Many technology vendors leverage the channel to power their growth and use one model or a combination of selling models for demand generation:

Vendor Led Selling

A small number of technology companies initiate all outbound calling internally.  Once qualified, the tech vendor will pass the leads to partners for engagement.   For example, one fast-growing $1 billion tech vendor avoids funding partner outbound calling but rather centralizes all outbound prospecting within their call center.   Another $1.5 billion tech organization calls against lists shared by partners and only passes leads to partners once qualified.

Vendor led demand generation can move very quickly to focus on high potential segments, leverage high quality and well targeted lists, and deliver on-target messaging by well-trained sales reps.

However, very few tech vendors use this model singularly due to the costs, resources and talent required.

Partner Led Selling

Tech vendors offer partners a menu of marketing programs and tactics that enable partner to generate leads without the tech vendor participating in the calling.    Like many tech organizations, Microsoft and Cisco enable thousands of their partners to create lead generation programs through self-service marketing portals.

By leveraging partner sales teams, tech vendors can lower their cost of sale, expand coverage and leverage partner customer lists.

Collaborative Selling

Tech vendors often team with their partners on selling.

Co-selling takes many forms: telesales, face-to-face sales meetings or at events, where both vendor and partner participate.

For example, one large software company runs a call blitz day that includes over 1,500 sales people at 300 partners.

Call blitzes provide tech vendors and their partners with a singular and compelling event to collaboratively generate demand.    This urgency and purpose drives sales activity and results.

An effective approach to align tech vendors and partners is in co-selling through a call blitz.    The collaboration is accelerated when training, coaching and incentives are included.

This model includes many of the advantages associated with vendor and partner led demand generation but does require mutual planning.

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Segmentation requires an in-depth understanding of customers generated through analysis and research.   Many large organizations either buy research from consultants and analysts or commission their own research.

A relatively new source of research is the tracking of B2B buyers in their online searches (SEM).   For example, the analysis of keyword searches can provide insight on pain points.

Unfortunately research on buyer behavior is neither affordable nor feasible for many businesses.

For those interested in segmentation, yet resource or budget challenged, I would like to share an alternative approach to segmentation that focuses on analysis:

Customer List – create a list of all of your customers, both active and dormant.

Win / Loss Report – compile a list of all lost customers.

Attributes & Metrics – list the metrics that define high value customers such as revenue, volume, profitability, frequency and recency of purchase.  For example, lifetime value may be more appropriate for your business than yearly revenue.   Create a list of the attributes that best describe your customers: size of organization, industry, geography, decision-maker’s department and seniority, structured buying process (e.g. RFP), displaced competitor, organizational needs etc.

Append Firmographic Information – Many demographic criteria are widely available on rental lists such as size, industry, contact title / department.   For a modest fee, you can take your customer file and ask a list broker to append your chosen list criteria.   Typically the broker will also cleanse and correct the customer list.

Add-in Key Metrics – for each customer, attach key metrics pertaining to revenue and profitability.

Ranking & Prioritization – then rank your customers based on key metrics and group the customers into five or ten segments.

Analysis – at this point your customers – won, dormant and lost – are grouped into segments, ranked from highest to lowest in terms of attractiveness and profiled according to important criteria.    Do you see any patterns?   Do your colleagues in sales and marketing validate the ranking and the segmentation criteria?    Are these segments unique and actionable for your marketing programs?

The above process is simple and straightforward.    By starting with analysis of your company data, you are pragmatically moving forward with your in-house data first.

As time and resources allow, your goal should be to start mixing in other sources of data.   The risk of using only your data is that your company’s experience may be very different from general marketing conditions and your analysis may be skewed.

The mood was buoyant at the Juniper Networks Americas Partner Conference, held April 11 – 13 in Phoenix.

Juniper Networks is on a roll after coming off a strong 2010.   Revenue and operating margin in calendar/fiscal year 2011 is expected to grow by 20% and 23% respectively.

Wall Street sees Juniper growing faster than competitors such as Alcatel-Lucent (+13%), Cisco (+8%), Brocade (+8%) and HP (+4%).

Channel partners will benefit from a 20% increase in MDF funding and expanded support in the field in sales and service with a new general business group of 100 staff.

73% of revenue is generated through partners.  The service provider market is sold direct by Juniper.     Partners can sell $2 to $2.60 of services for every $1 of Juniper product sold.

You might expect some chest-thumping from the talented channel and marketing team that Juniper has put together.

However, these executives have their feet firmly on the ground.   All of the channel and market executives were welcoming and engaging.  The vibe was hugely positive reflecting the excitement of exponentially growing a $4 billion organization.

Through segmentation a marketer identifies groups of customers that are ranked by their sales potential and can be classified based on any number of criteria.      By leveraging this intelligence, marketers can profile their ideal customer and forecast outcomes for marketing programs.

Traditionally, B2B marketers have segmented based on firmographic criteria such as company size, geography and industry.    Consultants such as MarketBridge and TCG recommend digging deeper and beyond firmographics to uncover more predictive criteria.

B2B marketers face challenges in mining their databases for accurate profiling criteria so segmenting the database may be an arduous exercise.

Here are the top five reasons for marketers to segment:

Higher Conversion to Revenue

By focusing on those segments with the highest potential, marketers can generate higher conversion rates.

Lower List & Media Costs

In understanding what the best prospects look like, marketers can rent lists and purchase media in a much more targeted fashion.  There is less wastage on targeting prospects outside the ‘sweet spot’.

Lower Downstream Costs

A responder to a marketing program is not always a good thing.   It costs organizations to qualify and sell to prospects who  respond.   By only inviting those prospects with a high potential to convert, a marketer can generate higher quality leads in lower numbers, reducing the cost of sale.

Lower risk of social media flaming

Prospects are equipped with formidable firepower.   Aggravate a prospect and a marketer risks provoking a negative reaction flamed through social media and social networks.   Word travels fast and wide.

Lower risk of opt-out

Why risk losing a B2B buyer through a mis-targeted message?   With CAN-SPAM and Do-Not-Call lists, it is easier for a buyer to opt-out permanently from your marketing.       The wrong message to the right buyer could provoke an unintended opt-out.  In other instances, messaging may be relevant but frequency of delivery is too high.    Or the level of personalization is too generic and does not resonate to prospects.   Segmentation helps improve the accuracy of marketing so that the right messages are sent to the right buyers at the right time.

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I wanted to let you know that I will be presenting at an upcoming Summit on B2B Digital Marketing from CustomerThink. The Summit consists of  three live webinars on the future of B2B digital marketing. It features leaders in digital marketing from the Founders Council of CustomerThink’s Digital Marketing One community. The webinars are set up in a a panel like format so there is plenty of time to answer live questions from the audience. My session is on January 27th at 9am PT . I am speaking about creating maximum impact with digital demand generation.  You can find more information here: http://bit.ly/gX9Vn2

Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to Create New Sales Opportunities

Lead generation is simply the creation of sales opportunities. Although lead generation is most often associated with acquiring net new customers, it can include developing opportunities within existing accounts in new divisions or work teams. For most organizations, digital lead generation is a scalable, cost-effective approach to generating leads for their sales teams.

In the business-to-consumer space or with high volume business-to-business solutions, digital leads are quickly converted online to a sale. In an e-commerce model, the flow is fluid and the participation of sales is typically not required.

Should sales be needed as part of the digital sales model, the sales team leverages a ranges of digital sales tools that could include: email, web chat, web or video conference. Both sales and marketing are profiting from the advances in digital tools, media and process.

With lengthy sales cycles involving multiple decision-makers, the complex B2B sales process will often start with digital lead generation. But at some point, outreach from sales is critical to address a prospect’s questions and to qualify the prospect. Because of the time lapse between the initial inquiry or lead being generation and the conversion to a sale, digital lead generation for the complex sale plays a large role in influencing prospects before and after initial sales contact.

Given the vital nature of lead generation and its position at the nexus of sales and marketing, there are a number of key processes associated with a lead.

• The definition of a lead is agreed upon between sales and marketing;
• Sales agrees to take specific action against a lead within a certain timeframe;
• Disqualified, weak or unresponsive leads are recycled for lead nurture.

Why Invest in Lead Generation?

As widely acknowledged, the costs of acquisition far surpass that of retention. Seldom can an organization meet its goals based solely on retention, but clearly the first place to start is to determine whether retention goals are being maximized. Digital marketing can play a strong role in customer retention marketing and customer service.

An increase in digital lead generation is warranted should the digital marketing spend be delivering an ROI that generates new customers and dollars on a superior basis. However, the key items that should be in place prior to investing in lead generation are:

1. Any digital marketing program that touched a prospect;
2. The last digital marketing program that touched a prospect;
3. The digital marketing program that prompted a prospect to buy.

Measuring a true return will involve determining the impact of digital lead generation programs by choosing amongst the three options above and then determining the revenue associated with this prospect on a one-time basis and over the lifetime of the client.

The risk in comparing your organization to others on ROI is that your business model may be very different generating very different revenues and expenses. The preferred approach is to start by using internal benchmarks and then bona fide external benchmarks.

For example, track past digital lead generation programs and look to benchmark these programs against existing digital lead generation programs. Second, use control groups in digital lead generation programs that are not targeted with digital marketing. Understand how much incremental ROI was generated versus the control group. Finally, there are research organizations that provide benchmarking data. For example, IDC and Sirius Decisions provide benchmarking data against similar organizations in the B2B technology space.

Tips for Success

Given the dynamic nature, measurability and relatively low costs associated with digital lead generation, improvement can be gained through the following:

• Earmark resources and make time for innovation and testing;
• Integrate and layer lead generation media and approaches;
• Value internal lists as assets and segment your lists for more relevant digital marketing;
• Align digital lead generation program to buyer profiles and buying cycles;
• Mix offline media with digital media.