ITSMA Marketing Strategist Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories

Reader’s Choice Awards:Top 10 B2B Marketing StoriesSpecial Edition | February 7, 2011Jeanne Brown Download the full Special Edition ofITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas of 2010.10TOP10

IntroductionIn 2010, we posted nearly 70pieces of research, articles,and commentaries on ourwebsite. We thought they wereall gold, but some even wentplatinum. Based on thenumber of clickthroughs anddownloads, here are the ideasthat were the most popularwith our readers. (You can findall the research in ITSMA’sOnline Library.) Enjoy! Download the full Special Edition of ITSMA’s Top Ten Marketing Ideas of 2010.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 2

1. Marketing’s transformation began in three areas.We identified three major This year’s shifting priorities set the stage forrequirements for marketing transformation, rather than continued incremental changetransformation. Marketing must: Rank 2010 2009 2008 20071. Create a formal process for 1 2 1 4 2 3 3 7 Enabling the sales force Generating demand thought leadership development 3 7 5 – Developing new and more targeted thought leadership Changing your marketing structure to increase efficiencies and – – and dissemination. 4 5 3 2 1 1 effectiveness Differentiating/repositioning the company, brand, or offerings2. Develop an automated, 6 6 10 10 Increasing focused marketing programs for vertical/industry markets Measuring marketing’s impact on the business integrated closed-loop lead 7 8 9 12 11 19 11 12 Globalizing marketing management process. 9 27 20 15 Reskilling or developing the marketing staff Improving or enhancing customer reference and referral 10 10 – – programs3. Build a fact-based decision Source: ITSMA, Budget Allocations and Trends: Key Metrics Survey, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 culture supported by analytics. Data from ITSMA Key Metrics Survey | B021 2010 Budgets and Benchmarks © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 14 Read 2010: The Year of Marketing Transformation, ITSMA Featured Research: The Rise of Thought Leadership, How to Focus Thought Leadership on Customers’ Needs and ITSMA Online Survey: Thought Leadership.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 3

2. Marketers must put the same rigor behind their servicesdevelopment processes as they do for launching newproducts.Many companies are realizing that ad hoc services built in the field can becostly and difficult to deploy on a larger scale. However, if they are furtherdeveloped or refined centrally, they can also represent a tremendousopportunity. The benefits of creating a services development process include: Lowering the risk of failure. Reducing complexity. Excerpt: New Service Product Development Decision Model Increasing flexibility. Inputs to the Model Impetus for Capacity and Process and Type of New Services Technology Competency Infrastructure Service Development Requirements Requirements Requirements Outputs from the Model Speed to Services Definition New Services Product Success Market and Business Plan Research and Testing Measures Source: ITSMA, 2010 Read How to Create a Services Development Process.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 4

3. Marketers must integrate social media into their overallmarketing mix.Marketers must stop thinking of social media in isolation and start thinking ofthem as additional channels in their overall marketing mix. One criticalcomponent of an integrated strategy is developing a social mediaparticipation strategy. There are three stages of social media participation: ITSMA’s Social Media Participation Model Conversation Community Manage Engage Monitor  Create your own channels for conversation and  Actively engage in conversation community (e.g., blogs, with customers and influencers  Identify target audience online communities) in existing forums  Identify influencers  Develop a social media  Listen to and track participation policy relevant conversations  Support SME participants Passive Active Source: ITSMA, 2010 Read Avoiding the Social Media Silo: How to Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy and How to Fit Social Media into your Overall Marketing Strategy and Make it Stick.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 5

4. Marketers need to properly segment their targetaudience and do the research to truly understand it.In ITSMA’s and RainToday.com’s lead generation benchmarking survey,our research shows that the high performers are doing a better job atsegmenting and understanding their target markets. They are moreknowledgeable about whom they should be targeting and their targetmarkets’ industry and business issues compared to the other companies.Well executed segmentation must be based on deep knowledge of thetarget markets, specifically: When marketing and selling your services, how important is market The composition of the segmentation to your lead generation programs? % of Respondents target markets. 1 = Not at all important 2 = Somewhat unimportant The business and 3 = Neither important nor unimportant company-specific issues 4 = Somewhat important of the target audiences. 5 = Very important Note: Mean rating is based on a 5-point scale, where 1=not at all important and 5=very important. Source: ITSMA and RainToday.com What’s Working in Lead Generation Survey, November 2010 Read Lead Generation Benchmark Report: How the Best Firms Fill the Pipeline, 2010 ITSMA and RainToday.com Lead Generation Survey and Segmentation: A Key to Successful Lead Generation.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 6

5. Marketers can use social media as glue for connectingevents.Based on ITSMA’s research with IBM Saves Money by Encouraging Participants to Record Their ExperiencesB2B services marketers, we’reseeing companies successfully usingsocial media to drive moreattendance and interaction atcompany events. Social media canbecome the glue that binds eventstogether, driving registration anddiscussion prior to events andenabling conference attendees tocontinue the dialogue after orbetween events. Read Avoiding the Social Media Silo: How to Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy, ITSMA Online Survey: Integrating Social Media into the Marketing Mix and the Business, and How to Fit Social Media into your Overall Marketing Strategy and Make it Stick.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 7

6. Cloud computing is changing what and how we market,as well as the actual sale.Cloud computing is not a newdisruptive technology, but What is cloud computing?rather, it is a new disruptivetechnology delivery model. Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,This means that services and servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.solutions take center stage. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essentialBecause of this, marketers characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.have to change what they Five Three Four Essential Characteristics Service Models Deployment Modelsmarket and how they market,  On-demand self-service  Software as a Service  Private cloudand companies will have to  Broad network access (SaaS)  Community cloud  Resource pooling  Platform as a Service  Public cloudlook at how they sell.  Rapid elasticity (PaaS)  Hybrid cloud  Measured Service  Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) What we market. How we market. Source: NIST (National institute of Standards and Technology) ITSMA Web Briefing | E100510 How Cloud Computing will Change Marketing © 2010 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 3 Read How Cloud Computing will Change Marketing and Featured Research: Marketers Need to Make Cloud a Priority.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 8

7. Marketers can use social media to improve intelligencegathering.Social media tools expand the Competipedia Offers Specific Deal Guidance—possibilities of competitive Not Just Informationintelligence by driving collaboration.Xerox Global Services used socialmedia tools and principles to createCompetipedia, a wiki-based toolwhere salespeople can go to findand share competitive intelligence.But Competipedia doesn’t justgather and spit out information—itinterprets it. By entering a few keybits of information into the tool,salespeople receive dynamic salesguidance to help them win specificdeals. Read How Xerox Global Services Used Social Media to Enable Sales and Xerox Global Services’ Competipedia: Using Social Media to Enable the Sales Force.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 9

8. Marketing should use targeted issues, not offerings, toconverse with their audiences.Customers and influencers are not  Develop a persona of your targetinterested in product and service audience and discover what it wants.pitches—especially in the conversational  Audit existing sources of information torealm of social media. That’s why Kronos find an area of differentiation.started a blog, Workforce Institute, which  Create an advisory board to establishfocuses on business issues in Kronos’ credibility and generate ideas.core market, workforce management,rather than on Kronos’ offerings. To help  Monitor the internet for topical issuesensure success, marketers need to take relevant to your target audience anda number of other steps including: create posts that speak to them The Workforce Institute Focuses on Issues Rather Than Offerings directly.  Create a layer of separation between the company and the blog to establish credibility.  Develop an internal engine for ideas and content Read How to Use Blogging to Reach an Executive-Level Audience and the Case Study.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 10

9. Online communities are changing the conversation.When online communities were outlets for techies and users to build a bettermousetrap, business leaders and marketers yawned. But CSC showed thatcommunities—when linked to events and process development—could attracta C-Level audience and should be part of the marketing strategy. Additionally,ITSMA’s How Customers Choose Solution Providers shows that B2B buyers’most valuable sources of information are their peers.When building its online community, IT WikonnecT Lets Participants Choose the Ways That They Want to Connect with Each Otherservices and consulting giant CSC had atremendous advantage to draw on. Sincethe ’70s, CSC has built the softwareplatforms that run more than 1,200 financialservices companies around the world. Itused the relationships it had built overtime offline and transferred them online, toan online community called WikonnecT. Read How CSC Built the Holy Grail of B2B Social Media and CSC’s WikonnecT: How to Build a Thriving Social Media Community.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 11

10. B2B services marketers need more specific training.For many years, B2B marketing was seen as the poor relation to B2C. No B2Bmarketer needs to be convinced of the intricacies of developing meaningful andlasting relationships with customers, especially when buying decisions are sodispersed and achingly long.But the wider marketing world has not always understood this.As our profession has matured,the need and desire for agreedstandards and approaches haveincreased. But while there are many generic marketing certifications, almost all arefocused on B2C. And when B2B is included, it’s usually from a product rather than aservices perspective.It was this lack of formal standards that stoked up discussion among ITSMA’sEuropean Advisory Board members last year and led to the development of the jointITSMA/Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Professional Diploma in Marketing forBusiness Services and Solutions. Our first group of students began their studieslast fall! Read Finally, Global Certification for B2B Services Marketing.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 12

About ITSMA As a membership organization, ITSMA brings together the world’s leading technology and professional services firms to advance the state of the art in marketing and selling services and solutions.Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 13

For More Information Jeanne Brown Senior Manager Member Communications & Community ITSMA jbrown@itsma.com +1-781-862-8500, Ext. 118 Online Library Follow us…Special Edition | February 7, 2011 | 10TOP10 Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories © 2011 ITSMA. All Rights Reserved. 14

ITSMA Marketing Strategist Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories

by ITSMA on Apr 13, 2011

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ITSMA Marketing Strategist Top 10 B2B Marketing Stories — Presentation Transcript