Marketing Interactions

The Biggest Question When Using B2B Social Media

Sometimes I become a bit skeptical when I see the huge uptake in social media by B2B marketers. In fact, recent research by Junta42 and Marketing Profs finds that use of social media is the top B2B tactic in use as identified by 79% of 985 marketers. Unfortunately, only 31% of those marketers said they found it effective.

In a recent Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study, only 12% of 2,100 executives say that their companies are using social media effectively.

So what's the biggest question to ask when using B2B social media in marketing?

Will it blend?

It's this disconnect that needs to be corrected before B2B marketers will begin to generate the results that social media--used well--can help them to achieve.

Social Media is Content Marketing.

It's not some offshoot that sits in a silo like a toy to be brought out and used when it suddenly occurs to you:

Oh, I should go Tweet that!

Or post it on Facebook or share it with a LinkedIn group, etc.

Just as there is art and science in creating contagious content that your prospects' value, the same should be applied—in parallel—to social media.

When you create an article or a blog post or any content asset worth sharing, you should also create Tweets and snippets for sharing via your social media accounts. Do it intentionally and during the development of your content.

Look at how it flows from your outward-facing profiles. After all, that's how many people will evaluate whether or not they want to follow you. The click through and scan what you're posting to see if you're—wait for it—interesting and relevant to them.

It's a solid practice to Tweet things more than once as the common theory is that Tweets have a shelf life of about an hour to drive response. However, considering it from a profile perspective, which leaves a better impression:

The Biggest Question When Using B2B Social Media + link [posted 6 hours ago]

The Biggest Question When Using B2B Social Media + link [posted 4 hours ago]

The Biggest Question When Using B2B Social Media + link [posted 2 hours ago]

OR

The Biggest Question When Using B2B Social Media + link [posted 6 hours ago]

Will your social media blend? + link [posted 4 hours ago]

Only 12% of executives say social media is effective - Here's how to change that. + link #HBR [posted 2 hours ago]

You'd be surprised how many profiles look like the first version. Even with a few other RTs and original Tweets, when someone scrolls your profile to evaluate your potential value to them as a news filter, the first version is immediately recognizable and smacks of self-interest.

Imagine what it looks like on your Facebook page if you have your Tweets sync'd to post in both places. Yikes! Facebook is different than Twitter. It deserves a different posting treatment. In fact, be very careful that you don't take the lazy way out and automate all your social media accounts to broadcast the same stuff simultaneously. It's obvious and lazy.

Each destination should have a unique twist, style and presentation. And this can work even if you're posting links to the same content on several platforms. It just requires a bit of thought and planning rather than executing social media as a fait accompli each time you publish new content.

Social media will drive results if you treat it with respect rather than as just another megaphone. Really, no one cares. You need to show them why they should. And that means your social media participation needs to be an inclusive component of your content marketing strategy.

How do your audiences differ from one platform to another?

Or even within the same platform? Are you posting the exact same thing to all 18 groups you belong to on LinkedIn, for example? Some people likely belong to more than one of the groups you do. Have you thought about the impression that makes?

Twitter restricts what you can say to 140 characters. Facebook doesn't. Each group in LinkedIn is created around a specific topic. Establishing the right context is important on all of them.

Oh, and social media is definitely content marketing. Now that marketers are becoming publishers working without a net and outside of our "controlled" web environments, everything we post online is content, leads to more content and is responsible for having an impact on the perception of our company's reputation, credibility, intentions and humanness.

Go take a look at how you're using social media just as others will. Does it blend?

Nurturing isn't Limited to Your Database

Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship over time through an interactive dialogue that shares information a prospect needs at specific stages of the buying process to help them make a purchase decision.

Somehow, that definition has translated for most B2B companies to be more like:

Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship over time that marketing controls with prospects in their database while tracking their behavior to determine when they're ready for a sales conversation.

This last version works. It's enhanced with marketing automation technology that adds visibility, but it's also limiting your potential.

Consider the associated behaviors that make a lead nurturing program successful:

• Response
• Continuous click through when new content is offered.
• Exposure to additional, related content at the site.
• Lengthening attention spans.
• Increasing time spent with your company.
• Growing credibility and trust for your company as a valuable resource.
• Recognition of your company as an expert in a particular subject matter.
• Willingness to explore doing business with your company.

Is it possible to achieve these behaviors by nurturing outside of your database?

Yes, it is.

Every time you share a Tweet, LinkedIn Discussion Post or Facebook post that includes a link to your company's content, what do you think you're doing? Same with community platforms like Focus.

Yes, you're nurturing. Every impression you make with someone who could become a customer is a valid example of lead nurturing—whether they are in your database, or not.

78% of marketers say they use social media. Nearly that many say they use articles in their marketing programs. Only 61% say they use a blog but, thankfully, the gap is closing.

With buyers in control of their buying process, delaying self-identification and pushing salespeople toward the later stages, you're missing opportunities if you only focus on the leads you know about.

Instead, start thinking about how to turn those "anonymous" interactions into dialogues that result in shared identities. Start thinking about what will make prospects that encounter your content anonymously proactively self-identify by reaching out to ask for more information.

You're not nurturing the number of leads in your database, you're potentially nurturing many more that just need the right bit of enticement to show themselves.

If you start thinking about lead nurturing from a much broader perspective—let go of the need to control a list—how would your marketing content and online programs change?

B2B Marketing Needs People Geeks

I saw this Tweet from Scott Mersy (@smersy) yesterday and it got me thinking about the skills that marketers need to be successful in a buyer-driven world. This said, the idea translates to pretty much all marketing strategy and activities whether executed online or off.

#pink11 @theitskeptic : "we have tech geeks & process geeks. We need people geeks." #itsm #socialIT

Obviously, this tweet was meant for an IT audience, but stick with me and let's explore the impact of People Geeks for B2B marketing.

First - let's define a People Geek from a marketing perspective. To me, this means:

An individual relentlessly focused on knowing the people (prospects, influencers, customers) their company serves so well that they could become great friends having engrossing, unending conversations that always provide mutual value.

Without this type of knowledge and skill, creating content is a crap shoot.

And, if you think about it, everything a marketing organization produces is related to content. In fact, I'd challenge you to tell me what isn't related to content. Even analytics are based on what happens in relation to content.

But, back to the point. B2B marketing needs People Geeks to ensure that initiatives are designed to catch and keep the attention of the "people" the organization needs to build relationships with in order to do business—regardless of format, tactic or platform. I'd even go so far as to say that it's tough to be a marketer today without being a People Geek.

The qualities and tasks of a People Geek include:

• Curious - a driving need to continuously investigate, learn about and cultivate all the information needed to truly know the people the company serves—now and as they evolve over time in the marketplace.


• Extrovert - the ability and willingness to participate in social activities with these people as opportunities occur. Even better, to create the opportunities.


• Conversational - the ability to respond on the fly by combining what's known about the person with what's relevant based on what your company's offerings enable.


• Writer - command of the written word to produce a variety of interesting content based on what they know people will value.


• Patient - to pursue the interactions across the entirety of the buying process without pushing when the person isn't ready.


• Helpful - the overwhelming desire to be generous with knowledge—whether or not the person buys as a direct result.


• Guide - the ability to allow people to lead/control their process while skillfully guiding them to the next steps in your story that they need to take based on their stage in the buying process.


• Collaborative - the ability to interface with others (sales, support, service, etc.) to both gather and share information that enables a comprehensive understanding of the creation of satisfying and successful interactions across the organization.

Finally, People Geeks need to be strategic in order to apply what they know about their "people" to creating programs that serve them as well as contribute to the achievement of company objectives.

Are your marketers People Geeks? Can you visualize the difference that could occur with your marketing efforts if they were?

Content Marketing Strategies Conference Wrap Up

Last week I attended and presented at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference 2011 up in Oakland, CA. Bill Flitter and Dlvr.it put on a great experience by inviting a wide variety of speakers to contribute. The audience was terrific and interactive which made the two days very engaging and memorable.

I'd like to share my presentaton deck, as well as some thoughts and takeaways that I think you'll find useful:

Content & Conversations

View more presentations from Ardath Albee.

This conference was right up my alley as many of the speakers were focused on storytelling with content marketing. The following are some sound bytes that really resonated with me on the first day of the event.

Simon Kelly (@kellbags), CEO of Story Worldwide

The future of advertising is "magnetic content."

"Nobody has 30 seconds for interruption but everbody has 30 minutes to spread the stuff they like."

He also stated that we need to shift our view from impressions to engagement. Impressions being the number of views vs. engagement being time spent + next steps taken.

Simon talked about the cycle of paid media > owned media > earned media. Paid media is a never-ending cycle of paying and paying again. Making the transition to owned and earned media will increase your impact and credibility in the marketplace.

Joe Pulizzi (@JuntaJoe), Founder Junta42 and the Content Marketing Institute

Funnily enough, we've worked together for years, but this was the first time I met Joe in person. It was also a gift to see him speak in person. Bill continuously referred to Joe as the Godfather of Content Marketing and I'm sharing that tidbit as it made Joe blush, yet there's a lot of truth in the comparison. (Sorry, Joe! All in good fun.)

"It's not what you sell, but what you stand for." When's the last time you actually thought about the marketing story you're telling from that perspective? Joe illustrated the point by using Gary Vaynerchuk as an example. Gary isn't selling wine, he's all about enabling people to understand the wine experience. I don't think there are many here who could argue with his success with this approach.

Joe shared a number of content marketing mistakes with us - here are a few:

• Your content has too many goals.
• Your content is about everything. You need to get "Super Niche."
• Good enough is NOT good enough.
• Lack of a content calendar hampers your efforts.
• No internal support.

I agree with all of his points, especially the need to get "Super Niche." That ability to hone in on what really makes your company different and explodes your value is critical to effective content marketing.

Powan Deshpande (@contentcurating), CEO & Founder - Hivefire

I haven't always been a supporter of content curation. In fact, Powan thinks that I bite, which is probably a fair statement. This said, listening to him talk about the power of curation and the need for marketers with limited resources to employ curation to help them become a valued informational resource for their audiences swayed me...a bit.

I have to say that his five steps and his premise of creating a stream of content that helps your prospects want to engage with it and (as a result) hear from you everyday is a compelling argument in favor of content curation. Plus, he won me over by including the need for marketers to curate their own content.

Powan's steps include:

1. Identify a topic with sufficient content (Repeating the idea of Super Niche).
2. Follow the influencers to find great content.
3. Choose only the most relevant of that content to share with your audience.
4. Create the role of a librarian to organize your content - tags, featured, indexed, etc.
5. Create your own content. (Shouldn't be last, in my opinion)

And, he emphasized the need for marketers to add the appropriate commentary - which I really like. This gives you the ability to share your expertise and insights along with spreading others' ideas/content.

Most impressive was that he shared customer testimonials that evidenced a curator using the platform could process 600 articles for curation in a matter of 20 - 30 minutes. Like his customer said, you physically couldn't do that on your own.

One of the really interesting things that Powan shared was about a study where Google and Yahoo switched interfaces (search results remained with the original provider, only the user interface was different), but people still chose Google. That's brand trust. The implication being that establishing a curation stream will help you build trust as well, regardless of where the content comes from. Interesting point.

Thanks, Powan - I'm thinking about curation a bit differently now.

Arnie Kuenn (@ArnieK), President of Vertical Measures

Arnie talked about search in relation to content marketing. He emphasized the importance of titles and title tags and shared a number of ideas for how to identify keywords.

He spoke a bit about keyword phrases and indicated that the longer the phrase used, the closer to the end stage of the buying process. How many of you are identifying the longer phrases and taking the appropriate action when prospects use them?

He also shared a Hubspot statistic that found that 79% of companies with a blog have more Twitter followers than companies without one. Another indication that content marketing is driving engagement. In fact, I wonder what people without a blog are Tweeting about that pulls traffic to their web properties???

Sally Falkow (@sallyfalkow), Sr. Fellow - Society for New Communications Research

• Markets are conversations
• You are not a censor
• Find stories that people want to hear
• Bring people into stories

Sally shared a story about how SAP used conversations to reverse a negative situation. They had a user group that had resorted to posting negative messages about the company because it was the only way they could get the company's attention. Once SAP engaged with them, 95% of the negativity ceased. Just goes to show you the power of a conversation. Make sure your company is recognizing when people want to engage with you and answering back appropriately.

Luca Penati (@lucapenati), Managing Director, Global Technology Practice, OgilvyPR

Social networks are the new news feeds.

Luca emphasized that we need to create a storyteller culture in the digital age because content is the common thread.

He also provided a new spin on the monarchy theme of content - which I rather like:

• Content is King
• Activation is Queen
• Court is community

The upshot being that leaving your "King" alone is not a wise choice that will help you get results in the kingdom. Very solid point.

**

I really enjoyed this conference. Kudos to Bill and his team for putting on a great time. There was much more than what I've shared here. Hopefully others will post about their experience as well.

Chirpstory compiled the conference Tweets.

Part 2: The Contagious Content Challenge

Back in July of 2010, I shared an email from a reader of my book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale. That same reader sent me an update last week to share what's happened for his start-up company as he's continued on with the strategies I share in my book. Once again [see part one], he's graciously agreed to let me share the evolution of his content marketing project with you:

It has now been about 9 months since your book inspired our content strategy. It took a bit to get it in motion and for the first 6 months our content was educational and nurturing. In January we shifted our focus with calls to action for webinars and demos.

Here is the news:  

• Since the beginning of the year - our business is exploding.
• New, highly-qualified leads come to us every day and we are closing business.
• We are hearing from firms whom we never heard of before and would have never have reached without the content strategy.

People in the industry keep saying to me:  

• How come you don't exhibit at the industry trade shows?
• How come you don't have sales people on the streets in every major city? 
• How come you don't buy ads in the industry trade journals?

Well the answer in the beginning was simple. We couldn't afford it.  We are a start up. We were under-capitalized.  The content strategy was the only strategy we could afford in the beginning and the only one that made sense to me.  I draft content [it is an important part of my job] and then I send it off to our writer to prepare and clean it up.

And then - as you suggested - we cross push our content out to our blog, website, marketing emails and such. Now that we have it in motion and generating leads and sales - I can't imagine spending big dollars on trade shows, ads, and lots of sales people on the street.

In the beginning we built up lots of educational and lead nurturing content and we use it over and over again.  We are now focused on building content for the sales cycle - case studies in particular.

I re-read  your book every few months and pick up new ideas.
You rock!

Okay - so I kept those last two sentences in there for me. There's no better gratification as a writer and consultant than to know that what I've shared with people is useful and valuable.

But the real takeaway from this update is that he didn't stop after he'd done a couple of things and seen results. He kept at it consistently. He kept evolving what he was doing and trying new things. He didn't settle for a few wins - he's kept at it helping to transform is company by using content to help them consistently get into lucrative conversations with viable prospects.

He's also learned to create evergreen content that can be reused time and again because it holds its value, thereby increasing the ROI of his content assets. Now he's moved on to finish supporting the entire buying process by developing evidence content such as customer stories.

Instead of being bound by that ridiculous mandate that ROI be proven inside of one quarter, he was given the latitude through incremental wins to keep working at it. As you can see, his content marketing efforts are paying off in spades. With a persistent and determined mindset, you can do the same thing.

As much as I'm thrilled with his first two updates, I can't wait to hear from him again in about six months to see what's happening...can you?

You can see Part 1 of The Contagious Content Challenge here.

What's stopping you from achieving these types of rewards from content marketing?

Stop the PR Madness

In case the title isn't fair enough warning - this is a rant I kept hoping I wouldn't have to write, but I'm about fed up with the PR madness.

Before I start, there are a number of PR people who do GET it and we have nice, respectful relationships. I appreciate them and help them whenever I can. You know who you are.

Now, for the rest of you, there are a few things you need to understand:

1. I do not blog for a living. I have clients and their projects are what pay my bills. They—not you—are my first priority.


2. I cannot drop everything because your client is launching a new product tomorrow. Didn't you know that before today? Your urgency is not my urgency. Give me some lead time to work it into my schedule. I'll respect your embargo date. But I'll also appreciate getting to be one of the first to publish a story covering your topic.


3. I have a niche. I write about B2B marketing. Period. If your product, book, news or whatever else you're looking for press coverage about doesn't fit in with the theme of B2B marketing, don't send me your stuff. If you don't know the difference between B2B and B2C - go figure it out. Yes, amazingly, there are actually some PR people who don't know this.


4. Spamming me with a press release with no human message above it telling me why I should care isn't going to get you anywhere. It's rude. 


5. Do not send me attachments unless I ask for them. It's presumptuous.


6. Why is it you think you don't have to follow CAN SPAM rules? Oh, wait, I get it. It's because you're afraid everyone you spam would unsubscribe if you gave them the opportunity. Wise up and do it anyway. Beyond being considerate, there's a little thing called the law. Plus, if I respond and ask to be removed from your list - pay attention!


7. If you want me to respond to your request, spend a few minutes and read my blog and then use what you've learned to tell me why you think I'd be interested in learning more and writing about what you're promoting. Better yet, comment on my blog so that I get to know you and understand that you actually care about the topics I cover.


8. You also should understand that spam sent in representation of your client leaves an impression with me about your client. That they do business with someone who behaves this way rubs off on them. Is that what you want? Really?


9. Oh, and if I don't respond to your email, sending another one a few days later trying to guilt me into responding isn't going to work. I don't owe you anything. And your presumptuous behavior is making things worse.

I don't think this is asking too much. If you want something from me (essentially free work - see #1 above) you should be willing to make an effort. But in case you're feeling put out, perhaps you should understand what building relationships with bloggers can do for you.

• Bloggers have loyal followers that rely on them and their recommendations to find options to explore and to learn more about topics they're interested in.


• Many bloggers are syndicated. If they write about your stuff, it's likely the post will be picked up in numerous places that have audiences with interests similar to their own readers.


• Many bloggers are also heavily involved in social media and share their blog posts in those venues. They often have a network that proactively helps to share their posts - even more exposure for your clients.


• Once you've established a relationship with a blogger because you bring them something valuable to share with their readers, it's likely that they'll share your stuff again.

I'd say that the pay offs of a healthy and respectful blogger relationship are worth your time and effort. If not, that's fine. Just take me off your list. There are plenty of PR people who will make the effort and leave you in the dust with the results they get for their clients.

How to Win the Content Marketing Marathon

One of the top challenges for B2B marketers is the creation of compelling content in the volume required to fuel lead nurturing programs, website content, blog posts, Twitter, webinars, videos, sales collateral and more. But it's not just producing the content that's challenging, it's creating the kind of content that builds momentum in the buying process to develop more qualified leads worthy of sales pursuit.

According to IDC:

72% of B2B marketers surveyed indicate an increase in buying cycle time over the past six months, while the buying cycle timeframe has increased over 10% in the past 12 months

With buying now facilitated more often by online self-education and social exchanges, buyers are controlling when they engage, how often and to what extent. This means that B2B marketers need to continuously and consistently fuel online content marketing programs in parallel with their prospects.

Creating all that content can be a daunting task. But there are ways to lessen the load and make sourcing content easier without compromising the perceived value for your buyers.

Tommorow, I'm presenting a webinar with LeadFormix that will show you just how to win the content marketing marathon.

Date: February 9th, 2011

Time: 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern

I'll be discussing:

• How to shift from campaigns to perpetual marketing programs.


• Secrets to creating content in volume that engages your prospects.


• What to do to help your content build buying momentum.


• How to help sales reps step into the buyer dialogue without slowing the pace.

Register Now

You may also be interested in this guest blog post I wrote for them about Creating Content to Fuel eMarketing Programs

I hope you'll join us!

Use Marketing Content as A Pipe Cleaner

The other day I spoke with a company that sounded like they really had a grasp on their content marketing programs. It appeared that they were doing everything well. They segment their lists, they provide great content their buyers will find helpful and they employ marketing automation to monitor behavior and tune their efforts.

As they were telling me about the solution they wanted to create higher adoption for in a specific industry, I asked a lot of questions and started hearing a recurrance of two issues:

1. They were having a hard time creating priority recognition and opt in.


2. Once they'd accomplished that, prospects moved along nicely and the handoff to sales went well — and then stalls would occur resulting in no decision to move forward.

The first issue is rather common. We don't start early enough in the buying process. We assume that our prospects know they need our solution, they just need to decide to buy it from us — instead of someone else.

This is the first bottleneck in the demand generation process. We've failed to address our prospects' status quo situation. We're already too far ahead of where they are to be relevant.

People are masters of the work-around. Most of your prospects probably have PhDs in work arounds. Making tweaks to what they have in order to continue to get the job done is the most acceptable level of change for both people and companies.

Think about all the things you could do (probably should do) to make your life easier, more fulfilling and happier, but you put off because it's too much trouble to change right now. Maybe next week, you think. And, pretty soon you've "next-weeked" yourself into next year. It's the same thing for your prospects.

Maybe they don't know why they should change.

Maybe they don't understand the cost of the way they're doing it now.

Maybe they don't have enough confidence that change will get them what they want.

Maybe it just seems to darned hard.

Go figure out their status quo and create content that addresses their current reality and how things can be better, faster, easier, more lucrative, etc. if they consider alternatives.

The objective with status quo content is to get them to open their mind to new possibilities and arouse their curiosity enough to get them to look into what change might mean for them. Not to sell.

What you want them to do is to learn enough to agree that the issue is worthy of a priority position on their to do list and to start investigating what that means by asking for more information — in other words, opting in to get more of your content.

The second issue is what I call Step Backs during the buying process. It's what happens when prospects have been moving through the pipeline nicely and suddenly stall. This is when the "what if..." scenario stomps on the brakes.

What if my users won't adopt the new system like you say they will?

How can I be sure we won't run over budget getting the results you promised?

Oh, wait - how will this new process impact Mary's team in product design?

Maybe the risk is really higher than I thought...

Your job as a content marketer is to figure out what all these hesitations can be and create content and sales collateral that can be used to address them, alleviating your prospects' concerns, or the concerns of other stakeholders that may arise at the last minute.

Go talk to your salespeople and your customers (newer customers are optimal because the process is still fresh in their minds). Find out what kinds of concerns customers had and learn about the conversations your salespeople have with prospects at each stage that produce a change in behavior. Learn the good changes as well as the bad as you can use both to design compelling content that keeps momentum from stalling.

Figure out where the bottlenecks in your pipeline occur (not just these two places) and create content that will serve as a pipe cleaner to clear the way to more decisions being made in your favor. Sometimes, as with the conversation I noted at the beginning of the post, talking with someone outside of the process can help highlight things you won't see because you're too close to it.

Marketing Automation Preparedness

Over on the Software Advice site, Jeff Pedowitz wrote an interesting article, Why the Marketing Automation Market is Floundering & 5 Fixes to Fuel It. He raises some great points at a high level about what marketing automation vendors can do to improve purchase and adoption of the technology.

All of them have merit, but there are a couple that I think warrant further exploration.

Complexity: The whole idea of automating content marketing is staggering in its hugeness. There are so many moving parts. Intellectually, the concept has great attraction value. Realistically, it's really hard to know where to start.

Jeff makes the point clearly when he states:

"The concepts and processes that drive successful adoption of marketing automation are often beyond the core skill sets of daily practitioners."

We need to help marketers better prepare to adopt and use marketing automation. Several issues that have stopped this intention in its tracks include:

• Lack of market definition. This means personas. But it also means understanding how to create a dialogue with those people. Just sending an email isn't the point. If it was, we could all keep our ESPs and be as productive as the next company. Creating contagious content is a skill that's dependent on how well marketers know what their audiences care about and how to talk with them—not at them.


• Lack of clean, usable prospect and customer data. Let's face it, most databases are a mess. We have all these forms that collect massive amounts of information, but we don't collect it in ways that help us use it to create better interactions. We need to improve our data collection processes and we need to do it purposefully. Every field on a form should be there because it helps us better connect with people interested in hearing from us. And don't get me started on customer data. It's even worse - and we know them, or we should.


• Lack of content strategy, development resources and process. How the heck can you create perpetual marketing programs without these key components? Yet they seem to be an after thought for many. I often create annual nurturing programs for companies that include 18 content assets and 36 email messages plus other tie-in pieces and related sales collateral—and that's for one persona + product/solution combination. The scope of requirements to use marketing automation successfully across a complex buying process can be daunting, but they don't have to be. We need to help companies develop methods for streamlining that process and determine how to make it something manageable that also delivers on goals.

Education: Webinars that purport to educate prospects share a lot of great ideas that motivate them, but also leave them wondering just how to put them to work. Some companies even get to the point of deciding prove the concept. This could mean taking advantage of a 30-day trial that some vendors offer or even a more formal 3-month pilot. And, shamefully, we let them, often without setting parameters and expectations.

If the company's average sales cycle is 9 months to a year, just what do you think a 3-month pilot will prove? Sure, if you're lucky, you can scrape that 15% of sales-ready leads off the top, but they could have done that on their own. So what should have been an exercise in proving value for engagement, momentum and contribution to downstream revenues ends up being a glorified, short-term sales campaign.

If we're going to invite companies to try out the software, we need to ensure that how they do so will prove value that they can't already produce on their own. And, we need to help them prepare to get that value in a limited timeframe. Otherwise their pilot stalls and so does their interest in the technology.

Business case: In his article, Jeff makes the point that, "The very person that Marketing Automation seeks to empower – the marketing executive – has the least power on the senior management team to buy." In his fix, he says, "Start selling to sales executives, CFO’s, CIO’s and even the CEO. Make this an enterprise play, not just a marketing one."

I agree. We need to start helping companies view marketing automation from the perspective of a critical business system and the impact it can have beyond lead generation and qualification. There's a case to be made for all of the roles Jeff indicates. How many vendors have expanded their reach beyond marketing executives to enlist other executives in the conversation? How many help their marketing prospects understand how to have those conversations with their colleagues?

Marketing automation preparedness applies to the company's who will buy the solution as well as the companies that sell it. It's the foundation for everything that comes afterward.

Go read Jeff's article - he covers a lot of ground and makes some key points that could change your game.