B2B CMO Imperatives

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For CMO & Marketing Leadership Professionals
Why Read This Report
Business-to-business (B2B) CMOs will have three key initiatives to execute on in 2013 in order to separate
themselves from the competition in front of empowered business buyers. Marketers must work with CIOs
to establish a foundation of data-driven attentiveness to customers in their marketing plans. In this report,
Forrester lays out the key initiatives and rationale for building insights, technology infrastructure, and
branded content plans that will define leading B2B marketing initiatives for the year.
2013 B2B CMO Imperatives
Driving Growth With Customer Insights, Marketing Automation, And
Content Marketing
by Sheryl Waksman-Pattek
with Fortune Alexander, Luca S. Paderni, David M. Cooperstein, and Samantha
Merlivat
January 15, 2013
IN 2013, B2B cmos Drive growth with Insight, automation, and content
As the proliferation of customer communication channels continues, gaining attention to build a
trusted relationship has become more difficult than ever. Forrester identified the top three trends in B2B
marketing for 2013. Each requires CMOs to act as strong officers of the business to propel innovation
forward and build up a sustainable competitive advantage. In the next 12 months, B2B CMOs will need to
1) use data to define the customers to obsess over and how to deliver value to them; 2) optimize marketing
automation investments beyond email management; and 3) activate a content marketing strategy across
traditional and digital channels of communication.
Imperative No. 1: Embrace The Age Of The Customer With New Insights
With up to 60% of B2B customer buying decisions being completed before engaging with your sales teams,
customer insight, mobile, and integrated digital marketing executions are key priorities to establish brand
preference and accelerate purchase decisions.1
To successfully develop actionable customer insights that
will drive positive business outcomes, B2B CMOs must:
■ Map the buyer’s journey and embed personas in their 2013 marketing plans. In what Forrester
defines as the age of the customer, CMOs who put customers at the center and build their marketing
strategy around the buyer’s journey will build lasting differentiation in the marketplace. Business buyer
personas that encapsulate buyer preferences and attitudes will help marketers move their strategies
from a product feature/benefit focus to a customer value focus. Consulting firm Sales Benchmark
Index (SBI) organizes its marketing efforts and website content with a persona and buyer journey lens
to drive business growth.2
For example, prospects self-select roles or sales drivers as the basis for their
engagement with SBI.
■ Test new processes that foster collaboration across siloed teams. In today’s post-digital world, only
an integrated approach, where the CMO orchestrates collaboration across the various marketing
channels, will build the long-lasting customer relationships B2B organizations must achieve.3
A case

2013 B2B CMO Imperatives 2
© 2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 15, 2013
in point: A leading technology provider has created a hub-and-spoke model in its marketing
organization to foster collaboration and alignment around customer segments. Core disciplines
such as social are centered in the hub and support various teams in the spokes that need to use
social channels for public relations, content, and demand generation.
■ Address the scientific skill gap to support customer obsession. In 2013, CMOs will be under
pressure to address continuous changes in customer behavior and marketing channels and
transform the wealth of available data into actionable customer insights. The type of expertise
needed to address these challenges will require CMOs to increase the amount of scientific
talent on their team. The ability to look beyond data to discover underlying patterns and trends
creating actionable data-driven insights must be a part of the 2013 team’s core skills. To avoid
being left behind as the demand for talent accelerates in the recovering economy, CMOs must
establish a resource plan to build core capabilities in these critical areas.4
What it means: As B2B marketers continue to adapt to the changes in customers’ behavior along
their buying journey, CMOs must bring on new skills and expertise to drive business growth.
Marketing leaders must become change agents that work with their human resources team to build
a new organizational map, identify skill gaps, and attract and train new types of talent. Finally,
CMOs need to craft a personal development plan to expand their own knowledge of new channels,
customer behaviors, and insight-driven marketing execution.
Imperative No. 2: Optimize The Marketing Technology Infrastructure
In a world where marketing is accountable for contributing to pipeline management and revenue
generation, mastering inbound marketing and lead nurturing becomes even more essential to the
value that the marketing organization delivers to the business. This is now so complex as to require
technology to manage it effectively. The marketing technology infrastructure and data insights that
support these crucial capabilities must now include:
■ Marketing automation tools that drive growth. With B2B buyers now in control of the
buying process, B2B CMOs must be able to understand buyers’ digital behavior and respond
in real time with relevant content. Getting the most out of your marketing automation
platforms — capturing, measuring, and responding to a digital body of engagement
information in a systematic way — becomes a critical capability for marketing to drive
business outcomes. With its Marketo implementation, marine supply company ShipServ
enhanced its efficiency and return on investment (ROI), driving 275% more opportunities
from the same budget and reducing its campaign management burden by 80%.5
■ Mobile as a key engagement platform. With more than 1 billion people globally now using
mobile devices as their primary Internet access point, mobile engagement will be one of the
most significant opportunities for B2B marketers in 2013.6
Meeting-filled days have blurred

the lines between work and personal life, with B2B customers actively seeking or evaluating
solutions online from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m.7
As a result, customers will have little patience for
companies that can’t engage with them via mobile devices. Mobile initiatives in 2013 will need
to move from basic functionalities like store locators to delivery of real visible value along the
buyer’s journey, like the Cisco Systems iPad application that helps channel partners instantly
create new solutions for their small business customers.8
■ Focus on smart data, rather than big data. While big data was all the rage in 2012, many
CMOs were unprepared to handle the complexity resulting from the explosion of new streams
of unstructured data. 2013 will still see a surge in customer analytics initiatives, with C-level
executives highlighting customer intelligence as the most important contributor to business
success in the future.9
However, marketers should focus their efforts on the few data points
that are actionable and can help their teams improve customer experience or right-channel
prospects. By focusing on the most relevant data streams, in 2013, successful CMOs will avoid
wasting energy and resources and focus on generating actionable insights that will help improve
their customer experience and ultimately drive positive business outcomes.
What it means: In a post-digital world, understanding how marketing automation, mobile, and
rich data insights can have the greatest impact on business results is essential. In 2013, B2B CMOs
should collaborate with business technology and customer intelligence teams to institute the new
roles of marketing technologist and data scientist. With rapidly developing technology options and
the need to unlock opportunities buried in masses of data, CMOs need to add headcount for these
critical skills to be hired.
Imperative No. 3: Master Branded Content
Strong content must serve as a key pillar of a successful B2B digital strategy. It powers social
media, answers customers’ questions, and helps optimize search results. Best-in-class content
marketers allocate 33% of their budgets to these efforts with plans to increase spend levels in 2013.10
Why? Unlike advertising that helps build awareness, relevant content that delivers a high level of
engagement and actionable value is crucial to building brand preference. In 2013, B2B CMOs must
ensure that their content marketing plans include:
■ A balance of relevance and credibility. B2B organizations should focus content initiatives on
areas that add value to customers and have the potential to positively affect business outcomes.
Content initiatives must be built on customer understanding and focused on issues that
customers care about. Starting small and staying in sync with your brand’s true north will avoid
negative impacts to brand credibility.11
B2B marketers should follow the lead of the marketing
team at a global enterprise software provider that has mapped its content strategy to personas to
effectively drive pipeline growth.

■ Snackable interactive and engaging content. According to the Associated Press, the average
attention span in 2012 was 8 seconds and shrinking.12
With such short attention spans, the
preference to consume information in shorter, more interactive content snacks will accelerate.
In B2B marketing in 2013, we will see the use of white papers yield to customer preference for
snackable content — shorter pieces of content that are easily digested. Infographics, SlideShare,
video, gaming, and other types of rich interactive forms must become part of B2B marketers’
2013 content strategies. A leading business software publisher told Forrester that it now
produces more short videos than white papers to explain the benefits of its solutions. First
Wind, a developer and operator of wind energy projects, engages with its customers and the
communities it serves with short, easily understood videos.13
■ Shareable content that can win the battle for eyeballs. In 2013, B2B marketers must leverage
the growing power of peer influence by incorporating social sharing options across all content
and channels. As time spent in social channels increases, marketers should focus on targeting
key influencers with engaging content that motivates them to share the content with others.
Strong shareable content extends B2B brand reach across multiple touchpoints. IBM’s global
digital marketing strategy includes a focus on expanding its social presence by delivering
distributable, shareable, and thoughtful content.14
■ A robust content ecosystem. On average, B2B organizations spend up to a quarter of their
marketing budgets on branded content, but many struggle to effectively track and manage
the volume, quality, and alignment of content produced across the company.15
New content
marketing platforms such as Compendium and Kapost help organizations manage content
more efficiently, optimizing the workflow of content distribution across all marketing channels.16
With a visual representation of all content throughout the buying journey, the newly released
iCrossing Content Map helps organizations effectively manage alignment and consistency of
messaging across all content channels.17
In 2013, marketing leaders should make it a priority to
select agencies and vendors offering solutions that can help them create, manage, refresh, and
quickly syndicate their content.
What it means: CMOs should think of social and content as one and the same. B2B CMOs
must shift their focus from channel-based plans and implement a holistic approach to their 2013
marketing plans. With barriers between channels evaporating, the success of your social media
and customer engagement strategies depend on it. Make no mistake; creating a thriving content
marketing program within B2B organizations is a journey that requires the right organization skills,
a firm strategy, discipline, and ongoing management and optimization.

H o w f o r r e s t e r c a n h e l p
Embrace change to drive business growth
Consistently delivering the kind of experience consumers seek along the buyer’s journey will
be no small challenge for B2B CMOs and their teams in 2013. Forrester can help prepare the
marketing team and the whole organization to develop a renewed focus on customer insight and
understanding, supported by effective marketing technology investments that will also support the
successful deployment of a content marketing strategy. Get started by:
■ Taking your marketing strategy into the age of the customer. Forrester has developed
several research playbooks and reports to help marketers understand the opportunities
and challenges in the age of the customer and how to thrive by developing customer
obsession as a core competency of their teams. Our “Competitive Strategy In The Age
Of The Customer” report outlines the macro drivers and develops a simple, yet powerful,
framework to prioritize marketing investments.18
The 21st century brand marketing
playbook helps CMOs rethink the rules of brand building and adapt their strategies to 21st
century brand marketing to fuel growth.19
The “Marketers Need To Acquire Adaptive Skill
Sets” report helps marketing leaders identify key areas on which to focus and act to hire
and develop marketers with the right skills to support marketing mix optimization across
the organization.20
The “Customer Journey Mapping: What Is It For?” report shares best
practices of five organizations and outlines the business value that these firms derive from
customer journey mapping.21
In Q1 2013, new research will explore how the changes in the
buyer’s journey are redefining B2B marketing.
■ Optimize marketing technology investments. Forrester has published several reports to
help define the framework and path CMOs should follow to achieve business benefits from
marketing technology investments. The “B2B Marketers Must Better Prepare For Marketing
Automation” report provides guidance on how to best get ready for implementation by
having 1) a lead-to-revenue process model to automate; 2) content to support the message
and responses; and 3) a marketing organization that is ready to support the technology.22
The
“Pinpoint The Actions And Outcomes That Elevate Leads To Revenue” report is one of a series
that provides a straightforward framework to help you create, validate, or fine-tune your lead-
to-revenue management processes to ensure that every scintilla of potential revenue is realized
from your marketing investment.23
As you begin your journey to create mobile applications,
the “Mobile Apps For Marketing” report outlines Forrester’s addressability framework and
provides guidance to create an effective mobile marketing application strategy.24
■ Master branded content. Forrester has produced several research reports and playbooks
to support B2B CMOs’ road to successfully crossing the content chasm. The “Thought
Leadership: The Next Wave Of Differentiation In B2B Marketing” report shares Forrester’s
four-step IDEA methodology to develop a thought leadership platform, including how to
mobilize your internal resources to deliver these ideas through digital, social, mobile, and

offline channels.25
Forrester’s playbook that details how to master the next wave of social
will help you weave social media throughout your brand ecosystem, build a business case
for investment and change, hire the right people and partners, execute the right tactics,
and measure results to gain insight and improve over time.26
Finally, the “Measuring The
Impact Of Branded Content” report defines the most relevant metrics to measure content
marketing, reviews technology vendors that can help manage and measure the effort, and
showcases effective examples of content development by major brands to drive sales.27
Supplemental Material
Companies Interviewed For This Report
Acxiom
Facebook
gyro
Hewlett-Packard
iCrossing
MePlusYou
SAP
Syncapse
Wunderman
Endnotes
1
Source: Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman, “The End of Solution Sales,” Harvard
Business Review, July-August 2012 (http://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales/ar/1).
2
The Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) persona-driven website and prospect engagement strategy is an example
of emerging best practices that marry effective use of content, buyer journey, and business strategy. SBI
understands what questions each persona wants to ask and directs those questions to the appropriate content.
Acting as a publisher, SBI’s blogs focus on the key issues for the specific personas and release a new blog
post each day. These persona-focused blogs have received a substantial following, creating a lead generation
engine. B2B CMOs should examine best practices as a road map to implement their own customer-centric
marketing strategies. Source: Sales Benchmark Index (http://www.salesbenchmarkindex.com/).
3
By entering the post-digital age, digital marketing can no longer be thought of as a renegade effort. It must
be fundamental to CMOs’ plans in 2013 and beyond. Successful CMOs will put the customer at the center
of their digital plans and base their 2013 plans and budgets on the outcomes they want to achieve. CMOs
should work with agencies that align research, brand, and execution resources to define the customer, create
the content, and deliver the message in digital and traditional formats, rather than simply create the digital
add-on according to what the agency of record has defined. Source: David Cooperstein, “Is 2013 The Year
We Welcome ‘Post-Digital’ Marketing? I Vote Yes,” The Critical Eye, December 18, 2012 (http://blogs.forbes.
com/davidcooperstein/).

4
Big data is only valuable if insights to the business operation can be achieved. As Michael Wu states, “The
value of big data is overrated, but it’s an important enabler and it provides the foundation for scalable
data storage and processing. However, what businesses really need is insight that helps them make better
decisions. Capturing big data only gets us part way there. Smart data bridges the gap by facilitating
information extraction and insight discovery. Although big data technology won’t help you make bigger
decisions, smart data can certainly help you make smarter decisions.” CMOs should engage resources from
the new field of data science that can translate big data into predictive insight. By adding these resources to
the B2B marketing team and creating a culture that embraces data-driven decision-making, CMOs make
their big data smart to drive business results. Source: Michael Wu, “Big Data, Smart Data and the Fallacy
that Lies Between,” CMSWire, October 25, 2012 (http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/
big-data-smart-data-and-the-fallacy-that-lies-between-017956.php); “Data Science Revealed: A Data-
Driven Glimpse into the Burgeoning New Field,” EMC (http://www.emc.com/collateral/about/news/emc-
data-science-study-wp.pdf).
5
John Watton, chief marketing officer of ShipServ, outlines the positive impact marketing automation
systems can have in his quote, “In our second year of using Marketo, we now drive significantly more sales
opportunities with the same budget and have increased sales-ready leads by 400%.” In 2013, marketing
automation vendors will continue to develop new functionality to enable marketers to demonstrate ROI
with revenue-cycle analytics, dashboards, and enhanced reporting. While Oracle’s recent acquisition of
Eloqua has created uncertainty about the future of independent marketing automation vendors, it hasn’t
changed the need to digitally engage customers. In 2013, B2B CMOs must continue to build lead nurture and
management processes. Source: Marketo (http://www.marketo.com/customers/case-studies/shipserv.php).
6
By 2014, smartphones and tablets will put power in the pockets of a billion global consumers, including
your employees, partners, and customers. See the November 16, 2012, “Great Mobile Experiences Are Built
On Systems Of Engagement” report.
In addition, comScore reported in November that “121.3 million people in the US owned smartphones
(51.9% mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in October, up 6% since July.”
Source: “comScore Reports October 2012 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share,” comScore press release,
November 30, 2012 (http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/11/comScore_Reports_
October_2012_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share).
7
B2B customers are quickly becoming dependent on their mobile devices to stay connected in their meeting-
filled professional life. In collaboration with Forbes Insights, gyro’s @ Work State of Mind project found
that the lines are blurring between professionals’ work and home life, resulting in early and midstage
consideration efforts moving away from the workplace. In fact, Bizo supported these finding in learning
that B2B customers were actively online seeking or evaluating solutions from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. As a result,
CMOs must implement a mobile engagement strategy in 2013 to be ready when customers are. Source:
gyro (http://www.gyro.com/#/what/we-love/usg).
8
Ogilvy’s SlideShare presentation highlights best-practice examples of how B2B companies are using
mobile technology to connect offline and online marketing activity, enhance employee productivity, and
deliver higher levels of customer value with new products and services. Cisco has created a unique mobile
application that enhances channel productivity and accelerates the customer buying process. Responding

to customers’ needs for instantaneous information, the Cisco app enables channel partners to customize
solutions to specific customer needs during a sales call. Opportunities abound for B2B CMOs to think
creatively about mobile engagement and implement business-changing test cases to build support for
a comprehensive mobile strategy. Source: Jeff Stokvis and Martin Lange, “Hidden in Plain Sight: How
mobile is quietly revolutionizing the B2B World,” SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net/OgilvyWW/smart-
mobility-in-the-b2b-marketplace).
9
According to a survey of 389 executives conducted by the EIU, 41% of respondents identified customer
analytics as one of the areas where marketing should focus investments in order to contribute most to the
business in three years. Source: “Outside looking in: The CMO struggles to get in sync with the C-suite,”
The Economist, 2012 (http://www.managementthinking.eiu.com/sites/default/files/downloads/EIU_SAS_
CMO_WEBr1.pdf).
10
Source: “B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America,” Content
Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs, and Brightcove, 2013 (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/11/b2bresearch2013cmi-121023151728-phpapp01-1.pdf).
11
In the 21st century, empowered consumers have steered brand marketing into foreign terrain — they have
taken the driver’s seat and told brands where, when, and how they want to be interacted with. This is forcing
marketers to rethink the rules of brand building. This playbook helps CMO and marketing leadership
professionals adapt their strategies for 21st century brand marketing to gain market share and mindshare
by 1) charting a new course to build their brand’s competitive advantage; 2) aligning and orchestrating the
organization around a new map of the brand experience; 3) mobilizing the organization and its partners
to its true north; and 4) actively monitoring and managing their brand health. See the July 19, 2012, “The
Post-Digital Rules Of Brand Building” report.
12
Source: “Attention Span Statistics,” Statistic Brain, May 16, 2012 (http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-
span-statistics/).
13
Through First Wind’s website, interactive content is used to simply explain a complicated business, enable
visitors to experience a project, and highlight the positive community impact of its work. CMOs should
explore this best practice to bring interactivity to their content marketing strategies. Source: First Wind
(http://www.firstwind.com/media-center/).
14
In an interview about IBM’s influencer blogging program, Leslie Reiser, IBM’s program director for digital
marketing worldwide, was asked where IBM expected to go next. She said that IBM has a “specific vision on
how to expand our market through distributable, shareable, thoughtful content.” Source: Clare McDermott,
“How Influencers Have Ignited IBM’s Content Marketing,” Business 2 Community, December 5, 2012
(http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/how-influencers-have-ignited-ibms-content-
marketing-0343175#xrcWqitCLHS43k0q.99).
15
Source: “B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America,” Content
Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs, and Brightcove, 2013 (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/11/b2bresearch2013cmi-121023151728-phpapp01-1.pdf).
16
Source: Compendium (http://www.compendium.com/how-it-works/); Kapost (http://kapost.
com/#product).

17
Source: iCrossing (http://www.icrossing.com/icrossing-news-events-feed).
18
Empowered customers are disrupting every industry; competitive barriers like manufacturing strength,
distribution power, and information mastery can’t save you. In this age of the customer, the only sustainable
competitive advantage is knowledge of and engagement with customers. The successful companies will be
customer-obsessed, like Best Buy, IBM, and Amazon.com. Executives in customer-obsessed companies
must pull budget dollars from areas that traditionally created dominance — brand advertising, distribution
lockup, mergers for scale, and supplier relationships — and invest in four priority areas: 1) real-time
customer intelligence; 2) customer experience and customer service; 3) sales channels that deliver customer
intelligence; and 4) useful content and interactive marketing. Those that master the customer data flow and
improve frontline customer staff will have the edge. See the June 6, 2011, “Competitive Strategy In The Age
Of The Customer” report.
19
In the 21st century, empowered consumers have steered brand marketing into foreign terrain — they have
taken the driver’s seat and told brands where, when, and how they want to be interacted with. This is forcing
marketers to rethink the rules of brand building. This playbook helps CMO and marketing leadership
professionals adapt their strategies for century brand marketing to gain market share and mindshare by
1) charting a new course to build their brand’s competitive advantage; 2) aligning and orchestrating the
organization around a new map of the brand experience; 3) mobilizing the organization and its partners
to its true north; and 4) actively monitoring and managing their brand health. See the July 19, 2012, “The
Post-Digital Rules Of Brand Building” report.
20
Most marketers have earned their stripes through corporate work experience and business-school training
that takes a top-down linear approach to marketing planning and optimization. Today, the maturity of
digital marketing channels, with their planning flexibility, highly targetable approach, and real-time
tracking of campaigns results, has dramatically changed the demands and skills that are required of
successful marketers. CMO and marketing leadership professionals should read this report to help identify
key areas on which to focus and act in order to hire and develop marketers with the right skills to support
the organization of marketing mix optimization. (This report is an update to “New Skills Define Adaptive
Marketing Success,” originally published on October 11, 2011.) See the December 20, 2012, “Marketers
Need To Acquire Adaptive Skill Sets” report.
21
Forrester clients tell us that they’re eager to use customer journey maps because they see the documents
as ideal tools to analyze and communicate their customers’ perspectives on the interactions they deliver.
However, even enthusiastic organizations sometimes struggle to determine the objectives they should
pursue with customer journey mapping. Forrester interviewed five companies that use customer journey
maps to understand how the approach has benefited them. This document outlines the business value that
these firms derive from customer journey mapping and the variety of objectives that journey mapping can
support. See the April 24, 2012, “Customer Journey Mapping: What Is It For?” report.
22
Changing buyer behaviors require business-to-business (B2B) marketers to communicate with prospects
and customers in new ways, by delivering content that is personalized to their needs, role, level of interest,
and stage of problem-solving. This has made marketing automation a mission-critical system for B2B
marketers, but too many marketing leaders head down the automation path without fully realizing
what they are getting into. They need to prepare for the use of the technology by having 1) a lead-to-

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revenue process model to automate; 2) content to support the message and responses; and 3) a marketing
organization that is ready to support the technology. See the April 26, 2011, “B2B Marketers Must Better
Prepare For Marketing Automation” report.
23
Lead-to-revenue management (L2RM) is all about optimizing processes and practices to ensure that every
scintilla of potential revenue is realized from your marketing investment. A well-designed and documented
L2RM process enables scalability, roots out excess cost, improves marketing execution, and provides the
basis for continuous incremental improvement. Unfortunately, too many L2RM initiatives underperform
because marketing execs devote inadequate attention to process definition and management. Perhaps an
equal number stalls because the attempt to fully document the current state and define the future state
leads to analysis-paralysis. Even seasoned marketing execs find it difficult to lead their teams to the right
mix of marketing creativity and process rigor. Whatever the reason behind your passion for process, this
report gives you a straightforward framework to create, validate, or fine-tune your L2RM process. See the
November 16, 2012, “Pinpoint The Actions And Outcomes That Elevate Leads To Revenue” report.
24
Mobile apps hold exciting potential for interactive marketers to reach their audiences through mobile
devices in ways the mobile Web can’t. But today, mobile apps receive a mixed response from marketers:
Some jump at the chance to start an app campaign, while others are gun-shy. This report explains who
the mobile app audience is today, when a mobile app is the right marketing solution, and how marketers
can create an effective app marketing strategy by following Forrester’s addressability framework. See the
September 26, 2012, “Mobile Apps For Marketing” report.
25
From medical devices to heavy equipment, business-to-business (B2B) marketers need to position their
firms as thought leaders on the issues their buyers face. But most firms don’t have a process or framework
for managing thought leadership marketing initiatives, so they push out product brochures and white
papers disguised as thought leadership content. This report introduces Forrester’s four-step IDEA
methodology to develop a thought leadership platform and mobilize the experts in your firm to deliver
these ideas through digital, social, mobile, and offline channels. See the June 7, 2011, “Thought Leadership:
The Next Wave Of Differentiation In B2B Marketing” report.
26
For the interactive marketer, social is both a huge opportunity and daunting challenge. You know you can
reach your customers on social channels, but the environment is foreign— it’s highly personal, resource-
intensive, and hard to measure. The result: While most marketers now use social media, too few have found
the keys to unlocking its potential. This playbook provides you with a strategic approach for building a viable
social media presence. Learn to weave social media throughout your brand ecosystem; build a business case
for investment and change; hire the right people and partners; execute the right tactics; and measure to gain
insight and improve over time. See the June 19, 2012, “Master The Next Wave Of Social” report.
27
Read this report if you want to understand how to measure the effectiveness of a branded content strategy
along the stages of the customer life cycle. This report will help you define the most relevant metrics to
measure this growing form of marketing, technology vendors that can help you manage and measure the
effort, and examples that showcase effective development of content by major brands to drive sales. See the
May 21, 2012, “Measuring The Impact Of Branded Content” report.

B2B CMO Imperatives

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