Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels

Table of Contents
Foreword............................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: The What and Why of B2B Marketing Channels........................................................ 2
What Qualifies as a Marketing Channel?..........................................................................................3
The Business Benefits of Marketing Channel Discovery and Prioritization...........................................4
A Quick Look at the Key Players in the Process................................................................................5
Understanding the Prerequisites of Marketing Channel Research ......................................................7
Chapter 2: Discovering a Universe of Marketing Channels ......................................................... 8
Narrowing Your Marketing Channel Focus through Preliminary Research............................................9
Preliminary Research Techniques............................................................................................10
Identifying and Grouping Keywords for Web-based Channel Research..............................................11
Generating Keyword Combinations for Online Research.............................................................13
Generating Hashtags and Short Forms for Your Most Common Keywords.....................................13
Grouping Keywords into Applicable Themes.............................................................................14
Performing Online Research to Build a List of Prospective Marketing Channels.................................15
Building the Data Collection Plan...........................................................................................15
Executing a Web-based Research Process................................................................................16
Removing Junk Data and Channel Duplication.........................................................................18
Qualifying Marketing Channels by Type, Thematic Relevance, Quality, and Feasibility........................18
Content Quality and Relevance...............................................................................................20
Channel Feasibility................................................................................................................21

Chapter 3: Prioritizing Marketing Channels and Optimizing Your Marketing Plan........................ 22
Identifying Marketing Channel Prioritization Factors and Relevant Metrics........................................22
Prioritization Across Different Types of Marketing Channels............................................................23
Defining and Managing the Prioritization Data Collection Process ...................................................24
Establishing a Backup Plan to Address Unanticipated Gaps in Prioritization Data.............................24
Applying the Prioritization Scheme to Qualified Marketing Channels................................................26
Gathering and Incorporating Feedback..........................................................................................27
End Note............................................................................................................................ 31
Appendix............................................................................................................................ 32
Marketing Channel Types.............................................................................................................32
Typical Marketing Channel Prioritization Metrics............................................................................37
Additional Resources..................................................................................................................41

Foreword
For much of its 100-year history, outdoor recreation retailer L.L. Bean relied on a straightforward and simple
marketing strategy. The company would send out thick, glossy mail-order catalogs to its best customers and rely on
word-of-mouth or customer referrals to drive new customer acquisition. Outside of that, the Maine-based business did
little else to market itself. Because, well, it didn’t need to.

Then, about 10 years ago, things changed. L.L. Bean CEO Chris McCormick realized that the company’s single-channel
marketing strategy was no longer sufficient. As McCormick told an industry publication at the time, L.L. Bean’s catalog
was beginning to cause customer fatigue and brand apathy. Meanwhile, the company’s primary competitors were actively
engaging the same customer segment through a variety of more recent online marketing channels.

So, McCormick and L.L. Bean’s executive team did what the best companies always do: They reinvented the company’s
marketing strategy. Today, as L.L. Bean attempts to target younger and more mobile consumers, the business is investing
heavily in social media networks like Facebook and YouTube, and it has hired a team of 10 employees dedicated to
those social channels. The company is also leveraging traditional broadcast media by airing television commercials and
publishing magazine ads.

Interesting story, right? But why does any of that matter to growth-stage B2B technology companies? It’s simple, really.
Because it illustrates one company’s recognition that marketing has evolved. While a single channel marketing strategy
might have been effective 20 years ago, it’s not enough anymore.

Businesses today — especially expansion-stage B2B technology companies in competitive markets — must be able
to identify the channels that influence their customers the most. They must dedicate an appropriate amount of their
marketing resources to reach them effectively. If they fail to do that, then scaling technology businesses stand very
little chance of capturing their market’s attention.

OpenView’s eBook, “Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels,” can
help. In the following pages, you’ll find detailed marketing channel definitions, a well-summarized list of multi-channel
marketing business benefits, and a step-by-step process. It’ll bring your company up to speed. But more than that, it will
help you to begin engaging the right customers in the right places.

Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Co-author, Content Rules (Wiley) (now in paperback – spring 2012)

Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 1

Chapter 1: The What and Why of B2B Marketing
Channels
The average marketing strategy for a startup or growing B2B software company used to be fairly straightforward.
It might involve buying advertisements in specific trade magazines or publications, creating a small budget for
Google AdWords, and building a sufficient, if not fancy, website. Beyond that, most additional marketing chan-
nels were viewed as experimental or an unnecessary use of precious resources.

In many ways, that strategy closely resembled the tactics that much
larger B2C businesses have long relied on: using one primary medium “It’s shocking just how much time
(e.g., direct mail catalogs) and one or two sub-channels (e.g., pay-per- and money companies spend
click ads or e-mail newsletters) to reach very specific buyer personas. promoting their products and
services without ever truly
The problem with that approach is that a single channel strategy is far too
understanding their customers or
simplistic for B2B technology companies, which tend to sell sophisticated
prospects. If you don’t know who
products to very complex market segments.
you’re trying to convince, what those people need to
Today, B2B marketing is multi-channel marketing and growing businesses hear to be convinced, and what channels you need to
should be tapping into an ever expanding universe of online marketing use to reach them, your message is never going to get
channels, including social media, interactive assessments, and virtual across. This eBook advocates the same principles that
events, to better target their customers. Of course, the range of options we use at Influencer50: understand your customer’s
can be burdensome, especially for companies that lack the budget and approach to buying or adopting new providers and
staff to experiment with each of them. suppliers as well as what affects their choices,
prioritize opportunities, and measure the effectiveness
However, that doesn’t excuse smaller B2B companies from having to of your approach to market. It’s shocking, and
research and identify the marketing channels that are most appropri- completely illogical, how few organizations plan their
ate for their business goals. In fact, because of the complexity of their marketing outreach around these basic common sense
products, the sophistication of their customers, and, in most cases, the building blocks.”
competition in their markets, it’s more important than ever for those
companies to leverage multiple channels to engage their target customer
segments. Nick Hayes
President, Influencer50, Inc.


So, how exactly do you identify which channels are right for your
business? And how many channels should you be using at a time?

“Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels” provides a high-level overview of
one channel selection process — there are certainly others — that OpenView has had great success using. It is intended for
senior executives and project managers who, after reading this, will be able to make sense of the wide and complex range
of marketing mediums that help bring their message to their customers and pinpoint the marketing channels that are most
effective at engaging those customers. Ultimately, those insights will allow your company to strike the right channel mix and
optimize your marketing dollars so that they have maximum impact.

WHAT QUALIFIES AS A MARKETING CHANNEL?
Marketing channels are specific conduits through which a company’s message can reach There are hundreds of
its target prospects. Channels can include people, events, and organizations, provided different types of marketing
those outlets offer a medium for connecting a business with its customers and prospects. channels, some of the most
The beauty for growing B2B businesses is that effective marketing channels now stretch common used today being:
well beyond the confining — and often expensive — boundaries of traditional advertising. } Word of Mouth
} Partner Marketing
Simply put, marketing can occur across a large array of mediums, though not all of them
} User Groups
are appropriate for your business. To avoid confusion, it’s important for your business to
} Social Media
categorize its best marketing channels by media and content types, as well as market
} Influencers
focus and coverage. Doing so will make the discovery and prioritization process much
(See page 32 in Appendix for
simpler and ensure that the right messages are being delivered to the right audience. a representative list)

For the purpose of this eBook, keep the following four specific categories
of marketing channels in mind:

Marketing channels that are relevant to your product’s direct market, which include mediums where
Product-specific that product — or similar competing products — are normally advertised, reviewed, or discussed.
Product-specific marketing channels are most suitable for targeted demand generation campaigns.


Marketing channels where your competitors are not only present, but also active. Applicable chan-
Competitor nels include those used directly or indirectly by competitors to advertise, sell, or promote their prod-
ucts, along with channels that frequently mention or review competing solutions. There are various
types of competitors (including direct pure play competitors, direct non-pure play competitors, and
substitutes), all of which are germane to this category.

Marketing channels that are relevant to a customer’s buying behavior (i.e., his or her pain points,
Behavioral thoughts, intentions, trusted sources and advisors, and buying preferences both online and off).
For example, you might include online communities frequented by your target prospects as well as
the active experts in those communities whose recommendations influence buyer behaviors.

Marketing channels that are used by the industry as a whole. In other words, the mediums that your
Industry industry’s buyers, vendors, partners, analysts, and journalists use to exchange pertinent information.
Typically, this group covers a broader range of topics and content than the previous categories and is
particularly useful for general market presence and brand-building efforts.

THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF MARKETING CHANNEL DISCOVERY
AND PRIORITIZATION
Like any marketing initiative, senior executives want to know how a B2B marketing channel process will impact the bottom
line and what value it will bring in return. While it might be difficult to derive a quantitative return on investment overnight,
the marketing channel discovery and prioritization process can help optimize your company’s marketing spend over both the
short and long term.

As most marketers know, doing so will impact sales and marketing operations almost immediately, fueling better departmental
efficiency and performance — not to mention better market focus — for quarters if not years to come. Some of the other
benefits of conducting a marketing channel discovery and prioritization exercise include:

Helping develop finely tuned annual marketing plans: Most marketing managers suffer through a rigorous annual
guessing game that requires them to predict which conferences they should attend, which analysts they need to engage, and
how much money they will need to do their jobs. By executing a marketing channel discovery and prioritization process, they
can more accurately project those plans and better support them with key data.


Improving tracking and benchmarking: Once marketing managers have well-defined and prioritized lists of marketing
channels, they can review their performance against those channels and continuously optimize that list accordingly.

Gaining insights into competitors’ marketing strategies: Through the channel discovery process, companies can gain
critical competitive insights into which channels their greatest competitors — especially the ones with similar marketing budgets
— use most.

Knowing who to hire for future needs: If a marketing manager knows that her business’s top online channel is influenc-
ers, she can plan ahead to hire people with the skill sets (public relations and social media, for example) that are best suited
for utilizing that channel.

Setting more realistic goals: With the data derived from the marketing channel discovery process, a marketing team can
set realistic goals that align with a particular channel’s actual opportunities. In turn, marketers can avoid the pitfall of setting
overly ambitious goals that cannot possibly be achieved with the channel they plan to use.

If your business is struggling to gain traction in an increasingly competitive market, each of these five benefits could have a sig-
nificant long-term impact on the development of your business’s marketing strategy. It is important to note that there are other
ancillary benefits that we will not cover in this eBook.

A QUICK LOOK AT THE KEY PLAYERS IN THE PROCESS
Gathering and prioritizing marketing channel data is not a one-person job. It requires significant
effort from several people in your marketing organization, with the key roles falling into three
specific categories:

Project
Sponsor Typically the VP of marketing or your company’s most senior marketer, the project sponsor is responsible for owning and over-
seeing the entire marketing channel discovery and prioritization process. He or she is responsible for directing the scope and
goals of the project, along with securing company-wide agreement on the research methodology and the ultimate utilization of
the project’s outputs. Specifically, the project sponsor:

Defines and Defines the marketing Reviews and vets the Incorporates the

1 plans the
project 2 channel prioritization
criteria 3 prioritization of the
marketing channels 4 results into the
marketing plan


Market Generally a marketing manager with deep knowledge of the target market segment, the market research analyst’s responsibili-
Research ties include executing the research and analysis steps necessary to guide the project, and ensuring the reliability and accuracy
Analyst
of the initiative’s data outputs. Specifically, the market research analyst:

Executes preliminary
research to establish
Defines Groups keywords

1 Collects target market
definition inputs
2 the focus of the
research efforts
(content topics,
3 relevant
keywords 4 into applicable
themes
marketing channels)

Defines and manages online research to collect Qualifies candidate Defines and manages

5 a comprehensive list of potential marketing marketing channels

7
research efforts to
channels and associated qualification data
6 by marketing channel
type, thematic relevance,
and marketing channel
collect prioritization
data on marketing
channels based on the
quality prioritization criteria

Defines alternative
metrics or prioritization

8 strategies to address
any unanticipated lack
of prioritization data Applies the
prioritization Organizes and presents the

9 scheme to prioritize
qualified marketing
channels
10 results and incorporates
stakeholder feedback


Data The project’s worker bees, the data collection team might include junior- UNDERSTANDING THE PREREQUISITES
Collection level marketing associates or marketing interns. The team’s responsibility OF MARKETING CHANNEL RESEARCH
Team is to carry out the bulk of the data collection and entry processes under
At the highest level, marketing channel research
the oversight of the market research analyst. Specifically, the data
requires some basic — but key — pieces of informa-
collection team:
tion, including definitions of project objectives and
outputs, both of which drive the discovery and prioriti-
Carries out online Eliminates duplications zation process and, ultimately, define its success.
research to compile and reviews the resulting

1 a comprehensive list
of marketing channel
candidate URLs
2 URLs to remove irrelevant
websites and low-quality
content sites
Additionally, it is extremely important to execute some
form of market segmentation research before engaging
in this process. Doing so will arm your business with:
} A strong sense of what your ideal buyers look like
Collects additional } An understanding of the common pain points your
Collects prioritization data
information on

3 or proxy prioritization
data for each qualified
marketing channel
4 selected marketing
channels to support the
implementation process
targets share
} A comprehensive view of why a particular market
segment might be interested in your product

Ultimately, if your effort is not focused on a defined
It bears repeating that a project of this magnitude should not be left to one
or two marketing associates. To be truly impactful, it requires collaboration market segment or product, then the prioritization
at both the senior executive and team levels to ensure focus, accuracy, and process will lead to a faulty apples-to-oranges analysis.
efficiency. If your VP of marketing does not have the time to sponsor the And that, as most marketing managers know, often
project or you lack the lower-level team members necessary to assemble a does more harm than good.
data collection team, wait until you are better prepared before starting.
Lastly, it is critical to set marketing channel goals that
The reality is that like any strategic marketing initiative, marketing channel are comprehensive, without being overly sophisticated
research requires businesses to set aside almost as much time for preparation and cumbersome. Expansion-stage businesses should
as they do for execution. Before engaging in any of the actual channel discov- limit themselves to three channel categories and two
ery and prioritization steps, it is critical to examine your market (see sidebar) or three subtypes within each category. Any more than
and identify the universe of potential channels available to your company. that and they risk overwhelming their teams and dilut-
ing their results.
Assembling the right team is critical, too. By identifying the right individu-
als for each of the three roles above, it will be far easier to delegate the
specific channel discovery and prioritization tasks covered in the remainder
of this eBook.


Chapter 2: Discovering a Universe of Marketing Channels
The Holy Grail of marketing is being able to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. The marketing
channel discovery and prioritization process allows marketers to work toward that goal in many ways, pinpointing the mediums
to best connect with and influence their company’s most important customers and prospects.

As such, understanding your audience is a critical component of market channel research. Before going any further, it is impor-
tant to ensure that you can define the following market components for your company:

Your target market segment: The specific, homogenous subgroup of prospects
you are targeting with your sales and marketing strategies “There are
hundreds of
Your buyer personas: The personal and professional characteristics that define
different
and distinguish the buyers in your target market segment
marketing
Your product value propositions: Messages that explain why your particular channels that
product or service benefits — or adds value to — a specific group of prospects you can use to
deliver your message to customers
The competitive landscape you are in: A picture of direct and indirect competi- and prospects. Knowing which
tors in your target market segment channels to use to deliver that
message, however, will make all
Your product ecosystem: The players and products in your target market that
of the difference in terms of if
directly or indirectly relate to your target market segment
and how it is received. Fail to use
Understanding these five market components is very important for a couple of reasons. First, the right channel, and you
if your target market is too narrowly defined, the discovery process will be equally limited. Con- dramatically reduce your chances
versely, if you define your target market too vaguely, you might fail to truly understand your buyer of being heard.”
persona’s specific needs and the direct competitors that stand in your way. Ultimately, that
could lead you to include marketing channels in the prioritization process that are too broad or
Tien Anh Nguyen
inappropriate for smaller, more targeted market segments.
Senior Associate,
OpenView Venture Partners


Once you’ve gained clarity on each of these market components, you will be ready to execute the bulk of the marketing chan-
nel discovery and prioritization process that is covered in this chapter. The next several pages cover the multi-step research and
channel qualification process that will help your team build a list of highly qualified potential marketing channels and organize
them by relevance, feasibility, and impact. In Chapter 3, we detail the channel prioritization process that allows you to narrow
your prospective channel list so that it only contains the ones that make the most sense for your business.

After reading the four-step process in this chapter, you will be prepared to conduct your own marketing channel discovery
exercise. Armed with that knowledge, you can adjust your marketing efforts and begin to connect with your ideal customers in a
much more meaningful way.

Step Narrowing Your Marketing Channel Focus through Preliminary Research
1 Before the marketing channel discovery process can begin in earnest, businesses need to conduct preliminary
research to help them develop a set of intermediate outputs that will eventually be used in guiding the project’s
full-scale research effort. The goal of the preliminary research process is to define the following:

The most important marketing channel types for your company: Typically, this will include at least five types
of channels as well as a document that details the evidence gathered to support their selection.

The topical themes that are most relevant to the buyers in your product market: Every market has a unique
set of topics that matter most to its buyers. Those topics can typically be grouped into three general content themes:
product features and technical benefits, general industry topics, and behavioral and personal benefits. The marketing
channel discovery process will help tighten the scope of topics that are most relevant to your target customers, ulti-
mately allowing you to better inform the channel prioritization process.


Preliminary Research Techniques
There are numerous tactics your business can use to acquire these intermediate marketing channel discovery outputs. Below,
we explore four relatively simple activities that, while not comprehensive or overly methodological, will help you better understand
your target market segment, its unique needs, and the channels that its prospects rely on most frequently to gather information.

1. Internal interviews: Polling customer-facing team members is
a fantastic way to obtain market information. This group might INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
include marketing managers, sales representatives, customer ser- Here are some sample questions that you
vice associates, and professional consultants. The interviews should might consider asking in interviews and
be short, with questions that address distinct customer types, the online surveys.
channels they are exposed to, and the topics they are interested in.
Multiple-choice questions:
How often do you read industry publications
per week?
2. External interviews: Conducting similar interviews with a small
set of customers or market experts can both validate the informa- Never
tion you gleaned from your team members and provide additional Fewer than 5 times
insight into channel usage. Limit surveys or interviews to four or 5 to 10 times
five questions, focusing on the ones that reveal where customers More than 10 times
go for industry information (i.e., specific blogs, experts, or publica- Where do you go for information on the latest
tions), how credible they think those sources are, and which medi- technology in your industry? Please select all
ums tend to influence their purchasing decisions the most. that apply.
Industry experts
Industry conferences
3. Online surveys: Executing a simple online survey can help
Trusted vendors
broaden the scope and diversity of research input. Use a simple
tool like Instant.ly, Survey Builder, or SurveyMonkey to develop a Open-ended questions:
short questionnaire and deliver it to prospects in a specific market Which vendors in your industry have the best
segment. Include questions similar to the ones you ask in internal marketing and why?
and external interviews, and use a mix of open-ended and multiple- _________________________________________
choice queries. _________________________________________
_________________________________________


Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels

Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from OpenView

More from OpenView (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels