As we move forward into this economic downturn and marketers struggle with their budgets, branding must remain a factor in advertising programs. However, traditional branding campaigns must adapt to new marketing initiatives as companies focus on lead generation and the need to track ROI. I once saw an ad that said, “Your brand is your lifeboat and you never abandon your lifeboat.” This was further collaborated by a blog post on Publicity Works I recently read discussing branding in a down economy. By proactively marketing and staying in front of your customers or potential customers, it sends a message that your organization is strong in this economy. While other marketers may go dark with advertising, organizations that continue their messaging have the ability to stand out and become market leaders.

While there is no doubt about the importance of branding, how can marketers track ROI when all advertising dollars are being closely monitored and sales departments fight for their need for lead generation programs? It is crucial for marketers to invest in programs that provide branding, lead generation and measure ROI.  

So what type of programs work to meet both marketing and sales objectives? Looking at some of the campaigns I’ve managed lately, I find that those that are focused on interactive marketing tools provide a number of benefits. For example, a client of mine created a microsite program, which unlike their corporate website provided a custom environment where marketing controlled the content. The purpose of this was to brand all their business units under one umbrella while of course generating leads, but how do you track ROI for branding?

For the microsite program, we teamed up with Dynamic Logic to show ROI, and the client saw 90% significance in aided-brand awareness, online ad awareness and messaging association. The significance is the index of all campaigns surveyed and how these programs weigh against the norm. A 90% significance means it outperformed the industry norm, which were great results for the client.

My educated guess says that branding and lead generation programs will continue to become entwined rather than stand alone initiatives. What are your thoughts? Please share any branding programs in which you were able to track ROI.

Forrester’s much awaited study on B-to-B Social Media participation released this week, giving key insight into just how active IT Buyers are in using social technology. According to the results, 91% of these users are at least “Spectators”, meaning they actively read blogs, watch videos, listen to podcasts, and visit ratings/review forums. 69% of these users indicate they view social media for business purposes. More importantly, 58% (37% business use) are “Critics”, meaning they post comments in blogs, leave ratings/reviews of products, contribute to wikis, etc. Not only are they viewing social media, they are highly active participants. Now that we have covered the statistics, let’s get to the crux of the issue:  If you are a marketer targeting IT Buyers, it is clear that YOU MUST consider social outlets as part of your marketing mix.

So why does most research point to slow adoption of social media among marketers? In working with many clients in the space, we have found that adoption is slow due to a number of reasons, most importantly being lack of insight into prospect’s social behavior, and measurement/ROI.

Forrester’s study provides the insight into social behavior, but embracing social media means adjusting your traditional view on marketing ROI. It is not about generating “leads” or “pageviews” but about ROMO - Return on Marketing Objectives. Before embarking on a social initiative you need to decide as an organization what you are looking to get out of it. Is it thought leadership, is it gaining customer insight/creating a direct pipeline to your customers or prospects, is it monitoring conversations around your brand? Regardless, according to Forrester, you need to start with the audience and not the technology. In other words, don’t just launch a blog, wiki, or forum because you want to get into social media - like traditional media, you need to go where your audience is.

How are you integrating social media into your marketing efforts? If you’re not, what are your main hesitations?

Budgets are tight, the need for measuring ROI of your marketing investment has never been greater, and as a technology marketer, we can use all the help we can get. With the mantra of “Doing more with less,” we need to have an approach that can not only get us through these tough times but can put us in a better position than our competition when we get to the other side. Here are a series of tips for IT marketers to help market successfully in this tough economy:

10. Monitor the competition and the market. If your competition is cutting back, consider adjusting your marketing budget and attacking the market with your message. This will provide a great opportunity to capture - and retain - market share. A recent post on the MarketingProfs blog refers to a study of 600 b-to-b companies by McGraw-Hill Research.

In this study, they found that businesses that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession, averaged higher sales growth during the recession and in the three years following. By 1985, sales of aggressive recession advertisers (those that either maintained or increased spending) had risen 256% over those that cut-back on advertising. In 2001, another study found that aggressive recession advertisers increased market share 2 ½ times the average for all businesses in the post-recession economy.

Thinking post-recession maybe hard to imagine now but companies that do will reap the benefits. I found some good information from StrategicOxygen’s blog on this topic that you might find useful.

9. Focus on lead generation efforts with direct-response techniques. In email and online campaigns, use hard-hitting copy with simple benefit-oriented, convincing language, an informational offer relevant to the prospect’s topic interest, and a strong call to action. Focus on the problems that you solve for your customers and how you uniquely address them.

Lead generation is where the rubber meets the road and with this economic situation, you need to focus on the basics of the audience, your message, offer and the call to action. Getting focused so you have the right audience responding in the right way to the right offer taking the right steps will help your efficiency as well as effectiveness of your program and get you the results you want.

I found an interesting recent post on the emergencemarketing blog today summarizing online advertising measurement research published by McKinsey.  For me, the most important finding is that marketers who measure the impact of their online media are significantly more satisfied with their digital marketing than those who don’t. This makes perfect sense, so why is it that only 50% of marketers use basic measurement like CTR?

Are they/we really not accountable for results – as EM suggests?  Do we need better measurement techniques – as McKinsey concludes?  Or is it something more?

Providing leads to the right person at the right time is what opportunity management is all about. You can categorize leads according to territory, product, lead source, level of urgency, or new vs. existing customers. Leads can also be escalated if, for example, they have a short timeframe in which to make a decision, or a ready-approved budget, or if they have a particular urgency or a high value associated with them. With the right technology infrastructure, companies can automate the distribution of leads according to predetermined criteria. This removes the burden from the support staff, and ensures that leads really do reach the right person at the right time.

Best Practices for Opportunity Management include:

•  Marketing should continue to engage with Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) - The marketing process does not end with the hand off to sales.
•  Define the level of ownership, responsibility and accountability when Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) transition to SQLs.
•  Connect the marketing system used for tracking and reporting in Inquiry Management and Prospect Management with the sales forecast system to establish seamless closed loop tracking and reporting for deals closed and revenue realized.
•  Document the process from marketing to sales and sales activities post transition.
•  Consistent follow-up by marketing with sales on leads passed and status within the process.
•  Must resolve the timeframe issue of the handoff of MQLs to sales acceptance of SQLs; one solution could be to automatically populate the MQL to the sales forecast system after a defined period of time, for example 3-7 days.
•  MQLs rejected by sales go back into the nurturing process until they are identified as MQLs.

Track, Measure and Improve - Key to Long Term

Disciplined, constant analysis and reporting while a program is live is the key to demonstrating success, or perhaps identifying what needs to be improved while a program is live. With Sales and Marketing going through a planning process at the beginning of a program, everyone should understand what is being measured, the milestones, and the key success metrics. This information should be tracked, measured and benchmarked against other campaigns. When the ROI at each stage from each campaign is accurately reported, trends and patterns start to emerge to help develop future programs and improve the overall lead management process.

Insights for marketers on how to better align keywords and online media to the IT purchase process 

Over the past month, we have visited five cities throughout the United States to roll out the results of the Google/TechTarget Research Project. The research was based on a collaborative study between TechTarget and Google, where we interviewed over 2,200 IT decision-makers worldwide.  Accompanying me on the roadshow were Mark Martel, Senior Industry Marketing Manager of Technology Markets at Google, and Jeff Ramminger, Senior Vice President of Product Management at TechTarget. With a total of nearly 600 IT marketers and media buyers in attendance, we discussed our latest research findings that explained the relationship of IT buyers’ search and online media consumption practices to their actual purchase process within their respective enterprises.

Attendees from the roadshow took away a detailed view of the journey IT pros go through during their purchase process and specific search queries they use during the various stages. A revelation was the importance “comparison and review” queries have to IT pros and the implied importance of marketers providing content assets with “comparative” focus. In fact, during our Cambridge event, Harry Gold, CEO of Overdrive Interactive, was busy Tweeting some of these key takeaways: http://www.clickz.com/3631617

The focus of the Google/TechTarget Research Project Roadshow was to give marketers the tools to make smarter and cheaper keyword and content choices for their 2009 online marketing plan. Along with gaining detailed insights on how IT buyers move through the purchase process and the specific keywords they use during each of the research stages, attendees also discovered the buyers’ attitudes toward registration forms and other lead generation efforts and the relationship between online search and branding. Another hot topic from the roadshow was the buyer’s utilization of new media; such as mobile devices, video and RSS feeds. Needless to say video is hot, and the length of the video greatly impacts its success.

For those who were not able to attend the event, we now have the full research report and the video of the roadshow presentation available online.

I am hearing from many technology marketers that — in a time in which marketing activities need to deliver tangible results within a tighter timeframe — it is imperative that marketers allocate a portion of their budget dollars toward campaigns which capture more late-stage, actionable leads.

To accomplish this, marketers often use pay-per-click programs that point towards product trials and online product demonstrations.  While these types of programs result in marketers competing for a relatively small pool of leads, they do generate significant results because they reach potential buyers in the late stages of the research and purchase process - the “ready-to-buy” prospect.  

Recent TechTarget market research indicates that “try-before-you-buy” programs are particularly effective in the Application Development software space, because the developer community is immersed in the types of tools and products that they are encountering or implementing on a daily basis.  In the developer community, we see that implementers have a high degree of influence on the IT purchase decision.  The “try-before-you-buy” method is very important in building their loyalty and trust, and provides the IT marketer with an opportunity to demonstrate both the quality of the product, and, in many cases, showcase the quality of the customer service supporting the product.

Also, because the developer community places a high value on peer feedback and product recommendations, marketers can leverage social media to reach this group by providing a platform for experts within their organization to engage prospects in discussions about market trends, not just to gain exposure for their product, but build a rapport with — and establish a degree of trust within — the community.

Finally, although there is a significant benefit to offering downloads and trial versions of software to generate leads from prospects in the final stages of the research and purchase process, it is important that this not be the sole focus of your marketing efforts to the detriment of campaign elements supporting your branding efforts or reaching potential clients at the early and mid-stages of the research and purchase process.  You still need to maintain program elements to generate leads that will generate sales over an extended period of time.

While there is no “silver bullet” formula for what percentage of your marketing budget should focus on long-term or short-term leads, it is important that your plans include a mix of elements - like topical whitepapers to reach IT professionals at the very start of the research process, Webcasts and Webinars to reach mid-stage prospects, and virtual tradeshows to facilitate direct contact with prospective buyers.

Having just returned from the TechTarget Online ROI Summit in San Francisco, I combed through a number of attendee survey responses as I was very interested to know which specific subjects were most interesting and relevant to the 240 IT marketers/clients attending the event.It’s a foregone conclusion that anyone attending is generally interested in Best Practices for Online Marketing and its relationship to proving ROI; however it’s important to note which discussion points resonated with them the most.

It turns out that our data and insights related to trends in “the IT Buyers’ Purchase Process” were most appreciated. Marketers expressed that understanding how their content and media investments line up in satisfying all stages of the buying cycle is critical information when planning a program or campaign.

This explains why our findings around search — and where buyers are in their purchase consideration relative to specific search practices — received such high marks. It also explains why our general session around content strategy as it relates to the buying process is a standing-room only session.

As much as we all live and breathe “the buyer’s purchase process” here at TechTarget, the subtleties of how IT marketing media types and content relate to the process were very much appreciated by Summit attendees.

This makes sense as our insights suggest that marketers must have very distinct content topics and media offerings to attract buyers at the various stages of the research and purchase process.  It also emphasizes the degree to which “content preparation and strategy” are an essential component to success.  Yet based on this reality, nearly two-thirds of our audience admitted to having few resources to build content, and are often expected to produce it themselves.

That is astonishing when you consider how important content is to program success,  and how busy these folks are.  It seems to there needs to be a resetting of priorities in the IT marketing arena so that budgets are allocated to support content development so the burden doesn’t personally fall on the shoulders of the marketing directors themselves, so they can be free to spend more of their time being strategic.

Prospect Management is the process of qualifying and nurturing leads that have been generated through Inquiry Management.  These are the leads that are not yet ready to be passed to your sales organization but have potential for future business. They have demonstrated interest in your company or product.  These are the majority of leads that are typically generated by your marketing program efforts.

Consider this: Not every lead generated online deserves a phone call as the first step in the follow-up process! Remember, people research online for a reason.  Just because they downloaded a white paper or attended a Webcast does not necessarily mean they are ready for a phone call from you.  There needs to be a transition from online research activities to offline interaction.  One approach could be to use video, chat, or blogs to assist in that transition. This “virtual” interaction is a way to keep the buyer in control but start the process of that one-to- one interaction.

In the prospect management stage, leads are qualified, scored and processed according to pre-determined criteria that examines budget, authority, need and timeframe. When this information is known, the lead can be passed to sales as a priority lead requiring rapid follow-up, or a lead that needs further nurturing and communication.

Prospect Management best practices include:

1. A system to capture and consolidate prospect data — and qualification  criteria — in searchable fields for reporting and future targeting
2. A systematic approach to “active” prospects that are being qualified and the “passive” inquiries that are being nurtured.  Defining content for each  type is critical to success
3. Communicate with prospects to qualify and quantify the opportunity
4. Create a systematic nurturing system, and make it as targeted and  personalized as possible, but with the ability to scale as needed
5. Nurturing can be done through multiple touch points; i.e. online, events,  phone, etc.
6. Nurturing system can be structured by contact, company, interest, title, behavior, etc.
7. Measure time to MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), to SQL (Sales Qualified Lead), to appointment scheduled for every lead

Lead nurturing allows you to maintain contact with longer term leads until the  lead is ready to be advanced into the sales cycle. When the lead is closer to  making a purchase, it can then be passed on to sales.

What are you doing to manage and nurture leads that works particularly well?  What have you tried that didn’t deliver the desired results?

Let’s face it; the current state of the economy has everyone, including IT marketers, concerned about their short- and long-term goals and the budget expenditures required to reach those goals.  A recent trend we’ve seen is IT marketers saying they only want to do highly filtered marketing campaigns to deliver only leads from a very limited demographic group that will deliver immediate sales.  And, if they have any funds earmarked for branding campaigns, many marketers think they should reallocate these branding dollars for use on lead generation programs.  While every online marketing campaign should deliver a percentage of immediately actionable leads, in many cases these short-term campaigns are being done to the exclusion of activities that will help generate sales over the long haul.

The danger of this approach is obvious — when the economy improves, marketers focusing exclusively on generating leads for immediate sales will have no supply of leads in their pipeline, and will have to start from scratch to rebuild one.  The situation gets worse if their competitors have been nurturing leads to generate sales over an extended period and now have a large pool of prospects at various stages of the research and purchase process.  If you find yourself on the wrong side of this situation - without leads in the pipeline — you can be certain of one thing: your competitors will be taking sales away from you for a very long time until you catch up, if you catch up.  The key lesson here: Even if your budget allocations are being scrutinized in the short-term, IT marketers need to think long term about future sales and be prepared to defend allocations of budget dollars to maintain a sales pipeline. 

An empty lead pipeline and loss of long-term sales are not the only problems associated with highly filtered campaigns.  If all or most of your competitors are also implementing this kind of limited marketing program — focusing on the exact same demographic profile at the exact same stage of the purchase process (ready to buy) — you are all competing for a limited universe of leads.  As a result, the volume of leads generated by campaigns will be smaller, the cost per lead will be higher, and everyone will be competing head to head for the attention - and dollars - of this limited group.  Under these circumstances, IT marketers should considering relaxing their demographic criteria to reach a broader group of potential customers engaged in the earlier stages of the purchase research process.  It’s also a good time to expand the range of content (broad industry-oriented, topic/issue-specific, product focused, etc) and the content types (white papers, Webcasts, Podcasts, downloads, etc) you offer to meet to the information needs of all the different decision makers involved all stages of the research and purchase process.

The upside of a down economy?  Current market conditions also offer companies - particularly smaller, less well-known ones - an opportunity to take market share away from their larger competitors.  In tight economic times at major companies, very often, the first marketing budget item to be cut or reallocated is branding.  If your company has had problems competing against bigger names — now is the time to get out there and seize market share by increasing your branding efforts.  If your competitor’s campaigns are focused on generating short-term results, focus your efforts on creating campaigns that will deliver consistent results over the long term.

What impact has the down economy had on your marketing campaigns and programs?  Is upper management questioning your budgeting decisions?  What due diligence actions are you taking to make sure your lead pipeline stays filled and delivers short- and long-term sales?  Let us know what you’re experiencing and seeing out there.