6 Degrees of Demand Generation: The Essential Guide

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation
The essential guide to delivering leads

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 1

Rethinking the sales cycle

Today, marketing is more than simply about doing some communications
and throwing leads over the wall to sales. It is a discipline that touches
every part of the sales cycle – attracting new customers, making them
sales-ready, helping close the deal, converting new customers into
advocates, delivering long-term repeat sales.

Fundamentally, this means the marketing sales cycle is now both longer
and more complex than ever before. It requires a more holistic view of how
to take someone from cold prospect to active evangelist. And it demands
that marketers must deploy a wider range of strategies and tactics –
understanding what to use and when to use it to deliver the best results.

Today, marketers must have access to expertise in every aspect of generating
demand. It is no longer enough to think just in terms of direct or brand or
even digital. To do so significantly limits the results you can achieve.

Of course, we are now used to hearing about the latest developments
in social and mobile and all the other bright shiny new things. But you
can’t simply jump on the bandwagon and hope it will magically deliver
the result you need (no matter what some ‘social media gurus’ tell you).
Demand generation today is as much about science as it is about art.
It requires that you intelligently mix and blend different approaches.
It’s about measuring results (in all their varied forms). And it means
adapting to changing circumstances, tuning your activity to take
advantage of new opportunities.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 2

Aligning sales and marketing

The war is over. Today, the most important word in ‘sales and marketing’ is and.
It’s now more important than ever that the two groups work closely together.

Silos kill results, fostering a ‘them and us’ culture which works against
generating long-term profitable demand. Marketing must gain an ever-
deeper understanding about how sales convert opportunities into
customers. They have to understand both the triggers and barriers to
a sale. And they must use their own skills to tip the odds of a successful
outcome in their salespeople’s favour.

Effective communication is vital. Together, sales and marketing must have
a clear picture of what a qualified lead looks like. They should agree on
the core stages of the sales funnel. And they must map out the entire
workflow, including who is responsible for what.

What does success look like?

Objectives should begin with the overall business strategy. Unless they can
be tied back to this, serious questions must be asked about whether you
have the right objectives in the first place.

They should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely).

Specific – what exactly do we want to achieve? How many leads will we need
to convert to final sales? Who precisely are we talking to? Where are they?
Measurable – what are we going to track? What are the benchmarks we
should measure ourselves against? Can we test different approaches?
How will we know when we’ve succeeded?
Achievable – is what we want to do achievable? Or do we need more
time, more money or a different set of objectives? Can we develop a
must-intend-like approach of tiered objectives?
Realistic – are we looking at the world as it is or as we’d like it to
be? Have we avoided taking a distorted view of the market? What
assumptions are we making (and are they reasonable)?
Timely – how long do we have? Is now the best time? What stages can
we break the task down into?

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 3

Thinking through the funnel

There is a tendency to look at the sales funnel in a very narrow way – all
too often it means doing some basic activity to generate leads at one end
and then additional activity to drive these leads towards a sale.

While this isn’t wrong, it misses much of what it takes to deliver exceptional
results.

In this guide we’ll be focusing on the core sales funnel itself but it is
perhaps better to think about the sales cycle in three stages:

Pre-funnel – the activity that targets the pre-customer and helps build
brand and reputation so that they become receptive to more overt
demand generation tactics

Funnel – creating and sustaining momentum with relevant content and
offers – nurturing leads over an extended sales cycle

Post-funnel – creating brand advocates from new customers and
generating ongoing profitable relationships

It is also vital to think about those leads that fall out of the funnel along the
way (those that relapse). We should not give these up for dead. There must
be strategies and tactics to reengage with them.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 4

The 6 essential tactics of successful demand generation

There are, of course, a multitude of different approaches and tactics
you can use to generate and sustain profitable demand. In fact, it’s this
hyper-fragmentation that causes many marketers sleepless nights as
they try to determine the best way forward for their brands.

It’s been compounded by an increasing focus on media (i.e. where we
should put our message) rather than strategy (i.e. how we should approach
the market).

This has led many marketers to get caught up in whether they need
something like a social media campaign, without getting the foundations
in place of how best to profitably acquire new customers.

In the following pages we will take a step back and look at the six core
elements to focus on when developing a successful demand generation
programme – these are:

1. Getting inside customers’ heads
2. Behavioural targeting
3. Content marketing
4. Guaranteed success
5. Marketing automation and lead nurturing
6. Messaging channels

We’ll look at each in turn and give some examples of how we’ve used
these approaches to drive demand for some of our clients.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 5

1. Getting inside customers’ heads

There was a time when targeting B2B customers was all about
demographics – job title, location, company size, etc. While this can
provide some interesting information, it is insufficient to unlock the
opportunities that will really deliver standout results.

Today, you need to go deeper and understand the attitudes and
motivations that are making your customers and prospects act the way
they do (and which will encourage the behaviour you want to see). The
move is from demographics to psychographics. But short of getting
everyone on the psychiatrist’s couch, how do you do this?

You start by listening. More people than ever are sharing their thoughts
online – whether on blog posts, in comments, on support forums, in
tweets. They are giving powerful clues about how the market as a whole
(or at least large sections of it) is feeling. Monitoring tools, such as Radian
6 and Vocus, can be also used to give a more nuanced, insightful result.

Of course, your prospects are searching too. The keywords they use give
clear pointers to areas of confusion and gaps in the market – after all, if
they knew the answers, they wouldn’t need to search. This information
gives you a powerful indication of the kind of content and programmes
you should be creating.

It is now easier than ever to conduct simple online research to get many
of the answers we need (providing, of course, we ask the right questions).
By paying attention to all these factors, we can build up powerful buyer
personas that will help us determine the most profitable approach to
generating demand. And, as it works on an individual level, it works
equally well for B2C marketing.

In B2B, however, we rarely focus on a single buyer. More typically, we
have to deal with a group of people with varying degrees of power and
influence. Understanding and mapping these influences means you can
take a more intelligent approach to communicating with your customers.

Again, some intelligent research can help you map the relationships. And
with the growth of networks such as LinkedIn, you can now target people
who exactly match your audience at a time and place where they are in the
right head-space to receive your message.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 6

This ultimately means that you’ll be able to talk to customers and prospects
about what really matters to them. You’ll be able to influence both their
thinking and behaviour, and drive higher results for your business.

Case study: Adobe – CS5.5 Upgrade campaign

Challenge

Adobe Creative Suite is the market leader in graphic-based software
solutions. With incremental product updates, Adobe research identified
that slow adoption of new product suites across EMEA resulted in SMB
customers running outdated software. Research showed customers had
a “good enough” attitude to their existing older CS suites. Banner was
tasked with developing a campaign to motivate users to upgrade, re-
register and acquire new Creative Suite licences.

Solution

Given the target audience covered
a wide range of market verticals
and industry sectors, Banner
determined the campaign would
need to have an overarching theme,
while providing tailored messaging
to key decision makers.

The “What If?” messaging
encouraged the recipient to see
the benefits of the new Creative
Suite in light of their own business
application. Creative Directors, IT
Administrators and Procurement
Managers were targeted with
tailored email messaging navigating
them through to a role-specific
page on the microsite.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 7

Banner developed a series of
online copy platforms for use
across existing Adobe social
platforms as well as customised
creative “skins” for social networks.
To support the digital materials,
co-brandable DM booklets,
posters, product cheat-sheets
and event collateral were also
developed.

The flexibility of an Eloqua
microsite allowed for multiple entry points based on job function or
interest while still leaving access open to all other areas. Supporting
content such as pre-filled emails and upgrade guidelines were available
and tracked so that Adobe would be notified of both target activity and
areas of interest. This allowed for accurate profiling and increasingly
relevant targeting.

2. Behavioural targeting

So we know how our customers think. But how can we know when and how
they are going to act on those thoughts? And what can we do to improve
our chances of influencing them at just at the right time?

Fortunately, actions speak louder than words. Customers do a pretty good
job of telling us exactly when they are going to buy. As they move across
our sites and the wider web, they leave digital footprints. These footprints
create patterns of activity that are indicative of what they will do next and
how close they are to buying.

Of course, if we can spot these patterns, we can serve up the right
messages at the right time to have the most profitable impact. And this is
exactly where behavioural targeting comes in.

By tracking a user’s behaviour, we can score and assess their activity,
building up a picture of their ‘digital body language’ (as Eloqua calls it).
This profile can then be used to serve up contextual messages and offers
designed to drive conversion, either on your site or across the wider
internet with media partners.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 8

By closing the gap between indicative behaviour and marketing message,
we can increase a prospect’s likelihood to buy and cut competitors out of
the equation.

Case study: Sage – All Business campaign

Challenge
Sage is well known for the accounting software it provides for small businesses.
However, many people don’t realise that Sage also has a wide range of offerings
for larger companies and enterprises. This means they have tended to lose out
to the likes of SAP and Oracle on vendor shortlists. Our challenge was to make
Sage more relevant to the large business market. In particular to focus on four
key areas: Construction, CRM, ERP and HR & Payroll.

Solution
Sage had some great video case study
content featuring current large business
customers talking about how easy it
was to implement their software. These
became the core of our campaign.
Because it can be difficult to drive
respondents to external sites (especially
if you are less well known) we created
an interactive nanosite.

Four versions of the nanosites were
developed, each promoting a different key vertical market. These vertical-
specific nanosites were then served up to the relevant audience through
highly targeted site placements and behavioural targeting, ensuring the
end-user only saw case studies relevant to their industry. The campaign also
expanded into print, mobile advertising and lead generation.

Results
The nanosites outperformed the
industry average in every measure.
They created more impact and,
crucially, greater engagement.
In fact they outperformed the
industry average interaction time by almost 300%. The campaign on
the whole helped solidify Sage’s presence in the mid-market segment; a
survey revealed an improvement in perception of thought leadership and
the innovative nature of the firm.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 9

3. Content marketing

B2B and technology buyers do not generally buy on a whim. Their
purchases are not driven by wanting to look cool or eat sugary snacks or
drive a fast car. More often than not, they’re looking to solve a tangible
business problem.

Most business problems are complex and touch every part of the
organisation. They ask the big questions: how can I improve supply chain
efficiencies? How can I gain a more accurate picture of what’s going on?
And how can I respond to threats and opportunities faster?

Ultimately, businesses need answers.

What this means is that, when they come to your site, they aren’t looking
for your products. They want someone who can help them overcome the
challenges they face.

In the first instance, they’re looking for content. Content that’s about them,
their issues and their situation. Content that will help them move forward
regardless of whether they go on to buy your products. This is the cost of
beginning a relationship.

It allows prospects to judge what lies behind the claims, giving them
a sense of what the relationship might be like if it progressed. It’s your
big chance to earn some major brownie points for being a helpful,
knowledgeable business partner.

Of course, this is just the ice-breaker – what you want is a deeper
relationship. You want to get into a conversation about the issues. A
conversation that gives you the opportunity to show how your products
and services can deliver the solution. This means sharing your content
beyond the firewall, encouraging people to pass it on, discuss it and ask
you questions about it.

It also means developing a range of content in a variety of formats. Some
people will happily read a white paper or ebook while others prefer
video or a webinar. Importantly, different content is effective at different
stages of the sale. In the early stages and pre-funnel, you’ll need thought-
leadership pieces that examine the issues from a high level. Later, you may
need the validation of a white paper or analyst report. And, later still, you
may need to develop an interactive ROI tool.

6 Degrees of
Demand Generation 10

While content marketing requires a greater commitment to develop
ongoing material that can be deployed over an extended time period,
it allows you to match your communications far more precisely to the
extended buying cycles found in B2B.

Case study: Novell EMEA Virtualisation – Content Audit

Challenge

Novell engaged Banner to launch a European demand generation and
lead nurture program for their Virtualisation products. Key to the success
of any multi-stage nurture program is content, but Novell had a huge
amount of content in many different formats across its website and other
content repositories.

They didn’t know what content they had and weren’t aware which pieces of
content would be best to drive awareness and convert prospects.

The negative impact of poorly created content cannot be underestimated:
slower decision-making, frustrated customers and lost deals. Something
had to be done to bring clarity to the situation and ensure that every piece
of Novell content was working as hard as it could.

Solution

Banner recommended a content audit to Novell EMEA. Working in
conjunction with IDG Connect, the content audit reviewed hundreds of
pieces of existing content and rated them according to their ability to
progress a prospect through the buying cycle.

Source: IDG Connect

6 Degrees of

IDG identified a five-stage process from initial consideration through to
sale. Each stage had been exhaustively researched to uncover insights
about audience behaviour and their requirements for content throughout
the buying process:

1. General Education
2. Business Case Development
3. Implementation Scenarios
4. Shortlist Creation
5. Final Decisions

Through the content audit we scored and mapped the content across
these five stages, split the assets by target audience, their effectiveness
at meeting audience requirements, how they were linked to other assets
and their “shareability”. Ultimately, it created a “goodness” rating of the
content. Anything under a certain score would need to be revisited.

We put together an exhaustive presentation and recommended how Novell
could improve their existing content to increase buyer momentum. A gap
analysis showed what new content types would be needed across each
buying stage. We also suggested alternative content formats that would
create more impact than standard PDFs and made recommendations to
ensure that each piece of content was created with a prospect-centric view.

Ultimately, we were able to make recommendations that would enable Novell
to optimise its content portfolio to increase demand generation performance.

6 Degrees of

4. Guaranteed success

Virtually every marketing programme is a leap of faith. No matter how much
data you have, how robust your insights or how great your offer, you can
never be 100% sure of the results you’ll achieve. Understandably, this can
hold you back when assigning scarce budget against ambitious targets.

But what if you could guarantee the results you’ll achieve?

Such is the promise of a guaranteed lead generation programme.

Essentially, this involves creating a piece of content such as a white paper
or high-value report and specifying what a marketing-qualified lead looks
like (e.g. they have a need, are in the right sector and geography and have
a purchase timeframe of 6 months).

Then we agree with a publisher that they will commit to delivering X
number of leads at an agreed cost per lead. Now, this cost may well be
more than you might pay if you were to run a traditional lead generation
campaign, but it does mean that you know exactly how much you will pay
for every marketing-qualified lead you get.

It also places the onus on the publisher to deliver against your targets
using all the means at their disposal – this will tend to result in them
up-weighting their promotional activity featuring your brand if they are in
danger of not hitting their targets. All without any additional cost to you.

While this approach is not for everyone, we have seen it deliver standout
results for a number of our clients, particularly targeting enterprise
decision makers.

The secret is to have a high value piece of content, to be very clear about
what constitutes a lead and to understand the real value of a lead given
your typical rates of conversion.

6 Degrees of

Case study: Riverbed – Pan-European Online Lead Generation

Challenge

Banner was tasked with delivering qualified leads to the Riverbed sales
team through white paper promotional activity. Riverbed is ultra-strict
when it comes to rejecting leads which don’t meet requirements, so
diligent campaign management was needed.

Solution

Using quarterly budgets, white paper
programmes were set up to drive response
via email and web promotions. Leads were
gathered, checked against the extensive
exclusion list and detailed filter list and, if
correct, were sent onto the client via secure
FTP (to comply with data protection).
Leads which did not fulfil the criteria
were returned and reconciled with the
publishers.

Contracts were in place with certain
publishers, so a rebate based on volume
of spend was applicable and could be
rolled into additional activity.

To boost awareness via lead gen, a
number of live webinars were recorded
which delivered leads and promoted the
wider Riverbed message.

Results

We generated 3,570 leads with approx
10% over delivery. The success of
the campaign led to the EMEA team
extending the white paper programme
into more countries across the region –
directly indicative of how the white paper
programme influences the sales cycle.

6 Degrees of

5. Marketing automation and lead nurturing

One of the defining differences between B2B and B2C is the length and
complexity of the sales process. In B2B, multiple buyers, multiple stages
and multiple tiers of distribution all conspire to create an extended
process that must be managed over time.

This means that you cannot simply dangle a single piece of content like a
carrot at the beginning of the process and then expect it to turn into a sale
six, nine or twelve months later. Having a well-considered lead nurturing
programme that will cover the expected time it will take for a lead to be
acquired and finally passed to sales is fundamental to success.

Traditionally, these programmes have communicated with prospects at
predefined intervals and with a number of touches, each offering further
resources or additional content. Every touch is designed to shift the
conversation on a little, moving the prospect closer to a sale. So we may
begin by offering a free analyst report, followed by a short video giving an
overview of how the product solves a particular problem. After that may
come a case study and invitation to a webinar (all specific, of course, to the
task in hand).

While this traditional approach delivers results, there are ways to take it
a stage further. A marketing automation system lets you communicate
more dynamically, delivering relevant communications based on customer
triggers. So a customer downloading a white paper may trigger a follow-
up offer. One using an ROI tool may trigger a sales call. And we might
decide to offer one view of our website to a certain type of customer and
another to a different one based on their behaviour.

More than this, using lead scoring we can determine where an individual
prospect is in the funnel and use pre-defined rules to automate the whole
process. This enables us to have a sophisticated, responsive solution
without the crippling timescales such an approach would traditionally take.

This also means that we can stop thinking in terms of fixed-length
campaigns. Because each action is triggered by a previous one,
‘campaigns’ can run as long as there are products to sell and customers to
buy them. Combining marketing automation with intelligent lead nurturing
means we can generate demand even for the most extended sales cycle.

6 Degrees of

Case study: Colt – Smart Office

Challenge
Colt had a range of point products designed specifically for the needs of
the SME market and sold through a network of European channel partners.
The challenge they had was twofold. Firstly, while partners where relatively
successful at selling individual products, they struggled in moving beyond
this to sell suites of interlinked solutions. Secondly, Colt wanted to get
much closer to its partners to help them to succeed.

Solution
We worked with Colt on the naming
of the new suite of products, which
was finally christened Colt Smart
Office. We developed a positioning
around “greater flexibility, more
possibilities” to successfully
compete against the perceived
inflexibility of the national carriers
they were competing with.

Then we created a suite of
communications materials that
could be used across Europe. These
included EDMs, direct marketing,
datasheets and solution guides.
We also built an Eloqua-powered microsite and an interactive Flash tool
allowing visitors to discover the right suite of products for their individual
needs. The website was capable of serving different content based on the
visitor profile and their previous interaction with the campaign.

All visits to the site were monitored
and hot leads were sent as alerts to the
Sales and Marketing teams at Colt. All
marketing data captured in Eloqua was
synchronised with salesforce.com to
ensure effective follow-up on every lead.

Finally, we developed a full channel
pack featuring cheat sheets, proposition
guides and telemarketing scripts to get
partners on board with the campaign.

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6. Messaging channels

Today there are a multitude of ways to communicate with a customer.
We consider over 80 when we’re planning our campaigns (and that’s just
the main channels).

This presents both an opportunity and a problem. On one hand, there
are many more ways to get through to our audiences. But, on the other,
they have many more ways to avoid us.

Of course, if we get our content right, then communicating becomes less
about the interruptive battle for attention and more about engaging with
customers where they want, with information and tools to help them get
stuff done.

Search is key. As we mentioned before, customers are clearly telling us what
they want every time they enter a term into Google. Using this information
not just in PPC campaigns but also as a foundation for developing tools and
content is an obvious (though surprisingly rare) next step.

In addition, where at one time all messaging was essentially one way (batch
and blast), we’re now in an age that values far greater social interaction. Now
this doesn’t necessarily mean that all customers and prospects want to be
your ‘friend’, but they do value the opportunity to exchange opinions and
have their say – they also appreciate being able to ask questions without a
salesperson immediately jumping down their throat.

While traditional channels still exist (and continue to deliver results for certain
challenges) the move has been increasingly to social and almost wholly
digital media. This doesn’t mean that the answer to all marketing problems
is a combination of Facebook and Twitter, though both have their place.
Just that social components should be built into all your communications.

Certainly, everything should be shareable. But this is just the start.

Today, you must look to make everything you create remarkable in the
true sense of the word – to have sufficient inbuilt interest and usefulness
for customers to want to remark upon it. Let’s face it, no one will ever be
bored into sharing and spreading your content. There is a glut of dull, self-
serving content on the web. You need to think hard about how to lift yours
out of the mire.

6 Degrees of

This is as much about attitude as media. If you begin by looking for ways
to engage with your audience rather than just shouting at them, you’re
more likely to create campaigns that are both enduring and effective.

The one channel that is beginning to radically change the way people
access information is mobile. Mobile forces us to be far clearer and simpler
in what we say. Even the larger screens are still smaller than we’re used to
working with. While this may appear to be a limitation, it is probably no
bad thing as it makes businesses focus on their core offering.

Fundamentally, mobile makes us far more contextually aware – where are
the people we’re communicating with? What are they trying to get done?
What’s their appetite for content?

Effectively generating profitable demand will ultimately require the skilful
blend of paid, free and earned media. This can only be achieved if you
have a deep understanding of your customers and their motivations and
show how you can help them achieve success.

Case study: Autodesk Showcase

Challenge

Autodesk ® Showcase ® is a real-time visualisation tool producing stunning,
high quality renderings of CAD designs. Sadly, it was not well known (apart
from among hardcore aficionados) and Autodesk wanted to use Social
Media to help educate customers and prospects about the value of real-
time visualisation to create demand.

Solution

Social media and content analytics
showed us that a large amount of
Autodesk-branded content already
existed but was disparate and
wasn’t effectively contributing to
Autodesk’s marketing.

The solution was to create a content
destination for Showcase users and
3D design professionals. We worked

6 Degrees of

closely with our social media agency partners Content & Motion (C&M*) to
develop a bespoke Showcase site for both the UK and Italian markets. This
highlighted the best in 3D design by Autodesk customers and provided
best practice tips and insights from Autodesk technical experts.

We spread the word using display advertising, SEM, a blogger PR
programme and other content seeding techniques combined with strong
content optimisation, a SEO programme and great search engine visibility.
We then went further, introducing competitions and trial downloads as
incentives for active participation.

Content was generated by C&M* and Autodesk experts who were
trained in best practice blogging and online engagement. Agency-side,
we collectively managed the weekly editorial and publishing agenda via
regular content analytics, trend analysis and content mapping – resulting in
a steady flow of highly optimised posts targeted directly to the wider 3D
design community.

You can read more about how to use mobile and social channels to
influence buyers in our B2B Mobile & Social white paper.

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Bringing it all together

Today it’s more important than ever to take a holistic view of your demand
generation activities. Customers are harder to reach and more resistant to
being marketed at. They have no time for empty, claim-based approaches.

People want to be treated like the individuals they are. They want brands
to engage with them on a human level, to have a conversation about
the issues (not just about their products). They want answers, not just
‘solutions’. For marketers, this requires a shift in both thinking and practice.

You must understand what’s going on in your customers’ heads, what their
real motivations are. You need to be able to affect their behaviour when
they are most receptive and likely to be influenced. And you need to think
more deeply about content.

Content is king – useful, helpful content that helps customers get stuff done
or gain fresh insights or discover what’s working (or not) in their market.
Companies that are not continually thinking about developing effective
content will simply not live up to their demand generation potential.

Because B2B sales cycles are typically measured over months rather than
weeks, being able to sustain your engagement over the long term is vital.
Today’s marketing automation tools can help you take a more dynamic,
individual approach to your communications, allowing you to successfully
nurture prospects until they’re ready to buy.

And finally, the multitude of available messaging channels mean that
marketers must carefully pick and blend the ones that will deliver the best
results. They must closely track performance. And importantly, they must
be able to tune and adapt these channels over time to optimise their
effectiveness.

There has never been a more interesting time to be in demand generation.
While the challenges can appear significant, the opportunities to deliver
truly exceptional results are everywhere. All it takes is the right insight
coupled to the right tactics.

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Let’s talk

We hope you’ve found this guide interesting and useful.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of the
topics further, we’d love to talk.

Email Michael Wrigley at michael@b1.com or call him on
020 7349 2266.

Follow us on: Twitter: @bannercorp

And keep up to date at: www.b1.com/blog

6 Degrees of

6 Degrees of Demand Generation: The Essential Guide

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