Will a Robot Make Your Marketing Job Obsolete?

Cars with no drivers.  Airport ticket counters with only touch-screens. Surgery with no doctors. Automation has taken over human jobs since the industrial revolution. But this trend may be accelerating with the "Great Restructuring". Which marketing jobs will automation make obsolete?

Time magazine recently published an article titled The Robot Economy which highlights the types of jobs that will flourish (and which won't) as automation expands. Time says,

"If your job involves learning a set of logical rules or a statistical model that you apply task after task – whether you are grilling a hamburger or issuing a boarding pass or completing a tax return – you are ripe for replacement by a robot."

Marketing automation is one of the fastest growing sectors of the technology industry, growing at 11.8% in 2012 according to the IDC 2012 Worldwide Marketing Automation Vendor Share Report. Most marketers would agree that marketing automation drives gains for their companies - improved customer engagement, greater marketing accountability, better pipeline management, etc. But is it good for marketing people? The jury is out on whether automation is reducing marketing headcount.  On the precipice of the 2008 downturn, the IDC Tech Marketing Benchmark showed a decline in marketing headcount as a percentage of total employees to approximately 1.5% and the number has sat roughly at that level for the last few years.

Winners and Losers in Marketing Jobs? Nate Silver's book, The Signal and the Noise, is about making better decisions using analytics. In a chapter about chess, Silver summarizes a 1950 paper by MIT's Claude Shannon on the benefits of a computer in making decisions versus the benefits of a human.  Claude Shannon said that computers are better at decision-making because:

• They are very fast at making calculations
• They won't make errors, unless the errors are encoded in the program
• They won't get lazy and fail to fully analyze a position or all possible moves
• They won't play emotionally and become overconfident in an apparent winning position that might be squandered or grow despondent in a difficult one that might be salvage

 Claude Shannon said that humans are better at decision-making because:

• Our minds are flexible, able to shift gears to solve a problem rather than follow a set of code
• We have the capacity for imagination
• We have the ability to reason
• We have the ability to learn

 Silver concludes that the reason why a computer like IBM's Deep Blue could beat a chessmaster is that chess is a deterministic game, that is, there is no luck involved. In deterministic situations, where there is perfect information and perfect knowledge of the rules, computers do a better job.  However, wherever there is uncertainty, a better decision will be made if humans help out.

Future proof your career. To ensure you head your career in a confident direction, gain competency in the following types of marketing skills:

• Solve problems that have never been solved before:  Work that is genuinely non-routine, creative, or paradoxical – such as people or customer management, strategy development, and design.  However, be warned that being creative does not let you off the hook for learning to use data to inform the creative process.
• Analyze for insight:  While analytic tools will do most of the heavy lifting for us, humans will give meaning to the data patterns as well as to create models, frameworks, and stories for using the analysis.
• Make unstructured decisions: Unstructured decisions are those where no explicit process for deciding can be put in place – such as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). Almost every category of marketing has jobs like this. Put yourself in the line of fire, where there are tough trade-offs, and information is ambiguous. 
• Persuade: Automation can take over lead nurturing by listening to online data, analyzing it for behavior patterns, and responding with the most relevant selection from a content catalog.  However, blending a human with automation may get you better results.  A leading tech company found that although they can go straight through to purchase using automation, that adding an inside sales person to the conversation increased deal size by 3x.

What ideas have you seen marketers implement to help future proof their departments?

 

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Which Marketing Metrics Matter?

The ability to measure is a sure sign of a quality organization. As marketing technology permits access more data, the gap between excellent marketing organizations and those deficient will widen — defined, in part, between those that measure well and those that do not.

To have a bigger impact on the business, marketing executives must learn which metrics matter – and to whom.  When marketers get swamped with data, they often report the wrong things to the wrong people. As one CEO told me, "The day I care about how many clicks our Web site gets is the day I lose my job!"

Three Levels of Metrics
IDC's Hierarchy of Marketing Metrics describes the business context of what marketing measures
and reports. It parses metrics into three categories that correspond to the types of decisions made at various organizational levels and highlights the links between them. The three categories are:

• Corporate-level metrics: Used at the highest level of the company to manage company productivity and performance as a whole.
• Operational-level metrics: Used to manage marketing resources and asset productivity, forecast the performance results of core marketing processes, and diagnose the "red" areas on the quarterly business review (QBR) charts.
• Execution-level metrics: Root metrics produced by marketing tactics; used to manage and optimize the marketing tactics and to coalesce to produce operational-level metrics.

Managing the Business vs. Managing Programs
Magic happens when marketing executives grasp the critical difference between operational-level metrics and execution-level metrics. Both are critical, but for different reasons. Execution-level metrics measure the results of marketing programs. They are used for optimization (did we increase conversion rates?), for testing (did emails with this color outperform?), and for customer behavior analysis (what offer should come next?).  Execution-level metrics are also those that form the basis for operational-level metrics.

Operational-level metrics map the inner workings of marketing into the language of business. Each major function in a company (finance, marketing, HR, R&D) is a specialty area with its own private language. Converting each function into "business speak" by using metrics ensures that the company executives can collaborate to run the business as a whole.

Making connections between the inner workings of marketing as described by execution-level metrics and the operational metrics needed to run the business is hard. Calculating an operational-level metric requires inputs from multiple execution-level metrics, sometimes as many as 30! However, this mapping is the only way to tie the tactics of marketing to things that matter to the corporation's productivity (profits) and performance (revenue and market share).

Data offers an opportunity for marketing to have a greater impact on the company's goals and therefore greater power within the organization. To realize this opportunity, marketing leaders must invest in the skills, discipline, and tools needed to master data at both the execution level and the operational level.

 

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Marketing Must Lead the "Customer Experience" in B2B - Thoughts from #Inbound13

Is all this talk of "Customer Experience" within B2B Tech fluff?

This is the question I asked Hubspot's two cofounders Darmesh Shah and Brian Halligan after their keynote speech at Hubspot's annual Inbound Conference. Their answers added to the momentum I have been observing and hearing. Yes, they felt Customer Experience, or whatever your organization names it, is massively important and is here to stay.

At Hubspot their shift to a Customer Experience Company, or an Inbound Company as they call it (for a great detailed overview on this read @thesaleslions recent blog post), is just another signal that providing and mapping a full Customer Experience will be an important part of the future of B2B companies. I believe marketing has an opportunity set the path to success.

Below are some areas I see patterns around "Customer Experience" as it continues grow in B2B Tech:

• Marketing > Sales > Services: This is a trio that the HubSpot executives spoke about and it's also something that we have consistently seen from salesforce.com and Marc Benioff. These are the 3 key areas of interaction with the customer and like it or not, one can't live without the other.

•  Continued rise of Vice President of Customer Experience and the Chief Customer Officer: My colleague Rich Vancil bloggedon this topic a few weeks ago. The title and role are still undefined, but where I see some patterns is sales, services, and marketing (yes those three again), rolling into one person. This person owns these areas and assures the departments are working seamlessly together. Sometimes product or the channel/partner org reports to this person, but sales, services, and marketing are always present.

•  Technology is Making the Customer Experience Possible: At IDC we have seen digital everything continue to grow, and on the marketing side, see leading companies aggressively investing in all things digital. The more conversations I have, the more I hear about context, personalization, and data. While these topics are not new, the difference is advanced technologies are now available. These technologies provide the opportunity for companies truly wanting to focus on the full customer experience to be exceptional in execution.   

Why Marketing is in position to be a leader with Customer Experience:

Marketing is the first touch point for each customer, each relationship, and each person a company encounters. With around 50% of the purchasing process complete before a buyer even engages, this leaves a huge opportunity for marketing to set the stage for what will be a long and (mutually) fruitful relationship. Not only is that first touch and experience important, but marketing's job is also to identify and label each prospect so they are placed in the correct persona.  This ultimately will send prospects down the path that will provide them with the most value and the best customer experience.

Without marketing's knowledge of the prospect, sales is blind as there would be minimal context and more challenges in providing the best solution for prospects. In turn, even when deals get closed, service teams would be starting at a huge disadvantage with minimal information on the type of account they are now managing.

Marketing sets the expectations for the customer, Marketing provides the playbook for sales and services, Marketing must take the lead in the Customer Experience.

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Data, Marketing, and Supply-chains: Insight from the IBM Smarter Commerce Conference

Envisioning your role within a larger context opens up possibilities. "Marketing" is mostly an internal work categorization. So, why limit your vision to marketing's traditional box? The IBM Smarter Commerce conference is unique. It isn't really a marketing conference. Instead, marketing is placed within the context of the overall commercial supply chain – a view I support.

Customers do not readily distinguish interactions from specific company departments.  IBM says that 74% of customers regard the post-purchase experience (such as retail fulfillment, or the cost of service in technology purchases) as critical in vendor selection. What possibilities open up when marketers with this broader supply-chain vision – and access to supply-chain data – start applying these tools to modern marketing? Here are a few insights I picked up from the early experts at the IBM Smarter Commerce conference.

• Marketing works better when delivered as a service. "Marketing should be so helpful that customers would be willing to pay for it," said Jay Baer, event MC and author of the new book, Youtility. Baer says that your competition for attention isn't just businesses like you but everyone! Only if you are useful will the customer keep you close. Among the interesting case studies of marketing-as-a-service highlighted at the event was insurance company USAA. USAA provides customers with an "auto circle experience".  Although they do not sell autos, USAA offer buyers free services at each step of the car-buying process: research on cars, auto evaluation tools, and various purchasing services.  Once USAA builds trust, then they offer their for-profit insurance services. USAA's extensive database of car ownership and usage stats directs them when to promote these services thus stimulating purchases. My take-away: Think beyond your own product and even outside of your own company. Offer services that customers will view as unexpected but delightful and highly useful.

• Personalization must actually benefit the customer. People do want personalization and will go to some effort to get it. But people like personalization only if it benefits them. If it only benefits you or if it has unintended consequences, personalization will backfire. Big, powerful, data engines can do really horrible things to people if you aren't careful. A major retailer explained to me how data elements have differing degrees of confidence. You will know some things for sure (maybe a person's age), but many more things are merely estimates. This retailer used to send hyper-personalized emails (13 million variations!) But this resulted in frantic calls such as, "Did my identity get stolen? You know everything about me, but I didn't buy this!" The combination of highly accurate data mixed with the semi-accurate can spook people. Now this retailer sends only 10 versions of their campaign.

• Every interaction is a link within the context of a communication supply-chain. Don't look at each discrete message, or even each campaign, as a unique event with a direct link to the end result. Marketing is not a candy machine. Instead, view each as a link in a chain of events each of which leads to other actions.  The most important data attribution task is to discover that chain– what activity in which order and through which messaging channel tends to lead to another event. For example, social media tends to drive to search rather than directly to your website.  Mobile scanning tends to drive buyers to a physical store or to a desktop purchase. 

Managing your marketing as an element in a supply-chain will not be easy. Some of the challenges include delivering on true omnichannel capability, inconsistent fulfillment of content, inconsistent service delivery, and gaining visibility across the customer interactions.  However, this vision brings you closer to the customer's point-of-view and thus opens up more possibilities for competitive differentiation and revenue success.

 

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The State of Marketing Operations 2013

Companies simply cannot excel at modern marketing without strong Marketing Operations.  These professionals reinforce high performance by strengthening processes, technology, metrics, and best practices.  A recent study by IDC CMO Advisory Service, in conjunction with MOCCA, found that the Marketing Operations function is flourishing and expanding beyond its original charter.

 

Marketing Operations has been a rising star from its inception. I like to compare Marketing Operations to the structural frame of building. Try to scale without steel girders and you get a weak and wobbly high-rise.  Your marketing will also be weak and wobbly without Marketing Operations.  IDC first recognized Marketing Operations in 2005 in its annual Tech Marketing Benchmarks study.  Then, Marketing Operations represented 2.5% of the total marketing staff. The team became a fast-rising star – driven by the need for marketing accountability and the addition of marketing automation.  In 2012, tech companies averaged 4.4% of their staff in Marketing Operations.  IDC believes that the optimal percentage is between 4% and 6% of total marketing staff. Below 4%, a company will lack the necessary operational capabilities for solid management and transformation. Above 6%, a company should examine whether it's time to infuse operational capabilities into other functions rather than holding them in a single role.

IDC's Definition of Marketing Operations:  Internal staff responsible for developing and orchestrating the processes and systems required to enable efficient and effective marketing.  More specifically, marketing operations staff members are responsible for developing and managing the processes to ensure smooth operation of strategic planning, financial management, marketing performance measurement (including dashboard development), marketing infrastructure, marketing and sales alignment, and overall marketing excellence.

In this new study, called Marketing Operations Expands, IDC finds the Marketing Operations function expanding. It has progressed beyond its early charter of planning and resource management to become an important part of lead management and marketing technology among other areas.  More than 70% of survey participants say their role has broadened in the last year and more than 80% say it has become more important. The top six responsibilities for Marketing Automation are: automation, analytics, process improvement, campaign execution, and planning/budgeting. Survey participants, many who are members of MOCCA, the marketing operations professional organization, told IDC that Marketing Operations is also spreading out from its original corporate center to regional teams and beyond its origin in technology companies into new industries.

How should marketing leaders view the expansion of the Marketing Operations role? On the positive side, Marketing Operations can serve as an important and exciting pilot lab for new marketing science initiatives. However, in many organizations, IDC observes that Marketing Operations risks becoming the dumping grounds for not just critical operational tasks, but also for most of the “odd jobs” in the department. Too much expansion, or the wrong kind, results in performance degradation.

For more information on the IDC CMO Advisory Service Marketing Operations Expands research report (which contains important information on organizational structure, skills, job scope, success factors, and much more) check the MOCCA website or contact me at kschaub@idc.com.

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IDC's 2013 Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix: Are you a Marketing Leader, Achiever, Contender or Challenged?

IDC's 2013
Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix

If you are a B2B Marketer you've read the articles, heard the pundits, and attended the conferences - marketing is transforming. This is not ground breaking news. However, what you probably have not seen is a tangible and holistic way to measure your organization's marketing performance. Today you are in luck.

IDC's CMO Advisory Servicehas just released our Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix. This Matrix not only provides measurement on Marketing ROI for those companies who participate in our annual benchmark survey, the recently published reportalso provides fact based analysis, actionable recommendations via IDC Analysts and best practices from leading marketing organizations.

For the down and dirty on the report view our press release

For some quick and interesting facts from the study look no further, you are in the right spot!

You must have the muscle (ie: budget) to move the needle.

 #CMOFact: As a percentage of revenue, Marketing Leaders spend ~3X more on marketing than the Challenged http://bit.ly/CMOROI Tweet This!

It is important to note these properly funded Marketing organizations were not just blessed by their CEO with a strong budget, they first proved their worthiness. The first step to earning your budget is to be efficient and effectivley track the dollars given to your department. Leading companies spent years optimizing (and wisely spending) their budget before earning a larger piece of the pie.

"Marketers, tear down these walls!" 

#CMOFact: Marketing leaders staff Campaign Mgt roles at 5.4% of their staff. http://bit.ly/CMOROI Challenged staff at 1.7%... Tweet This!

The quote was once said by Ronald Reagan…ok, maybe he didn't say that, but we are seeing leading marketing organizations aggressively staffing areas that promote communication and knock down proverbial departmental walls. Leaders staff Campaign Management, Sales Enablement and Marketing IT at a significantly higher rate than the challenged.  They also staff MarCom and Executive & Admin positions at much lower rates.

Remember who keeps the lights on and bust your…you know…to make their lives easier.

#CMOFact: Marketing challenged spend 22% of their program budget on digital. http://bit.ly/CMOROI The leaders spend 33%! Tweet This!

Within tech we often think of innovation as tied to R&D and the product; however leading companies are actively innovating their marketing tools and strategy. The buyer has changed and no matter how good your product is, if the value proposition is not delivered in a way that 'speaks' your buyer's language you will risk losing business. Leading companies are pushing boundaries through new and innovative digital strategies and cap spend in areas like Email Marketing and Events.

This is research the team is excited about and truly believes it will help marketers continue to improve their organizations. What is clear from this research is the gap is widening between the marketing teams that "get" the marketing transformation (the Marketing Leaders) and the ones still wallowing in traditional ways (the Marketing Challenged). Continue working hard and using all the resources at your disposal to stay ahead!

For more information about the Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix and a complimentary executive summary email me smelnick (@) IDC (dot) com. To be considered for the 2014 Chief Marketing Officer, you guessed it, you should email me.

You can also download the full report here and don't forget to join the discussion on twitter by using hashtag #CMOFact

Oh, one last thing… Follow me on twitter: @SamMelnick

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The Secret to Marketing to the Line-of-Business Executive

Many technology companies have directed their marketing and sales teams to look for business beyond the traditional IT customer.  The secret to marketing to the line-of-business executive is to think like they do. Huh? Is this a secret?

Imagine you have a cute little terrier that you love dearly but who chews up everything in sight.  You fear that you will have to give the dog away if he keeps wrecking things.  As a super-busy person you rarely have time to read articles, however, one of the articles below will stop you in your tracks. Which one?
       a) Animals around Our Home
       b) Dogs: What do they do every day?
       c) Why We Love Terriers
       d) How to Stop Terriers from Destroying Your Home

You know that the answer is D.  And if each of the authors had a dog training business, which one are you most likely to contact?

Everyone gravitates toward things that they believe are made "just for me" and ignores things that are made for "someone else".  It doesn't matter if you are trying to get the attention of the Chief Marketing Officer, the Vice President of Human Resources, the head of pediatric medicine, or a  terrier owner. The more completely you enter to your customer's world, the more likely you are to be successful with them.

Do the Work
It's a matter of simple economics.  As the busy owner of the errant terrier, you do not want to waste your precious time reading articles that are of marginal value (Animals around Our Home?).  Nor are you willing to do the heavy cognitive lifting needed to mine a useful nugget from a broader purpose article (Why We Love Terriers?). 

If you want to attract and serve the line-of-business customer, then YOU (or at least someone in your company) must do the heavy cognitive lifting learning about your customer's world. YOU must spend your precious time (and money) to customize your offerings and messaging for them.  There is simply no other way.  Someone has to build the cognitive bridge between your world and your customer's. Your customer will not do it – so that leaves only you.

Avoid the "Vertical Slap"
Line-of-business customers will feel annoyed and betrayed if you evade the work of customization by using a technique that I call the "vertical slap". The "vertical slap" gets its name for the unfortunate practice of slapping a picture of a nurse on a regular, old, horizontal, campaign and claiming that you market to the healthcare vertical. 

Don't be superficial. Do the work. At least one person on the campaign team has to bring direct experience in the line-of-business focus area. Alternatively, at least one person has to acquire this deep knowledge. (HINT: in addition to understanding the line-of-business, you may also need to invest in understanding the differences between the worlds of different executive levels – for example, a CMO thinks differently than a Director for Marketing).

Don't be cheap. Spend the time and the money. You can either pay up front for customizing content and offerings – or you can pay down the line with low conversion rates.

Actually, the secret to marketing to the line-of-business executive is not a secret. It just takes work.

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Why Participate in IDC's Marketing Barometer Survey

The CMO Advisory Service at IDC is conducting its annual barometer survey. This is the 10^th year of the survey.  All respondents will receive a free copy of the report produced from the results of the survey and an invitation to IDC's exclusive Client Telebriefing.

During The CMO Advisory's 2012 Marketing Benchmarks survey we collected data from ~100 of the largest and most influential tech companies, their combined revenue totaled nearly $750 Billion.  The barometer survey provides a "finger in the wind" follow up to the Benchmark Survey providing detailed guidance to senior marketers. Areas of focus include: budget ratios, program spend, headcount allocation, and in-depth insights into key trends in the industry and forward looking roles and programs.   

If you are interested in participating: contact Sam Melnick at smelnick (at) idc (dot) com

Below are some answers to questions you might have:

Q: A free report and webinar, cool! Wait what type of information will they contain?

A: The results of the survey will be used to analyze the direction of marketing resource expenditures and priorities during the next 6-12 months. So questions like the following will be answered:

• How aggressively are marketing budgets increasing or decreasing in my sector this year?
• What marketing staff positions or programs should I look to invest in?
• What up and coming areas should I be looking into this year to create a world class marketing organization?
•  What are next week's Powerball numbers? (Ok we won’t answer that question, if we knew we probably wouldn't tell you…sorry).

Q: Who should take the survey?

A: Marketing executives who are in a position of responsibility for worldwide marketing practices.

Q: How long will it take?

A: Depending on several factors, as quick as 15 minutes!

Q: I can’t get this done today, when do you need to have it completed by?

A:  To receive the report and an invitation to IDC's exclusive Client Telebriefing participants need to complete the survey by Wed Feb 13, 2013. Also, all of the information must be accurately provided in order to be included in the study and receive the free deliverables.

If you are interested in participating: contact Sam Melnick at smelnick (at) idc (dot) com

Q: I can't answer this question, I need input from my colleagues…help?

A: No worries, if you leave the webpage it will save your progress.

Q: What types of companies participate in this survey?

A: Some of the largest tech and tech related companies in the world participate (again total revenue of participants reaches upwards of $1 Trillion), but plenty of companies who may not have as many 0's in their revenue line, but are growing quickly and have exciting products, do participate and receive great value from the deliverables!

Q: Some of this information is kind of confidential, I want to trust you, but can I?

A: As stated above, the CMO Advisory Service has been doing surveys like this for 10+ years. All answers will be kept confidential by IDC and all data will be aggregated for the purposes of trend analysis.  No client or other participant of the study will ever receive your company-specific data and there is no way that any company can "reverse-engineer" the analysis to derive your data input. Your responses will not be used for any other purpose within IDC.

Q:  Ok I completed the survey…so… when do I get the free research?

A: Heh, I knew you'd ask this one. You can expect the deliverables to begin coming out around late March. For clients who are attending our March Board Meeting we will have in depth discussion around the barometer findings (want to know more about these board meetings? Reach out to the CMO Advisory Group team or send me an email).

If you are interested in participating: contact Sam Melnick at smelnick (at) idc (dot) com

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FutureM: For Marketers, Times They are a Changin’

I attended FutureM in Boston a few weeks ago and the main take away was: Marketing is changing quickly and organizations must grow and adapt, otherwise they will fall behind.

IDC’s CMO Advisory Service has been advising this for some time, but as I read more blogs and attend more marketing based events like FutureM, the reality of overarching change is becoming obvious. IDC’s data points to this as well; investment in Digital Marketing within the Enterprise Tech industry has increased from 12.6% of budgets in 2009 to 29.2% by the end of 2012* - we expect this trend to continue.

Below I have outlined 3 sessions that did a great job of highlighting the change that is taking place. I then took particularly interesting or relevant quotes and expanded on them.

The Future of Social is Action and ROI

“Social has to be collaborative between agencies and the brand – It has to be done for consumer insight and you cannot do it for the sake of just doing it.

                   - Anthony van Dijk, Brand Manager, Global Gillette Venus Base Business, Gillette

This quote hit home with me – as social, and digital in general, continue to mature, marketers must engage with their agency around these topics. However, don’t just check off a box by giving them the set of keys to your online presence and communities. Hold your team and agency accountable; have a specific plan and goals. Almost as importantly, don’t just give your agency a mandate to improve social, work with them and guide them as your brand and goals change. Social is often instantaneous, you cannot expect the undertaking to be a straight line trajectory – be ready to adjust and if you’re expecting deliverables from your agency give them the best chance to help you succeed!

Understand IDC’s guidance for B2B Social Marketing by downloading our report: “Despite the Hype, B2B Social Marketing Is Still in Its Infancy: 2012 Guidance for New Investment Dollars and Staff”

The End of Depth? Marketing Complex Services and Products

“The buyer is on a journey and the vendor is not invited.”

-                    -  Joe Chernov - VP of Marketing, Kinvey

This was one of my favorite quotes of the entire conference - it was provocative and goes against much of what we have been taught as marketers. If you take a broader view, Joe is right, this isn't your father’s “buyer” the tools and knowledge available today have changed everything. Rather than Sales or Marketing holding all the information, social networks, forums, and the rest of the internet can provide the Buyer with a large majority of answers. As IDC has reported in our recent publication, The 2012 IT Buyer Experience Survey: Accelerating the New Buyer's Journey, marketers and sales must be aware of this new reality and adjust their strategies and tactics. Additionally, my colleague Kathleen Schaub wrote a great blog post on Operationalizing Your Buyer's Journey. The report and post both are great places to start on this topic!

DataXu’s Data Brew: The Data-driven Power Shift

“Good professionals let the data speak, if you don’t have good data – don’t make a decision!”

-                     - Chuck Hollis, VP -- Global Marketing CTO, EMC Corporation

Discussion around Analytics and Big Data resonate strongly with me - they are hot topics in the marketing world and can provide immense value. Our group always urges marketers to utilize data any chance they can. However, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of trying to quickly move projects forward while using data as a guide. Chuck’s quote reminds us to be honest with yourself and be honest in your decision making process, don’t make a decision based on data unless it is telling a clear objective story.

For more information on data driven marketing download IDC’s study “Data-Driven Marketing: A Survey of Marketing Automation Maturity in Global High-Tech Companies”

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While these quotes give a quick glimpse into a few sessions at FutureM, the entire conference is a reminder that there is a lot of change in Marketing and many technologies and companies can be a huge asset in this transformation. Don’t ignore this change, take time to educate yourself even if it is just a few hours a week to demo a new product or service or view an interesting webinar. Ultimately, as a marketer if you don't start swimming, you risk sinking like a stone. 

You can follow Sam Melnick on twitter: @SamMelnick or contact him at smelnick (at) IDC (dot) com

*Source:  IDC's 2012 Tech Marketing Benchmark Study (full results to be published this quarter)

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Start Operationalizing Your Buyer's Journey

I was surprised to hear so much talk about the 'buyer's journey' at a recent Sales 2.0 conference. More talk than I often hear at marketing conferences! Having said this, it was clear that many people who talked about buyer's journeys did not know what the term meant.

A hesitant raise of hands at one sales enablement panel showed that a little more than half the room thought that their company used a buyer's journey framework. The panelists didn't buy that answer. Sniffed one, "Most companies lift the sales stages right out of their CRM system and call that a buyer's journey."

What isn't a buyer's journey? It isn't a sales methodology. It isn't build rapport, uncover needs, identify options, propose solutions, and close the deal. It isn't a product life-cycle. It isn't development, launch, grow, mature, decline. It isn't marketing stages. It isn't build awareness, create interest, engage, and persuade. All of these processes can be useful to guide an important function. However, they all describe vendor's journeys – not buyer's journeys.

So, what is a buyer's journey? A buyer's journey is a framework that describes the cognitive process each buyer must personally traverse leading from Apathy (Do I care?) to Commitment (How can I buy this?).  IDC's Customer Creation Framework highlights three simple stages of this journey: Exploration, Evaluation, and Purchase. You can break these stages into sub-steps if you like.

In the simplest terms, a buyer's journey is really nothing more than a list of questions.  Buyers have different questions at different steps of their journey.  If buyers get their questions answered clearly, positively, credibly, and with relevance, they will take another step. If they do not, they stall or abandon their quest.

Let's take the example of some questions on a buyer's journey towards a new car:

• Exploration: Is my current car headed for a problem – how do I know? Are there new cars that I would like better? What cars are new this year? What do I really need?
• Evaluation: Which cars offer the best value? Which do I find most attractive? Is this supplier trust-worthy? What do the experts say? What do my friends think? How can I test drive?
• Purchase: How much can I afford? Should I buy this now? Do I find terms acceptable?

Operationalizing a buyer's journey

 

1) Collect a list of questions.

 

Start small. Select just one of your products and its most typical buyer. What questions does this buyer have about the problem? About alternative solutions? About acquiring, adopting, and using products like the one you offer? Finally, what questions might a buyer have specifically about your product?  Most companies will need multiple question lists for multiple situations. But don't boil the ocean at the beginning.

Where do you get these questions? Ask your buyers! Ask the people in your company who talk to buyers – sales people, customer support, systems engineers, etc. Listen to social media chatter.  My experience has been that you can collect 95% of the questions you need after you have talked to about 30 people who have a broad range of roles and backgrounds.

 2) Answer the questions.

 

If your company has EVER sold a product, then somewhere, someone has the answers to the buyer's questions. It probably isn't the marketing team – but that's okay. Go back the same people and places from which you gathered the questions.  Some questions can be answered easily. Others will be thorny.  Some questions will have happy answers. Other questions will be evil.

Do not avoid the thorny and evil questions!  I like this quote from Robert Frost, "The best way out is always through."  Every unanswered question is a place where prospects can get frustrated and where leads will stall or fall out of your pipeline.

You can collect both the questions and the answers in a spreadsheet or an FAQ document.

 3) Put the answers on your website and give them to your sales team.

 

Keep your initial content super simple. Make sure the answers to all the important questions are easily found on your website. Make sure that your sales team has easy access to all of the answers.

 

 4) Improve

 

Later, you can explore the best way to deliver your answers to buyers – how should the message be voiced? What content types and media work best at different steps and with different buyer personas? How do I best map the buyer’s journey steps to the sales process?

 But these are secondary issues. If you don’t first have the answers that your buyer needs, all these secondary questions are a total waste of time.

 

 

 

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Lead Management Report: IDC Finds Leaders are Smart, Agile, Automated, and Aligned

IDC CMO Advisory Service's latest best practice report, Realizing the Vision of 21st Century Lead Management, presents a newer, smarter way to conduct lead management that is better adapted to the reality of how customers buy today.  Combining proven management science methods with best practices from leading technology companies, the new model is more scientific, more data driven, more agile, more automated, more aligned between sales and marketing, and more customer service oriented, than the 100+ year-old funnel.

 

It's becoming common knowledge that the Internet has revolutionized B2B buyer's behavior, knowledge, and expectations. B2B marketers and sellers have outgrown the traditional funnel approach and are scrambling to adjust to the impact of the new buyer dialog.  The new B2B buyer dialog presents the following challenges for lead management:

• Complexity: Lead management used to consist only of qualifying leads and passing the best ones to the sales team. Now marketers must juggle this task while simultaneously conducting a perpetual digital dialog that informs and influences the prospect. Wrestling this complexity requires a more sophisticated and formalized lead management process.
• Orchestration of digital and human communication: The traditional funnel dictated a one-way "hand off" from marketing to sales. However, because buyers are always online, the concept of a binary "hand off" is obsolete. Marketing can never truly disengage. Rather than make a true marketing exit, a team orientation is maintained.
• Marketing accountability: B2B marketing departments are under considerable pressure to be accountable. Financial pressure from economic uncertainty and slipping sales productivity has brought the lead management process into harsh scrutiny. Expectations have risen because of the availability of spreadsheets, dashboards, and analytics tools to slice and dice any facet of marketing. The C-suite is becoming aware of how much more of their destiny now rides in the hands of the CMO.

Although each company must operate lead management with an eye for their own unique set of environmental requirements and logistical challenges, there are basic tasks that remain the same in every case. The tasks are: strategic planning, capture, assess, advance, develop, close and monitor/measure/analyze.

The building blocks of lead management success

One common misconception is that the tasks assessment (qualification), advancement (routing), and development (nurturing), occur only once in a lead life-cycle.  This may have been true in the simple, old, days. However, most companies today have a requirement for a more sophisticated multi-channel approach.  The IDC model treats the assess/advance/develop tasks as a modular block or cell. A simple workflow starts with a single cell that can do a little work. By using multiples of this same simple block - and applying best practices to the tasks in each block - marketers can build a measurable, optimized, multi-celled organism that can do amazing things - including blending with the sales methodology.

IDC found 16 important success factors including:

• Define consistent global standards, including a common language. More companies attribute their lead management success to this practice than to any other. By eliminating unnecessary complexity and redundancy, companies gain better control and achieve more predictable performance. Calibrating data to standards also opens the door for predictive analytics and trusted insight.
• Establish long-term, cross-functional councils. Best practice companies realize that lead management, while led by marketing, is part of an enterprise process. One firm teams up a 30-person council each year for three months to prioritize projects, determine standards and processes, and resolve issues.
• Treat leads like valuable but limited assets. Companies experienced in 21st century lead management operate in ways that express respect for buyers. Leads are carefully vetted, nurtured in a personalized way, and sometimes recycled rather than merely captured, qualified, and thrown over to sales. Best practice marketers use automation extensively. To remove hurdles and assist a buyer, this automation is integrated with the human factor — telefunctions and blended media, such as chat and social, as well as high-touch sales.

Clients of the IDC CMO Advisory Service can access the full report here.

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