Bad thoughts that block B2B marketing success.

Blogs are mostly written from the experience of the individual blogger. This post is no exception — it came to mind when I heard a prospective client repeat one of the following statements, which I had already heard dozens of times. It occurred to me then that it might be time to share this list of bad thoughts so that other B2B marketers might see the possible error of their ways.

“Our target is IT. They won’t respond to direct mail marketing. They do everything online.”
Tell that to SAP, Citrix, VeriSign, Novell, Sage, Epicor, Cisco Systems, Adobe, PeopleSoft, Avaya, Proxima, McAfee, Corel, Broderbund, BEA, Symantec and hundreds of others. All of these companies have used — and continue to use — direct mail marketing to reach their target markets, including IT, because it cost-effectively generates leads and sales.

“I’m reaching everyone I need to reach with email.”
Frankly, that’s impossible. The very best B2B email lists available today are lists of subscribers to specific industry publications. These lists usually require their subscribers to fill out a profile form to get and renew their subscriptions. With lists like this these, marketers know that they are getting full opt-in. These lists also allow marketers to select titles and other profile details on their prospects. Comparing email lists to direct mail lists in the same category, however, consistently reveals that email lists average only 30% of the target universe available from direct mail lists. B2B marketing only using email is, therefore, missing two-thirds of available prospects. With the delivery loss from spam filters, the missing number is likely to be even larger.

“Social media is the only way to go today.”
Yikes! Social media has great value as an extension of any lead generation and nurturing effort. It is also a powerful support for positioning a company as a trusted thought leader. But no single channel can ever deliver all the elements necessary for an effective B2B marketing program.

“We tried that and it didn’t work.”
Regardless of what the “it” refers to, my response is, “Give me the details. Tell me the target, the Web site, the response device, the list, the sample size, the copy, the offer, the design, the tracking, and the measurement used.” Once I hear the answers, I’m likely to find not just one, but dozens of bad marketing practices used in the campaign.

Not every channel works or is a smart approach for every business. But trying an approach once, without following best practices, should never be a reason for a marketer to eliminate that channel from a strategic integrated B2B marketing campaign.

The best tool a B2B marketer can have when building a strategy and seeking success is this — an open mind.

Conduct B2B marketing research in 15 minutes or less.

Most good B2B marketers today know that effective marketing requires the insight of market research.

Research reveals much of the critical information needed to make productive marketing decisions. This information includes the answers to:

• Who is the buying decision-maker?
• Who influences the buying decision?
• What are the biggest pains experienced by the users, influencers and decision-makers that the product or service being sold can relieve?
• What other options are open to prospective buyers for solving this problem?
• Is the product and/or company known in the market?
• How is the company and/or product perceived by the market?
• What channels and resources are prospective buyers using to research and evaluate solutions?
• What are the objections to purchasing the product or service?
• How can these objections be overcome?

Products and services are usually created to fill existing gaps in business processes or operations. Thus, many of these questions must be answered before the product is even created. But once the B2B marketing has begun, fresh research is needed to determine which channels, messaging and content offers have the best chance of producing the desired marketing results.

In addition to traditional research methods (industry surveys, benchmark studies, analyst insight) there is one research method that can take as little as 15 minutes and yield immeasurable insight. That is to sit down and ask the above questions to one or more of the sales people in the organization.

Because sales people are in direct contact with prospects on a daily basis, the answers marketers need are safely tucked inside their heads. Having frequent 15-minute one-to-one conversations with individual sales people is a smart and easy way to help keep marketing messages, content offers and even channel choices on target.