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Why Prioritizing Brand is Flawed and Foolish

I can see them now – Christoph and Jed – sitting with a Chief Marketing Officer to make a passionate pitch for a sweeping, brand-oriented advertising campaign.

Human factors motivate decisions, they’d argue.  Business leaders trust their gut, they would assert.  Strong reputation and culture wins, they would conclude.

What is the source of such bold claims?

It’s a recently published paper entitled “Only Human: the Emotional Logic of Business Decisions” that summarizes the findings of a survey of more than 700 senior level professionals.

Christoph Becker, Gyro. (Source: Adweek)

Christoph and Jed are the two primary architects of the study.  Christoph Becker is the CEO of business-to-business advertising agency Gyro and Jed Hartman is a group publisher at Time Fortune Money.

Of course, in their respective roles it is understandable why Christoph and Jed desire a credible and compelling data set that espouses the value and ROI of brand advertising.  Keep this in mind as you review an executive summary of the research, which is available for download at this link.

I’m in-step with Gyro and Time Fortune Money on the importance of brand creation and awareness building.  I have two decades invested in the notion that people buy from, partner with and work for companies they know and trust.

However, I also believe in today’s environment prioritizing brand-oriented communications programs (i.e. advertising, public relations, sponsorships, etc.) over more tactical, lead creation and nurturing initiatives is dated, flawed and foolish.

That’s because most companies rarely reach the point of sale, when brand, reputation and culture helps drive the decision.  Breakdown any B2B sales pipeline and you will most likely find the rough spots at the top of the funnel and in the nurturing process.

These trouble areas grow more pronounced with each passing quarter due to the continued rise of the enlightened buyer.  Corporate executives have grabbed ownership of the sales cycle, engaging with suppliers and vendors on their terms.

The free-wheeling, golf playing, smile and dial sales rep is as dusty as the DVD player buried in your closet.  A defined, disciplined and measurable process is the path to success today, which is why CRM platforms from Salesforce, Microsoft and Oracle are a stable in nearly every sales organization.

Smart marketers have mimicked their counterparts in sales and sought a comparable level of accountability for dollars and time spent.  This ignited the adoption of marketing automation packages from providers liked Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, eTrigue and others.

So…yes…heed the counsel of Christoph and Jed, and maintain the brand. As their study reveals, reputation continues to influence the buy decision.

Let’s just recognize the investment is marginalized. It is the more data-driven and tactical sales pipeline development activities that should consume the majority of your time, attention and budget.

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Bringing Structure to the Complex World of Marketing Automation

Many marketers are intimidated by the comprehensive features and functionality built into automation platforms from Oracle Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, Hubspot, ExactTarget and others.

It’s understandable, right?  Communications professionals have historically trained and matured in a creative environment.  So, the requirement to utilize technology to segment, target, collect, analyze and interpret prospect interactions is daunting — even when it is in the cloud.

The uncomfortable secret of marketing automation is that most companies use a fraction of a platform’s capabilities.  These elegant (and expensive) systems are often relegated to the status of glorified Email distribution.

That’s why I invited Jim Meyer and Pierre Moynier of eTrigue to visit with the Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) team as part of our professional development program.  Full disclosure, eTrigue is one of our partners and we use their DemandCenter solution to power our own marketing and sales activities.

In an informative hour long presentation and Q&A, Jim and Pierre talked us through the more advanced applications of marketing automation that we can put into play on behalf of our clients.

Perhaps most insightful was their segmentation of these applications into four types of campaigns, including:

1. Form Response:  how to effectively engage with a prospect after they have registered for and downloaded a piece of premium content, such as a white paper, analyst report or presentation.

2. Drip Marketing: meaningful contact with prospects on a consistent basis, identifying activity and engagement that contributes to lead scoring.

3. Nurturing: outreach influenced by a prospect taking an action, which may include registering for a Webinar, visiting a Web site and/or downloading collateral.

4. Sales Acceleration: often executed in conjunction with one or more other campaigns, this is about motivating a prospect to take a specific action that propels them forward in the sales cycle.

For me, thinking about the use of marketing automation in the context of campaigns provides structure.  This makes the adoption of features like dynamic progressive forms and persona creation understandable and, perhaps most important, more easily put into action.

 

eTrigue’s DemandCenter is a feature rich marketing automation platform.

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Niche Industry Conferences Remain Real and Relevant

Although the enlightened buyer can remain elusive and immune from traditional marketing approaches, at some point in the sales cycle they reveal themselves to an organization by expressing interest.  They visit a blog site.  They download a white paper.  Or they attend a Webinar.

From there, it becomes paramount for marketers and sales reps to cultivate and nurture the prospect relationship.  That’s because in business-to-business and public sector sales there is typically a lengthy time gap between lead identification and close.

Marketers are armed with a myriad of high impact tools to facilitate the lead nurturing process.  For instance, marketing automation solutions from vendors like Oracle Eloqua, Marketo, eTrigue, Hubspot, Pardot and Silverpop offer content distribution, analytics and scoring functionality.

Yet, buyers ultimately do business with companies…or should I more accurately write “people”…they know and trust.  Yes, it remains a relationship sell.

I was reminded of the impact of the relationship when I spent a few hours today at the Satellite 2014 conference in Washington, DC.

A niche conference that attracts about 10,000 executives in the satellite communications and technology industry, nearly every booth, breakout room and meeting place in the exhibit hall was occupied with customers, prospects, vendors and partners talking business.

Here are a couple of photos from the show.

 

SAMSUNG
Strategic Communications Group client Intelsat featured a broad portfolio of video-based solutions at its booth.

SAMSUNG
Although I am not sure what they do, this company has a wicked cool name.

SAMSUNG
Tricked out satellite truck. Now that’s mobile connectivity!

SAMSUNG
A trade media sighting…is it 2004?

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How to Avoid “Wasteful Futility” in Content Marketing

Pundits and prognosticators share a common view about how corporate and field marketers will allocate resources this year.  Marketers are all in when it comes to content creation.

The rise of the enlightened buyer coupled with the shift in influence to social and online communities has created a gap in the market.  That is where organizations committed to crafting thought leadership, best practices and trend analysis content can step in.

There’s limited business appeal to tap dance with the dwindling number of trade journalists and analysts when a company can itself be a credible source.

A successful content marketing program must have time and budget committed to two equally important tasks – create and distribute.  Most marketers get the creation part.  Distribution?  Not so much.

Simply put, the most elegant and carefully constructed content that fails to attract and engage the right audience is an exercise in wasteful futility.

Audience is more than a quantity benchmark.  Sure, attracting numbers is important in terms of overall awareness and brand building.

Yet, in business-to-business and public sector, it is more critical to appeal to higher value decision-makers and influencers.  They are the ones who play a lead role in vendor selection.

Here are three tactical approaches you can employ to improve content distribution:

Be strategic in social networking.  Collaborate with your sales team to identify decision-makers at existing customers and prospects.  Map where they are engaged online and then appropriately use social media as a channel to share your content.

This process cannot be automated without the risk of being perceived as spammer.  Repeat…it cannot be automated.

Repurpose content for lead nurturing programs.  Market automation platforms like Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, Hubspot and eTrigue require lots of exceptional content to power lead generation and nurturing campaigns.

By linking to your thought leadership content (rather than marketing oriented white papers and case studies), you can educate and inform, while growing readership with the right targets.

Establish co-distribution relationships with like minded groups and partners.  Throwing up a blog roll is merely a start.  Connect with other organizations that have a desirable following, and offer to share and cross-promote content.

Will they be receptive?  You bet.  In fact, Strategic Communications Group and Bizo recently announced a content collaboration agreement that focuses on both organizations’ publications – Modern Marketing Today and Digital Marketing Remix.

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Want to learn more about content distribution strategies?  Join me on February 13 at 11:30 AM ET for an exclusive Q&A with Sean Callahan, former editor of BtoB Magazine.  Our session is entitled “Understanding the Content Marketing Landscape: Reflections of a Former Business Journalist.”

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