The Funnelholic

This interview was a late grab for me.  I read demandblog: Best Practices in B2B Demand Generation frequently and decided I would just contact the author, Jason Stewart, and see if he wanted in. He did, and we got a great interview out of it. Jason leads online marketing programs for Demandbase Inc.  He founded and leads the Salesforce.com user group in San Francisco and was one of the first 500 people to complete the Salesforce.com Certified Administrator process. He has a great real-world background in B2B telesales, demand generation, lead management and marketing operations with a variety of public and privately held software companies.  Demandbase is hot and Jason’s blog is top-notch, so I’m excited to have him aboard.

Here’s what he had to say:

1.    What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

The first trend is that marketing budgets are going to shift more toward online and inbound marketing, and by “inbound marketing” I mean those prospects that are out there proactively searching for your products or solutions. B2B marketers are paying closer attention to inbound marketing in a number of ways – focusing on organic search optimization and creating more content that’s going to capture the eye of that long-tail searcher with a specific need, right now. Improving online conversion rates is also key, and I think closer attention is going to be paid to the “silent majority” of folks who visit a site but don’t convert. What sorts of businesses do they represent, what were they looking for and what do I need to do to get them to take the next step and identify themselves?

The second thing is an increased adoption of social-network marketing . Businesses are beginning to figure out how to get the word out about themselves in a very tricky landscape filled with dos and don’ts – and more importantly how to track the effectiveness of  campaigns they might run on Twitter or Facebook.

The third is an increase in the need to measure and account for the effectiveness of every dollar spent on marketing. ROI (return on investment) is key, and while businesses might be excited to try new things the tools need to be in place to measure return quickly and efficiently so that marketers can make changes on the fly.

2.    What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

Budgets may shrink, but performance expectations rarely do. We’re all going to need to do more with less.

3.    What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?

This is a hard one, and I might defer to one general metric that changes from Web page to landing page to email campaign. What was the goal, and how successful were you at accomplishing it?

For example, if you’re running an email campaign with a goal of getting people to register for a Webinar, set your goal for the number of registrations in advance and don’t sweat open rates or click-throughs – as long as you hit your goal. Let’s be clear – I’m not suggesting that you mass email irrelevant contacts in order to hit you goal. Rather, with the right messaging to the right people your goal will come naturally even if your open rates are lower than you are used to. I receive online communications every day with no clear call to action, sent out by marketers who are just “spraying and praying.” If I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, then how are you going to measure whether or not I did it?

4.    What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

This ties back to the previous question, as the most obvious mistake is focusing on the wrong metrics. For example, looking at the cost per conversion of a pay-per-click campaign rather than the quality of the conversion (or how much closed business can be attributed to that specific keyword or ad group) is a big mistake.

Also, not understanding the demographics of the businesses visiting your Web site or landing page – or even in your list rentals or email campaigns –  is a big problem. What if you have a high CPM for an email campaign, or you are paying for a lot of expensive clicks but it turns out the people who are responding are nowhere near your target markets? Insight into that can lead to simple adjustments in list composition or ad copy or keywords that could not only save a lot of money but improve performance of your campaigns.

5.    What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

Test and measure, test and measure – and then test and measure some more. There are simply too many great tools out there helping B2B marketers understand what is working and what isn’t for us to have any excuse to keep throwing money at marketing mediums without proven return.

6.    What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

I’ll share four:

• Marketing automation or lead management systems are becoming vital to maintaining that constant drip of attention that prospects need in order to mature into viable selling opportunities.

• My CRM/SFA (sales force automation) system has become irreplaceable in helping me to understand which lead sources or marketing campaigns are actually driving revenue. If you’re not tying your marketing campaigns directly to your sales opportunities, you’re missing the boat.

• A healthy inbound marketing strategy is vital, with realistic social network marketing  and content creation aspects woven in to it. Business blogging is a great forum for content creation as long as it is not limited to product pitching and provides helpful and relevant content in which your prospects are interested. And a simple search on Twitter might uncover dozens of people asking their social network about you or your company. Are you there to answer their questions?

• Finally, an improved post-click strategy that includes tools like Demandbase Professional, helping to better understand more about the “silent majority” of your Web-site or landing-page visitors that don’t convert, and put mechanisms in place to identify, reach and convert more of them.

7.    What do you hope for in B2B sales and marketing for the new year?

My sincere hope is that tighter budgets will spawn creativity, and not handcuff marketers into “tried and true” types of messaging. While there is more pressure than ever to prove ROI, that doesn’t mean you aren’t obligated to try and be creative. I hope to be wowed this year.

There isn’t a company in business today not announcing layoffs, but over the last couple days, we saw some layoffs that really hit home in the b2b media business.  One thing to understand is that despite being in the online media business myself, I don’t relish “competitors” getting hit.  In fact, I want the opposite: We can all win with a big, competitive b2b media space.

Net-net: CBS Interactive laid off a bunch at CNET which includes a big number in the BNET/b2b business.  There are plenty of articles on it, here’s one.

As well, TechTarget cut about 76 jobs or 12 percent of their workforce. Read here.

Here’s to hoping there isn’t too much more (but I don’t believe that is true)

Economy be damned, I’m in the Holiday spirit. I thought I would share my Christmas list for b2b sales and marketing around the world.

Here is what I hope b2b marketers find in their stocking: Continue Reading »

One of the young guys I work with asked me the other day how I come up with blog posts.  The truth is, they typically come to me throughout the day regardless of whether I am working with clients or at home watching television.  An idea will pop in my head, and I realize I can blog about that.  Conversely, when these epiphanies don’t pop in my head, I am completely screwed.

Here is what you need to know, I am wholly focused on helping marketers improve what they do in general and put the strategies and processes in place to make it through the economic storm that is in full swing.  The other thing you need to know, is that I want to be irreverent and fun in the process.  So, I was sitting there watching “Good Fellas” this weekend (for the 20th time), and a couple lines stuck out to me as bloggable.  I decided that I should take a whack at some Martin Scorcese lines in my next blog post.  Now, here we are.

Continue Reading »