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What themes or recommendations from the B2B marketing blogosphere/thought leaders are not realistic?
What I am really interested in is what themes and best practices are being written about and spoken about in the blogosphere, trade show circuit, etc that are not realistic in practice. And why?
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4 Answers
One of the biggest myths I have seen and heard is the message of easy or quick. Technology vendors and consultants alike use this as a selling approach and it is a huge myth.
The B2B buying landscape has changed dramatically and B2B vendors are playing catch-up when it comes to keeping pace with their buyers. This game of catch-up is not easy and cannot be done within a 30-45 day timeframe or the installation of an automation platform that can automate email sends.
Defining the multiple buyer personas that exist within your buyers organization, defining the buying cycles that exist, developing a content marketing and demand generation plan, developing and implementing a lead management process, managing the human aspect of change, educating and equipping your people with the necessary skills to operate in the new world order of B2B is not done in the blink of an eye, but the myth persists because it sounds good.
These things when done the right way will yield long term value and provide exponential increases to revenue, but they are not necessarily done quickly or easily so let's dispel the myth and those that seek to use it as a selling tool.
Carlos Hidalgo
@cahidalgo
One is the idea that everything can be automated. It is more realistic to understand that some things can be automated, and some things will require active monitoring and human involvement to get the highest return. Lead delivery is a good example of this--sales reps are in the same fast-paced environments our prospects are in, and they need multiple touches as well to engage. They are backlogged with items to respond to, so monitoring high value opportunities and escalating them until they connect will greatly increase engagements and program results. Many leads all look the same in CRM systems, so having a process to keep the ones with the highest potential at the top keeps them from getting buried in a list of tasks where their shelf-life is fading. Also each company culture is different, so out of the box system features need to be modeled around how teams can best utilize and absorb information. We interview teams to understand how they consume information to develop a best practice that is customized for each company. Creating workflow that maps to how your team actually consumes information will be more successful that trying to put an automated process that is hands-off in place that your team has difficulty adapting to. Better to implement, then hands-on monitor—over time you can eliminate unnecessary staff involvement, but having someone pay attention to the details will surface process breaks before they drive down results and miss opportunities.
What Carlos said. :)
Great question, Craig, and great answers so far. My two cents: there's a lot of FUD ("fear, uncertainty and doubt") out there regarding whether or not distinctions such as "B2B" and "B2C" matter anymore and what that may or may not mean. It's not helpful to marketers when influencers argue too strenuously to maintain rigid distinctions between the two. Nor is it helpful when other pundits declare such distinctions no longer relevant anywhere to anyone.
The goal of marketing is (or should be) to optimize the relationship between "the business" and every single customer, influencer and prospect. From that perspective, there are things that work well for both B2B and B2C efforts, things that only work well in one arena, and things from each that can inform and improve the other. It's both simpler and way more complicated than discussions of B2B vs. B2C might lead a marketer to believe.
Another source of confusion centers around the role of IT people and departments in enabling and supporting marketing initiatives, B2B and otherwise. Some opine that the business drives everything and IT's role is to get in line. Others argue that since the tools that make modern marketing possible are so technology-dependent, IT must have a leadership role in their evaluation, selection and deployment. My POV: Yankee Group founder Howard Anderson was right more than 30 years ago, when he said that sophisticated technologies empower good managers and leaders and expose bad ones. In IT AND in business. Same as it ever was...
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