Presentation with my POV on the critical elements necessary for successful B2B marketing.
1. Know your customer journey
2. Always be helping
3. Create marketing so good people would pay for it
4. Promote the power trio
5. Simmer your leads
6. Get in bed with Sales
7. Cultivate continuous improvement culture
8. Build products that sell themselves
2. The 8 Essentials of B2B Marketing
Know your customer journey
Always be helping
Create marketing so good people
would pay for it
Promote the power trio
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Simmer your leads
Get in bed with Sales
Cultivate continuous
improvement culture
Build products that sell
themselves
3. 1. Know Your Customer Journey
customer journey map icon by Yu luck from the Noun Project
4. If you don’t know where you want to go
then any road will take you there.
— Cheshire Cat to Alice in Wonderland
5. How do YOU buy today?
Search
Do you use your mobile
phone to instantly research
products and services?
Surf
Do you see ads and form
impressions of
businesses and products?
Socialize
Do you share your buying
experiences with hundreds,
even thousands, of others?
6. Now think about your ideal buyer. Who are they? And how do
they buy your types of products?
If you don’t
know where
they go
how will you
reach them?
8. You Must Be Present To WinBuying Journey
NowThen
Marketing
Sales
Marketing
Sales
Exploring
[Interest]
Researching
[Consideration]
Evaluating
[Intent]
Validating
Unaware
[Passive]
Purchasing
You Must Be Present To Win – If You’re Not There Your Competitors Are
9. THEN
Rep
Guided
• Customers have tons of information at their fingertips online and complete 70% of the buying journey before
engaging vendors to get proposals
• Businesses must have robust digital marketing to educate/pre-sell the customer during their research. If they
aren’t present they can’t win the battle for consideration.
• Customers have little information so they engage several vendor sales people early in the journey to learn
about their product
• Businesses must have lots of sales people in order to entertain / educate / sell customers
Explore & Research Many Potential Vendors Online Solicit Few
Proposals
Consider
Vendors
NOW
Self
Guided
$
$
Meet With Lots of Vendor Sales People
Over 70%
complete!
10. 28%
@ 6%24%
Online
7.6 Hours
Daily Media Consumption
1%
Search
Email / IM
Surf
Content
Surf Social Medi
Shop Online
19%
Surf Video
Offline
7.0 Hours
@
49% of digital media consumption is now on mobile devices
The Journey Occurs Online!
23%
11. You Need To Reach Buyers Digitally at EVERY Stage!
Do I have a
problem?
Who can
solve it?
Who should
solve it?
Do I want to
solve it? How?
Buyers do their own
research online. On average, they are
70% through the journey before even
contacting a sales rep.
Should I
buy again?
Unaware
Explore
Research
Evaluate
Validate
Purchase
Renew
Advocate
70%
BUY
12. A detailed breakdown of how digital media
influences each step of the B2B buying
journey and how to accelerate your
prospects’ path to purchase.
GET THE EBOOK
18. Content – education / insight
on a key issue
Tools / Apps - tools
that help identify and
solve issues
Expertise – evaluation /
assessment with detailed
recommendations
Products – trials that
enable customers to
experience the value
More
Valuable
Less
Valuable
Lower Commitment Higher Commitment
You need to create
stuff that is so good
that your prospects:
• Are impressed
enough to engage
• Give you their
contact info
• See you as an
expert
• Look forward to
your emails
Give Value to Get Value
24. If businesses are not visible online when
people are doing their homework, believe
me, they’ll find others who are.
— Jim Lecinski, Managing Director, Google
25. You MUST Be Present To Win
Ensure that people know and consider your brand…
Before They
Need Your
Solutions
During
Their
Research
Through Their
Evaluation
Process
After They
Become a
Customer
26. OWNED
MEDIA
Website
Blog
Social Pages
Email
EARNED
MEDIA
PR Stories
Social Shares
Reviews
PAID
MEDIA
Display Ads
Search Ads
Social Ads
Retargeting Ads
The Trio Works Together To Maximize Reach & Impact
You need digital advertising!
It’s the best way get your
message in front of
prospects at every step of
their journey. If you’re not
present you can’t win.
You need a great
website! It creates the
critical first impression
that wins or loses their
business so you must
impress them enough
to contact you.
You need subscribers and social
followers! They turn into future
leads, customers and advocates.
They create your “word-of-mouth”.
28. Paid: Capture Attention at Every Step of Their Journey
EXPLORING
RESEARCHING
EVALUATING
VALIDATING
PURCHASING
29. Owned & Earned: Build a Resource Hub, Fill It with Great Stuff, Share Socially
Content Type Monthly
Blog Posts 12
Ebooks 2
Infographics 1
Social Posts 200+
Testimonial Videos 2
Case Studies 2
Expert Videos 2
Bylined Articles 2
Memes 2
Explainer Videos 1
How To Guides 1
32. We live in a Match.com world; many buyers and sellers
“meet” for the first time online. In fact the entire
purchase process may start and end without a single
face-to-face interaction.
33. Companies that excel at
lead nurturing generate
50% more sales ready leads
at 33% lower cost (a)
Nurtured leads produce a
20% increase in sales
opportunities versus non-
nurtured leads (b)
Nurtured leads
make 47% larger
purchases than
non-nurtured leads (c)
Prospects Complete the Majority of Their Buying Journey Online Then Contact a Few
Vendors for Proposals
$
70%
Most Leads are Not Ready to Talk to You Yet…So Nurture Them
Sources: a. Forrester, b. Gleanster, c. Annuitas
34. Simple Nurture: Warm Them Up With Flow of Useful Content
Again, give value to get value. Only send emails with helpful content.
36. Nurture: Feed Your Sales Team Steady Stream of Warm Leads
• Provide reps daily
prioritized list of
“Best Bets”
• Give insights on
content they
consumed
• Enable reps to have
the right conversations
at the right time
38. Create a Dedicated “Smarketing” Team*
One charter
One set of SLAs
One set of KPIs
One feedback loop
One dashboard
Jointly
accountable &
rewarded
*Smarketing = integrated demand generation team
40. Follow-up with Website Lurkers Who Might Be Leads
• Identify companies visiting
your site who leave
without converting [like
Caller ID for your site]
• Give names of highly
engaged companies to
Sales for proactive
outreach
• Capitalize on leads you
otherwise wouldn’t have
known about
43. Great Marketing is Simple...
Right Mix of Paid & Earned Media that Reaches Targets
Compelling Content, Tools & Offers that Drive Conversions
Modern Website & Blog that Impress All Visitors
Great Nurturing that Warms Up Leads Until Ready to Buy
…but requires a ton of tweaks and changes
44. Lead Lifecycle Reporting/Tracking [with estimated conversion rates]
Inquiry
Contact Us + Converted
CTA:
Ebooks, Webinars, etc.
(Not Sales Ready)
Engagement
# of Inquries
By Source
By Channel
MCL
Meets You Defined
Criteria
(Not Sales Ready)
Score
# of MCLs
By Type
By Source
By Channel
MQL
MCL Score exceeds MQL
threshold
(Sales Ready)
Score
# of MQLs
By Source
By Type
By Channel
SAL
Sales engaged with MQL
and accepts lead
(Sales Engaged)
# of SALs
By Source
By Type
By Channel
48% 97%
SQO
Met BANT criteria
converted to opportunity
(Sales Opportunity)
# of SQOs
By Source
By Type
By Channel
40%35%
Closed
(Opportunity Closed)
# Closed Won
# Closed Lost
By Source
By Type
By Channel
# 22%
Track and Optimize Your Leads Pipeline To Improve Conversion at Each Stage
You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure
45. Test & Optimize Everything – The Devil is in the Details
• PPC keywords/ads
• SEO keywords
• Retargeting ads
• Website
• Lading pages
• Blog/Resource Ctr.
• Social pages
• Mobile optimization
• Reputation SEO
• Reviews
• Live Chat
• Data sourcing
• Data quality
• Data appending
• List compiling
• Lead scoring
• Directed calls/plays
• Call methodology
• Insights tools
• Employee sharing
• Tradeshows
• Seminar series
• Intake coverage
• Intake response time
• Nurture campaigns
• Videos - Testimonials
• Sales response time
• Sales response time
• Reference clients
• Solution presentation
• Presentation tool
• Proposal tool
• Product bundles
• Promotional pricing
• Specific offers
• Videos - product
• Sales comp/spiffs
• Freemium products
• Free apps/utilities
• Email marketing
• Webinars
• Social campaigns
• Display campaigns
• Traditional ads
• Ad creative
• Content types
• A/B Testing
• PR / Media Stories
• QA process/updates
• Sales methodology
• Sales email templates
• Appointment setters
• Lead nurturing campaigns
• Live demos
• Demo tool
• Collateral
• Reference clients
• Onboarding
• Nurturing campaigns
• Proactive account
recommendations
• Special promos
• Upsell emails
• Product insights
delivered
AttractConvertClose
46. Live & Die By Your Dashboard
Traffic, Leads, etc. are important, but
your ultimate goal is to improve:
• CAC – cost to acquire customer
• LTV – lifetime value of customer
• LTV/CAC
• % revenue Marketing Sourced Leads
• % revenue Marketing Influenced Leads
According to SiriusDecisions, best-in-class
companies generate >40% of revenue from
marketing sourced leads.
LTV $______ CAC $______
Ratio_______
To get a true picture of conversion rates requires a full year view
so that the leads can make it through the sales cycle.
48. B2C Companies Build Marketing INTO Their Products
Personalize recommendations based on customer behaviors.
Increase cross-sell/upsell/retention with no sales cost.
49. B2B Companies Must Up Their Game
• Your customers have been
conditioned to expect a great
experience
• You can use milestones and
insights to suggest other
products
• You can increase average
revenue per customer without
Sales cost
51. Focus on the Customer, Customer, Customer…
Talk about what they need, not what you sell – ”always be
helping”
Map everything you do to their buying journey
Give Value to Get Value
Avoid “get rich quick” campaigns at all costs
Create content customers actually want
Get a ‘Two-fer’ From All That You Do
Build everything for inbound marketing to pull in leads AND as a
tool for outbound selling by your reps
Integrate Everything
Run holistic campaigns with multiple tactics ALL centered on a
customer insight or pain point
Drive prospects to the site, impress them enough to fill out your
form and then nurture those precious leads
52. Unabashed Longhorn fan, annoyingly observant father, technology
tethered raspberry Snapple drinker, 51% Philly direct / 49% Texas
nice, self-proclaimed chips & salsa connoisseur, fluent in sarcasm,
smoked meat aficionado and Paleo eating specialist, dogs vs.
cats, underwhelming golfer who never met an IPA he didn’t like,
getter of shit done.
I believe the difference between winners and losers in today's
hyper-competitive markets is great marketing, and that's something
I know a bit about. I’ve spent twenty-five years with my sleeves
rolled up leading marketing teams that drive growth and increase
enterprise value. I'm a student of both the art and the science of
marketing with lots of experience marrying the two for powerful
results.
About Me
toddebert.com
twitter.com/toddebert
linkedin.com/in/toddebert
Slideshare.net/toddebert
Connect With Me
Notas del editor
Which leads me to the topic of my talk today --- the seven pillars of modern marketing….
Unaware of problem and not seeking solutions
Exploring the problem and learning about possible solutions
Researching more deeply and adding/subtracting solutions from consideration set
Narrowing down the consideration set and evaluating the few candidates to buy – checking all aspects and calling for quote
Validating their choice/decision to others in the decision-making unit
Buying
First one because it sets the foundation – if you don’t get this one right then the rest of your marketing will suffer.
If you’re like me you get 20 unsolicited emails andl phone calls a day from vendors and the typical one says
“Todd, I’d like to get 10 minutes of your time to tell you about our product and what it can do for you.”
Guess how many of those I respond to? None. And it’s because they interrupting me and not providing me any value or utility
My simple principle for all that we do at ReachLocal is to Give Value in order to Get Value
Another way to look at this is that you should focus on teaching better not selling better…
Quote from leading marketing author Jay Baer says
“If you sell something you make a customer today [maybe not], if you help someone you make a customer for life.”
Encourage you to read his book called Youtility
Which leads me to the next pillar…
The bare minimum level of being useful to your target customers is useful content
For example in our case we produce a series of ebooks that educate clients on how to not leak leads from their marketing, and we provide a regular series of useful insights from research surveys we do small business owners on
The key is to make the content Educational, not salesy
Search optimized
Sharable
Automatically feeds nurturing
The third and highest level of marketing so useful people would pay for it is Freemium Products.
This is where you get a free trial of the product in order to see how easy it is to use or how much value it has and then to get access to the full set of features you have to pay for a subscription.
This example on the slide is a company called UberFlip. They are one of the rare few that made it through my inbox by providing an educational case study about how to increase lead conversion through content. I read their case and was sent an email to do a free trial which I completed in 3 minutes and saw the value of the software immediately and we are now about to sign a contract with them.
It’s really cool software that you should check out – just make sure you tell them Todd sent you so I can ask for a discount on my contract for all the referrals.
The next level up in value from educational content is useful apps or web utilities.
This example is an app created by a large medical center in the US.
Their target customers are young families with children so they made this free safety app for coaches and parents about safety conditions for outdoor sports with real-time alerts on lightning strikes nearby, the heat index and useful information on hydration and injuries like concussions.
It was so useful that parents downloaded and started using for outdoor stuff – hiking, fishing, football matches, etc. So by giving away this free app the medical center has branded brand itself as both being cutting edge in technology but also caring about young families --- exactly the people who will be healthcare consumers for a long time.
EXPLAIN ATTRIBUTION
Don’t leak leads
The site features a variety of useful content, like videos with real consumers, a marketing math calculator to show lifetime value and number of customers, and ebooks about how to fix the holes in their marketing and get more customers
Note that this site features only helpful content with only a very light reference to our products.
Marketing automation software is the key to scaling your direct marketing to more prospects.
You create a series of email campaigns that automatically get sent by the system depending upon the users interaction with the content.
In our example we created a campaign with 65 emails and 50 downloadable pieces of content. We start with an awareness campaign featuring best practices in search engine optimization, website design and advertising. Then depending on what the prospect interacts with we send the next series of emails with more detailed content on that area.
The built in workflows send the right content at the right time without your staff having to lift a finger – other than to create the original content.
But marketing automation isn’t just about educating the prospect, it’s also about educating your sales force.
We use a lead scoring algorithm to provide the sales people insight on the content that prospects are consuming so that they can followup at the right stage of the prospects interest.
Too soon and you’ll scare them away and too late and they’ve already picked a provider.
At ReachLocal we learned this lesson the hard way when sales people called prospects after they saw them open an email – it’s like asking a girl to marry you on the first date.
Now our sales people know to trust the system and engage the lead after it is fully baked
They mine the data to get unique insights about their interests –and then can be smart in their followup calls.
Used to be totally separate groups tossing things over the fence to each other. Instead we should maximize the power of doing both together leveraging technology to automate, measure and enhance the process.
Once you have your team you need to map a series of touches to the customer over the course of a period of time.
In our case we try 9 touches in 30 days consisting of emails, direct engagement on Twitter or LinkedIn on an area of interest, more emails and then strategically placed phone calls based on insights from the marketing automation system.
If they haven’t engaged or turned into a solid lead after the 30 days then we put them back into the database and continue the lead nurture campaign but stop the calls for a period of time so we don’t completely annoy them.
This is an early draft of the funnel score card that we use to track our results. We’ve improved it a quite a bit since then but you can see that we are measuring all aspects of our sales and marketing funnel - from conversion rates all the way down to the lifetime value of a new customer compared to the cost to acquire that customer.
Our goal is to get a 3X return on LTV to Cost to Acquire. We’re not quite there yet and are in process of optimizing key elements down the funnel.
I’ve listed over 50 here and the trick is to optimize the ones with the greatest impact on your results. That will vary for each of us here in this room but one thing is for sure – optimization is the key to getting ROI since hardly anyone gets everything right the first time.
It takes lots of cycles of measuring and optiimizing each aspect. For example….
This is an early draft of the funnel score card that we use to track our results. We’ve improved it a quite a bit since then but you can see that we are measuring all aspects of our sales and marketing funnel - from conversion rates all the way down to the lifetime value of a new customer compared to the cost to acquire that customer.
Our goal is to get a 3X return on LTV to Cost to Acquire. We’re not quite there yet and are in process of optimizing key elements down the funnel.
I’ve listed over 50 here and the trick is to optimize the ones with the greatest impact on your results. That will vary for each of us here in this room but one thing is for sure – optimization is the key to getting ROI since hardly anyone gets everything right the first time.
It takes lots of cycles of measuring and optiimizing each aspect. For example….
The final pillar is about having your products do the marketing for you. Product and user experience design today is all about leveraging the data and insights to provide helpful recommendations and potentially additional products to buy. All without any help from the marketing staff.
For example, as pictured here, my 12 year old daughter had a school project for social studies class where she had to build an online store and sell something. Her teacher had them use a SaaS site builder from Weebly and I noticed that every week or so we would get an email from their system tailored to her activity and recommending things she should do to improve performance – either free advice of things she could do or additional products/modules she could buy.