring click throughs, or on the other hand a broad “skittles-esque“ web 2.0 programme. The online move needs to be planned and executed like a traditional programme. Who are we targeting, what are they interested in? Where will they go online to find it and how do we meet them there without looking like an ‘advertiser’. More on how to do this here.

It’s worth noting that at the end of his article Quelch points out that there will be “two major, and lasting, ramifications” of the recession for marketers - “increased financial accountability, and the financial literacy that comes with it.” Now’s the time to start tackling the thorny issues of how programmes can make a difference to profitability and profitable growth.

IT companies “lack customer focus” says new research published by B2B Marketing and Tiger Lily Vanson Bourne. The survey found that “IT suppliers failed to meet 40 per cent of IT decision makers’ satisfaction levels whilst another 60 per cent commented that they had not been asked questions that mattered the most to them.”

The study claims that a focus on customer satisfaction research is the solution to these problems, but it looks to us as though what the decision makers were really frustrated about was the lack of understanding at a more fundamental level.

The lack of in-depth understanding of customers is something that has been endemic in IT B2B marketing for quite some time. It spans lead generation, key account/account-based marketing through to ongoing “regular” communication. This was echoed by Egg’s CIO Tom Ilube when we interviewed him late last year. Tom said, “I was most interested to receive updates from suppliers on things that were genuinely relevant. Almost all the material I got was too generic. I would think, “these guys could have done a bit more, they could have tried to understand Egg rather than banking in general.” It wouldn’t have been hard to do – just a bit of research for example – before targeting me.”

In the downturn, the pace of change is accelerated, and what once held true for entire industries (ie. retail, financial services) is now being splintered at a company by company level. Woolworths went under while Asda recruited thousands of people to cope with demand, Northern Rock is staging a strong comeback to the mortgage market whilst RBS will focus on retail and commercial banking. This makes industry-based and “pain point” marketing much more challenging – as marketers we need to be asking a  lot more questions before we take campaigns out that feature  explicit solutions to the specific challenges of companies we’re targeting.

It’s this very phenomenon that’s causing the drive towards more focused, narrow-cast campaigns and account-based marketing that we are increasingly seeing. For many ICT and professional services companies, treating existing accounts as markets in their own right is bearing a lot more fruit. If you’re looking to implement a narrow-cast or account-based programme then our continuous opportunity generation programmes start with the data and key account monitoring to get the comms and lead gen working in harmony. Get in touch with our Marketing Director to find out more.