B2B Marketing, Digital Media and Marketing Strategy
Lead generation and demand generation, although related, are at odds with each other. When many B2B marketers say demand generation, they mean lead generation, and the program will be measured on leads and the value of those leads.
The problem is, one is focused on changing the audience’s perspective, the other is focused on capturing their information. [Read more…]
The latest #B2Bchat discussion focused on the relationship (or lack thereof) between corporate websites and demand generation.
Can corporate websites support demand generation and lead capture? Or do marketers need to build microsites to support demand generation effectively?
These are some of the questions we tackled on B2Bchat on February 8, 2012, and I had the privledge of moderating the discussion on Twitter.
As always, there were some great insights shared during the chat. Here are my key takeaways from the discussion. [Read more…]
I was recently informed that every marketing blogger must publish their predictions for the year ahead. So to claim my status as a blogger and not put my right to use WordPress at risk, here are my 12 serious predictions for B2B marketing in 2012.
1. Name recognition will rule. Flooded with content, audiences will turn to recognized sources. High quality editorial, analysts and recognized thought leaders will rise above the clutter based on their names and reputations. [Read more…]
The current trend in digital media is to move online advertising to trading desks, ad exchanges or real time bidding platforms. These platforms provide access to enormous pools of advertising inventory and allow media buyers to cherry pick their exact target audience, based on a wide range of audience data available for targeting.
However, for enterprise B2B marketers, these approaches are not mature enough to broadly support demand generation marketing. The challenges these platforms continue to face are access to sufficient high quality inventory and access to data appropriate for targeting company sizes and roles.
Published market research differs on the relative importance on audience and context, however the research I have seen does not align with the typical B2B marketing audience experience.
The problem: consuming traditional B2B content used for demand generation requires a significant time commitment. Taking the time to dive into a whitepaper or watch a webcast imposes a major time requirement. [Read more…]
“Why do you want my email and phone number again? So your sales consultant can contact me? No thanks, I’ll pass.”
Most B2B marketers are still fixated on capturing registration data, and no wonder. The marketing automation machine lives on a diet of email and your sales process is built on the telephone.
The problem is, your buyer’s process is not built on your email or your phone. According to research, buyers only engage with companies directly during the last 40% of their research process.
When you insist on registration, you are in effect telling prospects:
We don’t want to be sold. When we expect a sales pitch, we put our defenses up, or just turn away.
We always need solutions to challenges. Lower cost, reduce risk, increase visibility. Your solution does that, right? The problem is, everyone else’s does too. Claims like these are so broadly used in marketing they have become cliche and have lost nearly all meaning.
The answer is to show me your solution. No, not the worn out demo, where I commit my time and you share a mostly canned view of your product. Skip the traditional positioning step and tell me what you will do specifically for me.
Two weeks ago, I wrote Five Reasons Lead Generation is on its Last Legs, exploring the reasons why today’s common lead generation tactics are beginning to fail. However, the requirement that marketing deliver leads will not change.
Marketers need to move beyond today’s content for contact information exchange and embrace new ways to drive demand and capture more interested and qualified contacts. Underlying the new demand generation activities will be two key changes.
[Read more…]
A quick definition. Lead generation, for purposes of this post, is collecting registration information for content, in order to build a marketing database or deliver leads to telemarketing and then on to sales.
Delivering leads for sales drives today’s B2B marketing organization. According to a study from Fusion B2B on 2011 B2B marketing priorities, lead generation is the single top priority of B2B marketers, at 26%. By comparison, awareness only captures 7%, near the end of the list. B2B marketing is all about lead generation.
But lead generation is breaking, and if your marketing relies heavily on lead generation, it will slowly break too. Here are the five things breaking lead generation today.
When marketers ask for information, we lie. In fact, an older Knowledge Storm survey published by Marketing Sherpa showed only 38% consistently provide accurate phone numbers and nearly half don’t even provide an accurate company name. We lie for a reason, and if marketers want us to stop lying on registration forms, they need to give us reasons to stop.
Here are a few of the reasons people have shared with me recently when asked why they lie on registration forms:
Marketers are facing an uphill battle. Many objections to registering are about what happens after we register, before we know what an individual marketer will do with the information we provide. Marketers have some marketing to do, they need to change our behavior, starting by changing our perception.
For marketers that embrace putting the audience first, the solution is easy. [Read more…]