B2B Crosses Channels Integrate White Paper 2012
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Transcript of B2B Crosses Channels Integrate White Paper 2012
B2B Crosses Channels:Barriers & Solutions to Effective Execution
2 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Today’s business-to-business (B2B) space encompasses much more than mere lead generation.B2B marketers across verticals are implementing strategies in stark contrast from the “best
practices” of just two years ago. Within the context of an extended, multi-touch purchase
funnel, B2B marketers are rising to meet challenges posed by emerging technologies and
increasingly granulated data, as well as demands generated by the business-to-consumer
(B2C) space.
Or they’re attempting to. B2B buyers now require personalized attention at multiple
engagement points, throughout a lengthy, deliberated purchase process spanning media
channels. In fact, the term “funnel” is hardly applicable to modern B2B sales.
The word funnel is not a great representation of what marketing is or of lead flow in general. If you pour something into the top of an actual kitchen funnel, everything drains linearly downwards and there isn't much leakage. But in marketing, there is no funnel that has the laws of physics helping leads progress downwards, and there is no funnel that doesn't have leakage or irregularities regarding where prospects enter and exit, begin and end. It isn't linear.
Zorian RotenbergCMO, AppAssure Software
In an Interview with Integrate,
27 August 2012
"Appealing to every B2B buyer’s precise
needs through a seamless, cross-channel
experience may be daunting, but it isn’t
impossible—augmenting marketing
processes and investing in media-
management technology will mitigate
current B2B marketing inefficiencies
and bolster future success.
Effective cross-channel execution requires
B2B marketers to first understand the
barriers to implementation. Cross-channel
attempts are often ineffective for two
reasons: fulfillment fragmentation
and the overdue acclimation of B2B to
emerging marketing trends and technology.
3 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Fulfillment Fragmentation
Fulfillment fragmentation disables B2B marketing’s efficacy. Numerous fulfillment sources
in a decentralized context reduce the control B2B marketers have over compliance, lead to
incoherent delivery and can result in mismanagement, limiting maximum return on ad spend
and strategy effectiveness.
Moreover, fragmentation impedes the measurement and comparison of cross-channel
campaigns. B2B marketers are thus unable to determine the ways in which singular channels
affect one another, much less how or why channel interaction occurs within an entire
multi-channel strategy.
Decentralized fulfillment sources inundate B2B marketers with incongruent data, without
providing a clear vision of respective application. Even when vendors report fulfillment in real
time, B2B marketers are unable to efficiently translate and compare disparate data across
channels, making quick, effective optimization nearly impossible. Meanwhile, delays in
analysis and optimization deplete resources with regard to labor and marketing budget.
Some B2B marketers fail to see the value of
real-time optimization, but those marketers
are probably aggregating and collating data
from dozens of publishers right now while
you’re reading this white paper. They continue
to waste budget on under-performing vendors
and ineffective marketing methods while
marketers on the real-time optimization
bandwagon are lining their pockets with
an increased return on ad spend, primarily
by using technology to centralize vendor
selection and management. These tools
automate data accumulation and analysis,
even allowing marketers to shift budget
between publishers based on performance—
tired excuses and fulfillment fragmentation
may pose real-time optimization road blocks,
but auxiliary technology proves it's neither a
gimmick nor an inflated theory.
One of the challenges of having to go to a bunch of different sources is the risk of missing something. You may miss a channel that either delivers a lower-cost lead or a higher-converting lead, or miss an opportunity you didn’t realize was there. If you can find the resources that can consolidate those opportunities for you, help do some of the research and bring you multiple options, you can make the best choices or at least test more options, which helps you find more efficiently what’s working. It helps you do your job as a marketer and it helps you achieve your goals more efficiently, with less time.
Matt HeinzPresident, Heinz Marketing
In an interview with Integrate,
6 July 2012
"
4 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Many marketers actually exacerbate the deployment, measurement and optimization
issues consequent to fulfillment fragmentation because they spread spend evenly
across channels, without understanding the ripple effect channels have on
one another. Multi-channel marketing strategies with different launch dates, using
diverse campaign models, marketing methods and delivery sources spur chaotic
cross-channel interaction.
Each differentiating feature between campaigns, channels, methods and delivery
makes incremental analysis and understanding almost impossible. Without a
centralized tracking, reporting and media-management system, marketers spend
hours upon hours rationalizing data to quantify every activity's impact on revenue.
Consolidated fulfillment enables unified
reporting, substantially increasing metric
clarity and continuity to improve the
efficiency with which B2B marketers
analyze marketing activities. Unified
reporting enables the B2B marketer to
identify not only which touchpoints are
most influential, but the ways in which
touchpoints work together online,
offline and across screens. Afforded
a comprehensive view of channel
interaction, B2B marketers can effectively
analyze, optimize and reallocate, without
wasting time or risking human error. They
are thus able to seamlessly meet B2B
buyers’ needs, while accounting for
every twist and turn in the multi-touch,
not-so-linear purchase "funnel."
The problem with comparing disparate fulfillment sources and the incoming data from each one is really with optimization. It's very, very hard to generalize learning across different sources. To learn from 1 and apply to 3, 4 and 5 is almost impossible when they're segmented in different ways and collect different data. Being able to learn from each source simultaneously, figuring out what they have in common and why that matters and then what to do with that data is crucial to optimization.
Eric WittlakeSr. Director of Media, Babcock & Jenkins
In an Interview with Integrate,
27 August 2012
"
5 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Overdue Acclimation
Another major barrier to effective cross-channel strategy implementation in the B2B
space relates to the overdue acclimation of the majority of B2B marketers when it comes to
adopting fresh marketing trends and applying complementary technologies.
Referring to developing marketing trends as fresh is purposeful—fresh marketing trends are
just that—marginally new, inexplicably appealing, quick to get snatched up and prone to expire.
Not all trends stick and not all of them are worth more than a singular attempt followed by a
consolatory pat on the back.
Yet, with so many new concepts and methods making the transition from trend to marketing
mainstay, B2B marketers need to take notice. They must determine which emerging concepts
and B2C methods are pertinent before attempting to understand how they can and will work in
a B2B context.
Display retargeting still isn't an assumed staple in B2B and that represents a missed opportunity. And even though behavioral targeting has been around in the B2C space for a long time, it's just starting to come around in B2B. Many of the best performing B2C line items are slow to pick up in the B2B space, particularly because the audiences are smaller. There just isn't the level of granularity and quantity of data available today for B2B as there is for B2C because the latter has huge audiences to sample and B2B audiences can be much more niche. B2B marketers don't have the option of purchasing audience segments of people looking for something like SaaS-based ERP systems. The kind of audience segmentation and audience data that B2B marketers would need isn't available today the way it is for consumer, but the space is always advancing. There are techniques and technologies available today that would've been unheard of just a couple of years ago.
Eric WittlakeSr. Director of Media, Babcock & Jenkins
In an interview with Integrate, 27 August 2012
"Progressive B2B marketers follow B2C developments closely, and the most sophisticated ones are really able to integrate the best of what's out there. As a whole, B2B marketers are getting better and smarter with regard to audience targeting from a business perspective rather than a consumer one. It's still a growing market but there's been a lot of content written recently about buyer personas and understanding who you should sell to, and that's translating into marketers wanting to be able to better target their ad efforts and lead gen efforts. Even though it has been around in B2C for a while, that's the way most concepts come about in B2B. And it's almost better that way. For every year or so that B2B is behind B2C, that's another year for the technology and concepts and entire approach to get better. By the time a new development reaches the entire B2B marketing community, it has been through multiple overhauls and all of the kinks are worked out.
Craig RosenbergSales and Marketing Consultant
In an interview with Integrate, 31 August 2012
"
6 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
This comprehension angle is especially important as emerging marketing trends including mobile
and social media become “must haves” rather than “nice to haves.” B2B marketers must take
their understanding of the ripple effect a step further, regarding how they can manipulate it to
work in their favor. Successful cross-channel strategies rely on that ripple effect—measuring
one channel in isolation is misleading, and cohesive strategy development requires tactically
influencing channel interaction in order to meet overall brand goals.
Determining how much spend to allocate toward each channel relies on understanding how they
do work and don’t work together—your TV ads were popular so they might have driven the best
quality and largest volume of results, but those digital campaigns looked awesome so people probably
liked them too, but then again one of the ads didn’t get much click traffic so—the mess of data can
be discouraging, even more so in a time when sales and marketing alignment is crucial to B2B
success.
It is essential for B2B marketers to centralize
their marketing efforts in order to understand
cross-channel strategy interplay, qualifying
which combination of campaigns, methods and
channels actually works best for them and why.
Devising and revising strategies that
efficiently incorporate the best that offline,
mobile, digital and social have to offer is
especially challenging for marketers without
marketing automation technology or effective
cross-channel deployment and measurement
processes in place.
Not only are there are a lot of complexities in marketing at the hands-on, operational level, it is furthermore complicated because marketers are expected to go a level higher and quantify how each of their activities is impacting revenue. And it's even more complex for marketers lacking the ability to catalog everything centrally and look at all of the data in a uniform manner. B2B executives have to be able to analyze marketing outcomes in a way that not only helps them figure out how to build high-impact and high-ROI campaigns, but enables them to ultimately report that to the CEO and to the VP of Sales and to board members who might not care about some really cool social media contest the marketing exec just ran. Marketers have to be able to demonstrate their impact on revenue, which gives them credibility in the eyes of the board and the CEO, because otherwise it's all arts and crafts. And we're not into arts and crafts marketing nowadays.
Zorian RotenbergCMO, AppAssure Software
In an interview with Integrate,
27 August 2012
"
7 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Complementary technology simplifies B2B marketers’ ability to incorporate new trends
into their strategies, improving the ease with which they may then track, analyze and optimize
resulting marketing efforts.
Centralized marketing automation and media-management technology has proven, well-known
benefits. Yet, most B2B marketers are slow to conform and many early-adopters have done so
ineffectively, mistakenly investing in multiple technology systems without understanding how
they should or would work in tandem.
While simply purchasing technology is not a cure-all, avoiding purchases altogether represents
a wasted opportunity. Emerging technologies improve marketing efficiency, consolidate
marketing efforts to enable centralized media-management, cut costs and increase returns
on ad spend.
Considering the significance and impact of emerging concepts and technology, why not invest?
While there is apparent value in both, B2B marketers often instead highlight marketing and
sales alignment as a top priority, putting technology and centralized media-management on the
backburner.
This hierarchy of priorities isn’t surprising; an increased focus on marketing and sales alignment is
permanently altering the B2B space and effectually rewriting the B2B marketer’s job description.
The marketing automation space, though it’s booming, is in its infancy. There are significant dollars going into these systems, but it’s a fraction of what companies have historically spent to acquire new leads month after month. And yet, with the right technology you can naturally attract, engage, nurture and convert a higher percent of leads over time into closed business.
Matt HeinzPresident, Heinz Marketing
In an interview with Integrate,
6 July 2012
"Marketing is a lot of complex things intertwined and it isn't as simple to report your production factor as it is for sales. Marketers have to deal with incongruent output and outcomes, as well as activities that lack measurability in many ways. Properly tracking and managing all of that data and being able to convert and align all of it so you can compare apples to apples, is the only way marketers can quantify their impact on revenue.
Zorian RotenbergCMO, AppAssure Software
In an interview with Integrate,
27 August 2012
"
8 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Demonstrating the business value of marketing is becoming a necessity and will dominate
the B2B space as time goes on. Systematizing aspects of marketing and sales processes in a
centralized format may be key to sales and marketing alignment in the future. Technology
promises to simplify the B2B marketer’s job, while catering to marketing and sales managers
alike, especially with regard to data management.
B2B marketers have a bigger job than they’ve ever had before. Previously, you could do your events, generate your leads, pass them off to the sales team and kind of be done with it. Well now, not every sales lead is equal. Some we pass along, some we score and nurture—we have different strategies for different leads, more offers and marketers are getting far more involved at stages of the buying process and sales process that they haven’t before. Consolidating the options and the sources by which marketers find and engage prospects is important if for no other reason than it makes the marketer’s job easier—there’s incredible value in that level of efficiency for marketers today and moving forward.
Matt HeinzPresident, Heinz Marketing
In an interview with Integrate,
6 July 2012
"Companies now expect B2B marketers to
quantifiably demonstrate marketing’s business
value, forcing marketing professionals to somehow
merge sales and marketing goals without favoring
or diminishing the efficacy of either. In this
scenario, lead quality isn’t determined by how well
a prospect’s credentials match a targeting profile,
but by that prospect’s level of sales-readiness at
multiple engagement points.
Lead quality now outweighs lead volume,
requiring B2B marketers to augment the way
they plan, launch, track and analyze advertising
initiatives in order to meet lead quality and
close rate requirements. Attempts to align sales
and marketing goals without compromise have
changed the B2B marketer’s job, encompassing
increased responsibility and data to handle within
and around the purchase funnel.
The marketing automation movement pushes marketing organizations to be more rigorous not only about what they’re doing on a daily basis but with regard to their effect on revenue. In the past, marketers would buy leads in bulk and let sales sift through them. And now the B2B marketer has come to the realization that just because someone raises their hand initially doesn’t mean they're immediately ready to buy. The B2B buyer takes their time and it’s on their terms and their clock, not our clock. The marketing automation space has been a real breakthrough for B2B marketers because it allows them to embrace this fundamental shift in buying behavior and engage with prospects at every step of the sales process, providing them with the content they actually need and want to see over time.
Craig RosenbergSales and Marketing Consultant
In an interview with Integrate, 31 August 2012
"
9 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Marketing in itself is incredibly complicated
and requires B2B marketers to take into
account strategic criteria relevant to their
own products, verticals and respective trends,
in conjunction with hundreds of data points
regarding their buyers, as well as every piece
of information that goes into marketing
and comes out the other side in the form of
not only dollars and cents, but impressions,
acquisitions, KPIs and more.
It’s no different in sales. Every decimal and
dollar sign contributes to a bigger picture, yet
the sheer quantity of data lends itself to error.
Marketers are increasingly thinking of technology as a core part of their strategy and implementation. We’re seeing more marketing organizations in B2B be strategic and make investments in technology where those dollars previously had gone towards traditional media and direct marketing channel expenditures. I think we're going to see more and more companies and more and more marketers become far more savvy about the technology they're using to accomplish the same goals they've always had.
Matt HeinzPresident, Heinz Marketing
In an interview with Integrate,
6 July 2012
"
Marketing automation has fostered communication between sales and marketing departments and most of the marketing automation vendors are actually recommending increased sales-marketing communication. They spend a lot of time talking about sales and marketing alignment because marketing automation is an opportunity for both departments. The technology already promises to make marketing more efficient and incorporating sales in the lead definitions process helps marketers generate the type of leads with the level of quality that their sales reps are looking to engage with. Marketing automation has brought those two sides to the table and they’re communicating a lot more than they have in the past, which streamlines both departments and helps them to generate more revenue overall.
Craig RosenbergSales and Marketing Consultant
In an interview with Integrate, 31 August 2012
"
Centrally tracking and managing marketing and sales data enables organizations to better
manage and support efficiency in both departments. Technology not only facilitates cross-
channel marketing efficacy, it allows companies to automate both marketing and sales
processes in one, central, aligned location.
10 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Conclusions
B2B marketers need to adapt. As the B2B space evolves, resolving the aforementioned
cross-channel barriers relies on tactical, multi-faceted process adaptation with regard to
current marketing strategies, as well as the systems used to deploy and monitor them.
Just as a faulty strategy will not work within a stellar automation system, a faulty
system cannot support a superb multi-channel marketing strategy. To properly
adapt, B2B marketers must:
• Understand the value of new marketing trends and venture into new channels
• Highlight the value of not only creative but reporting, tracking and analytics
• Make sense of and harness the cross-channel ripple effect
• Formulate multi-touch, audience-centric strategies
• Jump on the real-time optimization bandwagon
• Reduce the amount of human error leading to haphazardly run campaigns
• Diminish fulfillment fragmentation to simplify management requirements
Most importantly, effectively implementing cross-channel marketing strategies
requires B2B marketers to centralize their marketing efforts in order to improve
efficiency, scalability and consistency.
Decentralized processes result in a host of issues, which will continue to bar
marketers from cross-channel success if ignored.
11 Integrate, B2B Crosses Channels
Interview Contributors
We would like to thank our interviewees for
generously donating their time and expertise
to this project.
Matt Heinz President, Heinz Marketing
Craig Rosenberg Sales and Marketing Consultant
Zorian Rotenberg CMO, AppAssure Software
Eric Wittlake Sr. Director of Media, Babcock & Jenkins
Related Links• B2B Digital Marketing Blog
• Babcock & Jenkins
• Funnelholic Blog
• Heinz Marketing
• Matt Heinz Blog
Editoral & Production
Project Lead & Writer:
Hannah O'Regan — Senior Writer / Editor
Contributors:
David Crane — Managing Editor
Roland Nadeau — Writer / Editor
About Integrate
Integrate is an advertising technology and
services provider that offers a Centralized
Media-Management Platform (CMMP). We
empower media buyers to plan, launch,
analyze and optimize their marketing
strategies across a regulated ecosystem,
unifying performance, digital and traditional
media. Our solutions increase operational
efficiency, ad performance and brand security.
Integrate.com4900 N. Scottsdale Rd., Suite 4000Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Contact [email protected]