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.

In response to a substantial drop in technology spending, B2B marketers will cut budgets and re-jig their media mix.

This was one of the main conclusions drawn from the recent BtoB webinar: Outlook 2009: Marketing Priorities and Plans.

The webinar featured Kate Maddox, Senior Reporter, BtoB Magazine, Rich Vancil, VP Executive Advisory Group at IDC, Mark Wilson, VP Corporate Marketing at Sybase and Mark Gambill, CMO at CDW

Rich Vancil spoke to some preliminary results compiled from a recent survey of 36 tech marketing vendors.

Tech & Marketing Spend – IDC forecasts that IT Global Revenue Growth will increase marginally by 0.5% in 2009 and Global Marketing Investment Growth will drop by 10%.

Although this is a sombre forecast, it does not compare to the steep drop in spend in 2001 (see my previous blog post on this).

Brand vs. Lead Generation – The IDC survey indicates that B2B marketers have ranked demand generation significantly higher than awareness building for marketing initiatives. In good times, IDC has found that the rankings of demand generation and awareness building are equal.

The further that a marketing activity is distanced from the sales team, the deeper the cuts will be. IDC forecasts deep to moderate cuts in branding, big tent events, marketing strategy and product marketing but moderate increases in lead management and qualification and sales enablement.

Digital Marketing – IDC reports that digital marketing spend is over 9% of total marketing investment in 2008 and predicts that digital marketing will carve out the largest slice of marketing spend by 2010.

Sales Spend - Areas such as sales administration and outside sales will bear the brunt of cuts while sales enablement and insides sales are forecasted to see increased funding.

Sales investment in Lead Qualification and Demand Generation will increase by 20%+ in 2009.

Mark Wilson from Sybase and Mark Gambill from CDW echoed Rich Vancil’s remarks.

Sybase is using the recession as an opportunity to assess all marketing programs, even the ‘sacred cows’. Integrated programs are prioritized over one-off, standalone programs. Sybase’s media mix will favor online media such as SEM, social media and virtual events.

CDW has taken a very analytical approach in strategic target marketing and understanding customer behavior. From this, CDW has aligned the essential programs to the strategy and any outliers are subject to scrutiny and cost-cutting.

As I consider the comments made during the webinar, some further thoughts come to mind as advice for marketers:

1. Be Proactive – ‘If we cut marketing budgets by 10%, what will the impact be?’ If you can’t address this question in a factual way, then your CFO will answer this question for you.
2. Be Focused – Now more than ever, marketing needs to focus on success, minimize the noise and gain organizational buy-in.
3. Don’t be Misled by the Law of Averages – Although the overall marketing budget may be cut by a significant percentage, there usually is latitude to double down on the winners and cut out the losers with a more effective media mix.
4. Remember that Change is Opportunity - with your competitors shedding unprofitable product lines, cutting back on marketing spend, tarnishing their customer satisfaction levels and laying off valuable staff, now may be the time to seize the day.
5. Use Levers in the Demand Generation Process – The most prevalent points of leverage are the shift from offline media (e.g. print advertising, face-to-face events) to online media (e.g. virtual events, SEM, social media) and from outside sales to inside sales and telemarketing.

To read more posts, follow this link to The Acquiring Minds Blog

To download the BtoB Magazine webcast, follow this link: Outlook 2009: Marketing Priorities and Plans.

Like an airplane riding out choppy flying conditions, technology marketers wonder when the outlook will stabilize. Will our stomachs be spared the next gut-wrenching drop?

For those of us with memories of the last downturn, we ask:

Will we see a repeat of the 2001 Tech Meltdown?

In 2000, technology spending in America grew 16% but then dropped 6% in 2001.

According to a recent article in the Economist, we are unlikely to repeat the cataclysmic events of 2001.

A number of reasons are cited:

• The IT market has become more global with China and India spending expected to grow.
• IT Departments today are much leaner and less likely to overspend.
• The largest IT vendors are better managed and capitalized

The Economist draws heavily from an OECD report and quotes from its author:

More importantly, last time around the IT industry was not the victim of an economic crisis, but its cause, says Graham Vickery, author of the OECD report – Information Technology Outlook.

…..the slowdown and declines so far are not as dramatic as the ICT crash in 2001-02 as the sector is markedly stronger and has not engaged in the excesses of the earlier period.

From a technology marketer’s perspective, I believe that today we are in an advantageous position:

• B2B organizations have conservatively managed marketing headcount and marketing spend since the last recession. According to IDC, B2B marketing budgets declined two years before this downturn.
• As the mantra moves from ‘Do More with Not Much’ to ‘Do More with Less’, we have a plethora of online tools that are more affordable and measurable than before.
• Open source and SaaS (Cloud Computing) provide price-sensitive buyers with a viable option to minimize upfront expenses and avoid shelfware by recalibrating licenses on a yearly basis.

To sum it up, there is room for optimism despite the doom and gloom.

The seminar was chock full of interesting facts on social media usage by B2B marketers and by B2B decision-makers.

For both B2B vendors and the buyers of those solutions, social media is considered a second tier marketing medium.

Last month, Laura Ramos released a report entitled: How to Derive Value from B2B Blogging. A survey of 189 Forrester customers revealed the number of blogs started by these B2B organizations `plummeted` in 2007 from 2006 as the results from these blogs did not meet expectations.

Laura attributes part of this to using `warmed-over press releases` on blogs.

Another attendee and I leveraged the WebEx chat to ask questions on how the usage of social media varied by the size of the organization.

Anu Venkitaraman, Managing Partner of ReThink Marketing of Addison,TX and I, conducted a private chat discussing why small B2B marketers have embraced social media in a stronger way than their bigger B2B sisters and brothers.

Here are our top 10 (in no particular order and actually there are only 8):

1. Give me a Megaphone - For B2B start-ups evangelizing is a way of life to attract the attention of investors, partners and customers.
2. Talking about My Generation - Younger professionals are already well-versed in social networking and have a huge appetite for expressing themselves.
3. A Clean Slate – With little to no marketing infrastructure, a small B2B marketer can leapfrog to a web presence that includes social media. Witness the number of firms that use blogs as their website backbone.
4. The Big Squeeze – Hard dollars are in short supply for small firms. The cost of entry for social media in hard budget dollars is close to zero.
5. Sweat Equity – The greatest resource for a small firm is the hard labor that staff will invest to make their equity real. The production of relevant social media content requires this dedication and investment.
6. Risk / Reward – The small B2B marketer recognizes that the rewards associated with engaging in public customer dialog outweigh the risk of losing control of the marketing message.
7. Inverse Relationship of Press Releases - the number of parties who must approve a press release is inversely related to that organization`s embrace of social media. In other words, the more bureaucracy associated with marketing communications, the less likelihood that the wild west of social media will be approved by senior executives.
8. Let`s fail and try again - Smaller organizations are more likely to experiment with marketing media and social media is another option to test.

Are there any other reasons? Help me round off the number to 10!

We presented highlights from our recent research on how B2B marketers were using online media.

We discussed how webinars, search and email were widely deployed by B2B marketers (see chart `Lead Generation Goal by Medium`).

Although Chris was somewhat surprised that 49% of respondents are using blogs for lead generation, I noted that this in sync with other surveys. B2B marketers have leveraged blogging to boost their organic or natural search rankings. Higher rankings translate to more web inquiries.

Traditional content such as newsletters, press releases and case studies ranked highly for lead generation.

This chart pertains to a question asking marketers about content residing on their website.

Although media such as blogs, video and podcasts are ranked much lower, their ranking is signifcant given their newness.

Although these results were similar to previous studies, some marketers were confused by the findings. See Mike Stelzner`s blog for some comments.