1.INTRODUCTION TODemand Generation

2. Our customers do not decide to start searching for solutions to their problems because we decided to run a campaign. Demand is always on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So why shouldnt your marketing be? Michael Brenner - Director Online/Social Marketing SAP 3. What is Demand Gen? 4. BACKGROUNDNo longer tactical -> Now strategicLead Generation and awareness building out, holistic approach - guiding the buyer to buy, in. 5. BACKGROUNDAutomation - Responds to the buyers cycle - interest level - area of interest - timingIndividual buyer - 1-to-1 Marketing Automation is key. Continuous engagement. 6. So how do we do it? 7. 1. Focusing on the Buyer 2. Adopting an operations mindset 8. We engage on the buyers terms 9. Redesign programs from the ground-up, starting with their journey. 10. Who are we selling to? 11. A committee. The SWAT team of buying a unit of people. 12. So, we pull, not push. And scale one to one interactions. 13. We redefine our activities in terms of their contribution to revenue, not leads or brand. 14. We have a new architecture for campaigns and processes. 15. And we have continuity in touch points. We align with the buyers phases, use the buyers triggers, focus on sequenced engagement that is right place, right time. 16. Why do we do all this? 17. Nurtured leads have 2x bid-win ratio. Nurtured leads have a 47% higher average order value. 18. Closed loop (more on that later) B2B companies have +146% profit in 2 years... poor measurement organizations have -23.4% profit. 19. So whats different? 20. Every program must start with a targeted buyer, and rationalize content and pacing of nurturing in reference to the buyers decision making process. 21. What about Sales? 22. Advanced B2B organizations have shared objectives with Sales and Marketing, and common lead stage definitions.This is now the minimum requirement to run Marketo and SFDC successfully. 23. B2B organizations: 44% use last touch point 21% split across multiple 11% use market testing 3% use modeling The latter 2 are the most insightful. 24. Only 50% have analytics. Very few are forecasting. Even fewer are reporting through to revenue. 25. Were going to doall 3. 26. This sounds like a lot of work. 27. It is. But its work that creates an engine, rather than work that creates a one-time impact. So we get compounding benefits. 28. Acknowledgement: This is simplied and optimistic. 29. More details 30. Only 1/3 organizations have go-to market based on a target market. 31. MESSAGING 80% of unique benefits are not unique or valued by customers. 32. SEGMENTATION What sets good from great. Industry - good Buyers timing (stage) great segmentation. 33. Because 2/3 of all buyers will make a decision in more than1mth/1qtr(short/long buying cycle) 34. (So we need to nurture them) 35. Our new focus is to maximize lifetime customer value. No longer are we campaigning to create MQLs, or even to close sales. 36. Because a happy customer... Will buy again, and again, in the future. 37. One day, we will measure our success by customer lifetime value. 38. One day, we will measure our success by customer lifetime value. 39. Why arent we doing this already? 40. B2B marketing has been on the wrong track for a while. B2C marketing is a large influence and comes from the Mad Men era that had product-focused messaging. 41. So, well all agree that we are B2B marketers. And that is very unrelated to B2C marketing. 42. Buyers come first, with their rational, complex business needs. Relationships matter greatly, not transactions. 43. The B2B buyer is searching for solutions to specific business challenges. (Their pain points) 44. We will support their buying process,one to one. 45. Because a successful B2B Marketing and Sales group builds customer relationships that support and drive additional purchases over the long time horizon. 46. Marketing and Sales will anticipate and address the diverse set of B2B buyers concerns throughout the buying process. 47. 1/3 of companies are now linking revenue to marketing. That is what is needed to succeed in this new world of Buying 2.0 and B2B marketing. 48. The old tactics 49. Top of funnel Interruptive Product centric Collateral heavy Messaging without regard to buying cycle Siloed channels 50. The old tactics wont work anymore. We will be a unified team, cross channel and focused on the buyer. 51. The challenges 52. It wont be without challenges. B2B contributes more than 50% of economic activity. But total marketing and advertising spend is just 35% of the total. 53. The buying group has also shrunk. So there are less actual buyers now. 54. Our campaign mentality led us to measure number of emails sent, number opened, number of event attendees, number of web page visitors, number of media hits.We need to measure deals won, or net increase in revenue to know if were successful. 55. OUR GOAL 56. To build and manage a new set of integrated B2B demand generation programs that can consistently and repeatably convert prospects into lifetime customers. 57. 2005 was the year of incubating leads from INQ to MQL 2010 saw a shift to INQ to WON 58. We have some catching up to do. 59. Think in terms of how our contributino align to moving buyers down an integrated (Marketing and Sales) B2B demand generation funnel. 60. The best in class Have granular knowledge of the buyer and their needs throughout the buying process 61. Understand the key buyer personas: - Demographic and behavioural characteristics that define these buyers - Big hairy business problems these buyers face 62. Plus the best have a complete portfolio of content developed to address targeted buyer persona needs at every stage of their buying process. 63. Some definitions 64. Universal Lead Definition Common Sales and Marketing language Definition of a sales ready lead for each persona Plus SLAs that clearly govern the rules of marketing and sales in moving the buyer down from INQ to Closed/WON 65. Closed LoopMarketing in connected to the transactional register so marketing can be linked directly to revenue.- Marketing has a clear revenue target for demand generation activities. - Analysis is done to link content to closed sales. - Conversion rates through each stage are analyzed to fin dopportunities for imporvement to the system efficiency. 66. One last detail Sarbanes-Oxley - a law that sets standards for how public company boards, management and public accounting makes decisions. It means more people involved, more diligence. This changed B2B buying ~10 years ago. 67. Our Buyers 68. Have more access to information Have more white noise Have more required validation Have more colleagues in the process Theres less buyers in total 69. Their decisions 70. 72% of the time, the motivation for purchase is fit for a specific need at a specific time 71. The No. 1 driver for elevated buying activity: A business problem has created a need to research and find a solution 72. Our target audience is constantly changing, and made up of individuals with different interests and motivations. 73. Complexity 74. An end user may surface a new idea, build a business case, but the purchasing decision and negotiation are owned by a completely different person. 75. Helping them 76. Online content is no longer tactical. It is strategic. Thats because Buyer 2.0 engages with content not just for awareness, but to leverage sources to make serious and substantive decisions. 77. The result of their research determines - potential candidates - comparison criteria - formalizes a purchase plan 78. During research, 42% of buyers evaluate 4 or more suppliers. But only 26% source quotes from 4 or more. 79. Thats why generating awareness, and trying to get names of prospects no longer works. We manage a substantial one to one content based dialogue with B2B buyers in the demand generation process, to win more deals and book more revenue. 80. About us 81. B2B Marketers engage prospects too late. Before thinking of buying, customers are trying to sense the next issue or problem they will face. They research, read thought leaders, talk to people, look for examples that will help clarify their next move. They are researchers looking for content. Marketers need to get involved at this stage.Long before an RFP. 82. B2B Marketers need to become educators and facilitators. Actively helping customers articulate a need they may not have known they had. Only when a buyer has identified a need and wishes to make a purchase can marketing move into lead generation mode. 83. Only 5% of research is done close to a purchase decision. 84. Buyers seek intelligence they can trust to support their decision making process. 85. Buyers have moved online for research. They rate Online/Virtual Tradeshows and Search Engines as top of the tools they use. 86. Buyers are using online content, and online word of mouth tools like social media. 87. We must know our specific buyer, and the best fit for our B2B demand generation programs and content, to win. 88. Critical Path 89. The Buyers Critical Path The assembly of coherent engagement of buying-stage issues, content and channels that constitute true value, substantive dialogue with the prospective buyer. 90. The Buyers Questions Buyer 2.0 may have moved online, but still asks the same questions and has the same stages as 20 years ago. We can learn from consultative and challenger selling methods. This is our foundation. 91. The Buyers Journey 92. Buying stages Our buyer only spends 5% of his time in Satisfaction. He may spend up to 79% of his time in Acknowledgement. Here, he is open to our messaging. 93. Buying stages But in Acknowledgement, he is on the fence. Demand Generation needs to move this buyer from Acknowledgement to Decision. 94. The Traditional Buying Process Is actually just Criteria -> Selection. 95. The Buying Process Needs dont ultimately determine the buying process. Real problems do. 96. Education Therefore, education can help to frame an approach to Buyer 2.0s problem, and in doing so, move him to a final decision. 97. A note on Inbound Sales Calls These guys are already at Investigation. They have moved past Decision, Criteria and Measurement! 98. The New Approach 99. Changing our attention No more selling. No more interruptions. Education and assistance. 100. - Shift attention to MOFU - Focus on continuity of buyers journey - Building relationship (one content offer at a time). - Staying in constant (appropriate) nurturing contact - Processes for handoffs and qualification - Systems that drive continuous, efficient, sustainable demand generation processes 101. Buyer 2.0s Agenda Is self-driven education, to solve business problems - to find solutions. 102. Content and campaigns must add value to the buyers own process and engage him where and when he is in his buying process. 103. Content must be highly relevant to his pain points and truly valuable. 104. 5 Strategic Building Blocks 105. EngagementLead with pain points, not products 106. Critical PathFocus on personas and their content consumption process 107. DialogueDevelop content that is substantive, that engages buyers 108. NurturingConstruct automated campaigns that are one to one, driven by buyer pull, not vendor push 109. Organic Campaign StructureIntegrate content and campaigns across inbound and outbound channels, and make demand generation more organic, less interruptive. 110. And remember... 111. B2B Marketing, especially technology markets, has long been dominated by a product marketing mindset. 112. So, insights are critical to identifying and capitalizing on scale opportunities in consumer markets - which may be a scope far beyond the mere product or service being offered. 113. B2B Buyers 114. B2B Buyers buy to solve problems. Not merely to meet needs. Understanding and addressing a buyers most painful problems is integral to getting Buyer 2.0 off the fence. 115. Our B2B Demand Generation program starts with our buyers pain points, then addresses these pain points. Then we map them to the ultimate delivery of a solution. This is the core of our go to market strategy. 116. Focusing on pain points enables us to very granularly analyze the process our targeted buyer will go through to address his/her problem. This helps us design high targetd programs for engagement, acquisition and nurturing. 117. Bringing it together 118. We connect the dots between pain points and an eventual purchase through our demand generation programs. This means we analyze, understand and leverage the process that B2B buyers go through when they connect the dots themselves. 119. The Critical Path Part 2 120. The Critical Path is a set of predictable and repeatable buyer journeys that we can position our demand generation programs to facilitate, and that can serve as the foundation for a successful, scalable and sustainable business. 121. Two Core Components 122. We need to understand - The Buyer Personas that constitute the differentiated but parallel critical paths. - The content consumption process of each of these personas (the steps on the path). 123. Pause for Clarity 124. Product Marketers have one idea of what a persona is. Often this is about product use, in a particular situation. These may be used by UI or UX folks. We want Buyer Personas. Demographics matter, but we want to know the well trodden paths of buyers as they consume content and go through their buyer education process. 125. - What content did they read? - What mediums did they use to consume content? 126. We will have more answers when we analyze the performance of our own marketing programs. What is the engagement with our inbound and outbound content? 127. The New Rule for Buyer Persona Creation 128. Understanding not only who your buyer personas are but also how they engage in the buying cycle (and how the buying process is defined) is a new rule for the creation of buyer personas. 129. The Good News 130. - We have a lower volume of prospects and customers than consumer marketing - It is easier to define specific persona segments! 131. The (Content) Matrix 132. Some math: x personas y buying stages for each persona z content steps for each buying stage (i industry segment - may not be required) xyz(i) = a lot of content. So we want to focus on 3 primary personas. 133. NEXT STEP We carefully analyze the buying process of each of the personas and specifically analyze the content each tends to consume, and the questions each tends to ask, at each of the stages. This is the basis for our content marketing program, our nurturing and our scoring models. 134. Lets reframe our thinking to focus on our customers buying process, rather than our selling process. 135. Upside 136. The lifetime of our programs is much, much longer than traditional, calendar-based campaigns. We will deliver results over years, not just months or weeks. And we can refine it all along the way. 137. A Gotcha 138. Sometimes, our persona analysis will reveal additional personas. Procurement managers, or Lead Developers, for example. We need to account for Phase-Specific Buyer Personas. 139. Business Results 140. ROI Characteristics of Marketing will shift dramatically. The long-tail of the program will far offset the initial investment, so it will yield ROI that is many times whats been expected from B2B Marketing in the past. 141. With internet-based dialogue, our content may account for up to 95% of the Buyers Journey. (SiriusDecisions estimates the average B2B buyer is 70% through their journey when they first speak to someone in Sales.) 142. Critical Recap 143. Demand Generation content must: - Cover critical information is on the buyers mind, at each stage of the buying process - Convey insights on specific topics and issue aligned to the buyers pain points - Carry the buying process forward - Be delivered via the right channel, at the right time and in the right voice - Be closely aligned to each personas buying cycle and content consumption process 144. Lead Nuturing 101 145. Lead Nurturing 101 1. Know something about our buyer (based on listening to his/her needs, pain points or timing). 2. Tee up an appropriate content offer targeted at addressing what you believe are the buyers content needs at that moment. 3. Gauge how the buyer reacts, and based on that reaction, tee up the next offer. 146. This is our iterative loop. 147. We learn about the buyer every time we offer something. And we progress buyers through their journey with what we offer. 148. Initial Human ContactInitial Buyer InterestSales Follow UpSales NurturingCollect Buyer Insights & RouteFollow up with Content OfferMarketing NurturingMore Buyer Intrest and ActionInbound MarketingOutbound Marketing 149. Our new buyer-pull architecture consists of a matrix of these nurturing loops. When mapped out, it looks like an operational flowchart, built around a pattern of if/then statements. 150. Moving nurturing to a buyer-pull architecture - Lauching campaigns via a buyer trigger, not a mass push - Serving up campaign content to match where the buyer is in his/her buying process - Segmenting campaigns by buyer persona - Using each phase of engagement with a buyer to do progressive profiling - Driving each next touchpoint in a campaign via lead scoring and routing logic 151. Demand Generation campaigns are different 152. They have an organic campaign structure. This means that content and campaigns across inbound and outbound channels are integrated.This makes demand generation less interruptive. 153. Inbound and Outbound channels 154. Inbound and Outbound both have their place. Different channels are preferred at different stages of the buying process. Plus, the proportion of B2B leads via inbound is increasing. 155. A typical B2B buyer is operating on a massively multichannel basis. They consume content in parallel across multiple channels. 156. Four Implications for our B2B Demand Gen approach 157. 1. The need for a holistic strategy 2. The need for orchestration 3. The importance of catalyst content 4. The importance of getting found 158. Holistic Strategy Our strategy addresses a total dialogue with each buyer, across inbound and outbound channels. ie if a buyer tends to engage with blogs when they are first understanding their problem, then we need early-stage content, in the blog medium. 159. Currently, more than half of all new inquiries are generated through the Web. In 12 months, it will be nearly 75%. 160. Dont be fooled by our impressions of a certain medium. It is about what our buyers prefer. For example, 32% of IT decision makers said email is the best way to communicate with them. But only 20% of marketers thought that. 161. We must re-orient our outbound to engage when most appropriate. Email marketing - less effective for front-end engagement/lead acquisition, but more important and effective for lead nurturing. 162. What about the From? Research shows that early stage email content should come from trusted resources and thought leaders (not a sales team member). Later in the process, an email coming from a sales team member makes more sense, especially after there has been an initial engagement. 163. Outbound channels require a pre-existing relationship with a buyer, thus are more effective downstream for nurturing, not upstream at the engagement stage. 164. 2. Orchestration We have a total view of a buyers interactions across both inbound and outbound. From early stage, to final nurture before a sales-ready lead is handed off. We tie all our activity to a final revenue outcome, so that we can measure these interactions and tune our content and campaigns over time. 165. The buyer always has a next logical step in the form of a content offer. 166. Progressive Profiling We capture critical insights about the buyer via a pattern of progressive profiling that we use to target subsequent content offers and better score/qualify the lead. 167. What about gating? 168. Research suggests there is a 50:1 ratio on a download, no form:form. The key is to differentiate broad-level engagement of anonymous buyers from targeted nurturing of specific, identified buyers. And we ask a little more of a buyer each time we interact with them. Thats progressive profiling. 169. 3. Catalyst Content 170. The middle layer - the critical layer - of content in B2B Demand Gen is catalyst content. This is the bridge between engagement and nurturing. Between anonymous and known. 171. Catalyst content is our keystone. 172. What content has the unique ability to not only get B2B buyers to give up core contact information, but also to be open to (and really want) follow-up content delivered via nurturing? 173. For Buyer 2.0, he wont make the leap between unstructured/anonymous/inbound interactions to structured/known/outbound interactions without a catalyst. 174. Examples of Catalyst Content - Highest value White Paper This content represents our answers to Buyer 2.0s questions about buying process and pain points, which we center all our content around. - Or it may be the jewel of a very well planned outbound campaign that centers on the central pain point that is the optimal point of interaction with a potential buyer. 175. Buyer 2.0 should make his way to this content. Because it is a line in the sand. It is also the focal point in planning both upstream engagement activities and downstream nurturing activities. Everything must tie into our catalyst content in some way. 176. The content of our programs must be truly substantive and helpful to the buyer. And our programs must immediately respond once the buyer initiates outreach. 177. We have an always-on demand strategy that utilizes an effective inbound marketing approach. - Optimized Website - Consistent Paid Search - Drip Nurture Programs - Marketing Automation 178. The cost of going in and out of the marketplace with time-bound campaigns often cannot compare to an effective always-on campaign. - Michael Brenner 179. Adopting an Operations Mindset 180. Leads have too-often equated with net-new email addresses. There has been little follow-through after initial lead acquisition. B2B Marketers have historically been focused at the top of the funnel - generating awareness with interruptions. 181. We need to constantly monitor and proactively manage leads at all stages of maturity. We approach both the continuous education of buyers, and the qualification of them as leads (powered by marketing automation) as literally a factory-like operation. 182. And we use the operations mindset of continuous improvement. Yep, just like Toyota. 183. With this mindset, we use operations best practices like understanding process flow, interdependencies, throughput, cycle times and bottlenecks, as the basis for how we optimize our operation. 184. The 5 Strategic Building Blocks 185. 1. Outputs 2. Framework 3. Process 4. Performance 5. Continuous management 186. 1. Outputs Identify our objectives - both in terms of revenues and our definition of a qualified lead. 187. 2. Framework Work backwards through the qualification stages that are required to get to our outputs clearly defining what must occur at each stage and the role of sales and marketing. 188. 3. Process Map out the flows of content offers, buyer profiling, lead scoring and nurturing that will move a buyer through our qualification stages. 189. 4. Performance Run the reverse funnel math - ie the total lead throughput and conversion rates throughout our demand generation program, that will repeatably deliver against our objectives. 190. 5. Continuous management Building and operating our demand generation program that is designed to be run in a continuous, always-on state, 24/7. 191. Our Outputs 192. Outputs First, we want to know the end revenue objectives we intend to enable. Second, we want to know what a qualified lead looks like. ie, the one that will have the highest potential to turn into revenue. 193. Clear hand-off - Who is our ideal prospect? - What stage are they typically at in their buying process? - What are their questions? - What education have they done, and what do they need to do next? - What does their organization look like, and what is their role in that organization? - What is their budget, authority, timing and needs? 194. We answer these questions for each of our key personas. 195. The anchor of our B2B Demand Generation system is being able to say to generate X revenue, we need Y sales-ready leads (at our current win rate), that have Z characteristics. 196. Qualification characteristics 1. Give us a better sense of the differences between larger populations of prospects, vs those buyers that are ready to puchase. 2. Help us better manage middle of funnel (MOFU) interactions by establishing nuances to the stages of interaction. 3. Help us be more prescriptive in identifying operational bottlenecks and/or underperformance at any point in our Demand Gen system. 197. Our Framework 198. We map out the flows of content offers, buyer profiling, lead scoring and nurturing that will move a buyer through our qualification stages. 199. Content Offers Discrete points of engagement with buyers, which may occur via email, Web or other mechanism. Dialogue with our buyer. 200. Buyer Profiling Each content offer should garner a more complete picture of a buyers profile and thus support further lead qualification. This occurs via form data and contentbased behaviours, such as clicking through or downloading content. We want to capture and use this to do ongoing, continuous profiling. 201. Lead Scoring (Logic) This is the model we use to decide where our buyer is in his/her journey (to becoming a qualified lead). Based on a combination of factors - explicit information about the buyer, and implicit information based on their behaviours. 202. Nurturing Logic The threading, routing and looping of our buyer - depending on their interactions with our demand generation system. This is the overall organization of our flowchart. 203. And Remember... 204. Were building a repeatable, automatable system. 205. One that we can measure with performance metrics, and baselines. This way we can better understand how the flow through our stages of buyer interactions will consistently lead to the right volume and quality of sales-ready leads. 206. Our Process 207. Starting with the volume of sales we need, at a given sale amount, we consider the win rate, the work the math back upwards, to figure out how many sales opportunities had to be created, how many leads existed at each conversion stage before that, and given the conversion rate at each stage, how many inbound and outbound impressions per time period must be generated at the top of the funnel. (This usually results in a ridiculously large number) 208. Performance 209. We can check our progress against industry benchmarks from SiriusDecisions. 210. Our 3 Benefits 1. Our numbers are grounded. TOFU and BOFU. 2. We have a basis for reviewing and benchmarking. 3. We have a basis for diagnosing opportunities to improve performance at specific stages. 211. Continuous Management 212. The Major Leap Forward Moving from a push/time-based mindset for campaigns to the idea of B2B Demand Generation as a continuously-operating (and continuously refined) process. It is a living, breathing system - a lead factor. 213. We continually monitor buyers progress A live, real-time dashboard does this. With 2 views: - Visibility into buyer personas critical paths and how they are performing - Monitoring of back-office metrics for our lead management process - especially real-time performance of lead stage conversions. 214. This enables us to tune our content offers, our nurturing logic and our lead scoring model. Daily, Weekly, Monthly. We make incremental and continuous tweaks to improve system performance. 215. This is a big change for a marketing team. 216. New Frameworks to balance our Demand Equation 217. We adopt and ingrain new, sophisticated management frameworks - ones that can help us achieve our dual objectives and weave them together, so that we are scalable, effective and integrated. 218. The New Frameworks 219. 1. Content Marketing The core of our engine. The goal is to orchestrate the delivery of the right content to the right buyer in the right place, at the right time. 220. We use buyer insights, to create categories, topics and themes, then integrate multiple touchpoints in different mediums. Content marketing is the buyerfacing framework. 221. 2. Lead Management This is the back office framework. It governs the roles and actions of marketing and sales team members throughout the lead qualification process. It helps us deliver leads that are 100% aligned with sales expectations. Its core is the Lead Qualification model, which defines stages, definitions and criteria (and is common to sales and marketing). 222. 3. Demand Process Integration This is the weaving that brings content marketing together with lead management to integrate a pattern of content offers on one hand, with buyer profiling and lead qualification on the other hand. This is the routing, the scoring and the nurturing models. 223. Content Marketing FTW 224. 4 Elements of Content Marketing 1. Defining Buyer Personas and their influence in the buying process 2. Mapping core buying process steps and associated content consumption 3. Building a content marketing plan 4. Managing content marketing performance 225. An influence process diagram can helps us visualize the flow of content and the path of influence through a given B2B buying decision-making process. 226. But we want to dig deeper. What are the key pain points and motivations for this persona to engage in a purchase process? How does this buyer go about finding answers to key questions at critical stages? Which other personas is this one aligned to, or very similar to? 227. For secondary personas, we will use segmenting to deliver slightly altered messaging. 228. Mapping core buying process steps and associated content consumption We take our insights into the buying influence process, and our primary personas, and dig into the formal process each goes through in the evolution from pain point to deciding on a final solution. We want granular, specific, defined. 229. Our buyer personas need to be complete with how they consume their information online and offline. Psychographic and demographic information are just the starting point. 230. We generate diagrams that show our hypothesis for how we will align content consumption to the core buying process. This will show channels, and types of content that matter in each stage in the B2B buying process. ie When do targets use search and social? When will they respond to email? 231. Our content will be engaged and substantive, for a narrowly-defined set of needs that is 100% aligned with accelerating the B2B buying process. 232. Draft working plan We bake our mapping of the B2B buying process and associated content consumption process and create our first working plan. It covers the content items, themes and programs we believe will address Buyer 2.0s needs, via specific channels, at specific points in the buying process. 233. We must answer the real questions our customers are asking. 234. Maybe its lifetime value. Maybe its total price. Maybe they want to know how the products makes them a hero/ famous/lean/popular. 235. Helping Buyer 2.0 How can we help him do his job better? How can we anticipate and meet his needs so he sees us as a trusted source of information? We need to give his purchases a content. 236. Above all else We are educating and establishing trust as part of our goal: to sell something to our buyer. So the framework and context we supply is not only helpful, but also helps the buyer see the solution from our point of view. 237. We want the buyer to realize/draw the conclusion that our solution is the best. But to get there, we go through the buyers pain points, the buyers needs and the buyers process. That way, we build a trusted relationship. 238. Thats a very simple version of a Content Marketing Plan matrix. The working document needs to include details on net-new content pieces to be produced. 239. Every one of our content offers (a content piece and nurturing email, for example) It must not only answer questions, it must drive the nurturing dialogue forward with the target buyer. Thus, the dialogue thread in the Matrix should go from initial pain point through to teeing the buyer up for the ask (ready to ask more about our product/ service and wanting to engage with our sales team) 240. The Nuances - How can content align with our progressive profiling questions and content behavioural tracking/scoring to drive our nurturing and scoring logic? - How will we handle segmentation against primary vs secondary personas? What needs separate content, and where can we use dynamic content? - Are we set up to engage with a buyer who is further down the path in his buying process but goes looking for content like ours? Will we be found? Can we bring him into our core program? 241. Managing Content Marketing Performance - We monitor basic performance with typical metrics (sends, opens, etc) plus; - Prospect Acquisition - How predictive are certain content items of successful prospect acquisition? - Lead stage conversion rates - How successful are content items at getting the buyer to take the next step? - Revenue - How predictive of revenue outcomes are certain content items? And in what sequence? 242. Lead Management is BOSS 243. Lead management is listening to our buyer. It complements our content marketing. 244. It tells us how well our buyers are moving through our programs. 245. Lead management also helps to specify the roles and responsibilities for sales and marketing in the B2B Demand Generation process. 246. And how do we know were moving along with a buyer at an appropriate pace? Our program should only move as quickly as the buyer. 247. Lead Management is the back office view of what is happening. 248. The 4 Elements of Lead Management 1. Aligning Marketing and Sales around common objectives 2. Defining a qualified lead 3. Establishing an integrated lead qualification process 4. Managing Lead Management performance 249. 1. Alignment Qualitative objective Ideal Buyer Target Quantitative objective Revenue Targets 250. We also need to review our lead management definitions and processes that are already in place. 251. So we will SWOT our existing lead management definitions, and processes. Identifying gaps will create a common basis for understanding why we need to evolve. 252. 2. Defining a qualified lead What is the ideal state when a buyer will be ready to engage with a sales team member? How far should Marketing take the buyer, before passing it along to the sales team? It is this specific point that is the core. 253. MQL vs SAL SiriusDecisions, in their Demand Waterfall, show that alignment between Sales and Marketing sticks when sales has to confirm that a lead meets the qualification criteria. This is an SAL or SRL. 254. Ultimately, our planning here must be guided by how Buyer 2.0 wants to engage. We cant force an artificial qualification point if it doesnt suit our buyer. Sales should not engage before the buyer wants to move to this stage (unless a buyer is saying contact me). 255. Successful lead management yields a lower quantity of leads. 256. Successful lead management yields a lower quantity of leads. 257. 2 Parts of Qualification 1. Firm-determined - demographic/ firmographic factors - role, authority, industry, size of company. Whats the minimum level of information we need about him? Who are the various influencers that should be part of the dialogue? Who do we NOT want? 258. 2 Parts of Qualification 2. Buyer-determined - behavioural factors Content behaviours - number of engagements, engagement with specific content pieces, web pages? Online search strings change? Recency or frequency of visit? Critical path of content that indicates progression in buying journey? 259. BANT BANT is not a separate criteria. Needs to be embedded in qualified lead definition - in both demographic and behavioural level. Remember, that buyers will be self-reporting this data when engaging with marketing, so certain data may not be shared. Timing should be inferred by behaviour. 260. 3. Establishing an Integration Lead Qualification Process A process that both Sales and Marketing participate in. Both parties are involved in delivering to one set of objectives. 261. We design a process with clear objectives at each stage, defined roles for marketing and sales in the process, and clear SLAs between both. 262. - What occurs before a lead becomes qualified? (Marketings domain) - What happens after a lead becomes qualified? (Sales domain) 263. Why SiriusDecisions? Because theyve been doing this for a decade. 264. Only some leads go to sales. Some will even come back from sales. There is always clear separation between marketings and sales roles. SLAs cover things like a lead can be returned to marketing, and sales must act on an MQL within a set timeframe. 265. Overall, we should pay attention to Buyer 2.0 patterns, to determine if he is qualified. Content offers should be closely tied to what is being vetted at each stage of the lead qualification process. Lead qualification happens in a number of granular steps. 266. 4. Managing Lead Management Performance 267. What percentage of quarterly sales revenue (in terms of leads) is marketing responsible? how many leads does sales need to ensure they hit revenue targets? How many overall responses need to be generated in order to arrive at the required number of qualified leads? What are the organizations conversion rates? (reponse to lead and leads to sale) 268. Metrics to measure Prospect Acquisition Performance (TOFU)Number of prospects per channel, cost of prospects per channel, cost per revenue per channelLead stage conversion rates (MOFU)Rates between lead stages, total rate of conversion initial lead to closed revenue.Demand Generation Program ROINumber of prospects acquired, number of Sales Qualified Leads/Sales Opportunities created, total value of current Sales Qualified Leads/Sales Opportunities at any point in time, and ROI investment ratios. 269. Framework 3: Demand Process Integration 270. We translate our content marketing and lead management strategy into the right language - a process management language - to make the most of our marketing automation. 271. This is the bridge between Focusing on the Buyer and Adopting an Operations Mindset 272. We accomplish 2 things 1. Weaving - make content marketing and lead management work as one - we provide value to the buyer and simultaneously systematically move the buyer through our lead qualification. We go beyond using content-offer feedback, we also use demographic and behavioural lead qualification criteria to score, qualify and route our lead. This drives a two way content-based dialogue that delivers offers, and profiles the buyer. 273. We accomplish 2 things 2. Operationalizing - we have clearly defined steps and decision points. Our goal is to construct a continuous B2B demand generation system that constantly transforms raw buyer interest into qualified leads. No more military campaigns - our programs have many potential, buyer-driven options. 274. Models that ground Demand Process Integration - The Engagement, Acquisition and Nurturing sequence 275. The first step is how to start the dialogue with substantive content assets based on whatever issue is on the mind of the buyer, upstream in his buying process. Then we get the buyer to opt in to nurturing. But an email address is not a lead, unless theyve bought in. 276. Models that ground Demand Process Integration - Hierachical, rationalized nurturing layers 277. When building nurture tracks, there should always be a clear sense of demand generation route that a given buyer should go down under ideal circumstances. If not ideal circumstances, there should be a different clear path, and another. Every buyer should be in a nurture track. 278. 3 Primary Layers - The Buying Cycle Content Track - The Promotional Content Track - The Drop Content Track 279. Buying Cycle Track The most ideal path, with all the answers. Promotional Track Dynamic layer - ever changing set of content offers to re-engage buyers or onramp prospects Drip Nurture Track For when buyers go cold. Stay top of mind. 280. Models that ground Demand Process Integration - Operations theory best practices 281. The continuum of process analysis, management and optimization. 282. Achieving Demand Process Integration 3 steps in the lifecycle: - Demand process analysis - Demand process logic - Demand process execution and optimization 283. Process Analysis Buyer persona segmentation - main tracks and related tracks Dialogue thread planning - 3-10 conceptual steps to go from dating to marriage Lead production planning - Tie dialogue points to desired outcomes of lead management. Modeling of how personas flow through the system to lead to revenue outcomes 284. Process Logic Nurturing Logic - Define discrete buying cycle steps, tied together in a sequence. Align steps to the lead qualification stages. Then align Promo Content steps as second-chance offers. Adjusting timing and volume of follow up. If its a bottleneck, add more PC steps to it. Also set up on ramps (discrete outbound offers, sales-launches nurtures to net new buyers). Build drip track with time-based touch points. 285. Process Logic Lead Scoring Logic - Connect the dots between lead nurturing and revenue outcomes. Align to lead qualification stages. Use demoand behavioural. Identify progressive profiling. Set up score thresholds. Increasing order of magnitude. Scoring to drive buyer through nurturing logic. Separate scoring by persona. Keep it simple enough to manage. 286. Process Logic Routing and assignment Logic - Enter/exit programs, accelerate through a program. Reroute to appropriate track (from progressive profiling result). Buyers who want to talk asap (escape hatches). Late stage buyer - catch up questions and content. Hand off of leads to sales. 287. Process Logic Acquisition Logic - Bridge between engagement and nurturing. Think about all channels you engage the buyer. How to funnel all of that cross channel engagement toward entry into our core buying cycle content nurture track? Also do quantitative modeling to show number of leads per channel and % contribution vs all TOFU sources. 288. Process Execution We must intervene to improve the performance dynamics of the overall system. We establish a regular cadence for reviewing the performance of our programs. We start with a few contacts, ramp up and then get our steady state live and running. 289. Process Execution We always want to check the efficiency and integrity of the entire, closed-loop system. How effectively is our system helping us convert raw buyer engagement into sales ready, qualified leads? 290. Analysis - Demand Process Capacity - Demand Process Velocity - System Balance - Integrity of nurturing logic - Ongoing conversion rates at each (Ideal) Content offer/Promo Content step - Lead scoring accuracy - Routing/assignment errors 291. Results for us all 292. - New roles as B2B Marketers - New skills - Reorganizing our team - Changing the nature of engagement with sales - New (documented) processes and (closed loop) systems to support programs - Rethinking marketing investments - Committing to change 293. Our new, nuanced role, upstream from our sales teams, is to engage, acquire, and nurture prospective buyers through their buying process, participating in a value-added fashion. Then it is to remain in the loop, monitoring the performance of qualified leads downstream and providing additional nurturing support as our sales-team partners deem necessary.