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I have seen the future of B2B marketing. It’s on Forbes.

November 7, 2012 by

I’m sure I don’t need to introduce you to Forbes’ “BrandVoice” program (used to be “AdVoice). The guy who manages the platform at Forbes, Lewis Dvorkin, (if he also created the platform he’s a freakin’ genius) recently wrote about its power to disrupt traditional journalism, citing my new employer, SAP, as one of the companies that sometimes get more hits for the stuff it posts than Forbes’ own journalism.

He concludes that journalism (what little is left of it) is safe from the assault of brands like SAP. I agree (journalism’s future will be determined by its ability to create a business model that pays better than the current one: giving away content for free and charging way too little for ads), but I think he missed the more important disruptive power that platforms like BrandVoice really do have: to disintermediate traditional marketing.

Reinforcing the no-pitch rule
For the past few months, I’ve been one of the authors of content on SAP’s little corner of the Forbes platform and I’ve become a big fan. I’m especially fond of the effect it has on my colleagues in SAP marketing: they understand that they no longer need to pitch products to get the attention of customers and prospects. Indeed, there is a sense among my colleagues (that has been voiced to me as a rule), that Forbes frowns on stuff that shills products or links back to stuff on our company’s website that does.

As a practitioner of idea marketing at SAP, that’s music to my ears. Our group’s mandate is to research the business issues that SAP’s customers and prospects care about and write exclusively about those issues—not our products and services. The Forbes platform is Exhibit A for marketers who think what we do is a waste of time and money. That’s because customers and prospects actually come to the Forbes site and read our stuff. More importantly, they see smart people from SAP featured in it and that helps everybody.

What’s Wrong with BrandVoice
I don’t see everything SAP is doing on the Forbes platform as contributing to the education of customers (and thereby hopefully increasing their loyalty to the brand). A lot of it still brags about how great the company is, even if there’s no direct link to our stuff. And some of it is, to my taste anyway, pure link bait (links that we’re sending to Forbes rather than SAP). But hey, I’m a known crank. I give us a B- overall—not bad for a product company.

A Step Toward Better B2B Marketing
So the temptation is still there for marketers to market themselves or their companies rather than ideas. But the Forbes platform is an important step in helping companies understand that there is a time for selling but there is also a time (generally much earlier in the sales process) when customers and prospects are simply looking to be informed, educated and entertained. Proving that this kind of engagement helps make customers more likely to consider the company is the next big hurdle that marketers (myself included) have to cross.

 

P.S. Forbes has an profile section that BrandVoice authors are asked to fill out. I filled mine out today and thought the questions were really fun and interesting. I’ve enclosed them and my answers below in case you’re remotely interested. I’d love to hear how you would answer these questions.

Cool profile questions Forbes BrandVoice asks authors (and my answers)
I’m Watching For…

Great ideas to help businesses and IT

This Is Annoying Me…

The costs of change

This Is Making Me Worry…

The freakin’ weather in the Northeast

This Is Bringing Me Joy…

My family and cycling (in that order!)

I’m Running From…

Crappy, self-serving marketing content

This Is Helping Me Create…

Awareness that there many smart people within SAP who do more than install software

This Is Making Me Think – Hard…

The melding of business, IT, and personal life

This Makes My Teeth Itch

Selfishness and lack of compromise in Washington

Can’t Do Without

Beer

Favorite Voices

John Lennon, Robert Plant, and MLK

My Most Awkward Moment

Don’t know where to start

My Secret Ambition

To raise a moral, thoughtful, and funny child who will change the world

I’m Known For…

Journalism and marketing

My Current Project

Build a library of library of interesting and fun stories that plumb the minds of smart subject matter experts to help companies make better decisions–without shamelessly trying to sell stuff

My Greatest Achievement

Besides standing around while my daughter was born and being smart enough to marry my wife, uncovering a cover-up of doping in cycling in the US–in 1984

My Biggest Regret

That journalism is dying

I Truly Respect

People who do stuff for others without telling anyone or expecting anything in return

Moments I’d Like To Forget

Pretty much all of junior high, high school, and college (I was a nerd before it was even remotely cool to be one)

How I Pay For This Wardrobe

Two suits bought 25 years apart!? Myself, thank you very much.

Blocks I’ve Been Around

Liars and phonies (interviewed two (that I know of) C-level executives who were later convicted of white collar crime)

Things That Really Happened

Sent to the hospital four times by drivers who hit me while riding my bike legally and carefully in traffic (one of whom told me to “use the f-ing sidewalk next time” before gunning it and leaving the scene)

Where I’d Like To Be 10 Years From Now

Living in a country that leads the world in promoting freedom, compassion, and honesty (hope it continues to be the US–I’m beginning to have my doubts)

Why Forbes

The Forbes platform is truly unique–a way for companies to add to the conversation about the future without having to resort to shameless self-promotion

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Why salespeople should sell ideas: an FAQ

May 15, 2012 by

We all know the increasing importance of ideas in B2B marketing. But idea marketing doesn’t start and stop with marketers. For the program to be successful, those ideas must find their way into the hands of salespeople. And I’m not sure that salespeople share the same passion for ideas as we do. I think they need to be convinced. Please tell me if you think the following does the job:

  • Relationships are what matter in selling. Why should I start selling ideas instead?
    Relationship selling skills matter more than ever. Idea selling isn’t a replacement for any current selling skills. It is an additional tool.
  • But why are ideas so important now?
    Buyers are spending much more time online than they used to. A (fairly old) study by Forbes and Google found that 80% of C-level executives perform at least three web searches per day. That was in 2009. No doubt that number has continued to go up—especially with the rise of mobile and social media.
  • What does online search have to do with selling?
    As buyers do more searching, they are stretching the buying process earlier and earlier, to the point where they may not have a specific product or service in mind when they search. They are looking for inspiration and guidance on the business problems they face. Increasingly, they are going to the internet for that guidance before they speak with salespeople.
  • So you’re saying there’s a part of the buying process that doesn’t involve salespeople?
    No. I’m saying there’s a new part of the buying process that comes before buyers have decided what they want to do. They assume that salespeople can’t help them at that point. And for the most part, they’re right. Most salespeople are still focused on selling specific products and services.
  • C’mon, nobody goes in pitching anymore. I ask them about their pain points and work with them to resolve them.
    Well, ask buyers and they’ll tell you that you should know their pain points before you even walk in the door. They want to start the conversation with their pain points and work forward from there—without talking about what you have to offer them. They are looking for good ideas, facts, and data about how to solve their specific business problems. That’s what they’re looking for on the internet—why shouldn’t they expect it from their providers, too?
  • But I don’t have access to that kind of information.
    Maybe not, but someone inside your organization does. Every B2B company has subject matter experts (SMEs) who are working with customers to solve problems and have deep backgrounds in customers’ processes, industries, and functions. The trick is to discover those sources of ideas in your organization and capture their wisdom for wider distribution.
  • How do we find and tap into those sources of ideas inside the organization?
    Sales and marketing need to work together to develop an idea network—a group of internal and external SMEs that can help develop and vet new ideas and put them into the hands of salespeople. The big strategy consulting firms have been doing this for decades. But it’s only since the rise of search that buyers have begun to expect this kind of original thinking from all their providers. In a recent ITSMA survey, 88% of B2B buyers said that ideas are important or critical for providers that want to make it to their short lists.
  • How do I get these ideas in a form I can use with customers?
    Besides creating idea networks, B2B companies also have to become publishers. With the decline of B2B trade publishing, B2B providers have to pick up the slack. But it can’t be with warmed over brochures. Traditional forms of marketing are still incredibly value later on in the sales cycle, but at the early stages, companies must produce articles and surveys that can compete with what the journalists used to provide. The management consulting companies have built small publishing engines—with dedicated editors, writers, and other publishing experts—inside their four walls. B2B companies that are serious about idea selling need to do the same thing.
  • Great, so you want me to dump a bunch of whitepapers on my customers?
    No, you have to work with marketing to get those ideas translated into a form you can use with customers—whether that be idea salescards, demos, etc. Sales and marketing need to work together to figure that out. This is where many marketing groups fall down; they stop short of translating the ideas into usuable sales materials. Companies need to become as good at idea sales enablement as they are at idea publishing.

Does this look like a realistic list? What have I left out?

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Why Lead Management Automation Really Matters

October 22, 2010 by

We should care more about lead management automation in B2B marketing. Maybe we don’t care enough because we’re focusing on the wrong reasons for doing it.

It isn’t because the software for automating this stuff has improved, or because it’s available through the cloud so you don’t have to deal with those people over in IT.

No, there’s something bigger going on here. And that is a huge change in the buying process.

In part it is being driven by social media. ITSMA’s annual survey of IT buyers found that this year, for the first time, a majority of buyers in the US—and 75% when you include other countries—are using social media in the purchasing process—especially the younger ones.

In our research we’ve also seen consistently over the past few years that two-thirds of buyers prefer to research their buying options themselves rather than waiting for vendors to contact them. Indeed, research by Forbes and Google found that 80% of C-level executives perform at least three web searches per day.

And finally, the trade press and general business media are dying. We have fewer and fewer outlets to do the heavy lifting of thought leadership for us by featuring our subject matter experts in in-depth analytical articles. Yet buyers are hungrier than ever for this kind of information and insight.

Buyers are removing salespeople from the buying process
What this all means is that buyers are really trying to remove salespeople from the earliest stages of the buying process. They want to become as informed as possible about current trends and their buying options before they ever speak to a salesperson.

This is where we as marketers need to provide more content—but not sales content. This content must be like what the press used to provide, objective, idea-based, and educational—not selling. Put another way, we have to use content to establish a relationship with buyers where our salespeople can’t. And we have to continue to build that relationship over time until those buyers are ready to talk to us.

That’s why lead management automation is important. It’s too difficult to track that relationship and know when someone is ready to do more than just read your white papers unless you have a process for lead management and can automate it. You have to be able to connect content with behavior with action. That’s not possible manually. It just won’t scale.

What do you think? What is stopping your company from creating an automated lead management process?

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