1. INFOGRAPHIC: Five Insights from the 2020 Chief Marketer B2B Marketing Outlook

Our annual B2B Marketing Outlook survey results—including a handy infographic—is one of our most read B2B marketing stories this year. It looks at insights on topics that are important to B2B marketing success, including the channels most used by marketers to generate ROI, the greatest challenges to social media marketing and the types of content most effective for moving prospects through the sales funnel.

2. CMO Roundtable: Visa, Personal Capital, AKT and Zoom Talk 2020 Marketing Trends

To shed light on how modern marketing chiefs prioritize the range of tasks they’re charged with today, and how marketing trends in 2020 are influencing their roles, we spoke with CMOs, from Visa, Personal Capital, Zoom and boutique fitness brand AKT.

3. Oracle CX CMO Talks Customer Experience Trends for Marketers in 2020

Each interaction a consumer has with your brand has the ability to influence—and perhaps determine—customer acquisition. We spoke with Des Cahill, CMO of Oracle’s global customer experience business, about how CX is evolving, trends to look out for in 2020 and how AI and data management will influence the customer journey this year and beyond.

4. How to Effectively Use Marketing Content in the Mid-Funnel

Reliance on the start of the customer journey and the all-important end without considering the mid-funnel may decrease conversions. Indeed, what goes on between the intrigue and conversion stages can make or break a company. We look at how to use content more effectively in the mid-funnel.

5. Five Ways to Make Email Marketing More Effective

If you depend on email to generate leads and drive revenue, it’s critical to understand how the email marketing environment has evolved and how to maximize email engagement. Consider these five tips going forward.

The post Our Top Five B2B Marketing Stories of 2020 appeared first on Chief Marketer.

New research suggests that B2B buyers switch suppliers at an unprecedented rate, and often without warning. In pursuit of better experiences, including faster shipping, flexible payment options and knowledgeable, sector-educated salespeople, 80 percent of buyers have swapped suppliers in the last year, or plan to in the coming one. And, the more frequently a buyer makes purchases, the more likely they are to switch vendors. For B2B sellers, this means their best and most frequent customers are also the most vulnerable to churn.

The research suggests that while B2B sellers are pursuing practices that do successfully impact customer experiences and increase sales, they generally fall far short of customers’ expectations. This is all happening in an environment where 32 percent of buyers have increased their expectations around sales experiences in the last 12 months, with the same number considering “fluid offerings” pioneered by companies like Airbnb and Uber to be the current standard. Given these expectations, the average B2B buyer is less loyal than their seller probably thinks.

How can you better reach and retain today’s B2B buyers?

To meet buyers’ rising expectations, B2B sellers must deliver superior service at each and every touchpoint in which the customers and brand interact. Beyond closing the sale, this means offering experiences infused with knowledge and empathy throughout the full customer journey—from product research to purchase to delivery to post-sale service. B2B sellers that do provide fully-capable connected experiences are reaping enviable benefits: 96 percent report increased profitability and 97 percent report increased market share.

B2B sellers should consider the following tenets to more effectively reach and retain buyers:

1. Innovate with B2B-specific needs top of mind.

The customer-oriented mindset and connected experiences buyers expect from B2C sellers offer clues for understanding increased B2B buyer expectations. Specifically, personalization and self-service options are becoming as common to B2B purchasing as they are to B2C, while personalized pricing was the top demand among B2B buyers surveyed. At the same time, B2B buyers have a unique and pressing need for knowledgeable, sector-educated salespeople—their second most common demand.

B2B purchases often include detailed product bundles, large buyer teams and complex negotiations; providing experienced salespeople that truly understand business needs can expediate the buying process, earning valuable buyer appreciation and extending loyalty.

2. Don’t just pitch to buyers—pitch in and help them.

B2B buyers expect suppliers not to simply sell to them, but also to support the full scope of their requirements around the products they buy—from delivery to maintaining supplies to reordering. Brands earn tremendous goodwill via these value-adds throughout the purchase process, which makes buying simple and buyers more successful. Unfortunately, 22 percent of buyers are left frustrated by the narrow range of delivery and pickup options provided by B2B sellers. Adding to that, 21 percent of buyers cited the lack of personalized pricing and offers, slow delivery and absence of product reviews from their peers as particular areas of dissatisfaction.

To retain buyers, B2B sellers must act on opportunities to address these evolving requirements and institute seamless purchase experiences—and do so both across channels and from one purchase to the next. Doing so is an inevitability for long-term survival, and the longer B2B brands wait to transform this process, the more customers they might find buying elsewhere.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• How Interactive Content for B2B Marketing Will Leap Forward With 5G
• INFOGRAPHIC: Five Insights From the 2020 Chief Marketer B2B Marketing Outlook
• Why Martech Investments Aren’t Optimized: Infographic

3. Make B2B human-to-human.

While B2B buyers appreciate the role of technology in providing the connected experiences they demand, they deeply value human interactions across the sales process. And, the more complex the purchase transaction, the more buyers look for salesperson support.

From a B2B seller perspective, implementing hybrid systems that offer self-service and informative materials buyers can access themselves—as well as knowledgeable support from empathetic sales representatives—ensure that buyers can leverage the purchase path they prefer. For example, a buyer may conduct product research using social channels and a brand’s mobile app, make a purchase and track the order online, utilize field sales reps for follow-up support, and then utilize long-term support from the supplier’s call center sales team. Ensuring that this entire ecosystem conveys a seamless experience is essential to the value of those human interactions and, ultimately, the brand’s ongoing success with that buyer.

4. Lend buyers an ear, and they won’t disappear.

Without close relationships and meaningful feedback channels for buyers to voice concerns, B2B sellers can fail to retain existing customers—and very likely do so without ever fully understanding why. With 62 percent of buyers who make weekly B2B purchases having switched sellers in the past year, and 80 percent having switched in the past two, complacency and missed opportunities to engage will leave brands wondering what they could have done better.

Assume your buyers are keenly aware of what you could do better to keep their business: one in four buyers highlight uncompetitive pricing, long delivery and fulfillment lead times or missed delivery dates as pushing them to competitors. One in five blame poorly integrated sales channels and shortcomings in commerce functionality. By soliciting feedback and addressing buyer wants and needs such as these, B2B organizations can increase retention and ensure customer relationships are long lasting and mutually beneficial.

By offering connected experiences that provide flexibility and convenience to empower buyers—and by further anticipating and addressing their needs across the full customer relationship—brands can better differentiate themselves in order to avoid increasing customer churn and earn meaningful customer loyalty that supports their ongoing success.

Jason Michaels is a Managing Director and B2B marketing lead at Accenture Interactive.

The post Four Ways to Reach and Retain B2B Buyers appeared first on Chief Marketer.

According to a study conducted by Ovum and Intel, 5G will “propel annual revenue from immersive and new media applications from zero to $67 billion within a decade.” This will obviously be a boon for the entertainment industry, but it will also be a game changer for the B2B sector. Engaging and interactive content made possible by 5G will change the way B2B marketers collaborate, communicate and market their products and services.

Communicate with Colleagues and Customers Anywhere, Anytime

Telecommuting is quickly becoming the new normal. More than 65 percent of companies allow remote work and 16 percent are fully remote. It is increasingly important to keep the lines of communication open at all times with colleagues and customers, whether they are at the home office, traveling to meetings, or working from home.

Those who have regular conference calls with coworkers and clients know how difficult it can be to have a productive conversation without a video freezing, audio going in and out, or participants dropping off due to bad connections. 5G’s lightning-fast data transfer rate promises to make these disruptions a thing of the past, allowing teams to conduct high-quality video calls that can make participants feel as though everyone is in the same room—a rarity in today’s untethered world.

But the benefits of 5G extend far beyond daily conference calls. Companies will also be able to create engaging, eye-catching live presentations for clients that can replace or supplement in-person sales meetings. Organizations can leverage 5G’s capabilities to produce interactive and customized content that makes routine meetings and sales calls truly memorable experiences for potential customers.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• 10 CES Technology Takeaways for Marketers
• CMO Q&A: Qualcomm’s Penny Baldwin on Marketing 5G
• AT&T Business Speeds to the Future with 5G

Live Broadcasts Will Become Far More Engaging

Although the convenience of on-demand videos still appeals to many professionals, live online webinars and videos will continue to be a top-performing marketing category through the next decade.

Currently, smartphones and tablets—even those equipped with the fastest processors on the market—often have trouble transmitting or streaming live broadcasts of events, presentations, and panel discussions. The extremely low latency expected with 5G will substantially reduce lag time and allow audiences to tune in remotely to watch high-quality videos in real-time. And it will enable companies to produce customized content that appears or changes in response to viewers’ preferences or—if two-way cameras are involved—their physical reactions to what they’re watching.

On the other hand, presenters at large gatherings and events will enjoy faster connection speeds on their 5G-enabled devices, giving them the ability to quickly and continuously respond to viewers’ questions, comments, and reactions. Verizon, a leader in the 5G space, has already given its customers the ability to access its 5G Ultra Wideband network in several high-traffic public spaces including sports arenas and event spaces—places where, traditionally, crowds have made it difficult to obtain adequate signal. Event sponsors will benefit from the ability to monitor real-time viewer feedback, giving them a better idea of what holds an audience’s attention and what might make them lose interest.

Richer, More Interactive B2B Product Demos

Millennial workers are increasingly involved in B2B purchasing decisions. This generation has been found to conduct a majority of its research online before making a purchase or even speaking to a sales rep. It is important that digital touchpoints convey detailed, compelling information that helps instill confidence in customers’ purchasing decisions, even if they are simply browsing your website or discovering your brand through social media.

B2C retailers have already embraced the trend of enriching the online shopping experience by adding multimedia to their product pages. For example, Zappos, includes detailed videos of people demonstrating and wearing the shoes while explaining each pair’s features. B2B companies stand to benefit from similar strategies, especially now that customers will be able to stream high-quality videos with virtually no lag time. Videos that feature products being used by professionals out in the field can add context that makes the items far more appealing than if they were listed in the pages of a catalog.

Additionally, lightning-fast download speeds will give marketers the ability to create richer, more engaging product demonstrations, complete with high-quality images, interactive slides, and live Q&A sessions. These features, along with marketers’ ability to capture information about viewers in real time, can help companies present their products in the best possible light, regardless of where customers are in the sales funnel.

The transition from 4G to 5G will broaden B2B marketers’ opportunities to reach, communicate with, and educate prospects as well as nurture meaningful, ongoing relationships with their clients. Companies that capitalize on the ability to create and disseminate robust, eye-catching content to a wider audience will truly stand out among their competitors. And marketers that properly harness the ability continuously collect data and respond to customers’ preferences will be better equipped to provide the level of customer service necessary to compete within today’s experience economy.

Paul Heald is CEO and co-founder of BrightTALK

The post How Interactive Content for B2B Marketing Will Leap Forward with 5G  appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Techniques for nurturing those leads include email, at 64 percent, and content marketing, at 59 percent, but in-person meetings are also a top strategy for lead nurturing, according to 56 percent of respondents. Email is the top channel for B2B marketers, but click-through rates (53 percent), open rates (42 percent) and list fatigue (36 percent) present the biggest challenges.

Content that’s most effective for moving prospects through the sales funnel, according to survey respondents, is articles and blog posts (55 percent), reviews and customer testimonials (43 percent) and whitepapers (38 percent).

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Why Martech Investments Aren’t Optimized: Infographic
• How to Effectively Use Marketing Content in the Mid-Funnel
• Four Ways B2B Marketers Can Deliver a Positive User Experience

The survey also showed that the top social media channel by far for generating leads is LinkedIn, at 84 percent, followed by Facebook at 43 percent and Twitter and YouTube, tied at 25 percent. Instagram rounds out the social platforms used for marketing at 16 percent. The top challenges to social media marketing are engagement, measuring social ROI and having enough content.

Customer experience is a top priority for 80 percent of B2B marketers surveyed. However, challenges to creating a great experience for customers and prospects include budget, organizational support and silos, resources, personalization and engagement.

Click on the Image Below to View the Full-Sized Infographic

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Five Insights From the 2020 Chief Marketer B2B Marketing Outlook appeared first on Chief Marketer.

This especially applies to sales. Most people familiar with acquisition know there must always be a start to the customer journey and the all-important end (the sale). However, placing your reliance on these two points alone is a sure-fire way to decrease conversions.

This approach forgets the all-important mid-funnel. It may just look like the path from A to B, but what goes on between the intrigue and conversion stages can make or break a company. That is why it is important to harness the potential of content in this often-overlooked gap in the consumer sales funnel.

So, how can you use content more effectively in the mid-funnel?

Clearly Define the Mid-Funnel

The mid-funnel is the area of your sales process where leads have been generated, identified with means of contact, and qualified as worth chasing. The content in the mid-funnel is what bridges the gap between the top-funnel introductions and intrigue and the conversion at the bottom of the funnel.

In B2B marketing, the mid-funnel is arguably the most important space for businesses. The sales cycles in B2B are more complex than B2C, which are more focused on customer-relationship management. Prospects of B2B products and services require nurturing, proving that you are a knowledgeable in the required sector, but also trustworthy.

The goal is to create content for this mid-funnel phase that helps leads evaluate your brand, separating your company from your competitors in the same space, always with the aim of guiding prospects through the funnel to conversion.

Every piece of content should be persuasive, educational and highly targeted. Unlike top-funnel content that casts a wide net for a broader reach among your target audience, mid-funnel content is tailored to address specific issues of segmented groups.

Types of Mid-Funnel Content

• Newsletters: This isn’t a generic newsletter that features a little of everything for everyone. Instead, those leads in the mid-funnel should be put into segmented lists. They should then be targeted with emails crafted to their needs and interests. For example, if you offer digital asset management and sales enablement software, identify which prospects are interested in which product, then send them newsletters only related to that service.
• eBooks: These are long-form digital booklets that are usually heavily data-led and centered around a specific topic. This type of material can be great for generating top-funnel leads. More importantly, it can demonstrate your company’s knowledge on a particular subject, checking the box of helping prospects evaluate your brand and educating them.
• Case Studies: A case study is as effective as a positive review or testimonial. Prospects are able to see for themselves the process of your work and the ROI achieved for businesses in a similar industry to them.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Tips for Ensuring Customer Loyalty in 2020
• Four Ways B2B Marketers Can Deliver a Positive User Experience
• Three Ways Marketing and Technology Can Collaborate on Digital Transformation

Increase the Credibility and Value of Your Sales Reps

The middle of the funnel is a high-pressure environment for the sales team. Reps must increase conversions at each stage of the customer journey to hit their targets, and because of this their focus is usually on selling and ultimately the bottom line.

This, however, can mean they’re busy chasing the sale instead of delivering value, which for B2C may be excusable, but in B2B, where nurturing is key, this approach could see prospects swiftly drop out.

Great mid-funnel content—like thought leadership pieces from senior managers—helps sales reps to continually deliver value and boosts their credibility. Ensure your sales team and marketing team are working together closely. The sales team can provide feedback on which material has been effective in converting mid-funnel leads into bottom-funnel customers.

Training is also key. If your sales reps are not fully informed on what it is you offer, how can you expect them to effectively answer the queries of leads or even sell the features of your product? Provide training for every new recruit on your products and services—especially how they may benefit different targets.

This level of knowledge will increase the credibility of your sales team, building trust with consumers.

Demonstrate You Understand Your Customers’ Needs

Another challenge sales reps face mid-funnel is the ability to connect with their prospects. Often, potential customers are weighing their options and “shopping around,” and reps are competing against competitors to seal the deal.

Effective mid-funnel content helps reps fend off rivals when it demonstrates that the rep, and your business, understand the prospect. The reps need to demonstrate that they know the problems consumers face in their industry and they can relate to them; carefully constructed content then enables reps to sell your product as the solution.

This is why case studies are popular mid-funnel pieces of content. Sales reps are armed with fully-formed examples of the product in use within different sectors. They can either explain the gist of the case study over the phone to prospects or simply send out the case study to the relevant contacts.

Vary Your Content

To connect with prospects mid-funnel, you also need to vary your content to prevent your communication from getting stale. Remember that B2B conversions can be a long process; there will definitely be more than one interaction with prospects. Generic and repetitive content at this stage can feel impersonal and turn customers away.

Evergreen content—like “top 10” and “how to” stories—is works as the occasional placeholder, but ideally, you should be as specific and relevant to the needs and goals of the prospect as possible. For example, instead of creating “top 10 ways to market your business,” why not create, “10 marketing strategies for finance start-ups?”

The first title is generic and could apply to any business, yet the tips will only be relevant to a handful. The second title lays out that it is providing marketing strategies specifically chosen to benefit a finance start-up. It is less likely to feature influencer marketing and big budget campaigns and more likely to focus on thought leadership pieces and getting comments featured in start-up publications.

Make sure your content covers all the different personas and verticals you target. Change up the layouts and formats depending on the different devices and screens a prospect may be viewing. Experiment with different media types. A video Q&A about your service may work better than an eBook on some verticals, whereas a text-heavy whitepaper will be preferred by others.

Use Technology to Help Distribute and Review Content

Finally, technology can support how you distribute content mid-funnel. It can help determine which pieces are your most effective and which are unsuccessful.

In Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey 2018-2019, 34% of CMOs selected ‘Martech acquisition and use’ as the most important area of spend when asked, “what are the most vital capabilities supporting marketing strategy delivery over the next 18 months?”

Sales Enablement Software can help you understand if your messaging is getting people to engage with the content your reps are sharing by tracking open rates and click-through rates. It can give your reps the ability to tailor content specifically to their prospects and craft a highly personalized, dynamic customer journey.

This type of software also provides the feedback and analytics you need to see who is interested in what you’re sharing. It helps you to reach invisible decision makers and gives your content/marketing team an idea of what’s most effective for your strategy moving forward.

Adam Little is the CMO of Data Dwell.

The post How to Effectively Use Marketing Content in the Mid-Funnel appeared first on Chief Marketer.

B2B buyers form quick impressions based on their experience with digital channels. In just seconds, they can develop a positive or negative image of your brand—and that image can be irreversible.

For example, an outdated, slow, or non-intuitive website can reflect poorly on your brand and your organization’s understanding of customer needs, potentially hurting sales. Conversely, an easy-to-navigate website that answers buyers’ questions can inspire them to dig deeper and move a brand to the top of their consideration set.

While these examples are not surprising to marketers, less obvious is the way they can address the challenges they face to create positive online user experiences. And how can they best evaluate their digital channels?

With so much on the line for B2B marketers throughout the buyer’s journey, it’s important to frequently review and optimize your digital channels. The following tips can help you deliver an experience that upholds and supports your brand’s promise to customers.

1. Make an ongoing commitment to engage, and respond to user feedback.

Make the time to routinely talk to customers and internal audiences. Seek feedback on your digital channels—particularly for your website or app—to identify areas for improvement. Internally, look beyond product, marketing, or sales teams and seek out feedback from customer service or other employees with direct customer contact. Gathering internal stakeholder input upfront also ensures everyone is aligned on business goals and ROI measurement.

Depending on the product or service, you may also want to engage engineering, sustainability experts, or employees from other functional areas of the company. The goal is to routinely gather and evaluate feedback, using it to improve prospective buyers’ experiences across your digital channels.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• What Marketers Need to Know About Technology Decision-Makers
• October’s B2B and Martech Top 10
• Three Ways Marketing and Technology Can Collaborate on Digital Transformation

2. Consider the content needs of all key stakeholders in the buying process.

The B2B buying process is complex and typically involves multiple individuals in the purchase decision. The ultimate decision maker isn’t the only audience B2B marketers need to engage. Having a clear understanding of all key stakeholders is essential for developing compelling user content and online experiences.

Developing personas that reflect specific user groups and engaging in social listening can help you determine the needs of all influencers in the buying process. Additionally, reviewing your digital channels’ analytics to inform content audits can help identify outdated content that should be removed, as well as popular content that can be repurposed in multiple formats. For example, a well-read or frequently downloaded article can be turned into multiple blog or social media posts, an interview, a podcast, email content, and much more.

3. Use AI to determine and deliver customized content.

AI technologies provide an important tool with multiple applications to help marketers improve and customize buyers’ experiences. Similar to Netflix or Gmail, marketers can use machine learning to make personalized content recommendations based on users’ preferences. This helps brands’ direct or deliver digital content of potential interest based on a user’s digital searches and the content they engage with on your digital channels.

For example, using AI with the data in your CRM system can allow machine learning to predict future purchases based on past purchases or interest. This enables brands to develop upsell or cross-sell email messages with content and graphics personalized to each customer. Imagine the time and resources it would take to accomplish this manually, even if it could be done. Email marketing that also employs machine learning to create personalized subject lines and optimize send times to each recipient is destined to have a positive impact on email metrics.

AI can also help analyze content that is resonating the most on your digital platforms, and take your social listening and buyer insights to the next level. For example, natural language processing (NLP) and image analysis of social media posts can quickly and comprehensively understand what people are saying and posting about brands. Without AI, this type of deep analysis would likely be too time consuming and costly to consider.

4. Be mindful of the fundamentals of creating positive user experiences.

With so many opportunities to use your brand’s digital channels to engage and inspire buyers, it can be easy to overlook these fundamentals of delivering positive user experiences.

• Keep it simple. If your content doesn’t resonate, or a user has to jump through too many hoops to gather the information they’re seeking, they will look elsewhere.
• Prioritize users’ needs. This may seem obvious, but too often a brand’s priorities are placed above those of the buyers. Do your homework—develop personas to understand your audience, their goals and pain points. Then refer to your buyer personas often to determine if your digital content is meeting their needs. Most importantly, treat personas as living documents that are continually updated as buyers’ needs evolve.
• Break out of silos. For most B2B companies, multiple teams manage various brand channels and content. If your website experience or voice are starkly different from your social media or email efforts, it can create confusion or misperceptions with buyers. Work across teams to ensure consistency on all your digital channels.

The continual process of reviewing and optimizing your digital presence is essential in today’s dynamic and competitive B2B marketplace. Buyers have high expectations of a brand’s digital channels, and that can be daunting. The good news? You have unlimited possibilities to directly and effectively engage buyers. Use these opportunities to forge deeper customer connections, improve brand experiences, drive loyalty, and increase sales potential.

 Ashley Livingston is Vice President of digital marketing at Oden.

The post Four Ways B2B Marketers Can Deliver a Positive User Experience appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Crafting a more holistic marketing approach based on better sales and marketing integration is helping Hewlett Packard Enterprise improve account based marketing (ABM) and better engage key target accounts.

In 2014, Hewlett Packard split into two divisions, HP inc., the consumer business, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), the B2B arm of HP. Adam Benaroya, senior manager of global media at HPE, notes that at the start, the new organization felt like a “$50 billion start-up,” because at launch it was building its marketing structure from scratch alongside some legacy systems inherited from the shared infrastructure.

“We needed to rethink the B2B adtech and martech stack and [consider] what we needed, particularly around ABM,” says Benaroya.

Many of the sales and marketing teams in the new organization had account lists they wanted to activate with digital marketing techniques, but because of the size of the company there were decentralized strategies in place which were somewhat limiting.

‘We had too many lists from too many parts of the organization,” says Benaroya. “Sales alignment wasn’t always realized at the start of programs, list quality was questionable and any one account might sit in multiple programs at the same time.”

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Having access to customer data is critical for ABM success, no matter how large an enterprise your marketing team is managing.

“You can’t expect to find customers with a promising lifetime value and [create] an ideal customer profile without accurate data,” wrote Kristina James, director of marketing at MRD, in a recent article for Chief Marketer. “Putting in the time to research and evaluate data with a fine-tooth comb will also improve your demand gen campaigns. Suddenly, all of your outbound marketing will have the potential to be more personalized.”

The issue of siloed data, coupled with questionable list quality, added up to the true promise of ABM being near impossible for HPE to realize, notes Benaroya. “We needed to decide the best mix of campaigns and messaging to accounts but there was no holistic company strategy related to ABM.”

ABM success relies heavily not only on integration between various marketing channels, but on integration between all involved departments within an organization, marketing, operations and analytics teams, says Rene Asis, head of B2B measurement at LiveRamp, which works with HPE.

“The ABM journey has become more advanced,” he says. “The struggle is attaching channels to ROI signals, to see if your efforts are making a difference.”

A recent report from Ascend2 notes that while 65 percent of marketers see their ABM efforts as “somewhat successful,” only 29 percent describe their ABM initiatives as best-in-class. Not surprisingly, the highest percentage of respondents said that their primary objective with ABM was to increase existing account revenue (56 percent). But, not everyone is apparently succeeding in this goal: over a third (39 percent) also cited this as a top challenge for ABM success, topped only by increasing accounts and contacts and improving sales and marketing alignment (43 percent each).

HPE’s marketing team started to work closely with the sales teams, to help prioritize which accounts would be targeted with ABM strategies, in the process trimming down the number of individuals who would be involved in that decision making process.

The company has the luxury of a large data scientist team, notes Benaroya, which gives HPE access to propensity modeling to determine which accounts are currently in market. The goal was to manage the ABM process in a holistic way and create a clear strategy across both the entire portfolio of HP products and the target accounts.

“[Then], account centralization can be applied to the rest of our marketing work [in digital and beyond], whether it is events or any other type of analog marketing program going into market,” he says.

The more holistic marketing approach is helping HPE optimize media investments for new products, and prevent multiple siloed marketing efforts targeting a particular account at any time. The marketing team now had a list of account segments that matched back to the U.S. sales team roster which, when coupled with sales propensity models, would help target the messaging mix across different markets.

It can take time for companies to determine what success looks like for ABM, says James. “Traditional metrics, like the number of leads generated, for example, aren’t as important. KPIs change, and it’s hard to know upfront how many opportunities will be generated or how much pipeline is needed to fill the funnel.”

“In the past we had platforms that allowed us to activate” but these were siloed, says HP’s Benaroya, who spoke at Connect to Convert recently. “We wanted to measure full digital activity and  [increase our] measurement capability across all digital channels to see what activity was turning into leads.”

The Ascend2 survey of 293 marketing professionals found that in ABM more isn’t necessarily better. Forty-five percent of respondents said that managing fewer than 50 contacts was the most effective with ABM; 40 percent said they were working with 50 to 500 contacts, and only 15 percent said they worked effectively with over 500 contacts in their ABM program. Sales revenue, cited by 67 percent, was far and away the most effective metric used to measure ABM success, followed by qualified accounts (41 percent) and account engagement (38 percent). 

The post HP Improves ABM with Sales and Marketing Integration appeared first on Chief Marketer.

More than half of respondents to this year’s Chief Marketer Martech Outlook survey said they expect marketing technology budgets to increase in the next 12 months. That’s great news for brands—and martech vendors. But before you buy, you need to carefully consider what purchases make the most sense for your organization.

Ashley DePaolo, president of CommCreative, notes that she frequently has conversations with B2B clients wanting to invest more in their martech stack.

“We try to coach clients that unless they have the content and programs to fuel [such expenditures], stop,” she says. “Martech isn’t a bandage to help you keep up with bandwidth. Investing without a strategy will lead to you ending up with a very complicated tech stack that won’t really help you nurture leads.”

Technology, a good CRM system, marketing automation and a marketing analytics platform that are set up to meet your brand’s needs are table stakes. But beyond that, it doesn’t make sense to go crazy out of the gate, DePaulo says. “You don’t need a lot. Start small and add as it makes sense.”

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CMOs (43 percent), CEOs (42 percent), marketing VPs (46 percent) and marketing managers (38 percent) were the leaders most likely to be responsible for making martech purchasing decisions, according to Chief Marketer’s research.

Marketers looking to invest in technology need to consider their investments from several different angles, notes Siddharth Taparia, SVP and head of strategic ecosystem marketing at SAP.

“Ultimately, what does the technology do for the customer? Does it provide a more personalized experience? Does it capture the information you’re looking for? Does it make a sales transaction easier? Does it make marketing more efficient? That is the guiding principle.”

As marketers invest in technologies such as AI and machine learning, it is important to understand how to get the most effective ROI from those investments, he says. “We need to identify our customers and think about how we can [use] the information we have about customers to provide the right information at the right time for the entirety of the customer journey.”

The volume of solutions on the market (50 percent) and a lack of available budget (45 percent) were the two biggest hurdles to optimizing martech and making purchasing decisions. Respondents also cited frustration in how quickly solutions could become outdated.

“The idea that as soon as you buy or subscribe to a solution a new one could come out and claim to be better is frustrating,” said one respondent. “And the truth is that it might just be better at one part of what it does.”

It can be difficult determining which of the numerous solutions on the market is the best one for your company, said another. “It’s hard to understand whether we should go for a niche product or a broader solution, and understand whether a broad solution has the specific tools to get each job done.”

The post Brands Need to Consider Martech Investments Wisely: Report appeared first on Chief Marketer.

One of the top concerns for all marketers in the digital age is cybersecurity. Chief Marketer recently chatted with McAfee CMO Allison Cerra about the challenges of promoting cybersecurity products, how she looks at marketing ROI, and the gender gap in the industry. Cerra, who joined McAfee in 2015 shortly before the brand was spun off from Intel, is the author of the new book, “The Cybersecurity Playbook: How Every Leader and Employee Can Contribute to a Culture of Security.”

CHIEF MARKETER: What’s the biggest challenge to marketing cybersecurity? Is education and content a big part of the equation?
CERRA: Yes. I think there’s a really strong appetite for cybersecurity. It’s a really strong market and it is growing. The challenge is not so much explaining why customers need cyberdefense. The challenge is more that there are 3,000 vendors on any given day that will offer some form of cybersecurity and the [market] is noisy and overwhelmingly complicated. Really trying to differentiate and distinguish yourself against thousands of competitors is where I think the challenge and opportunity is, rather than trying to create demand for the [product] itself.

CM: What are the main channels you use to connect with and engage customers?
CERRA: We have a diverse integrated marketing mix. We do a lot of digital, as you might imagine, but we also do a healthy percentage of trade shows, events and conferences to get our message out there. Then, we also do traditional things like dimensional mail, in a targeted way as part of ABM to break through clutter and compliment the digital sequence. We really try to exercise as many motors of the engine as we can to reach the customer throughout their buying journey.

CM: The cybersecurity space and the types of threats out there are constantly evolving. How do you communicate those changes to your audience?
CERRA: There are a lot of business line leaders who have a role in cybersecurity. Often, marketers might not even realize they have a role to play. Unfortunately, because cybersecurity is complex, most marketers are loathe to go talk to their information security officer and create a relationship, to understand how they can insert themselves [into the process]. Cybersecurity will never be the main part of their job, but it needs to be part of their remit, in a way that doesn’t overwhelm them but empowers them.

There are a few ways marketers can be part of cybersecurity, one of which is having a recovery plan. You need to get with the chief security officer (CSO) and understand [what is happening], because not all breaches are created equal. Maybe your data and systems might not be compromised, but your brand could be. What would you do? On the other end of the spectrum, what if personally identifiable  information is compromised? Now, what does your disaster recovery plan look like?

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CM: McAfee had a social media breach of its own a few years back. How did you cope with that situation?
CERRA: We had just spun out from Intel about two weeks earlier, and I got a text on Easter Sunday from our chief HR officer to go check our social media page on a prominent platform, because it was bad. I was confronted with a page completely defaced with the most inflammatory racist, sexist, homophobic derisions directed at just about every walk of life. The moments that followed were panic stricken, as we tried to figure out what to do.  We reached out to our CSO to make sure that our systems were good, even though this was a third party [site], to make sure a hacker hadn’t thrown this up as a smokescreen while they did real damage somewhere else. Our systems were fine, our intellectual property was fine, our personally identifiable data was fine.

Then, it was a matter of working with the social media provider, because we had been locked out administratively from our own account. We struggled for hours to get control back, to restore our social media page. In the aftermath, we learned several lessons. I and my team could have been much more on our game to be on the lookout for potential hackers. We should have a tighter relationship with the social media provider, we should have had [arrangements] in place for such an occurrence. We should have been more on top of this, and candidly, we weren’t. Every function—product development, marketing, HR—needs a playbook for when we find ourselves in the crosshairs of an adversary.

CM: Marketer didn’t need to have these types of skills in the past. How have the types of skills you and your team need changed?
CERRA: It used to be a one way street – you controlled the message, the channels, the feedback loop from customers. The entire marketing paradigm changed. Buyers started to change the way they communicated with brands, which made us change the profiles and skill sets we had as marketers. We couldn’t just rely on the broadcast channels any more. We had to co-own the brand with customers, realizing their voice mattered more than what we were trying to tell the market about our unique selling proposition.

Now, you’re starting to see that waterfall to other functions. Sales is starting to feel that and be disintermediated by digital channels. They saw it later than marketing, because we’re at the top of the funnel and they’re about closing it. Things have changed. The martech stack has changed and continues to change. We’re learning how to create this integrated sequence that has hundreds of touchpoints that you have to manage. This is a different completely set of challenges than what I encountered when I entered the workforce and marketing 20 years ago.

CM: Given all these changes, has it evolved how you think about ROI for marketing?
CERRA: Absolutely. There are certain functions of marketing that you can clearly measure—demand gen is the easiest one. But I would also argue that there are many measures that have nothing to do with ROI. When we’re doing brand building, it would be impossible for me to prove ROI for basic awareness generating campaigns. I could try, but I would be surprised if a smart CFO didn’t call me on whether those campaigns drove awareness versus a whole other host of conditions that you have no control over in the marketplace. So it becomes about how you measure awareness consideration and how you look at that over time, to figure out where mindshare is changing.

CM: Beyond marketing, is staffing an issue in the cybersecurity industry? Is there a gender gap?
CERRA: It is a huge issue. Cybersecurity is a unique industry in many ways. It is the only industry that I’ve ever worked in that has a zero unemployment rate. There is a global talent shortage that will persist for the foreseeable future. The gender gap is pervasive. It is 85, 90 percent male. There are very few females in cybersecurity, and there are similar issues with minorities. We need all hands on deck. We need to stop the unconscious bias questions not only in this but other industries. We need more people from other industries to come into the ranks, because there are not enough bodies to fill positions. We need to make sure that we are gender and minority neutral, to make sure that people with skill sets that are transferrable into the pipeline.

The post CMO Q&A: McAfee’s Cybersecurity Marketing Challenges appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Testing creative and calls to action is helping Justworks improve its online lead nurturing and conversion rates.

Engaging B2B decision makers as early as possible is critical, because much of the decision making process today happens before a prospect ever talks to a salesperson, notes Wayne Silverman, CRO of Business.com, which works with Justworks on its digital strategy.

For Justworks, a SaaS HR benefits technology company, the Justworks.com pricing page is a significant strategic opportunity, because in the brand’s competitive set, it is the only one that publishes pricing.

“It’s a way for us to educate prospects about our core value and differentiate ourselves,” says William Boyle, digital marketing manager for Justworks.

About a year ago, the company tested redesigning the pricing page. Previously, the page design was straightforward with pricing prominently displayed above the fold and the different plans clearly explained. The redesign took a more conceptual approach, showing toy dinosaurs clustered around a computer, looking up what plan was right for them.

It was a big departure, that didn’t pay off. After several weeks of testing, conversion rates dropped and requests for demos went down. Different calls to action were tested, such as a soft “learn more about benefits” button and a more direct “get started” button, with the latter improving conversions by nearly two percent.

Different images were also tested. Justworks has found great success in paid social with creative using photographs of real people, which makes sense for a human resources provider, Boyle notes.

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The illustration used at launch resulted in a 2.4 percent request rate for demos, while the revised page showed a 3.2 demo request rate. “This is excellent, because when we convert these leads, each percentage point adds revenue,” says Boyle. “Always be testing, even when you think you have a good page—not every campaign will convert, but you have to be constantly testing new things.”

“Making sure your website can communicate with your audience is critical,” adds Silverman.  “You need to understand who your audience is and why they come to your website.”

Justworks’ fiscal calendar starts in June, so in late spring, the company needs to drive website traffic and generate as many leads as possible, to fill the pipeline for salespeople. Last year, the company spent 70 percent of its lead gen budget in the first two quarters, but only hit 59 percent of its goal. In the second half, it needed to reduce its cost per lead and hit its goal.

The solution? Recycle qualified leads that hadn’t converted. There were numerous reasons the leads hadn’t converted—perhaps the timing simply wasn’t right, or maybe the contact wasn’t the right decision maker. Regardless, those contacts needed to be reengaged. Internal data was studied to see where the contact were in their buying journey, what was happening in their vertical market, their job titles and what landing pages they had visited.

Leads were then segmented, and different lead nurturing journeys—with content and cadences catering prospect’s specific path—were created.

“The content depended on the persona,” says Boyle, who presented at Connect to Convert in Boston. “Some might be motivated by hard data, and others by case studies, so we have to consistently be looking at data to tweak the experience.”

In the third quarter, 1,900 marketing qualified leads were engaged, with an average of 25 touches. Since the leads had been previously paid for, the efforts cost nothing other than the salespeople’s time. The initiative paid off, with the reengagements accounting for 10 percent of conversions.

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