Slide Deck - 2013 Cloud Marketing Trends

There is no arguments that the cloud software industry is currently top of mind for many, in fact enterprise companies are even receiving their share of love. While the industry as a whole has our attention, what about marketing departments at these companies. 

How are CMOs at these fast growing cloud organizations managing their marketing budget? What are they worried about? and what are their priorities for the rest of the year?

Within IDC's 2013 Marketing Barometer survey we received answers from marketing leaders within cloud organizations. In this presentation you will see the high level findings comparing these cloud marketing departments to more traditional 2nd platform companies.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these initial findings and how your marketing organization is working to compete in this fast growing market (whether as a pure play or just one of many product lines).  

For an extended deck with further analysis please contact me directly at smelnick (at) idc (dot) com or reach out to me on twitter: @SamMelnick

Read More

Best Practices for Paid Social Media - An Up and Coming Tool for B2B Marketers

The stigma of social media is something I have been fighting for years. As someone whose education and career has mirrored Mark Zuckerberg's (minus the dropping out of an ivy league school to build a multibillion dollar company and taking it public…so really when I say "mirrored", I mean we are approximately the same age), I feel an affinity to the social networks that have matured as my own career has moved forward. Because of this I have found myself defending the merits of different social networks' "tangible" value to relatives, colleagues, and random people on the subway. So, when I received an email stating I had $100 free Twitter ad credits, I jumped at the chance to see where Twitter has taken their ad platform. While that $100 was great to boost my twitter followers (speaking of which follow me here), retweets, and ego it didn't really answer my questions around how creative B2B marketers are utilizing social networks.

To dive in deeper I tapped the knowledge of 3 digital and social marketing leaders to educate me on how their organizations are harnessing the power of social through "Paid Social" Campaigns. The experts I spoke with are listed below:

Lauren Vaccarello, Sr Director of Online Marketing at salesforce.com

Lauren Friedman, Manager of the Social Community Engagement Team at Adobe

Dan Slagen, Head of Global Marketing Relations at Hubspot. (Now SVP of Marketing at Nanigans)

You can find the full overview and guidance on 'Paid Social' within IDC's CMO Advisory Service'smost recently published document Paid Social Media: A Look into How TopBrands Are Utilizing Paid Social Campaigns. For 3 'take aways' for B2B marketers look no further:

There are Two Kinds of Marketers in Social: The Quick and the Dead: A pillar of social is the fast pace and instant reactions it provides. While moving fast is necessary, leading companies go to great lengths to make sure they are able to move quickly and effectively. The experts I spoke with all emphasized seamless communication across the organization to assure there was no misunderstandings on the current social game plan. Additionally, they each spoke about implementing technologies on the backend to measure the data and output actionable metrics.

Paid Social is a Different Kind of Advertising Buy: Social ad buys are not your father's paid advertising campaigns; marketers must acknowledge this before going head first into a paid social campaign. Social networks are built with the end user in mind; all of the marketers I spoke with emphasized this point. Think creatively when it comes to Twitter or Facebook ad buys, consider leveraging the platforms to amplify a message or push something that will strengthen your community rather than just driving leads.

What Can Social do for Me?: Most marketers have acknowledged and embraced social marketing as a part of their overall strategy. However, that does not mean it is accepted throughout the organization. Before asking for (or putting) advertising dollars towards paid social campaigns, marketers need to answer the question "what can social do for me?" for other decision makers within the organization. The experts I spoke with pointed towards heavy alignment with sales so the reps understand the incoming leads and how to act on them. Some companies put SLAs in place to assure that both Marketing and Sales commit to specific responsibilities. The other best practice is to create a pilot program before committing big dollars and major resources - this way you have specific proof points to set your goals on and optimize off.

What are your thoughts on "Paid Social"?

Does your organization currently run paid advertising on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn?

Do you have any comments to add to what is above?

Sam Melnick is a Research Analyst with IDC's CMO Advisory you can follow him on twitter: @SamMelnick

Read More

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.

Read More

Do You Leverage Win-Loss Analysis to Improve Marketing and Sales Productivity?

As Henry Ford said, "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently". However, how many of us actually take the time to learn from our mistakes as part of continuous improvement in our customer creation process? No doubt it can be difficult to admit where we have made mistakes, especially if we've lost money in the process! In fact, based upon a recent IDC survey, only 55% of large BtoB organizations have a formal sales win-loss analysis program in place. You may be thinking that you're one of the lucky companies in that list, feeling comfy with the fact that your sales reps are required to check a box in your sales force automation(SFA) system when they lose a deal to indicate the reason for that loss. Best-in-class players in this space will tell you that you're only kidding yourself into believing whatever the sales reps input into the SFA, if they even use your SFA.

If you're in sales operations, then you're in an ideal position to initiate a win-loss program.  If you're in marketing, then you're in a great position to increase your value add to sales by helping drive a win-loss program in collaboration with sales operations.  Here are a few of the things that best-in-class companies are doing as part of their win-loss analysis process:

• Quarterly review calls (or even weekly) to review select wins and losses (a fact-finding culture is key here, and not fault-finding)
• Roundtable sessions to discuss wins and losses, including root cause analysis and associated corrective actions
• Review of specific wins and losses with the buyer, conducted by an objective team either from within the organization, or ideally, by a 3rd party

A couple of key guidance points in setting up your win-loss analysis process:

1. Establish accountability for this process. (apply a RACI model and ensure global continuity; tap into your Sales Excellence team, marketing's data analytics team, and your field marketing organization)
2. Develop, execute and govern the process (collect data from multiple sources, ensure an objective party conducts the analysis, and focus on "fact-finding", not "fault-finding")
3. Deliver actionable recommendations as a result of this process. (e.g., better identify the buying team as part of account-based marketing activities; improve allocation of sales support resources to target the best opportunities (check out industry benchmarks); rapidly communicate competitive insight to your sales team through social collaboration)

Read More

3 Opportunities for Marketing to Impact Sales Productivity

Call me an optimist, but in my opinion there has never been a better time for marketing to directly impact sales productivity.  I'd even go so far as to say that we're experiencing a "perfect storm" for this opportunity - i.e., "an actual phenomenon that happens to occur in such a confluence, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude". Wikipedia  More specifically:

• Over 45% of the buying decision today (i.e., for large purchases) is being made before a buyer even says hello to your rep. [translation:  marketing plays a much greater role today in influencing the buyer's journey, and it is incumbent upon us as marketers to better equip reps for this new buyer 2.0 reality] (click here to learn more about the buyer's journey)
• Sales organizations are struggling to make more informed investment decisions, however, in many cases they lack the data and core competencies needed as part of this process [translation: marketing, your internal "customers" have a clear pain point that can be addressed by the "products" and "solutions" that you've been trying to offer them for years]
• Sales organizations are beginning to put in place Next Generation Sales Operations teams to drive greater improvement in sales productivity, taking a more strategic approach than in past years [translation:  marketing, you now have a "buyer" that is interested in what you have to offer and is willing to collaborate with you at the intersection of marketing and sales - i.e., strategic planning, lead/pipeline management, sales enablement and customer intelligence for sales
• At no time in history have we had so many applications focused on improving the interaction between marketing and sales in a more automated and productive fashion - bringing value to sales reps(and channels) in addition to management.

To avoid making this just another blog post about how sales and marketing need to have a group hug, I'd like to get real specific here and focus on 3 opportunities for you, as marketers,  to bring more value to the table for your sales organization (click here for more details and the 5 min. video of this post):

Opportunity #1:  Sales Resource Planning

• Sales is plagued with a lack of information to help them make more informed resource planning decisions.  (e.g., overall staff investment, local staff allocations based upon market share and growth)  Marketing is in an ideal position to add value here.  For example,
• Reach out to your VPs of sales in each region to determine how the market segmentation data you are already buying from IDC can be leveraged to help identify the number and mix of sales teams at the local level
• Provide your VPs of sales with an opportunity to tap into your marketing analytics team for a territory planning exercise. (start with one region.. .or better yet, one country as a pilot test and a way to demonstrate impact)

Opportunity #2: The Account Planning Process

• The most productive sales organizations have shifted their traditional account planning process into the next generation of account planning. . . . . . one which taps into the intelligence of their entire company and ensures that the account planning process is dynamic and supports more tactical opportunity management activities throughout the year. Be there for your sales organization as they make this transition.  For example:
• Insert your team into sales’ annual planning and regular opportunity management processes, providing in-depth market and customer intelligence that is targeted and relevant to them.
• Provide share of wallet data to help sales identify the greatest potential for up-sell and cross-sell opportunities

Opportunity #3:  And last, but certainly not least, Sales Enablement – getting the right intelligence to the right sales teams and channels in the right time, place and format to help move an opportunity forward.  Bottom line here is to ensure that you treat sales enablement as a strategic initiative and not a tactical maneuver.  Improving sales enablement offers the opportunity to increase revenue by 10%!  CLICK HEREfor a full overview of what it takes to be successful in this area, including 14 attributes for a best-in-class sales enablement strategy.

Read More

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

Read More

Innovation is a Core Competency of a Successful CMO!

And this was clearly evident as several CMOs shared their success stories at Mass Tech Leadership Council's recent 2013 Marketing Summit.  CMO's and other marketing executives shared valuable insight on how to do "more with less" - the theme of the event.  Sure, as marketers we've been using that term at least since the Internet bust ~13 years ago; however, we've come a long way since then. Not only has marketing slimmed down from a staff perspective, but more importantly, we've developed a laser focus on being more relevant to our buyers and internal customers. In addition, we've developed a healthy obsession with metrics to demonstrate our value to the organization and better manage our precious budget. But even with this greater maturity, the worst thing we can do at this stage is lessen our drive for innovation.  Here are just a few of the key insights from this summit to help you and your marketing team keep innovation at the forefront of your marketing strategy and tactics:

• Content is King:  Be a source of value for your buyers, even if your content strays from your product offering
• Inbound marketing offers a significant opportunity for marketers to connect with customers, however, content used as part of this strategy must be of high value and relevance in an increasingly crowded (and noisy) environment
• As Andy Zimmerman of Brainshark indicated, "We focus on idea generation content with our buyers." - Andy gets the fact that as marketers, we need to set the vision for our buyers and help them be successful in their job and career.
• "A BtoB Marketing organization must be a content machine. A key success factor is to hire domain experts, or at least those that will become domain experts and trend watchers. These individuals must communicate about your key topic to your end users and influencers - it must be their passion." Christina Inge, eZuce
• But Don't forget to market your content: A "build it and they will come" strategy is a sure path to failure otherwise.
• Yes develop great content, however, market your content "gorilla" style. . . . no, I don't mean "Gangnam style" J 
• Brainshark leverages "micro-campaigns" to get the greatest leverage out of their content, using email and other marketing channels
• Try the pathways that are less followed.  Yes, some will fail, but that is the cost of innovation. (e.g., direct mail, new social media channels, etc.)
• Your web site is still the front door to your company, so don't fall short in your first impression with your buyers
• IDC's CMO Advisory Service indicates that 45% of a big ticket buyer's decision is made before they even say "hello" to your sales rep - and the web site is one of the top places they go as part of their decision process prior to meeting with your rep (in addition to their peers of course)
• Develop customized and high quality messages and content to your buyers on your site, and ease the process for them to get to that information. "Message to someone while on your site, think customization." [Zimmerman, Brainshark]
• The power of a successful trial or proof-of-concept cannot be underestimated!
• Mike Ewing, CMO of LogMeIn, said it well, "A couple of years ago it was all about trial transactions with buyers; now, we need to allow buyers to achieve value through our trial interactions."
• One CIO I spoke with at a recent IDC CMO & Sales Advisory meeting indicated, "We did a $3M deal driven by a $50K proof of concept chance that a vendor took on us."
• Hire and sustain an analytics team within your marketing organization
• I don't mean a simple database analytics team.  You need individuals that can not only analyze data, but more importantly, can extra value from that data that is relevant to your business, and communicate that value/insight in a simple and cohesive manner to drive impact in your organization.  No easy feat.
• "Two top steps for a CMO to secure a solid relationship with their CEO?. . . set clear expectations and base your strategy and results on METRICS." as indicated by several CMO panelists at the event. . . . And you'll need a "crack team" of marketing analysts to help accomplish this objective.
• IDC:  "50% of new marketing hires in 2013 will have technical backgrounds." IDC's CMO Predictions for 2013
• Marketing Mix
• The "right marketing mix" varies by company and is dynamic throughout the year. 
• Don't be afraid to experiment with different marketing strategies and tactics: "As with any VC firm, the CMO must leverage a diverse set of marketing tactics to 'beat the market'", Ellie Mirman, HubSpot.
• Consider viewing your marketing investment allocations from different perspectives:
• IDC CMO Advisory data: "B2B Tech CMOs are spending approximately 30% of their budget on digital marketing programs. This is up from 12% in 2009."
• "80% demand gen of investment; 10% thought leadership; 10% sales acceleration." Mary-Katherine McCarey, Ipswitch
• "57% acquisition (new logos), 13% retention, 30% other." Melodye Mueller, NaviSite

Please share your comments below, or feel free to reach out to me directly at mgerard@idc.com to continue the conversation on what it takes to consistently deliver value as a BtoB CMO.

Read More