B2B marketing has emerged to as a specialty that is treated as distinctly different from B2C marketing.  This is based on the premise that B2C marketing is characterized by consumer goods like food products and services (restaurants).  Marketing for Subway as a smart alternative to MacDonald’s is vastly different than marketing cloud solutions to IT buyers. No duh!

The purchase process for consumer electronics (laptops, tablets, and smartphones) in addition to high value items like automobiles is, however, very similar to the IT purchase process.  Consider the following factors:

1.     Length of the Purchase Process – The time invested in making a decision to buy a new car or laptop is often measured in months.  This is the case unless consumers are forced into making a quick decision, (the transmission has fallen out of your old car or your laptop was stolen).  The average purchase cycle reported for IT decisions has dropped dramatically in the past couple of years…to around 6 months. 

2.     Average Deal Size - Investment of hundreds or thousands of dollars makes consumers consider the purchase carefully before making a decision. 

3.     Number of Decision Makers – Few IT buyers makes a purchase decision without consulting business users. Like it or not, your spouse (or even your kids) may have significant influence on your next car or laptop.  No self-respecting teen will support mom’s temptation to purchase another mini-van.

4.     Higher Risk Decision – The purchase process for b2b and high tech consumer goods is longer because it is a higher risk decision.  It the b2b IT decision maker makes a poor choice, it reflects poorly on him/her.  Business users may point fingers.  This is not so different than choosing what car to drive for the next 48 months.  Who wants to listen to their spouse complain for 48 straight months.  Who wants to live with a laptop that doesn’t meet your needs?

5.     Role of Content Marketing is paramount in higher risk decisions.  Shoppers will seek information from multiple sources to support their decision process.  They will seek out expert commentary, independent comparisons, specifications, and pricing. 

I spent nearly ten years in marketing at Nissan North America.  We analyzed the purchase cycle for our products and those of our competitor’s.  We had a plethora of syndicated data to analyze and learn from.  We designed marketing campaigns to strategically “plug the leaks” in our purchase funnel.  I applied the same principles in high-tech B2B marketing.  Google analytics, CRM tools like Salesforce.com, and marketing automation tools give B2B users similar data.  In a recent Pardot survey, many B2B marketers claim the lack of time and resources make tracking marketing performance difficult.  The good news: 80% of B2B marketers claim that they will invest more time and resources in marketing metrics in 2012.  

Data suggests that over 70% of the buyer’s purchase process is completed before a sales person is every contacted. The buyer is in the drivers’ seat of the shopping process as they research their problem and possible solutions. They develop a short-list of solutions, open questions and price ranges before they ever contact sales.

This new process gives sales a limited influence on the buyer’s decision and raises the bar for your marketing team.  Providing prospects with the information they need to get your product or solution on their short lists is just as important as the features of your product or solution.

Since the buyer controls the process, marketing must:

1.   Listen to the buyer in order to learn about:

a.  Pain points which are urging the prospect to seek solutions

b.  Purchase process that prospects are likely to take

2.  Support the purchase process with educational content.

3.  Make the process simple by pointing prospects to the next step.

Buyers sit squarely in the drivers seat of the purchase process - with steering wheel in-hand and a foot on a pedal (brake OR accelerator).  They are busy and driven to distraction by information overload. What is a B2B marketer to do?  Four simple ways to improve the performance of your content marketing:

1.   Remember that B2B prospects are people too.  Your content needs to catch their attention; even entertain them.  Surprise them with a little humor, creativity, or something unexpected:
  a.   If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then consider an infographic or short-video clip instead of a traditional 14-page whitepaper. 

  b.   A little humor has the potential to increase the share-ability of your content.  I forwarded Eloqua’s Juan Eloqua series to many of my marketing peers. 

2.   Repurpose your content into different mediums and smaller “bites”.  For example, take sections of a webcast and publish them as short podcasts.  Prospects may not have an hour to invest in a webinar but they may give you 15 minutes for a podcast.

4.   Identify the next step for your prospects.  Don’t close the door on future engagement.  In other words, make sure to point your prospects to other marketing content, groups, and sources of information as they educate themselves.

Content marketing has evolved as a critical component to support the B2B purchase cycle. B2B marketing, in contrast to B2C marketing is characterized by:
1.   Longer purchase cycles than B2C
2.   Requiring more content to support the decision  - as making a purchase decision for a business is riskier for those involved.  Making the wrong choice can cost an organization in many different ways.  A poor decision could cost a decision maker his/her job.
3.   Multiple people who influence the purchase decision

Content Marketing became increasingly critical as organizations implemented Marketing Automation Tools such as Eloqua, Marketo, and Pardot in the past decade.   The success of these tools is dependent on leveraging a library of marketing content.  Operating under the old mantra “Content is King” marketers published webinars, podcasts, white papers, case studies and comparison guides.    
The purchase process of B2B prospects is changing dramatically:

1.   Recent research by TechTarget shows that the IT B2B sales cycle has shrunk significantly in the past year.
Implication: 
·   It is imperative to deliver marketing content to support a compressed purchase cycle. 
2.   Usage of mobile devices as tools to research and to stay connected via social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) has exploded.  Prospects are more connected and dependent on their social media groups. 
Implications:
·   Content needs to be available in smaller bites and optimized for smaller screens.
·   Content Strategy needs to be designed to engage prospects - not just educate them.  
3.   Prospects are deluged with marketing content and are increasingly:
·   Adept at tuning out marketing messaging.
·   Seeking unbiased content shared by peers or influencers (via Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, Blogs)
·   Making purchase decisions based upon what others are saying  (versus outbound marketing messaging).
Implications: 
·   Existing customers are your best sales people.  Exceeding their expectations goes a long way in earning their support.
·   Marketing Content must be worthy of sharing.
·   Products/solutions must meet customer expectations - because more than ever before, they will be evaluated and judged in open forums.  


The race is on.  B2B marketers must evolve their Content Marketing Strategy to compete.   

The word “Lead” is tossed around in every sales and marketing organization.  Generally, there is agreement on what a lead looks like in terms of industry, business type, job title, company size and ideally – a big budget.  Demand Generation and Inbound Marketing teams work to generate a flow of new leads to feed the marketing funnel.  There are times when the sales team complains that they need new leads.  A common response to this issue is to buy a list of “leads”.   These “leads” are passed to the sales team for cold calling.  The results of these campaigns can usually be described as abysmal and a complete waste of time because:

1.     These lists do not include leads.  They are lists of contacts based on simple demographic (job titles) and firm-graphics (industry, company size, type-of-business).  A lead is much more than a job title at the right company. Simply stated – a lead is a hand raiser who has indicated they are seeking information to solve a problem that you can help with.
2.     Contact information is generally poor due to the economic downturn causing so much volatility in the workforce. 

The results from the above described investment in cold-calling a list often involve:
·      Finger pointing between marketing and sales
·      Wasted time
·      Wasted marketing budget
·      Frustration

Take 3 steps to avoid falling into this trap:
1.     Create consensus between marketing and sales on the definition of a lead.  At the highest level, it is important to define a marketing qualified lead by the types of solutions the lead is researching.  At some point in the purchase process, figure out what makes a lead “sales qualified” and ready for personal follow-up. Ultimately, a full lead scoring system can be developed to integrate both marketing automation and CRM systems. 
2.     Figure out the average number of sales touches (X) that were required to convert a lead to an opportunity for your business.   The average number of touches is likely to be higher than you think (easily 5-10 sales touches).  It will vary by company, product type, sales cycle, etc.  Task your sales team to reach out to every single lead at least X times before they bother with cold-calling contacts.
3.     Arm your sales team with educational content and recommend places to find real leads.  When they have time to cold-call – encourage them to engage with leads that are seeking solutions via forums, twitter, and online communities.