B2B Marketers Want Inbound, Social, Marketing Automation and Content

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.People have more control over how they communicate, look for information, which interaction channels they choose and how they win advice during the buying journey. The proliferation of channels is a key challenge as is attribution in a social and connected world.

A single customer view, cross-channel analysis and optimization of all touchpoints are a must. The focus is on the customer, not on the products, services, channels, messages or corporate “values” anymore. People have become channel-agnostic, certainly in a fast-paced mobile reality, and conversion is a multi-step process whereby people switch channels all the time.

Although there are differences between B2B and B2C marketing, the boundaries between both are fading. The B2B prospect or client is a human being, consumer and business man (or woman) at the same time.  The evolutions in B2B marketing, as MarketingSherpa describes them in a new report, clearly show that people’s changing behavior has an important impact on the way business-to-business companies (should) do marketing.

Getting up close and personal with the customer

One of the traditional characteristics of a B2B-environment is that it is easier to build a personal relationship with the client than it is for a B2C-company.

Of course, this is not a universally valid rule. Large B2B companies have gigantic client databases. However, they are nothing in comparison with the number of clients Procter & Gamble has, for example, and B2B marketers are usually better equipped to know their prospects and clients and to follow them throughout their complete life cycle.

Moreover, B2B-companies are confronted with new challenges. The sales cycle lengthens, for example. Furthermore, there is a shift from selling to facilitating the buy. Prospective buyers take more time to inform themselves, ask for other people’s experiences and drive the buying journey. In many B2B-companies, one sees an increasing frustration of salespeople having a harder time to get an appointment or conversation with the prospect or the client.

Removing silos with the organization, removing silos regarding data and marketing platforms; and customer-centric processes on the other hand allow us to get even more personal with our customers. It requires a changing mentality but most of all a structured approach and properly measured processes.

Sales frustrations increase the pressure on marketing

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

There is a shift from selling to buying

In organizations where customer-centricity is a slogan, and silos rule, the efficiency of sales departments is declining. Furthermore, let’s be honest here, often some laziness has set in the last couple of years, although the reluctance of prospective buyers to be ‘interrupted’ – because they can – is clearly playing an important role as well. The expectations of marketing are high. Digital channels have allowed generating more qualified leads for sales people. At the same time, sales people themselves can be equipped with the right solutions to play a role in what was once classified as marketing.

However, nowadays, those leads are not that easy to convert to clients as they used to be. In a digital world where the buyer is in command, more intermediate steps are needed to ‘prepare’ a prospect for the sale. This is reinforced by the fragmentation of communication channels whereby traditional outbound techniques become less efficient in prospective stages.

The sales department and management’s frustration over the increasing difficulty to reach the prospect and not having enough qualitative leads, in practice often leads to an accusing finger to the marketing department. B2B marketers experience more pressure to generate qualitative leads through marketing automation, lead generation techniques and especially the right lead nurturing steps, such that it becomes easier again for the sales department to close a sale.

I think this is a good evolution as such because it forces marketers to think about offering relevant touch points and customer experiences, often using valuable content, during the sales cycle and regardless of channels. On the other hand, we could ask ourselves what the sales department’s added value will be, apart from taking orders from nicely qualified and ready-to-buy leads.

Now it’s time to support these findings with some decent research. Earlier this week, I bought MarketingSherpa’s ’2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report’ and the most important strategic findings from the report are completely in line with all described evolutions.

The most important challenges and tactics in B2B marketing

It already starts with the top three priorities B2B marketers mention for 2011 (in order of importance):

1. Generation of very qualitative leads: 78% (69% one year ago),
2. Generation of more leads: 44% (35% in the previous survey),
3. Marketing in a longer sales cycle: 41% (compared to 39%).

 If we, then look at the tactics marketers want to use to reach these goals, clearly  inbound marketing will become more and more important.

1. 69% wants to spend more in management, content and optimization (conversion) of the website,
2. 69% wants to invest more resources in social media activities,
3. 60% will invest more in virtual events and webinars,
4. 60% increases the SEO budgets,
5. 59% will invest more in email marketing.

 Inbound marketing: channels, tactics and the role of content

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.The first four spots are thus taken by several forms of inbound marketing. Email becomes increasingly important (so, no, email is not dead, again) as well and when one looks deeper into the report, a lot of attention goes to optimization and conversion in function of the customer, just like in the first four strategies. And as I often say: email is based on permission and thus inbound. Certainly in B2B it is moving more towards triggered and scenario-driven interactions. Email and marketing automation simply have to be part of the mix.

Now, what is key in all of these tactics? Indeed: it is content, further proof of the importance of content marketing, although it is not the content as such that matters. It’s the context of what people need at any given time during their journey and obviously that of your business goals.

Finally, let’s look at the ‘big losers’ in the planned investments of B2B marketers:

1. Print: only 15% will increase his budget
2.  Tradeshows: 22% will spend more on fairs and events
3. Direct mail: 24% will invest more.
4. Telemarketing: 32% will increase the budget for this.

The benchmarks are clear.

The question is where your company will position itself in order to improve the dialogue, lead nurturing processes, content and conversion. How customer-centric can you truly operate?

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.