SiriusDecisions produces a winning event

Last week, I made the trip to Las Vegas and then to Henderson, NV for the SiriusDecisions Sales & Marketing Summit. Unlike most of the fliers on my plane, I had very different expectations for my trip. Similarly one of the attendees I met at the Summit was bemused to find himself seated next to an Elvis impersonator on his flight.

At the Summit, the brainpower on the podium and in the audience was in stark contrast to the barren, rocky hills and deserts of Nevada.

SiriusDecisions has created a unique event that draws both senior sales and marketing management to the latest research and lead practitioners in B2B sales and marketing.

Fortunately the Sirius folks mostly stick to standard industry lingo with only a few exceptions (e.g. waterfall vs. the sales funnel and demand creation vs. demand generation).

The speakers were all top notch, with the exception of one marketing executive who bored the audience with superficial content. A hallmark of the calibre of the presenters was that not one presenter stood behind the podium, but rather all walked the stage.

Go hear Don Friedman speak. Don is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at CA, who I previously met at the Frost & Sullivan Summit last summer.

Don can be given credit for turning around CA's marketing organization.

When he joined CA a few years ago, twelve former CA executives had been 'charged or wearing ankle bracelets'. There was no strategy, no budget process, 135 customer databases, multiple ERP systems and over 1,600 products - to name just a few challenges.

The customer insight that propelled Don's vision was that customers were overwhelmed by complexity.

Don knew that he had developed a compelling solution when the new product developed by CA elicited 'utopian' comments from customers.

After his presentation, I asked him if he was challenged by senior management and had to make compromises on his marketing plan. Don replied that this was a daily occurrence.

Prior to her presentation on the following day, I sat next to Heather Loisel, VP of Marketing Operations, SAP for dinner. We discussed why B2B marketers were struggling. Heather compared Tom Hanks in the movie `Big` to tech organizations. We had grown so fast that our infrastructure couldn`t keep up.

Heather`s can-do attitude was highighted in her presentation as she imparted such advice as:

• Demonstrate value by providing insights that others don’t have and initial, don`t expect
• Balance program mix with projects that don`t rely on IT
• Create a dialogue of progress with regions & stakeholders
• Ask yourself: who is responsible for the change that you advocate? If you don`t know, nothing will happen.

After two days of top notch presentations, I retired to the pool to play a fiercely contested battle of pool volleyball with Rich Eldh, Managing Director and Co-Founder of SiriusDecisions and his team. I call for a rematch in Arizona next year.....how about it Rich?

B2B marketers ahead of B2C on New Media Adoption

On August 13, BtoB Magazine announced the results of their research on new media conducted with the Association of National Advertisers.

In June, BtoB and the ANA interviewed 326 B2B and B2C marketers from their respective house files.

The research confirmed a number of tiers of new media tools. The top tier includes proprietary Web sites, e-mail marketing, online ads, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and webinars. The middle tier includes blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts and video on demand. The bottom tier consists of wikis, mobile, viral video, social networks and Second Life.

It was found that B2B marketers allocate a significantly higher proportion of their budget to new media than B2C marketers. While B2C marketers view new media as best suited for brand building, B2B marketers look to new media for demand generation.

As far as I see it, the irony for B2B marketers is that although their solutions require extensive communication (often through a sales force), the budgets and tools at their disposal for marketing are often inadequate. The opposite is true for B2C: humongous budgets to communicate simple messages.

With new media tools and in particular Web 2.0 tools, B2B marketers are bolstered by tools where the cost of entry is the development of content, rather than price of the tools or cost of the marketing medium.

For more details and a PowerPoint summary of the BtoB/ANA research, follow this link to the BtoB website.