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Why can't we talk about b2b demand generation without talking about marketing automation?
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The Future of Demand Generation
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- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
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9 Answers
I like what Bruce said, and would add this perspective: The majority of most marketing budgets is moving to online marketing. Based on the fact that people conduct most of their research and make their product and purchase decisions from internet-based research, you've got to have a presence, and make good content available. That will drive demand. But demand generation is MORE than just lead generation or having people exchange their name and email for your content offer.
True "demand generation" is creating a DEMAND for your product/service -- a demand in your target audience that has people WANT to become your customer. And to do that well, you've got to follow-up with your leads well.
CRM applications were designed to help sales people and organizations manage the sales funnel, not designed for lead management and follow-up -- which is why marketing automation applications have risen up.
Email marketing solutions don't truly give you the information and comprehensive lead tracking beyond individual email sends, that can let you know who is most responsive and likely to be sales-ready.
Yes, you can make the two work together, but it takes ALOT of attention, focus and dilligence from your staff to make that work.
Here's a sobering statistic from research:
81% of people buy on or after the FIFTH contact. But only 10% of businesses continue to make contact Five times and beyond. So you could say that companies are potentially losing 81% of business that WILL close. And that is a follow-up problem and issue.
Marketing automation is TERRIFIC at handling that problem in a way that can be personalized, and can tell you WHO your most responsive leads are that may be sales-ready, so you can focus your sales force on them. And the programs can be assembled to REDUCE manual effort, focus and dilligence, which saves not only time, but marketing costs and cost per lead as well.
Companies who do that well are doubling their revenues. So while process is important, content is important, and all of that, the marketing automation technology allows you to achieve and overcome the largest obstacle to increasing the demand for your products and services, which is effective and personalized follow-up.
Kim Albee
Genoo.com
Strangely, I talk about demand generation all the time without talking about marketing automation. I did a webinar today and never mentioned marketing automation once. That I did, actually surprised me since I'm a huge proponent of the technology.
I think it encroaches on many demand gen conversations because marketers are focused more on execution than strategy. Lead nurturing still comes in lower as a priority than many tactics such as social media and driving website traffic, for example.
If the research shows that marketers aren't focused on lead nurturing as a priority, who's doing all the talking about marketing automation? Is it us consultants and the marketing automation vendors? Seems to me that's who's talking about it - mainly because it just makes good sense for achieving the new goals, responsibilities and objectives placed on the shoulders of today's marketers who are now tasked with dealing with much more than the top of the funnel.
I'd also like to add that there are plenty of other components of demand generation that should be addressed before marketing automation ever enters the conversation, such as:
Content
Personas
Lead management processes
Data hygiene
Channel identification
- to name a few.
Because in some circles, the belief is that the former (processes/programs) cannot be performed effectively without the later (tools). Frankly, I think that is not a good assumption or belief system to have. There are other technology/tools options and approaches to execute your demand generation strategy. I tend to equate marketing automation more with the term lead management then demand gen.
For example, I have seen some very effective demand gen strategies executed with a combination of a CRM backbone (eg salesforce.com) coupled with good email marketing tools and well constructed auto responders. Don't get me wrong. In B2B
I believe MA is an important component of the tools to execute, but not essential. Not as essential as the CRM backbone.
My point here is that when the topic of demand generation comes up, the focus should be on strategy, sales process and how best to target and engage the buyer. Once we have zeroed on what and why, we are then in a better position to discuss the "how", and the tactics and tools to employ to develop and execute winning programs.
Great responses -- I'll +1 those and add an additional angle:
Organizations hate adding headcount, and marketing automation is a great way to free up resources and do more with less. Without automation of key programs like nurturing, scoring, etc, you will be forced to:
A. Have a big enough team to manually execute those actions
OR
B. Be at a competitive disadvantage to your peers
So for the B2B space, it just makes sense to scale as much of your marketing as possible by creating automation wherever possible, while ensuring there is still a person (or team) behind the wheel.
Marketing automation is a solution to a solution, not a need. The need, in B2B demand generation, is sorting the "ready to buy" prospects from those who are qualified (somehow) but aren't ready to buy.
The solution to this problem is something more akin to "nurture marketing", i.e. staying in regular touch with prospects (with contextually relevant content) until they're ready to move forward. One way (not the only way, but one way) to implement nurture marketing is through marketing automation.
I was not on the round table (and just getting back from vacation, hence the delayed response), but I think the reason why demand gen and MA are so often put together is the perception has been built that you cannot execute on demand gen without the technology. As the others have already mentioned, this is false.
Before companies even think about the technology component (MA, email, etc.) they should look to define their strategy (see Ardath's list below) and then define their process. Once these two items are defined then you can determine what kind of supporting technology is needed, if any, to do this efficiently and effectively.
Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group
@cahidalgo
I share Craig's exasperation here.
A whole new world has grown up around inbound marketing. It is now apparent that buyers are choosing to make their own decisions around content they find online and discussions they have on social media, often not involving the vendor until the decision is made.
This creates a whole new science of how to:
Help people realise that the problem they have is one with a solution at all (what white papers used to do).
Show them that other companies have already solved it and they can too (what case studies used to do).
Make sure your content is the stuff they pick up and which frames their decision making criteria.
Share knowledge and understanding (just as vendors are no longer the trusted source of information, the researcher is no longer the only source of info in the company and he/she must lead an ideas discussion.
Put a whole idea into play and generate interest in the discussion.
This is a quite separate field of study from what to do when a prospect has identified themselves to a vendor.
It is something where clever companies can influence matters.
Content marketing is key. It must become much more interactive with articles being framed to lead into a debate rather than being tablets of stone.
Buyers want to find people they respect and trust to help them through the buying process. They want to put forward their ideas, break them down and collaborate on moving them forward, not be told what to do (or buy). That's why social media is so attractive - it gives people a voice, not just information.
A new engagement model is also vital. Companies moan about losing customer loyalty. It is because they treat customers as a commodity that they get this treatment back. They must stop being faceless and unapproachable. This can be in little ways - for example, stop writing blogs from the marketing department and ghost them for a salesperson people can contact. Use software which allows people to not only post responses to a blog but be part of a whole discussion.
The aim should be to involve the prospect to a degree that interaction just happens.
That's why technology aided prospecting is quite different from automating push marketing.
Phew. I didn't say Marketing Automation once... oh!!! ;0)
PS: Some children from MA vendors have taken to thumbing down any posts which disagree with their company line. So you'll always find my posts at the bottom. Come and learn more on my LinkedIn Groups.
Craig, am I correct that your question is not merely rhetorical? I listened to the entire roundtable and wondered the very same thing. Too much MA pitching from the panelists who happen to sell it.
Nevertheless, a big THANK YOU to the folks who responded to Craig’s question with terrific analyses!
A bunch of great answers here. I believe marketing automation is a great enabling tool, but it is useless without great customer insights, buyer personas, compelling content, attraction strategies and more.
One thing I believe many company miss is the fact that the skill sets needed to develop personas, craft content, create metrics and create Problem to Solution stories are very different from the skill sets needed to operate the leading marketing automation software products.
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