December saw the latest session of our Sales & Marketing Forum, inspired by what seems to have been the rallying cry of 2009: “Let’s sell to the CFO as well…”

Speakers included Mark Evans, CFO, Vodafone Group Technology, and Gareth Bailey, Head of Central Services, Logistics & IT Group, Marks & Spencer, and our guests were on good questioning form (possibly inspired by the finest mulled wine the Soho Hotel could provide…).

Our write-up of the event (available to download here) covers four main areas of discussion from the night:

• Understanding Finance’s role in the organisation/process

• What are the key factors influencing Finance decisions?

• How can we reach the Finance decision-maker?

• What content works best? What do suppliers need to prove?

Everyone has an inkling that, for all the obvious reasons, the role of the Finance decision-maker is becoming steadily more important in major enterprise deals. But before adding them as simply another role on a long list to target, we need to immerse ourselves in their world and their language. Doing this can reveal where so many people are going wrong in their attempts to reach such a complex and elusive group of people.

If you have any other questions about the speaker’s views, or if you were at the event and think I’ve missed a vitally important issue, please add your thoughts in a comment…

What are two of the top ways potential buyers find out about new software, hardware or services?

They Google for information, and they ask their colleagues and peers. Research in 2008 from ITSMA and The Marketing Practice back this up in concrete terms.

Relationship management and account-based marketing programmes are important as I’ve covered in previous posts, and are an important central platform in your lead generation. They are also extremely useful when looking to influence colleagues and peers both within and intra-organisation.

But what about Google? Technology firms, considering the market they are in, can be woeful at appearing in the search engine rankings. Research consistently shows that when people want to find out about something, they Google it.

Bear in mind this recent research from Think Eye Tracking. It would appear, if you’re not on the top page, you might as well have just fallen off the face of the earth.

Think Eye also says “when asked afterwards what they would normally do when they couldn’t find their desired search result on the first page of Google, 87% respondents replied that they would modify the search terms or refine the search by category. 97% of people tested answered that Google was the search engine they most commonly used and out of those people, 87% stated they wouldn’t bother using anything else.”

When considering go to market strategies and campaigning, B2B marketers simply must consider their organic Google page rankings. You don’t want to generate a lot of interest in what you do, only to find that your competitor comes up number one on the rankings whilst you languish on page 6. And sponsoring the keywords through Google’s advertising programme just isn’t enough.

There’s a lot of unncessary confusion around web 2.0. Online communities, wikis, blogs, podcasting…the list goes on. Most sensible marketers say to me, “but my target market doesn’t comment on blogs” and they are absolutely right. 

But there is a danger of missing the point here. Your target market may not be commenting on blogs, but your target market is very probably Googling you and search terms related to issues they are having that you can solve.

To get inbound leads from the web, you need to get as high as possible up the organic rankings for your chosen search terms. To do this, you need to contribute to the debate in your area, online. You need to get out and do this online as well as offline, to cater for different tastes. Think of it as journalism - where you control what the article says. Make your articles interesting and get out there and comment in influential places.