The Funnelholic

Jobfox has released a report on the 20 most recession-proof jobs. There are two really interesting developments for my two blog constituents, sales and marketing folks.

1. Sales guys: Congratulations — you have and will survive the economic slowdown. Heck, even sales executives made the list, so congratulations. Bottom line: You can’t make money unless people are selling.
2. Marketing people: ouch. You’re not even on the list. What’s clear here is that marketers still have a lot of work to do to prove that they’re a part of the critical path to revenue. There are great tips on this on Jon Miller’s Modern B2B Marketing blog. Read his post “7 Strategies for B2B marketing During a Recession.” Then hit his series on “Proving Marketing’s Value” (start on Part I). It’s easy for me to say, but don’t lose your job. If you take the lesson learned from my previous post “The 7 Similarites Between VPs of Sales and Professional Sports Coaches,” marketers don’t get fired as frequently … but, as you can see from the below stat, you will struggle to get a new job.

By the way, I have never heard of Jobfox so I don’t even know how credible the data is. What I do know is that there is a beautiful marketing lesson to be learned from this. This data has been great viral content for Jobfox. I found this article on Network World’s blog, which proves that this piece of content worked. Now, I am writing about a company I have never heard of before, and I am giving them visibility. I also forwarded this article to some friends. And Jobfox didn’t write about its marketing mumbo jumbo, and the site has no registration form. Now that is social-media marketing.

Read Jobfox’s”Top 20 Most Recession Proof Professions” (PDF).

Top 20 Most Recession-Proof Professions

Rank

1. Sales Representative/ Business Development
2. Software Design/ Development
3. Nursing
4. Accounting and Finance Executive
5. Accounting Staff
6. Networking/Systems Admin
7. Administrative Assistant
8. Business Analysis ( Software Implementation)
9. Business Analysis ( Research)
10. Finance Staff
11. Project Management
12. Testing/ Quality Assurance
13. Product Management
14. Database Administration
15. Account/ Customer Support
16. Technology Engineering
17. Electrical Engineering
18. Sales Executive
19. Mechanical Engineering
20. Government Contracts Administration

Image via Wikipedia

Can the B2B lead generation world accept whitepapers without reg forms?

Two pieces are talking about/with this company Docmetrics known better as the smart reg form:

1. Writing whitepapers blog article on smart pdfs
2. Podcast with Paul Dunay interviewing Vitrium Sytems CEO creator of docmeterics tool

The idea here is that these guys have created registration forms that are embedded in the PDF. Now, you don’t have to force prospects to fill out a reg form in order to access the whitepaper. Instead you can give the whitepaper and collect registration data as the reader begins to access the document. Docmetrics will tell you when the document is actually opened, how many pages were read, and how much time was spent on each page.

So now what?

First let me say, I love the massive innovations taking place today in the marketing world. This is an interesting idea that would seem to have tremendous benefits to marketers and, as such, I will watch closely.

Right now, the buyers potential frustration worries a bit:
1. Is this going to be a bad buyer experience? I mean, I personally will be really bummed having to fill out forms all the way along my reading experience, I wonder what buyers will say?
2. Whether it is eco-friendly or not…most people print the whitepaper and read it in the spare time including the toilet.

From the vendor point of view:
1. This concept is worth the test, primarily for sophisticated marketers who are doing dynamic lead scoring (ie scoring leads not merely when they enter your system but continually scoring after the lead has entered you system and has “interactions” with your various sales and marketing actions). Conceivably the disposition data you receive from docmetrics can be fed back into your marketing automation that will trigger the following:
a. A change to the dynamic score of the prospect.
b. An action like an email or a call

2. The concept that these leads are more sales-ready will lead to disappointment. This tool should be used to help a Lead Development/Inside Sales rep whose job it is to qualify leads before they go to bag-carrying reps. In other words, the “I don’t remember downloading it” or “I haven’t read it” issue may go away but another objection will arise. Lead Development reps overcome those types of objections, sales reps use them against the marketing folks. So YES this is a great tool, but NO this doesn’t open the flood gates to send white papers to sales reps.

3. On the other hand, what about using this as a post-contact tool for sales reps? That is, passing a docmetrics whitepaper for followup…Half the battle on the sales side is the connect and as part of the connect, figuring out where to spend your best time. If we know a guy read what you sent and when, that has real strategic value to both lead development and sales.

Believe it or not, some INTERESTING stats on white papers.

I found this great blog that I read ALL the time, Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers. As you can imagine, the premise of the blog is about the art of creating and marketing whitepapers which he calls the Educational Marketing Revolution. He is really smart and writes some great stuff. People ask me what I recommend all the time, and I for one still recommend whitepaper syndication. (By the way as part of a marketing mix along with webinars, etc).

One thing about whitepaper marketing is that it is actual a bit ‘old school”, its been around for awhile and whitepapers certainly continue to face new lead generation types such as webinar, video, etc. Nonetheless, marketing spend continues to support whitepapers. Stelzner’s blog excerpted a quote from Don Hawk of TechTarget: “The number of orders for white paper-related programs increased by over 60% in Q1 ‘08 versus the first quarter of last year. “

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