What separates the best B2B marketers from all the rest? August 24, 2011
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Just for Campaign Managers, Marketing Operations, The Marketing High Ground.Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing strategy
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If you’ve been navigating the marketing groups on LinkedIn lately, you’ve probably run across this thought-provoking question: Can you use ONE WORD to describe the biggest challenge facing B2B Marketing today? Answers vary wildly from “time”, to “noise”, to “myopia”. All good answers. But I have a different take on this question. Instead, I wonder if there is one word that can be used to separate the best B2B marketers from all the rest. As a consultant to high-tech marketing leaders, I spent the last 10 years working with B2B marketing teams looking for clues, and I think I found the answer. (more…)
A new sales book that B2B marketers should read June 30, 2011
Posted by Mike Gospe in Just for Campaign Managers, Marketing Operations, The Marketing High Ground.Tags: marketing strategy, message box, sales leadership
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I loved Kevin Davis’ new book, Slow Down, Sell Faster! The key here is simple: who ever understands the customer best, wins! Davis embraces this notion by pushing sales reps to really understand the customer, their pain points, goals, interests, priorities, and their buying process before making the sales pitch. (more…)
Say no to “marketing popcorn” June 16, 2011
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Marketing Operations.Tags: Integrated Marketing, Lead Generation, marketing best practices, marketing blueprints, marketing strategy
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I have a pet peeve, and it’s marketing popcorn. No, not the marketing of popcorn. “Marketing popcorn.” (more…)
Communications Objectives and the Buying and Sales Processes September 14, 2010
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Just for Campaign Managers, Lead Gen, Marketing Operations.Tags: Integrated Marketing, Lead Generation, marketing strategy
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How does our marketing communications objectives fit against the customer’s buying process or our selling process? This is a weighty question that can be tough to decipher. Here’s a handy overview with respect the selling into the B2B technology market.
An overlay of communications objectives to the corresponding stages of the customer's buying process and a company's sales process. Although generic, this graphic provides some relevant context for marketers selling to B2B.
I titled this graphic “Mapping Customer Perception” because that is our goal, ultimately. Marketers strive to influence how prospective customers think. To do that, we need to understand how and when to guide them. First, they must be aware of who we are and the solutions we offer. Then we want to hook them and engage them as they become interested. Next, we need to build understanding and become a credible source of information. And, finally, we want to entice them to take action and purchase our products and services.
In an ideal world those communications objectives would map directly to the B2B Technology Customer Buying Process. For example, the best time to hit the prospect is early in their buying process, when they are doing an operational analysis or building their budget during the investment planning phase. Once we’ve got their attention, we want to provide relevant content throughout the purchasing cycle. If we can guide the outline of the RFP we stand a better chance of winning the deal.
Next, let’s overlay both those processes with the ideal B2B selling process. It’s no coincidence that the sales process is a reciprocal of the buying process: the sales rep wants to identify and qualify opportunities as early as possible. They want to work with the prospect as they are establishing their needs in order to determine if there is a potential fit. Reaching the “go, no-go” decision point prior to generating a proposal is preferred so that time isn’t wasted. Sales will negotiate with prospects as they are selecting and making a final purchase decision. The sales process doesn’t end there. While the solution is being implemented, the able-minded sales rep will be following-up and conducting account management duties, all the while looking for opportunities to engage the next sales cycle.
If life were simple, these three processes would overlay nicely. But life is like a Rubik’s Cube. Each of these processes are not static, and they don’t always start at the same point in time. That is why marketing is an ongoing processes, constantly creating awareness and offering opportunities for the prospect to raise their hand and engage us on their terms. When they are ready.
Have ideas on how to make this graphic better? Let me know. I welcome your input and feedback.
On categories: When is a television not a television? September 11, 2010
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Positioning.Tags: marketing strategy, positioning statement
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Often times the most challenging aspect of positioning is in identifying the category in which you want to compete. Nobody wants to promote a “me too!” product. Instead, marketers want to define a category niche that clearly separates them from the other players.
Check out this example offered by RCA, circa 1992.
For the first time, the words "home" and "theatre" were used in the same sentence.
Consider that in 1992 the average TV was in the neighborhood of 20 inches. The trend towards bigger TVs was starting to emerge, and RCA wanted to differentiate themselves as a leader. They did so by creating a new category: home theatre.
Those two words had never been used in the same sentence before, yet the consuming public immediately knew what they meant. The accompanying photo illustrated the value proposition clearly. We can argue that RCA couldn’t/didn’t hold on to the category and that it eventually became generic. Nevertheless, a new category for the TV-viewing audience was successfully established.
So, when is a TV not a TV? When it’s a home theater.
The confusion surrounding the word “campaign” July 20, 2010
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Just for Campaign Managers, Lead Gen, Marketing Operations.Tags: campaign managers, Integrated Marketing, lead funnel, marketing strategy, strategy
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I often ask marketers to tell me about the integrated marketing campaigns they are running. Here are a few common responses:
- We’ve been running a Google Adwords campaign for the past 2 years.
- We’ve got a new PR campaign kicking off next week.
- Our print advertising campaign has been reduced to 3 insertions due to budge cuts.
These answers highlight a common misunderstanding of the word “campaign.” Is the “campaign” a singular tactic? Or, is it something more? Are there lots of campaigns, or only a few? When it comes to integrated marketing, there are strategic as well as tactical connotations concerning this key word. When the context of the word “campaign” is misunderstood, it can lead to some heartburn.
The strategic “Campaign”
If I were to use a military analogy, the general would direct his troops in a Campaign (with a big “C”). ”Troops!” he’d say, “I want you to take that hill. Figure out how we can do it.” In this context, the strategic implication is regarding a central objective — a major initiative; a big deal with a lot at stake. To achieve the objective a variety of tools and actions need to be coordinated and executed. All of the activities and actions ultimately add up to accomplishing this central objective. Overlaying our marketing framework to this analogy, our integrated marketing “Campaigns” are driven by key sales and marketing objectives, such as capturing market share, squashing a competitor, establishing a foothold in a new market. The marketing activities and offers are then coordinated and timed so they reflect a common/consistent set of messaging that engages prospects in the desired dialog as they move through our sales process.
The tactical “campaign”
Unfortunately, to complicate matters, marketing automation tools like Eloqua and Marketo use a more tactical definition for the word “campaign” (small “c”). So does Salesforce.com. In fact, Google Adwords can be mapped as a “campaign” into these, and other tools. This is unfortunate because it may suggest to some that isolated, random tactics can be effective without understanding their role in the larger marcom mix (i.e. the strategic “Campaign”). When marketers fall into the trap of silo’d thinking, we lose sight of the larger Campaign. Tools like Eloqua and Salesforce.com are incredibly important to our marketing efforts — but they are tools to help us execute the tactics, not for driving strategy.
To avoid unnecessary confusion, here are a few tips:
- Create a marketing glossary, defining key words like Campaigns, Programs, Activities, and Offers.
- In practical terms, the use of the word “campaign” (small “c”) will continue to be used in Eloqua, Salesforce.com, etc. We can’t change that. So, when speaking with executive management regarding the big picture, use the word “Campaign” in the strategic sense. Don’t confuse it by including the word “campaign” as a tactical element. (In other words, if you tell your CEO you’re running a Google Adwords “campaign”, you’ll likely confuse her. She thought the “Campaign” as about squashing competitor X.)
- The reverse is true when communicating to the rank and file. In the context of Eloqua or Salesforce.com, it is appropriate to use the “campaign” (small “c”) word in a tactical sense. However, make sure to acknowledge how each “campaign” adds up to reach the “Campaign” (big “C”) objective.
It can be a bit tricky, but it’s nothing marketers can’t handle. After all, we’re messaging experts.
My favorite guerilla lead gen program aimed at CEOs July 15, 2010
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Lead Gen.Tags: activities & offers, direct marketing, Lead Generation, marketing blueprints, marketing strategy, strategy, thought leadership
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One of my most favorite lead gen programs I worked on was about 10 years ago when I was VP of marketing for a knowledge management start-up. This was during the early days of online search. Using today’s terms, we offered a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product/service that allowed users to get immediate answers to their questions. What was unique at the time was that our engine was very advanced and would offer up correct and relevant answers as opposed to a laundry list of links.
Since we were a start-up, our marketing budget was non-existent. Our objective was to seed our sales pipeline quickly with a dozen well-qualified, brand name customers that we could eventually use as public references. Our only choice was to approach this project as a guerilla (see Jay Levinson’s many books on Guerilla Marketing). So, we got creative.
- We built our own list of target companies. We carefully matched our product strategy with a prioritized set of target segments. Rather than blanketing all potential audiences, we produced a list 500 target companies. We needed wins quickly, and we felt we had a good story to tell. So, with a laser-focused ambition, we set our sites and did not waiver from them.
- We researched each company to confirm the name of their CEO and to obtain his/her email address and an issue they were facing that was relevant to our product. How did we do this? We were blessed to have one of the most savvy executive admins around. She called into each company and navigated to her counterpart – the CEO’s executive admin. Calling on behalf of our CEO, she explained that we wanted to share some information that her CEO would find interesting, based on an issue his/her company was wresting with, as noted in the news, their website, etc. She asked for his direct email address so she could send our information on behalf of our CEO. (This approached worked exceptionally well for several reasons: this was not a telemarketing call — it was exec admin to exec admin; we were not selling anything; we were honest, forthright, and polite. To our delight, we captured and verified 80% of the CEO email addresses this way.)
- We created a standard email for this program, then tailored it for each CEO. Our email (ghost written for our CEO) was one paragraph in length and included a mocked-up screen shot of how our product would look on the target’s website, under their brand. So, while the data in the screen shot was bogus, their company logo, homepage design was obvious. Several energetic souls in our support team built these screen shots for us.
- The call to action was personalized by our CEO. It may seem ironic, but our goal was not to sell our product. At least not at first. Instead, the text of the email illustrated our idea/value proposition. We showed the mocked-up screenshot to show how our product/service might look on their home page. Using regular language (not jargon or energized marketing-speak), we asked them if they thought this was a crazy idea. In closing, we asked them to contact our CEO to provide us with some feedback. The telephone number we provided was to a new line that that marketing team would answer as if we were the CEO’s office.
- We created a separate email mailbox for our CEO and distributed these emails from that account. Twenty emails were developed and dropped each week. (Remember, we had no budget to outsource any of this work.) It took time to tailor each email, but we didn’t want to wait for all 500 to be ready. Also, by staggering the drop, we could learn how effective we were being by watching our response rates.
We successfully ran the program for 6 weeks before we claimed victory. We received a 12% response rate and won audiences with a number of brand-name customers. My personal favorite was an email response we received from Michael Eisner (then the head of Disney) who directed us to follow-up with his VPs of marketing and support. Everyone was copied on his response; the skids had been greased; we were in business!
Have a creative lead gen story to share? I’d love to hear it!
Hints that your product positioning may need an overhaul July 15, 2010
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Positioning.Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing strategy, positioning statement
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Here’s a checklist you may find helpful. If your company struggles with any one of these items, it could be a sign that the product positioning is not tuned correctly. Use this as an opportunity to review and re-evaluate.
| Clues that your positioning statement should be revisited |
| • It takes the average sales rep more than 30 seconds to describe the product or service. |
| • Each sales rep has a different “elevator pitch.” |
| • Your company has changed markets, investors, price points, sales model, or partnering/channel strategies. |
| • It’s been a year since the executive team has reviewed the company’s positioning. |
| • It takes the marketing/PR team more than 3 drafts to finalize press release messages. |
| • The VP of Marketing and VP of Sales have conflicting perspectives on the positioning and sales tactics. |
Building a well-constructed positioning statement April 9, 2010
Posted by Mike Gospe in Integrated Marketing, Just for Campaign Managers, Positioning.Tags: marketing best practices, marketing strategy, positioning statement
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People often ask me for a definition of a good value proposition or positioning statement. Indeed, there is a lot of confusion about “good” versus “not so good.” To understand the difference, I often point folks to a 2006 Harvard Business Review article entitled, “Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets” by Jamie Anderson, James Narus, and Wouter van Rossum. They classify the three types of value propositions and positioning statements as shown below.
The starting point: The most common positioning statements I see are really no more than a long laundry list of features disguised as benefits, with some true benefits thrown in. The more, the better, so they think. The problem is that features do not equal benefits. And, do customers really care about every benefit? There is so much information contained in this type of positioning statement, that the key points are drowned out by the surrounding noise.
Refinement: Other marketers go further to consider that the customer always has an alternative. They pay attention to differentiators against all competitors. Unfortunately, they often make the mistake of assuming that any and every favorable point of difference they find must therefore also be communicated to every customer, whether it’s relevant or not. They err on the side of being complete, not realizing that they’ve over-complicated the positioning statement. And, of course, saying your solution is better than competitor X’s is only relevant if the customer is viewing competitor X’s solution as an alternative.
Getting to great: Best-practice marketers base their positioning statements on only those few elements that matter most to target customers, focusing on the clear, differentiated value relevant to that particular market segment. Then, they are able to credibly demonstrate the superiority of their offering and communicate it in a way that conveys a sophisticated understanding of the target segement’s pain points and business priorities.
Remember that the positioning statement is a tool for internal use only. The positioning statement is not the message to the customer. However, the positioning statement will frame your messaging. Think of it as a guide for aligning your corporate marketing & marcom teams and demand gen partners when it comes to implementing your marketing blueprint. Being able to understand “just what the customer values” gives marketers the advantage of knowing where focus the campaign for optimum success.
For more on positioning, check out these additional blog posts:
