Marketing Interactions

B2B Websites NOT Great At Demand Gen

A new study on an often overlooked subject is fresh off the presses: Demandbase and Focus.com 2011 National Website Demand Generation Study.

The B2B company website is growing in importance as buyers spend more time researching and selecting the information they use during a complex buying process.

Demandbase CEO, Chirs Golec, sums up the situation nicely in the press release:

“Social media may be heralded as the silver bullet to bring B2B marketing up to snuff but, despite its increasing influence, it’s important to keep in mind that no business sale is made without the buyer going to the corporate website first.

“Regardless of its origin--social media or e-mail, banners or search—traffic driven from online marketing initiatives always intersects at the website. And, while businesses are investing heavily in their sites, the study shows that they are then ignoring the very audience they worked so hard to attract.”

To get the inside scoop for you, I tracked down Craig Rosenberg, Leader of the Focus Expert Network and Funnelholic extraordinare to get his reaction to the survey results.

Ardath: What prompted the choice of the topic of website demand generation as the focus of the survey?

Craig: First a disclosure for transparency:  Demandbase was involved in the survey and their solutions help marketers identify and convert website visitors into leads.

There is an inbound marketing/content marketing movement going on in b2b yet we talk very little about the website.  Isn’t that interesting? 

We talk about content (you know this), we talk about nurturing them to come back, but we may not talk enough about what the results should be from those efforts and how they should be optimized.

If you look at the data from the survey, you will see that marketers believe their website is the leading source of leads and that 80% of marketers believe they are NOT maximizing their efforts there. 

As I like to say:  “you got them into the store (aka website), now what?”  The next step for marketers who are doing the right things with inbound marketing, lead nurturing, and such as optimize conversion when they get them to the website.

Ardath: What did you learn from the survey that most surprised you – and why?

Craig: I don’t know about surprises but I am certainly drawn to a couple important points:

• Registration Form Length – I love that we asked that, and I am shocked that in this day and age: 27% have 8 or more fields.
  
  You spent all this time, effort, and money getting them to come to you, why lose them by asking a question you don’t need? 
  
  Jon Miller from Marketo is cited in the survey as having studied the effects on the number of fields in a registration form.  Marketo generates 1000’s of leads a month from their website and guess what: they don’t even ask for phone number on the registration form. 

 

• 61% of marketing organizations say they know their buyers well or very well – This data is good news if we believe them.  Knowing your buyer is the first step to all your efforts in sales, marketing, and frankly, the entire organization. 
  
  So, the majority of people in the survey say they understand their buyer but they have a lot more work to do to understand whether they are attracting them and ultimately converting them.  An encouraging start, but obviously the “rubber meets the road” with conversion.

Ardath: If this is the most obvious conclusion drawn from the survey:

"BtoB corporate websites are the leading demand generation engine for new sales leads, but BtoB companies are struggling to optimize site performance and analyze insights around customer behavior once they arrive. And while companies have invested heavily in the corporate website, they are doing little to optimize the web experience for those very audiences they have worked so hard to attract."

What 3 tips would you give marketers to correct this situation?

Craig:

1. Site performance is about technology and we live in the “Revenge of the Nerds” era.  If websites are your publishing platform than truly act like a publisher and understand who is reading your website and where and allow yourself to make the moves that matter. 


2. Dedicate someone to care about this situation – a lot of b2b marketing organizations hire a design firm to do the website and leave it from there.  If it is the best source of your leads, why would you do that?  There are some very important factors that someone needs to own: Content (creation, delivery, and optimization) and conversion (quality AND quantity).


3. Ask the buyers – b2c organizations poll their visitor base ALL the time, why can’t b2b?

Ardath: In your opinion, what is the biggest reason that B2B websites fail to generate demand?

Craig: There are two reasons. 

The first is the propensity for creating brochureware.   Many websites are still boring, corporate, sterile, etc.  In today’s world, content needs to be arresting and provide buyers with something they actually want to read.  As well, design and usability is very important to the user experience. 

The second is conversion, plain and simple.  You have to decide what you want your website visitors to do on a particular page, etc.  If it is to register for something, then optimize the experience for the registration.   Most websites are not the great at that.

Ardath: Why is the corporate website such a political hot potato?

Craig: There are powerful people in every organization who have opinions about the website who have no idea what modern marketing is about.  An optimized website typically comes from an organization where the marketing department is given autonomy to build what the buyers want, not what the CFO or even Product Development wants. 

Otherwise, everything I just answered becomes moot…you will have a boring, middle-of-the-road brochure focused website and you will not be optimized for lead generation.

***

Thanks, Craig! Go get your copy of the report and shape up your website!

Prime Your B2B Marketing Mind

 

Have I told you that I'm a maniac for B2B marketing eduction? Well, I am. Know why? Because the B2B landscape is constantly shifting. Things change so fast that it's a real challenge to keep ahead of the curve. However, the Real World Marketing Syllabus, presented by Brian Kardon of Eloqua is here to help all of us.

The Real World Syllabus is the best example of a self-directed learning course for marketers that I've seen. I like where it's pointing us to look and I want you to recognize that it's a great example of a content curation piece, as well.

Brian Kardon shares what Eloqua has dubbed The New 4Ps of Marketing, but as I reviewed the syllabus — and because I'm kind of cheeky — I decided that each weekly lesson deserved a "P" of its own:

1. Personal - You know I'm all over this one. This first course is designed to get you thinking about branding and how it's changed in the corporate world due to social media and Web 2.0. It covers branding, how to stay nimble to be disruptive, how personal and corporate brands overlap and social networking etiquette.


2. Publishing - You know this is a major skill all marketers need to hone for advantage. From what content marketing is, to how to use content effectively, there are some great resources included.


3. Progression - Branding and publishing must be done purposefully to build momentum to the buyer experience. This lesson covers demand generation, lead management and lead nurturing. I don't know a B2B marketer out there that can't benefit from improving on all three. What works continues to evolve along with our buyers. Continuous learning is a necessity in this area. 


4. Packaging - I really like the take on this one. With so much data out there and such a huge appetite for information from our prospects and customers, the latest challenge is how to "package" it well so that it delivers value. Some great resources are included here for you to get your head on straight about data visualization.


5. Positioning - This lesson is for marketers at startup companies, but I think even marketers at larger companies will glean some useful insights about staying nimble.


6. Propagation - The role of search in a real-time sales cycle. Gain an understanding of this competency that's becoming more critical everyday if you want your company to be seen, be found and be successful.


7. Preparation - As marketing plays a bigger role across the organization, marketers must be prepared to address challenges and needs in product management, customer support, and more. "As Jay Baer says, 'everything becomes marketing's problem now.'" And these resources will help you grow successfully into the new role of the marketer.


8. Physics - The new math of marketing. This lesson provides tools and resources to help you embrace data-driven marketing. It's incumbent upon marketers to move beyond the art of the right brain and embrace the science of the left, if they want to help their companies gain sustainable advantages.

And, in case the resources that Eloqua has curated here for your continuing education aren't enough, they've also included original articles from Geeta Sachdev, Todd Defren, and Brian Clark. That's what elevates this piece to a great example of content curation. They've gathered resources into context around 8 distinct topic areas, included some of their own resources and added original content that you can't get elsewhere.

But wait - there's one more thing - each of the experts they cultivated as professors is included on this Twitter list so that you can follow them to create your own continuous education program for marketing excellence.

I'm also thrilled that they chose a couple of my resources in the syllabus!

Go get your copy of the Real World Marketing Syllabus to prime your B2B marketing mind.

From B2B Marketing Silo to Buyer Experience

In reviewing an article in BtoB Magazine, Tech Marketing Budgets Lower Than Expected, I came across this statistic that made me stop and think: "This year, 52% of all marketing program spending will be focused on awareness-building activities, while 48% will be focused on demand generation, according to IDC."

The first thing I thought was, Shouldn't all marketing be demand focused?

Awareness is necessary for demand generation, of course, but I'm failing to see the value in creating a distinction between the two. In my opinion, the term awareness is misused to mean company-focused advertising. With this mindset, I believe companies take steps away from more effective customer-centric approaches. This is when that "award winning, leading provider of..." garbage starts creeping back in.

As yourself what you want to accomplish with an awareness campaign?

If you only get as far as thinking instant recognition of your logo, company name and tagline as the end goals, you're missing the boat. Awareness campaigns must go beyond that. Way beyond.

Awareness programs should:

• Help prospects and customers understand the value your company provides. It's hard to do this with slick campaigns that make assertions without proof. Especially when dealing with a complex sale. Lofty slogans and promises just don't cut the mustard without the meat to back them up.


• Showcase your company's expertise. Buyers want partners that bring added value to the project, not just solutions. Awareness becomes much more when your company strives to become the "anchor" resource for needed expertise and guidance beyond the product offerings you sell.


• Promote conversations within companies and amongst peers and colleagues. This means shareable ideas that spread, giving your company a presence in the conversation even if you're not physically present.

The result of all of this? Awareness that generates demand. One must lead to the other. In fact, you won't generate demand without awareness, but you can create awareness without it resulting in demand. And who needs that? Buyers don't care about your logo and tagline, they care about what's in it for them.

Here's the thing: If we're marketing in a way that does the three things above, there is no separation between Awareness and Demand. They are essentially one and the same. And, in my opinion, they should be.

This is not to say that advertising can't or shouldn't be used, but rather that it needs to do more, and do it differently, than ads were positioned to do in the past. We need to think about advertising intelligently from a content marketing perspective.

Making awareness a goal is similar to saying that driving web traffic is a goal. Both are necessary, but they aren't the end game. Those are silos that keep marketers from designing fluid, integrated and interactive programs that create a productive buyer experience. In order to accomplish this, we need to focus on the entire process of how all the parts work together, not one silo at a time.

Balancing the Demand Equation

Over the weekend I had the privilege to read Adam Needles' new book, Balancing the Demand Equation. I highly reccommend that you go get your own copy.

Adam begins the book with a wake-up call:

"Modern B2B demand generation is failing. Seriously."

And in many ways he's right. Everything has changed, but marketers haven't kept up. Even if we buy marketing automation, which he recommends (as do I), the technology won't help if marketers don't develop the skills to create the processes, content and programs that Buyer 2.0 needs to make buying decisions today.

Yes, many marketers know this. What isn't as crystal clear is how we got into this mess and, better yet, how we get out of it with grace. As Ann Handley sums it up, "Dear B2B Marketer: Your world is changing, and here's the field guide that shows you precisely how to adapt."

Balancing the Demand Equation does a terrific job of cutting through the noise to present a view of how buyers have changed. He calls this Buyer 2.0 and does a great job of explaining just why and how the power has shifted from sellers to buyers.

In making the case for buying-process fundamentals as a constant that marketers must embrace, he writes:

"We've seen substantial transformation in the 'how, when and where' B2B buyers are getting their buying-cycle questions answered — particularly an increasing shift to online content. But Buyer 2.0 is still asking largely the same questions that have been asked for decades, and moving through the same buying stages."

Then he builds on those changes to present a framework for marketing that you can use to support your efforts to build the kind of relationships with buyers that helps them to become customers — and keep up the pace required over the longer term of a complex buying process.

Adam also makes a great connection between lead management and content marketing:

"Whereas content marketing helps us engage with and drive content-based 'dialogue' with B2B buyers — adding value to their buying process — the dialogue needs to be two-way. At the same time...we also need to have a sense of how we're doing and whether we're moving the needle — listening to them. Lead management is our mechanism for listening to and acting on the buyer's potential and intent."

The simplicity of his approach is admirable.

Problem:

• We're not really connecting with buyers, or supporting their buying process, in a value-added fashion.
• We're not really building a foundation for continuous and long-term relationship with buyers.

The Solution he presents as a "dual attack:"

• Focus on the buyer
• Adopting an operations mindset

In fact, the book is presented in two parts - what the problem is and how it came to be followed by the framework you can put into play to resolve the problem for the best possible outcome.

I agree whole heartedly! Adam has done a great job in making this book useful. It's both strategic enough to help you think through the issues and tactical enough to help you actually do sometihing meaningful to address them.

Go Get Your Copy of Balancing the Demand Equation Today!

UPDATE: If you can't get your copy through Amazon, BN.com also has copies.

Show Quantity the Door

I speak to a lot of B2B content marketers. It can be exhausting. Not speaking to them, of course, but hearing them talk about all the stuff on their plates. The list of To Dos is overwhelming. I'm truly worried that in trying to adopt the new mandates for continuous content development and distribution that we're going to start seeing major burnout.

The inspiration for this post goes to Eric Wittlake (@wittlake) who wrote a post about how social media is lowering our content standards. His premise is the more we feel the need to share content, the less interested we are in reading it. But additionally, that the pressure to churn it out is resulting in mediocre content development. Amen and Kudos to Eric for focusing the spotlight.

It's been a project to try and substantiate and shift the perspective of value in regards to lead generation from quantity to quality. Please don't tell me that the "quantity" mindset is now invading content marketing.

Here's why I'm concerned. I see marketers with To Do lists that look like this:

• 2 - 3 blog posts weekly
• 1 nurture asset for each campaign every 3 weeks - B2B companies average 3 concurrent campaigns.
• 1 white paper per month
• 1 case study per quarter
• Tweet 5 times per day minimum (only 1 about our stuff)
• Produce at least 1 webinar per quarter
• Record and post 1 - 3 videos per month
• And more.

Often that's the plan. There's no strategy, except for quantity. The justification is SEO, getting found, staying top of mind, staying current. No wonder executives are asking, where's the frickin ROI? Sure it's great to achieve that list of things, but there needs to be more to it than that.

The point is really not how much content is produced, but how compelling a story it tells that help your prospects and customers find the answers to the problems they're trying to solve.  If that means doing so with less, but better content, then that's what marketers should do. That's what turns prospects into customers - not how many of your content assets they read.

Quite frankly, if the content produced and distributed is medicre, it's a reflection of the impression your company will make. If the impression is bad, then you've just wasted all that effort to generate followers, opt-in subscribers and web traffic because it won't work. It's not about the amount of stuff, it's the substance.

Once again, let's please show quantity for quantity's sake the door. The focus must remain firmly fixed on quality.