The Fatal Joke

Some B2B marketers have a bad habit of getting  very interested in a single medium or channel. It may be trade shows, or email -- or even blogs, webcasts or podcasts.  They become enamored of the cool new  medium of the week and start to obsess over how they will compete with it.

It's like that old Monty Python skit about the The Funniest Joke in the World. This joke is so funny that anyone who hears it will soon die of laughter. From their foxholes, the British use it against the Germans in World War II. Sure enough, the German soldiers hear the joke (translated in German), begin to laugh uproariously and promptly fall over dead.

Seems to me, many marketers are looking for their own fatal joke. Only, they are hoping to tell it to their prospects. They seek the perfect medium -- the high power channel that will drive results and bring home the big bucks. They want an easy way to knock em dead.

Alas, the joke is on them. There is no killer medium. The magic, as they say, is in the mix.

What’s most important is to manage marketing media or channels in a disciplined manner. Just as portfolio theory teaches us that our best financial outcomes are typically attained through diversification, we need to think in terms of a diversified, marketing investment portfolio.

According to Marketing Sherpa’s most recent study on business technology marketing, the B2B media mix now includes new media such as blogs, podcasts and paid search as well as more conventional forms such as white papers, e-newsletters, webinars, demos, advertising, direct mail and trade shows.  Stefan Tornquist, the firm’s research director, contends that the companies most likely to defy the present trend toward lengthening sales cycles are “those that use multiple tactics” in an integrated fashion. 

That’s where the portfolio concept becomes relevant. Marketing media – new or otherwise – are the “securities” that we manage and measure. We need both “conservative” (proven) and “aggressive” (speculative) media investments in our portfolio. And as the performance of the portfolio plays out, we rebalance it – moving money into media that are consistent with past performance and our future objectives. We should be careful in our measurement, however. It’s important, for example, to consider not only metrics like total leads generated, but cost per lead as well.   

The most interesting thing about today’s growing mix of media options is the ability it gives us to project and demonstrate thought leadership in the marketplace. Thought leadership – the stories we craft and tell about our industry’s direction, critical success factors and customer value – is an increasingly vital factor in B2B technology marketing. Indeed, our customers no longer are simply buying our products; they are now valuing our insights, advice and perspectives on the future. 

Tech powerhouses like Cisco and IBM have done an exceptional job of leveraging thought leadership to engage executive decision-makers – moving beyond the lower level decision-makers that control smaller budgets and have less corporate influence. Smaller companies, such as SalesForce.com, have demonstrated the power of creating customer evangelists and then, enabling them to tell their own stories to new prospects. 

Unlike marketing that revolves around image or product, thought leadership provides a means of cutting through the noise and elevating our companies to a position of enduring market leadership. It also represents an opportunity to engage and enable prospective customers at each stage of the decision cycle: awareness; consideration; and purchase. 

To successfully position ourselves and accelerate sales, we need to smartly map our thought leading content to the marketing vehicles that allow us to actively leverage it. This begins with analysis.

We are challenged to profile our target audience, determine the stage of the decision cycle in which we are trying to engage them and then, link these factors to the marketing media that represent the best payoffs. In fact, we optimize our performance by integrating our marketing across media and throughout the various stages of the decision cycle. 

As mentioned, success in these efforts depends on rigor and discipline – much more so than intuition and gut feel. The media landscape is now far too complex to simply wing it – and it is changing too rapidly to rely solely on the wisdom of past experience. 

We shouldn’t allow new media hype to seduce us into making careless marketing investments. But new media represent new ways to interact and share compelling stories with our prospective customers – to project thought leadership and drive growth. We shouldn’t ignore that opportunity either.

Comments

[Mario Ruiz]

True, we have plenty of new tools to lead in this market.

I find myself with the challenge of choosing the right channel,and taking action in matter on minutes, at most. Then, the analysis part with the ton of info from the feedback sources, comes after in order to make changes in our communication strategy.

It is not that simple in this fast, full of alternatives, ton of info and very completive world watching what we do too.

Mario Ruiz
http://www.oursheet.com

[Nick Pirog]

It's true that we have many tools at our disposal, but we also have software that automates a lot of these tasks for us. Automation rules in particular are a great way to use several channels at once to nurture leads over time.

[Britton Manasco]

Great point, Nick. I agree that new marketing technologies make it easier to effectively invest in and credibly manage the "portfolio" of today's marketing tools and tactics. The problem is that too few marketers think (and act) in this fashion. Most tend to get wrapped up in a few chosen tactics or drown in the array of options now on offer. What I advocate is a disciplined approach -- one that encourages us to prioritize our marketing actions in relation to our business objectives. If the marketing technologies now available to us enable us to meet that goal, then I say, "Go for it."

[Britton Manasco]

Mario,

I'm not convinced that marketers have to act as fast as you suggest. Better to step back, survey the alternatives, and then make smart decisions. It's too easy to run really fast in the wrong direction. I prefer the Tortoise to the Hare.

Best,

Britton

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-- Maurice Sendak

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