B2B marketers must tell their CEOs to stop playing golf.

Today’s smart B2B marketers develop strategic, integrated marketing plans that make strong offers to targeted markets using the right channels, the right messaging and the right design. They track results, then adjust campaigns to grow and maximize those results.

These plans are carefully crafted and incorporate the latest in B2B marketing best practices. These marketers are proud of their diligent work and begin to execute the programs based on their plan.

Then their CEO goes golfing.

The very next day, that CEO walks into the marketer’s office requesting changes to the campaigns based on the great advice gotten from a peer on the golf course. Advice like:

• “When I run political campaigns, here’s what I do.”
• “How come you’re not doing this?”
• “You should do what this consultant told us to do.”

If there’s a B2B marketer out there who has never experienced this, my congratulations. For the rest of us, we must resort to the only approach we can use to educate the misguided CEO we dare not insult.

• Be ready to defend each strategy based on best practices supported by third-party sources.
• Show what market leaders in their industry are doing.
• Show what has been tested in the past that supports the current recommendations.
• Offer to test the CEO’s wacky ideas (in a small test panel to minimize the damage).
• Remind the CEO that all of the strategies are based on acceptable cost-per-lead and cost-per-sale numbers.
• Show the CEO the negative financial impact of using his or her ideas, if unsuccessful.

This problem is not confined to golfing buddies. Influential, but bad, advice can come from spouses, neighbors, college chums and a full assortment of people who have access to the CEO’s ear but know nothing about B2B marketing.

So be prepared to correct this bad advice at any time. After all, telling the CEO to stop golfing is a lot harder to do.

3 things B2B marketers can learn from retailers.

It has been said that for a retail business to be successful, it must focus on three things: location, location, and location. B2B marketers also have three important areas of focus to achieve success: target, target, and target.

Reaching the most qualified companies and titles is still the most important element in every outbound B2B marketing campaign. The best way to identify that target is to build a profile of best customers and apply that profile against the marketing lists (email or mail) selected for outbound campaigns.

Best customers are those who meet most of the following criteria:

1. Lifetime Value: Generated the greatest revenue.
2. Number of Products and Services Purchased: Purchased the most products and the most profitable products.
3. Loyalty: Remained customers the longest.
4. Service Effort: Do not require excessive levels of service or support.

Once the above customers are identified, the next step is to profile them by the following identifiable demographics, which can be applied to available mail and some email marketing lists:

• Industry
• Size by number of employees and/or annual sales
• Number of locations
• Title of decision-maker or main contact
• SIC (Standard Industrial Code) Current systems in place (if applicable to the product being sold)

If marketers do not have that kind of detail on their customers, firms such as Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) can append that data to the customer file for a fee.

Using a profile to define what markets, companies, titles and other criteria to pursue should result in attracting more qualified leads that might close faster and ultimately be more profitable customers. It’s an important step in building strategic B2B marketing plans.

One caveat, however: Marketers should remember that their profile of best customers could be a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” That is, the profile may show only those industries, titles, company sizes and other criteria that they have targeted in the past. It may or may not reflect the universe of opportunities.

If the marketing of a wheelchair lift has always been directed at schools, the profile will show a certain size or type of school as its best customer. In this case, marketing has no way of knowing if office building developers would not be a better “best customer,” since that market is not in the database from which the profile is built.

So, profiling a company’s best customers is a smart practice. But do it knowing that current best customers may or may not reflect the possible best customers.

The B2B marketing “wow” that counts is the one on the bottom line.

I admit I read Seth Godin’s blog regularly. It’s like visiting a lama high in the Himalayas for a bit of wisdom. He doesn’t share details on how to market better. He provides an insightful high-level view of our marketing environment, attitudes and trends that I find very refreshing.

In a recent post on the Internet’s having spawned “Drive by culture and the endless search for wow,” he presents the reality of today’s Internet users and discusses the “insanity of putting traffic above trying to change the way (a few) people think.”

Unlike Mr. Godin, my focus is not high level, but down in the daily trenches of finding ways for B2B marketers to improve the performance of their marketing efforts. So I interpret his great perception through my how-to eyes with a piece of advice that I learned early in my career. That is . . .

Target. Target. Target.

For B2B marketers using banners, search engine marketing (SEM) ads, email and even a Web site to generate leads, this means that the headlines and copy must focus 100% on the concerns, needs, and pains of the company’s most qualified prospects.

Sales people have limited time and can focus only on companies they are likely to sell. That would be prospects from companies in the right industry, with the right number of employees, who have decision-making or influencing power and the problem the marketer’s product or service can solve.

For B2B marketers to generate any other kind of click-thru is a waste of time and money.  That’s because the only B2B marketing “wow” that counts is the one on the bottom line.

If B2B marketers do nothing else, they should follow these 9 rules.

The Sales Lead Management Association recently invited its members to vote for the 50 Most Influential Sales Lead Management Professionals. Jim Obermayer, host and author on the Association’s blog, has been conducting a series of interviews, each featuring one of the “winners.”

As a member of the Association and subscriber to its blog, I have been reading and learning from each interview. Recent interviewee Joe Lethert of Perfomark gave two answers that were so on-target for B2B marketing best practices that I feel they are worth sharing.

In the area of lead generation, when asked, “Which 4 basic skills or process steps do you recommend,” he answered . . .

1. “Start with a great database – it will reduce your costs by as much as 50%. If you don’t have one, build it.
2. Shoot for depth in your profiles. People buy from us not for what they know about us, but for what we know about them.
3. Build a comprehensive nurturing program based on delivering only relevant data, at the right time in the buying process, in the prospects’ preferred media, and all based on the prospects’ profile data.
4. Measure everything. Testing and refining should grow your ROI by 10%+ per year even if you’re already an industry leader.”

In the area of lead nurturing, when asked, “If someone wants to nurture sales inquiries, what process would you recommend?” he answered . . .

1. “Become a trusted source of reliable data. Most buyers will not want to engage with sales until they have done their due diligence.
2. All content must be relative to the prospect’s needs, which should be specifically defined in your database.
3. All interaction should be appropriate to the stage in the buying cycle for that individual prospect.
4. Measure the effectiveness of timing, message, offer and media for each type of prospect.
5. Do not buy into the perfect process. Keep continually improving it.”

This isn’t new advice. I and other B2B marketing bloggers have shared this information many times in many forms. But his advice is so direct, so concise and so well-said that I would advise B2B marketers to print it out and use it as a daily reminder to focus on these processes, which have proven to make lead generation and nurturing efforts successful and profitable.

How B2B marketers can help overcome the “no budget” excuse

I just came across a great question posed by Elizabeth Zennadi of Direct Marketing Partners on LinkedIn‘s B2B Lead Generation Roundtable (which group members can access).

She asked, “How are you responding to the ‘budget excuse’?” The responses from other business development professionals come straight out of the real world where sales people live. They range from “Just kiss more frogs” to “No budget usually means ‘I do not see the value.’”

The answer by Keith Finger of Keith Finger Marketing is the one that prompted this post. His comment was, “I believe companies look to vendors to help them make money or save money. Given that, I discuss ROI up front so people understand there’s a benefit.”

Benefits, after all, are what B2B, or any, marketing is all about.

Now I ask — why wait until the lead is passed on to sales before establishing this benefit? Many B2B marketers may have been told, “Don’t talk about cost except in generic statements such as ‘great ROI’ or ‘competitive pricing’ or ‘affordable’ or even ‘low cost.’  But there is a way B2B content marketers can present the ROI story during the nurturing process and that could help move leads closer to being sales-ready.

It’s with an online, interactive ROI calculator. Not all business types can take advantage of this because of their pricing structures, but for those who can it’s a great tool. The online calculator lets the prospect fill in the parameters that fit his or her own company. These might be the number of users, staff involved in completing a task, number of projects or other costs. Once filled in, the calculator automatically reveals an ROI customized to the prospect’s business.

The more personalized a marketing message is, the more productive. By providing an ROI calculator that shows specific numbers to the prospect, marketers deliver much more than a passive message.

Prospects who have calculated their ROI won’t be as likely to use the “no budget” excuse once the lead is turned over to sales.

The best place to start all B2B marketing efforts.

There’s a very important place marketers have to be when conducting B2B marketing or selling B2B products or services. It’s not in the office. It’s not at a trade show. It’s not at a networking event, and it’s not even on the golf course. It’s inside a prospect’s mind.

Whenever I write marketing copy I imagine the prospective buyer and try to understand where he or she might be sitting when reading what I am writing. I envision the person on the job, interacting with others, agonizing over problems or barriers that my client’s product or service can solve. With this in mind, I can formulate copy that, I hope, will capture their attention and make them feel the message is personal to them.

It’s not enough to know which benefits and features will solve the challenges faced by prospective customers. B2B marketers must also know how and why human beings make buying decisions.

Amy Africa of Eight-by-Eight, in her recent QLOG “Do You Remember Your First Kiss?” begins a series addressing just that. Her focus is ecommerce Web sites, but her insight also has value for B2B marketers selling high-end, complex products or services.

Then last week a marketing organization of which I am a member gave a presentation covering this same point. It explained how the context of what you say about your product or service must fit with the way the human brain needs to receive the information.

It’s all about getting into the minds of your prospects by understanding not only what they need but also how their minds work. So here are 4 basic human-thinking practices I’ve learned over the years that marketers might want to keep in mind before communicating with prospects about their products or services:

1. Minds resist change and like the familiar – B2B marketing conversations should begin from where the prospect’s mind is now, not where you want it to be. A very obvious example is matching the case studies you provide to the prospect company’s industry and size. Another area in which this point works well is in formulating SEM ads. Those ads should speak to the solution the prospect is using now and not the solution you’re trying to sell them.
2. Minds need clear-cut distinctions — The best way to show the size of a very small product is to show a picture of the item next to something everyone knows and uses. Product competitive advantages should be instantly understood.
3. Minds need to be told what to do –”Click Here Now,” “Call Now,” “Start Your FREE Trial Now,” “Download Now” may seem boring and obvious. But B2B marketers cannot expect prospects to think or to guess. A clear, strong call-to-action in marketing materials always produces a higher response.
4. Minds selectively retain information — Following up a B2B lead-generation email, direct mail or other communication with a phone call is a strong interactive-marketing approach. But the call must be made in 5 days or less. After that, most of today’s overworked prospects will have no recollection of the previous communication.

Focusing your marketing approaches and sales pitches on how the human mind works and how it responds to new information is the key to gaining attention, being heard and closing sales. So before marketers start, they need to take a little trip inside their prospect’s minds.

Smart B2B marketing calls to action for 2010.

This morning, reviewing dozens of marketing blogs, I was overwhelmed with post after post about social media. I became worried that marketers were forgetting the channels that got us where we are today.

That’s why I was delighted to see Bill Gadless of B2B Web Strategy pass along advice from Jim Logan in “Try adding a call to action to the end of your white papers.”

Business buyers who are purchasing products and services do not want to be “sold” by high-pressure messages. That’s why social media is working. It’s also why today’s most consistently effective lead generation messaging identifies a challenge that prospects may be facing and offers a free white paper, checklist, guide, case study or other content that allows them to learn about ways to meet their challenge. But as soft as this approach may appear, once a lead is generated, every additional contact made should be followed by a new offer and a new call to action.

The suggestion in Bill’s blog is that the call to action could involve inviting leads to pass the content along to an associate or colleague, asking them to register for a newsletter or other subscription or inviting the reader to contact the business for a discussion.

These are all good suggestions. But to apply these calls to action randomly is not a good strategy. The fact is, there are specific stages in the buying cycle of a complex sale and the call to action or offer made should match the prospect’s place in the cycle.

As covered in Russell Kern’s guide “Direct Marketing’s Five Biggest Hurdles (And How to Get Over Them),” there are four stages in the buying cycle: Interest, Consideration, Evaluation, and Purchase.

As you can see, Mr. Kern’s examples — taken straight from his guide — involve matching the correct content offer to the prospect’s stage in the buying cycle. This approach is critical to enhancing the relationship with prospects and moving them forward to a purchase. Making mismatched call-to-action offers leads to email opt-outs.

There’s one thing that social media cannot do well and that is to “predictably” fill the sales pipeline and then — in a controlled manner — nurture leads until they are ready to be handed off to sales. Adding a call to action to every contact is a proven and effective marketing nurturing approach and businesses selling complex products can rarely succeed without it.

Is your marketing barking up all the right trees?

Each night at bedtime, I work on a crossword puzzle. I’m not great at it, but crossword puzzles are a good way for me to take a mental break from the day before sleeping. One of my biggest problems when solving puzzles is not thinking about all the possible answers that a clue could be about. A clue like “Barker’s common phrase” for a 3-letter answer made me try to think of what a circus barker might say or what a manager would call out to his crew or what order an officer might yell to his soldiers. Yet I was stumped. The answer, of course, was “arf” from the one “barker” I hadn’t thought of.

The other day, when conversing with a new client, I realized that marketing can be a bit like crossword puzzles. Here’s what the client, a provider of business training materials, shared with me:

The company was successfully marketing to trainers and HR titles in corporations.

Then, recently, an independent trainer discovered them and not only made a purchase but also recommended the product to her colleagues who also made purchases.

Now this company is marketing to both corporations and independent trainers and has, in essence, significantly increased the size of its prospect universe.

SEO, social media, and other Internet exposure revealed a previously undiscovered group of prospects the company can now pursue with outbound marketing. Companies can just wait for other prospect groups to find them or take some action to find their own undiscovered markets. Here are a few ideas for marketers:

• Bring in a marketing consultant who can look at your product with fresh eyes and without any of the blinders of old habits.
• Scour your customer base for the one or two rare examples of a company that does not fit your typical profile.
• Look for ways your product or service could be renamed or repositioned to appeal to an entirely different group of customers.
• Gather your team together and hold brainstorming sessions without limits.

Imagine your product is a crossword puzzle clue and see if you can find any new trees for barking up new business.

Want more qualified B2B leads? Say “show me the money.”

In the short post last week “Some people are better than others,” Seth Godin talked about the value of certain prospective customers over others. He makes a great argument, for instance, that book buyers are more likely to be good prospects for buying a Kindle, not because they read more but because the have “bought” books. What makes these prospects better is the commitment of money to a particular interest.

His example is a consumer one. But his point applies in B2B marketing just as well. Prospects willing to “pay money” or “invest time” to learn something are better than those who just opt in or register to gain free information. Here are three examples of prospects who show the money.

 Subscribers: Prospects who fall into this category are far easier to find as there a number of rental lists available based on buying behavior. A list of subscribers paying to receive an industry publication, for example, is far more valuable than names rented from a controlled circulation publication that is free to readers offline or online.

 Trade Shows: In good times, companies freely pay to send employees to trade shows for learning. In this slowed economy, not as many businesses are participating in or attending industry trade shows because of the cost. Those who do send attendees are seriously in the market for solutions.

 Live Seminars: B2B marketers have long known that offering targeted content generates qualified leads of individuals who have an interest in a subject related to their product or service. Offering a live seminar, however, requires an investment of time on the part of the attendee. Time is money after all. This approach will significantly reduce response over an online Webinar, but those attending should be far more qualified.

 Prospects who are actively researching and evaluating something are closer to making a buying decision. Attracting this type of lead should not be a substitute for filling the pipeline, but businesses that want qualified leads who could close faster, should look for the money.

Content by any other name would smell as sweet.

A new LinkedIn group I joined, “DemandGen Specialists,” featured an article by Jon Miller that appeared on Marketo talking about the value of using content to position a company as a thought leader. “Why Thought Leadership Is Your Most Valuable Asset” covers how providing content is the key to achieving thought leadership and provides excellent tips for how to make sure content delivers real value. Then a BtoB online post by Christopher Hosford reports that, when providing collateral, “White papers remain most influential for tech buyers.”

The conclusion from both of these posts is that getting the edge in B2B marketing today is all about content.

As a direct response marketer, I’m pleased to see that the rest of the world has finally discovered what the direct response marketing community has known for about 100 years. That is that giving someone something of value to their business in exchange for making contact with you is the most effective way to generate qualified leads – or, as it is now called, “generate demand.”

In direct response, what is now called “content” was once called an “offer.” Although the percentages will differ, depending on who is presenting them, here are the influencers that determine the potential success of any direct marketing program — and as you can see the quality of the offer is right up there:

The accuracy of reaching the target market can affect response by 200%.
The success of a direct marketing program can increase by as much as 200% by accurately targeting the email or mailing list chosen, the Web site on which the banner appears, the ad words used in SEM, the trade show attended, the print advertising placed and much more.

 The strength of the offer (content) can affect response by 100%.
The offer, or the content, is the second most important element in successful lead generation, whether it is a free white paper, Webinar, checklist, case study, demo or all the other options that are so nicely outlined by Michele Linn of Savvy B2B Marketing in “Need Content? 20 Formats to Consider.”

The quality of the messaging can affect response by 50%.
My specialty is writing content offers and the messaging (regardless of channel) used to get prospects to request the content. However, I am constantly humbled to know that unless the market is well targeted and the offer has value, the marketing messaging will not have the impact it could have.

 The design of the marketing communication can affect response by 50%.
Just like the marketing copy, effective, eye-catching design has no impact unless the channel targets the right market and the offer has value to that market.

So whether you call it content, or an offer or collateral material, after 100 years, it’s still the sweetest tool for successful demand generation marketing.