Posted by John Neeson on Thu, Nov 19, 2009 @ 12:47 PM
The theme for our 2010 Summit is “Measure – Align – Transform.” A fitting tone for what lies ahead in 2010. While marketing and sales in b-to-b experienced a rocky road in 2009 with longer sales cycles, reduced budgets and a fickle customer base, the two functions also relied on each other more than they have in the past. Pipeline acceleration programs doubled indicated sales reliance on marketing for downstream, as well as upstream, programs. In addition, solution marketing increased with companies segmenting further and changing their messaging and approach to be more precise and relevant to their core markets. Finally, for the eighth straight year field marketing budgets increased. Yes, marketing and sales budgets changed often with big decreases, but these changes indicate the need for the relationship for marketing and sales to continue to change and evolve into a more and more strategic partnership, and not organizations competing for budget.
Summit 2010 research is currently underway and it’s an outcome we are eager to see. As we experienced in 2001 when marketing and sale investment changed, it did not go back to where it began, nor do we expect this to occur in 2010 or beyond. Instead, marketing will become more leveraged and more measurement based, and sales will transform its channels and revenue for the future, with more coming from inside and indirect while partnering more with marketing to increase sales readiness.
We believe that b-to-b sales and marketing is at an inflection point of change and look forward to do our best to draw what the outcome might look like at the upcoming Summit.
Posted by Jonathan Block on Thu, Nov 05, 2009 @ 12:57 PM
When considering the level of social media participation your organization should have, the first question to answer is the extent to which your customers participate. It’s no longer a given that even in highly regulated industries social media is not used. Do your customers read blogs, download podcasts, use Twitter (or similar sites), and participate in other online communities? You may already know the answers to these questions based on direct feedback from customers or sales reps, or you may have to ask. It’s also important to learn the extent to which your competitors are using social media, as well as its prevalence within potential markets you may target in the future; if there’s little activity you have the opportunity to establish a thought leadership role.
Even organizations that aren’t participating widely in social media should recognize the value of monitoring the social channel from a customer engagement and support perspective. Most important, you want to respond as soon as possible any technical or support issues customers discuss in the social universe. In addition, monitoring tools are effective at managing employee social media participation to ensure sensitive data or inappropriate information isn’t shared (however inadvertent or innocuous). While free Web tools (such as Google Analytics) can give you some insight into the social channel, you should determine the extent to which your communications agency or existing media monitoring tools can capture social media activity. If neither of these can give you the depth you need, there’s a wide range of social media monitoring tools available, including Radian6, Visible Technologies, Alterian SM2 (formerly Techrigy) and Scout Labs, to name a few. And when most providers in the field offer a free trial so you can decide which solution is best for your company, it’s a good time to be a potential customer of social media monitoring tools.
Posted by Jonathan Block on Thu, Nov 05, 2009 @ 12:56 PM
The communications organization should monitor itself to ensure its activities align with other marketing efforts. Key to maintaining this alignment is conducting a periodic reputation audit, at least on an annual basis. A reputation audit can tell us how effective we are in driving engagement and achieving results with our external audience (such as customers, prospects, analysts, media and other stakeholders) as well as with our employees and partners. It is an evaluation of where the organization is currently regarding its communications efforts and a diagnosis of where the organization needs to focus additional time and resources. At the end of the audit, we should know what’s working, what’s not, and what might work better if optimized.
The first step in a reputation audit is to define the activities you must analyze. Think of these from the perspective of higher-level functional categories within your communications organizations, such as advertising/branding, PR, AR, corporate communications (including your Website), community management/social media strategy, creative, internal communications, and public affairs. From these categories, determine the activities that are typically performed; then, you can rate your current level of effectiveness for each function based on the results they deliver. For every functional activity you should be able to identify the target audience, what you are trying to accomplish, and if these goals are being reached. Using the ratings you’ve identified for each functional activity you can begin to identify the areas that need improvement (based on their lack of alignment) and begin to develop a strategy for improving these goals.