Marketing Interactions

Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics Power Strategy

Yesterday afternoon I caught up with Jon Miller and Maria Pergolino to get an inside view of their new Revenue Cycle Analytics (RCA) as well as what's coming up. I have to say that I'm really impressed. RCA provides some serious strategic visibility enabling B2B marketers to prove the value their marketing programs drive for their organizations.

One of the often heard arguments for short-term focus vs. long-term focus of marketing programs is the nature of corporate budgets and achievement reviews. Quarterly is the construct that dictates the focus of most organizations.

However, as our buyers change and take control over how they buy, B2B marketers dealing with longer buying cycles face a quandry. Since they have to report results at the end of the quarter, they believe they must align their campaigns in line with this 3-month parameter so they can debrief and cull the results to prove value driven during the period.

Well, thankfully, that's no longer true. Paraphrasing Jon Miller about using Marketo's RCA for his own company's marketing programs, "I went from being the arts and crafts guy to the revenue guy with my executive team."

As more B2B marketers have implemented marketing automation systems, what's become clear is that the technology must be used to enable the execution of a strategic process. Without that foundation, an organization will only have a glorified email system, at best.

But, even with a defined pipeline funnel, content mapped to buying stages based on personas and marketing automation, it's still been a challenge to understand what's happening across the entirety of the buying process during each stage. Additional challenges include discovering points of stall and more accurate pipeline forecasting.

With Marketo RCA, now you'll know.

You see, the thing about buyers is that they're dynamic. They ebb and flow throughout the process you've defined. In other words, their buying process may be different than your sales process. Instead of looking at statistics as static numbers, we need a more holistic way to measure movement across the entirety of the process.

Revenue Cycle Modeler: (click to enlarge)

This tool enables marketers to create a diagram view of their revenue cycle (funnel) within the Marketo platform. It's flexible enough so that marketers can label each step with their own terms. The arrows indicate triggers for movement that are individually rules driven. But, what I really like is the ability to diagram all the side trips a prospect might take during the process. There's also an inventory view that enables you to see which prospects are in which stage of the cycle.

One of the things I really like is that the model can also reflect SLAs between marketing and sales. For example, in Marketo's model, once a prospect becomes a lead, sales has 7 days to move it forward or the lead will return to nurturing. This is one way that marketers can ensure that prospects don't leak or become dormant within the process.

Revenue Cycle Explorer is what I call stage-by-stage metrics and is one of the coolest tools I've seen for strategically managing nurturing programs and prospect momentum across the entirety of the buying process.

You'll want to click to enlarge this one and take a look at the buttons on the left more closely. These metrics can not only show you how your leads are moving, but how each stage of your cycle (or bucket) is filling and emptying.

Marketers can now gain clarity about buying stage transitions, how their lead generation and nurturing programs are impacting the pipeline along with a graph of what that looks like over time. This statistics on the left side include:

• Balance - how many leads in each stage/bucket
• In Flow - how many added this month
• Out Flow - how many moved forward, back or out
• Conversion - percentage of transition
• Time - average days spend in stage/bucket

Marketers can also use these metrics to show the impact of their programs based on timing and goals. The best part is that you've now got the tools to better forecast how many net new prospects need to be generated and where momentum needs to be refined to ensure that the stages are delivering the appropriate flow to your sales force. Not to mention identify areas for refinement. Instead of making an educated guess, now you'll know just where to apply your efforts to improve marketing programs during execution instead of having to wait until after the fact to identify areas for improvement.

Ad Hoc Reports give marketers the ability to create custom reports by dragging and dropping fields onto the canvas for real-time reporting.

With this tool, you'll be able to slice and dice your data to gain insights that match up to whatever your executive team needs to know. You'll be able to prove the revenue results tied to specific sources and programs as well as improve your budgeting allocation based on truth, not assumption.

Revenue Planning and Forecasting (Coming Soon, Can't Wait!)

Because marketers execute programs at different times, the results are all evaluated equally if, for example, your reporting must represent achievements earned within the quarter. Where one program may look better than another, this can be deceiving based on when the program was executed and the length of time for your revenue cycle. It's quite possible that, given more time, the program that looks less successful could possibly be the more successful revenue generator.

Because the Marketo system continually analyzes all the information collected by your revenue model, it can intelligently forecast or project results for programs over time.

One of the things that marketing technology has created is tons of data that marketers never had access to before. Most marketers are not trained data analysts. What I really like about Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics is that you don't have to be. They've culled the data that can be used most effectively to inform your marketing strategy as a real-time visibility component from your execution platform.

Learn more about Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics

Watch this 20 minute video demo on RCA

Download the RCA Whitepaper (brief registration required)

The folks at Marketo spent some time really thinking through what marketers need to manage revenue performance. The interactive tools they've developed to enable marketers to build the accountability and respect that shifts executive perspective from viewing marketing as a cost center to seeing it as a valuable revenue driver are impressive.

Their customers must agree as retention hovers in the mid 90% range.

B2B Lead Definitions vs. Personas - There is a Difference

Much of the conversation about marketing and sales alignment is based on the mandate that both sides must agree to what constitutes an ideal lead. I agree that this is a necessary step to enable marketing to develop high-quality leads that sales will accept and pursue, but it's only a starting point for marketers.

A B2B lead definition assigns key factors that must exist in order for it to qualify for transition to sales. But, a lead definition on its own is not enough of a foundation for marketing to build a marketing strategy around that's designed to produce that result.

For that, B2B marketers need to develop buyer personas.

Take a look at the difference between the two:

A B2B lead definition generally consists of specific demographics plus some—or all—of the BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) attributes.

An example could be summarized like this:

• Title: IT Director
• Company Size: Revenues of more than $100M or more than 1,000 employees
• Industry: High Tech, Manufacturing, Healthcare with more than one location
• Budget: exists and approved
• Authority: must be the decision maker
• Need: Data Center Expansion, Data Center Relocation, Data Center Virtualization
• Timeline: within one year

Given the information above, how would you design a marketing program to attract, engage and qualify leads? Well, the short answer is that you'd have to learn a lot more.

Enter buyer personas.

"A persona takes a segment of your company's aggregate customer profile and fleshes it out with detailed information that represents real prospects in specific circumstances." [eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale]

In addition to the lead definition, a persona may include:

• Status Quo: What situation is your prospect facing right now that your offerings address? How did it originate and what obstacles is it putting in the way of business success?
• Strategic Business and Career Goals: What role does your prospect play in the achievement of business objectives? What are they responsible for? What do they want to achieve from a professional (career) perspective? 
• Preferences and Aversions: Do they favor taking advantage of an opportunity or mitigating a risk? What motivates and influences them?
• Competitive Considerations: Will your solution put them abreast of their competitors or help them pull ahead? What are the upcoming industry trends that could impact objectives if they do/don't solve the issue?
• Influencers and Stakeholders: Who will they listen to? Who do they have to convince? How will you be able to impact this dialogue with both internal and external influencers?

Personas can get much more involved, but hopefully you see the difference between a lead definition and a persona. A persona can help you define the story you need to tell this market segment over time. A lead definition is a check list for sales acceptance.

This is not an either/or situation. You need both. The beauty of it is that they both provide information marketers need to do their jobs better.

Once you have a persona to use to develop your content marketing storyline, take a look at the lead definition and try to determine the content you develop can help you complete the checklist for a qualified lead. For example, if you create 2 content assets, one detailing one situation and the other discussing an alternative situation, which one they read may determine their primary interest.  You might also want to consider that a persona can also help to guide inside sales calls that you use to verify the qualification status of leads. 

Both of these tools can help to make your marketing programs pay off. Why wouldn't you use them?

 

Sending an Email Is NOT Nurturing

I just saw a Tweet come through the stream from the Marketing Sherpa B2B Summit that reads: So if sending an email isn't nurturing what is? #b2bsummit

Lead nurturing is about providing the right content at the right time that addresses a problem that a prospect is focused on (or at least considering)  solving. Lead nurturing is based upon content that educates the prospect about the problem, provides expertise about how to solve it and then proves via evidence that the expertise pays off with results the prospect wants/needs. Lead nurturing is done best when it addresses each stage of the buying process in parallel with your prospect's position in the buying process.

Lead nurturing can be done via email, but it's not about the delivery system of email, it's about the perceived relevance of the content delivered via the email.

Where the concept of nurturing can be sneaky is when we confuse delivery systems with the intention of the nurturing process itself.

Social media like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook can be a delivery system for nurturing content.

Blogs are a great delivery vehicle for nurturing content. Not to mention delivery of that content via RSS feeds and as email alerts to subscribers to the blog.

Webinars can be a delivery system for nurturing content. As can virtual events.

Conferences can be a delivery system for nurturing content (Such as #b2bsummit)

Website visits can deliver nurturing content. As can videos, podcasts, Slideshare, etc.

Google alerts with corresponding keywords can serve as delivery vehicles for publicly available nurturing content.

Do not confuse the delivery vehicle for nurturing. It's about what's getting delivered and how well it addresses the audience's needs, priorities and objectives over time.

The other confusion about nurturing stems from the ridiculous notion that by sending regular emails - regardless of content - your company will stay top of mind for whenever the time arises for prospects to buy. Hogwash.

If your content hasn't provided value, you've demonstrated a total lack of relevance and expertise that's a prerequisite to make the short list. Nurturing is about much more than just showing up in your prospect's inbox.

Lead nurturing is not about email. It's about the consistent delivery of content that builds relationships with prospects based on their perception of relevance and value.

A prospect does not need to reside in your database to be nurtured. They just need to engage with your content purposefully. If they continuously come into contact with your content and find it valuable, share it with others on the buying committee or act upon it to contact your company for a conversation, you've nurtured them well - regardless of where it happened or how the content was delivered.

What Does Your Funnel Look Like?

Yesterday, I wrote about static value. Today, I'm writing about the need to revisit your idea of the pipeline funnel to see if it might have changed without you noticing.

Focus.com - thanks to Craig Rosenberg and Sarah Miller - invited 14 Focus Experts to share their picture and definition of the B2B sales and marketing pipeline funnel. I was very happy to be included in the fun! Download your copy here.

My funnel is more of a horizontal cylinder focused on the buyer perspective. Instead of a contraction in the middle, mine bulges as multiple influencers on the buying committee converge to reach consensus. [See page 4] See my interview with @funnelholic

Michael Brenner, from SAP, had a more elegant take with his funnel shaped like a champagne flute.

Mike Damphousse, from Greenleads, gave his funnel loft by putting it in the cloud of chaos. 

Christopher Doran, from Manticore Technology, depicts his living funnel that evolves in parallel with changing business conditions. (no static here!)

Barbra Gago, from Cloud9 Analytics, shows a funnel that showcases community at one end and evangelism on the other. Hers was one of several that extended beyond customer acquisition - which is a huge point that I somehow forgot to address.

Steve Gershik, from 28Marketing, takes a look down into the funnel to see the swirls of activity that move leads from the outside edge to become customers and advocates at the center of the funnel.

Sue Hay, from BeWhys Marketing, draws her funnel to combine stages with execution tactics to bring it alive.

Matt Heinz, from Heinz Marketing, expands both ends of his funnel to widen opportunities across the lifetime of the relationship.

Carlos Hidalgo, from The Annuitas Group, shows us a stairway model that provides percentages of conversion at each step - emphasizing the importance of activity taken at all stages to maximize outcomes.

Jon Miller, from Marketo, showcases his funnel as the Revenue Cycle with a focus on not  letting a lead idle at any stage, engaging in two-way dialogue and recycling at signs of a stall.

Adam Needles, from Left Brain Marketing, designed his funnel to allow Buyer 2.0 to create their own pathway to purchase.

Tom Searce, from Searce Market Development, chose to show that leads start at the bottom and then rise to the top.

Matt West, from Genius, shares a funnel showcasing the 4 Rs - Reach, Response, Relationships and Revenues.

Steve Woods, from Eloqua, created a funnel to analyze marketing's impact on revenues.

Bet you can't wait to see all the funnels! Get Your Very Own Copy and see if there are any ideas that shake up how you think about your own picture of the funnel.

Are You Marketing Static Value?

B2B companies create products, define their value to the marketplace and then go out and market that value to customers. Often the value they are marketing is never adjusted for changes to buyer perspective. At the rate of change in our markets, this can often result in content marketing programs pushing static value that's no longer as relevant as it could be.

Value isn't static.

It changes along with how buyers view their problems, pains and priorities. Yesterday's percevied need for more efficient business processes may well be today's need for improved productivity by integrating collaboration tools into business processes.

Value isn't one-size-fits-all.

Depending upon a person's role within the company, what they value is likely very different from what their boss or staff values. For example, an end user wants tools that make their job easier where their boss wants the result from the end of the process. Both may be involved in the buying process. Would you offer up the same value to both people?

Value isn't jargon.

For some reason, marketers often think that adding adjectives to an offering increases its value. Um, no. Nuff said about robust, cutting-edge and innovative.

Value isn't about You.

Your customers don't perceive an uptick in value when you talk about your company, how wonderful you are, the awards you've won or that you just landed another 50 customers. Although some of those will go a long ways toward increasing your credibility, value is the outcome they get from working with you that helps them solve the problems that inhibit business success.

So, what should you do? Consider creating prospect-based value bundles. By really continuously defining which values match specific segments, industries or personas, your marketing content and interactions will become more relevant, hence more engaging.

For each application, identify the specific values that align with those prospects. Revisit your definitions from time to time to update them as market situations evolve. Go back and update your content accordingly.

It helps if you create scenarios and then step into them as if you were your customer.How does the value you're marketing to them match the situation?

It helps if you talk to sales people about what they're seeing and hearing on the street.

It helps if you keep abreast of your customers and how their perspectives are changing.

If you talked to a lost customer, would you discover that they left because their needs weren't met or because they didn't know you could meet them because the value they know you offer has remained static over their lifetime as your customer?

After all, if value was static we wouldn't need to add new features, feeds or speeds to our products. We'd be done.

Are you done? Nope. Not ever.

 

Solicit Sales Feedback Marketers Can Use

Effective B2B eMarketing strategies must be built on knowledge—not gut instinct. The foundational knowledge that should drive all strategies must start with your prospects, buyers and customers. One of the best places to uncover this information is to—hold your breath—talk to your sales people.

The gathering and use of feedback seems to be a lost skill set and consistently rides very low on the totem pole of priorities. But, it shouldn't. It should be where marketers start and what you circle the wagons around on a regular basis.

Marketing is responsible for a lot of stuff. The thing about all the "stuff" is that it is all pointed toward customer acquisition and revenue production orchestrated by sales people. So why in the world so few marketers ever talk to sales people, let alone solicit the appropriate feedback, is a mystery.

Marketers who ignore the wealth of information sales people can provide that will help them improve the results they produce are shooting themselves in the foot (or worse places).

For marketers who want to improve their contribution to revenues, their relationships with the prospects they find it so hard to engage and their accountability to their companies, start by creating a feedback protocol to guide your efforts.

Suggestions for the type of knowledge you'll want to gather include:

What questions prospects are asking sales people?

• Are these questions that marketing could help to answer earlier in the buying process?
• Does the salesperson have content to use in answer to the questions?
• If it was determined that a prospect had the question top of mind, would it indicate an appropriate opportunity to involve sales?

Which content we give them is usable as is?

• Can salespeople use the content we give them as is?
• Which content are they recreating?
• Do they revise it solely for personalization reasons? How?
• Or must they redevelop it because it doesn't suit late-stage needs?

Are prospects as qualified as marketers think their score indicates?

• Did marketing pass the prospect to sales at the appropriate time?
• Too early? Were they unresponsive to sales communications?
• Too late? Were competitors already in the conversation?
• Suggestions for better indications of sales readiness?

What was the result of the initial meeting?

• How many attempts did it take to get the initial meeting?
• What next steps were agreed to?

What else in addition to what marketing provided does sales need at the handoff?

• Richer profiles.
• Detailed activity history.
• Continuing storyline approaches based on interest.
• Introduction to connect the prospect to the salesperson.

What surprised the salesperson the most about the prospect conversation?

• Was the prospect well educated on our offerings?
• Did they have a clear idea of how our company could help them?
• Did any false assumptions exist with the prospect?

Who else is involved in the purchase decision?

• Based on who else, is the salesperson moving up, down or sideways within the organization?
• What types of questions, requirements do the additional people have?
• Is their influence critical enough that a marketing program should be established to target their needs?

What slide(s) did they wish they had in their deck at their last presentation?

• Are there slides marketing could provide that would improve the sales rep's conversation and make meeting preparation easier?
  

What are the obstacles to moving forward?

• Can the obstacles be removed with education, expertise or specific evidence that our company delivers what we promise?
• Does the obstacle suggest that the prospect would be better served by being returned to a nurturing program?

The above questions and considerations are only a few ideas of feedback that marketing could solicit from sales to help them improve their work in generating high-quality leads worthy of sales pursuit.

By establishing a feedback protocol, marketing will be closer to measuring apples to apples and identifying improvements and areas that could be shifting for prospects that they need to refine. If the feedback requested from sales is not consistent, then it will be hard to know if progress is being made or if the adjustments marketing makes in response to the feedback are really working.

However, it's not just about generating sales-ready leads. It's about ensuring that your sales people have the content, collateral and tools they need to keep the momentum going. It's about maximising their time in sales conversations, not reinventing the materials marketing gives them or spending hours researching prospects instead of serving them.

Marketing can have a huge impact on sales success. If they put the effort into providing what sales needs, not just what they "think" they should provide.

 

When B2B Buyer's Needs Don't Create Demand

What do you do whenever someone says, "Don't do that" or "You need to..."? If you're anything like me, you go try to do what you've been told not to or you refuse to do whatever it is someone has said you "need to do." Think back to when you were a teenager and tell me that you didn't do the opposite, trying to prove you knew better than your parents. In fact, I bet—depending on the source—that many of us still react that way today.

Have you ever wondered if it's the same for your target markets?

Why wouldn't it be?

The underlying factor that causes marketers to miss the mark with prospects is that we fail to realize that we don't know what we don't know.

As marketers, we think we know what prospects need. After all, our products were developed based on in-depth research that proved our solutions solved a "problem" in our target markets. Yet, the biggest challenge in B2B marketing today is persuading our prospects to agree that they need what we have and getting them to opt in to learn more. Marketing Sherpa's latest research shows that 78% of marketers surveyed said their biggest challenge is generating high-quality leads.

Marketing content focused on what B2B buyers "need to do" may not be doing the job you think it should be.

Headlines like:

10 Pitfalls You Must Avoid In Order to...

Monitor These Metrics to Prove...

Build a Business Case for...

Each of these headlines seems pretty compelling—or at least capable of catching attention. In fact, they may pull a lot of click throughs to the content. The telling factor is what prospects do after they view the content.

The gist of it is that content views don't create demand, actions do. But motivating your prospects to add one more activity to their jam-packed day takes more than telling them they "need" something. Even if they do.

Your prospect may need a lot of things. Comparatively, I bet you could make a list of things you need. How many of them will you actually take action to get? What will it take to motivate you to take next steps? And, what will keep the momentum going until you actually get the thing you need?

We talk a lot about the importance of knowing our prospects well enough to develop content that addresses their priorities. But, content that helps a prospect to make a shift from being aware of a need to being motivated to take action must go beyond being relevant. We've got to gain knowledge that goes beyond just defining priorities to be able to create a path for action.

Perhaps instead of telling our prospects how to build a business case to buy what we're selling, we should start by building a business case for why they should take action to engage with us to learn more.

In fact, if a prospect asked you directly, "why should I interact with you?" What would you say?

 

 

Are You Defining Now or the Future?

B2B marketers are really digging in and working to establish plans and goals for their content marketing programs. This is terrific and I applaud you all. However, I'm seeing a trend happening when marketing and salespeople aren't collaborating to define these efforts together.

The issue that can arise is that—based on who marketers get direction and input from—they can be designing content marketing programs based on where the company hopes to be, rather than where they are right now.

Here's an example of what I mean:

A company decides they want to reach more decision makers at the CXO level. So they design a content marketing program for lead generation and nurturing to attract and engage those specific people.

The marketing team does their homework, creating personas and profiles that help them define pain points, areas of interest, motivating factors and content consumption preferences.

They create an editorial calendar and develop great content.

They generate leads, nurture them and pass them to sales when appropriate.

None of these potential deals seem to go anywhere.

What happened?

The sales team isn't prepared to have executive conversations upon account entry. They're used to going in at the line-of-business level and creating a champion who clears the path and guides them through executive conversations.

Sales is now frustrated and irritated with marketing and says - you guessed it - the leads they're getting aren't acceptable.

Marketing—by not collaborating with sales—has actually set them up to fail.

You may be sitting there thinking this isn't the case in your company, but I suggest you go take a look. Through probing, I often discover that marketing has identified decision makers based on who signs the contract, not on the people actually involved in the buying process.

Or it could be that there's an executive mandate to gain the attention of a specific target that they think will help the comapny circumvent longer sales processes by getting to the ultimate decision maker from the start. Sometimes this makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't.

If salespeople aren't prepared for the kinds of conversations marketing is getting them, then you have a problem.

Just as marketing uses personas to guide them about the kind of content a specific target market will likely be interested in, salespeople need to have the skills, insights and knowledge to develop those dialogues into conversations with traction toward purchase.

If your company wants to evolve those conversations, you need a plan for both marketing and sales to be successful. One without the other is wishful thinking based on where your company may want to be in the future, but can't yet manage in the present.

This is yet another reason marketers must involve sales in the definition of target markets, personas and better transitions at the handoff.

There's no reason your company can't evolve to capitalize on new markets or growth opportunities, just that you need to take it a step at a time by planning from how you define "now" to how you'll achieve that future state, together.

 

B2B Content Marketing in the Age of TMI

Today has been one of those days with too much information (TMI) from the start. I've finally cleared my email inbox, replying to all the stuff that can't wait. I've followed my new Twitter followers. I've sifted through my Google Alerts and read the things that caught my attention (most of them disappointing). I've participated in several client conference calls, answered a few messages on my Facebook page and scanned my TweetDeck columns to make sure I haven't missed anything. And, I gained a new client I'm really excited to work with!

Just keeping up with all the information and communications kept me busy for half of my day. And, you know what? I deleted or ignored everything that wasn't critical - and that was a lot of stuff. Considering that this scenario is similar to what many people go through, rising above the noise is more challenging than ever when you're a B2B marketer creating, publishing, sharing and promoting your content—both online and off.

This picture pretty much sums up the challenge.

Go on, admit it. You feel the same way as this guy. I know I do.

What this means for B2B marketers is that good enough just won't cut it. Too much information is the norm for most of us these days. I often wonder why we think our prospects are different from us? Why do we think they all have ample time to read and respond to whatever we publish?

Why should they? In fact, if you put yourself in your target audience's shoes and evaluated your content, calls to action, and takeaways, would you respond if you were them?

In the age of too much information (TMI) your content must:

Get the Why I Should Care right up front. Otherwise you're already done.

Make the What I Learn something that I can use - either to promote my thinking about an important issue I'm involved with or something I can put into practice to help me right now.

Tell me just How to do what you want me to - and it had better be easy and intuitive.

Show me Where the impact you promise will happen - in terms that I can easily understand—even when I'm multi-tasking.

Make When I choose to respond work on my terms, while igniting urgency on my part. Note that this will only happen if it's a natural outcome to your content, message or communication without feeling pushy.

Too much information is becoming a natural state for all of us—marketers and prospects included. Too many choices, too much nonsense, too many ridiculous assumptions and too much about the messenger will kill the last shreds of interest we might have had left to allocate to your stuff.

I think it's time for the Golden Rule to make a comeback. If we started "doing unto others as we would do unto ourselves" - honestly doing that - we'd likely see our content marketing programs gaining traction with the audiences we're intent on engaging.

Here are two examples that fell through on their promise:

1) A white paper that promised to discuss lead progression and told me twice that it was a $500 value being offerred for free. (That should have been a clue, I know). It was 4 pages of regurgitated analyst research without a single new idea and very little on lead progression.

Note to self: Never believe this company's content promise again. Perhaps even question the next time the person who recommended this recommends something else on Twitter.

2) An email from an unknown Internet marketer telling me they know I'm on Twitter and want me to follow them on Twitter. The subject line: [FIRST NAME] Let's connect on Twitter was the first clue that the delete button was my friend. But, the indication that they'd done the work to find me and chose not to follow me, but request I follow them meant they were someone with no idea what Internet marketing is all about.

Here are two examples of content that delivered for me:

1) An email from a person I "know" sharing their latest manifesto with me, not even asking for a review, but I found it so valuable that I blogged about it and my post was picked up by BtoB Magazine as their blog post of the week. The New B2B Marketing Manifesto has great ideas that made me stop and think about the field I make my living working in.

2) An email from Eccolo Media with their latest Tech Buyer Collateral Survey because most of my clients are IT companies and the information is always valuable to me. Plus, they know I reviewed the last one.

What works for you, may be different. But take a look at what does and figure out why. Then step into your prospects' shoes and figure out what works for them. Do that.

How do you define a High Quality Lead?

This morning I read a post by Jeremy Victor (@jeremyvictor), Are B2B Marketers Shooting for The Wrong Target?, and it got me thinking. The premise of the post is based on a Marketing Sherpa Tweet that states the #1 challenge for B2B marketers is generating high quality leads. Jeremy questioned the definition of a "high quality lead" and wondered if the focus should change to generating interest and keeping attention. Both are pertinent, but perhaps missing the point in how I'm thinking about it.

I agree with his assertion that the definition will differ greatly based on who you ask. There are times when it should and times when it definitely should not.

Within your own company, there should be one definition of a "high quality lead" that both marketing and sales have agreed to and are using. The reason this is such a challenge is that an agreed-to definition that directs behavior and objectives across the pipeline is generally lacking in most companies. Either that or the definition they have is too broad to be useful.

For example: We serve CIOs in companies with revenues of more than $100M in the Financial Services, Telecom and Healthcare industries.

This is the type of definition I hear most often and isn't all that helpful.

Part of the problem is often that marketing and sales view the idea of "leads" differently. Quality is in the eye of the beholder, if you will.

• Marketing is searching for and cultivating leads who are likely to become your customers at some point - meaning that they could actually need what you sell to fix a high-priority business problem. Marketers need to have a big-picture view to ensure they can fuel a continuous pipeline.


• Sales wants to pursue leads who will become customers in short order. [Read, NOW] Salespeople have a laser focus intent on meeting short-term revenue goals.

In order to serve both sides, the definition of a "high quality lead" must address these differences in perspective. It's more a matter of degree than an either/or. Your pipeline will have people at various levels of qualification depending upon their stage in the buying process.

As for when the definition of quality should differ, it's that definition in relation to different companies. My company's personas should not be the same as your company's personas. My high quality leads will not be the same as your high quality leads.

I know you're asking why not, so let's take a look at a few possibile scenarios:

• Our cultures are different. A good fit for your company may be a terrible fit for mine.


• Our expertise is different. My methodology works best with specific types of companies. Yours works best with others.


• Risk tolerance varies. A lead that's a fast-moving early adopter is more suited to working with vendors that act in a similar fashion. A laggard that's slow to change will need a different approach that ensures risk is minimized.


• Account entry strategies are different. If you pursue only the decision maker and I go in lower and work up with the help of an influencer, our definition of a high quality lead will be different.

In Jeremy's post he came up with a potential need to change the vernacular we're using. I don't think that gets us where we need to go. I think what we need to do is focus on becoming better at creating definitions for what we're doing that actually enable us to accomplish our strategic goals.

I don't particularly care what you label a "high quality lead" - I just want to know what that means—exactly.

Thanks, Jeremy, for letting me play with your idea.

What do the rest of you think?