Modern B2B Marketing in the Era of the Empowered Buyer

1 Modern Business-to-Business Marketing in the Era of the Empowered Buyer
MODERN BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS
MARKETING IN THE ERA OF THE
EMPOWERED BUYER

TABLE OF CONTENTS
04 Introduction
chapter 1 05 The “Opt-In Culture”
chapter 2 07 The Business-to-Business Empowered
Buyer’s Manifesto
chapter 3 10 How Is Marketing to the Empowered B-to-B Buyer Impacting B-to-B
Marketers?
chapter 4 11 The Top B-to-B CMO Modern Marketing Challenges
chapter 5 15 Today’s Best-Practice Demand Generation
chapter 6 18 Where Do Enterprise Marketers Fall Short With Demand Generation Efforts?
chapter 7 19 The Importance of the B-to-B Brand
chapter 8 21 Marketing to Groups
chapter 9 26 Next Evolution Demand Generation Content Strategies
chapter 10 29 B-to-B Companies Are Not Immune to the Age of the Customer
chapter 11 31 Next Evolution Demand Generation Media Strategies
chapter 12 32 What is Next Evolution Demand Generation?
MODERN BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS
MARKETING IN THE ERA OF THE
EMPOWERED BUYER
by Scott Levine, Vice President Strategy KERN, An Omnicom Agency

Not long ago, I travelled to San Francisco for
a strategic meeting with a B-to-B CMO. On
the way home, my plane was delayed, and I
found myself stuck on the tarmac. Suddenly,
after several days of going nonstop, I had a few
unexpected moments to myself. In the context of
my meeting and my sudden change of pace, that
quiet pause made me think about the hectic,
nonstop speed of change most B-to-B marketers
are expected not only to stay on top of, but get
ahead of—often without the gift of a moment to
stop and reflect.
About a year ago, a Fortune 50 technology client
asked my KERN colleagues and me a question
that got us thinking about the speed of change:
“What is the current state of best-in-class
demand generation for business-to-business
marketing?” That simple, compelling question
inspired us to develop our philosophy, The 8
Pillars of Demand Generation.
While The 8 Pillars of Demand Generation
remains a useful and relevant resource, in
creating it we realized it was just the tip of
the iceberg. B-to-B CMOs today are facing
an ever-increasing number of challenges that
go far beyond demand generation. Our next
research challenge was clear: identify the biggest
challenges facing the modern B-to-B CMO.
Our first step was to dig deep into research
that revealed not only the scope of these new
challenges, but also solutions. After sourcing
research from trusted resources, we culled
hundreds of reports down to the 25 most
relevant to our task. From those 25 reports, we
identified eight specific B-to-B CMO challenges.
As I began writing, it became apparent to me
that rather than offering specific solutions, each
of these eight challenges was opening unique
areas of opportunity. I came to believe the most
value I could offer my audience would be to
illuminate and explore these areas.
The purpose of this work is to share knowledge
I’ve gained from privileged access to the
boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies and
insights gleaned from 25 in-depth reports.
My ultimate goal is to foster continued
conversations about modern B-to-B marketing.
After a four-month deep dive into research,
interviews, discussion, analysis and writing,
I’m very pleased to present Modern Business-
to-Business Marketing in the Era of the
Empowered Buyer.
A project of this scope isn’t possible without the
help and dedication of many talented people.
Thanks first to my dear friend and colleague
Russell Kern, Founder and President of KERN,
An Omnicom Agency, who supported my
effort and contributed much to this project.
Also thanks to the copy editors, proofreaders,
creative directors, project managers and
administrative support at KERN who worked
to make the publication of the white paper
possible.
PREFACE

The past 20 years have seen more changes in
marketing than the last 100 years.
Today, we live in an “instant world” where
buyers possess infinite choice and infinite
power. Whether instant access, instant
information, instant gratification, instant
justification or instant rationalization, these
“instants” impact the way businesses that
market to businesses
think, act and react.
The “instant factor”
doesn’t just apply
to customers and
prospects. “Instant”
also figures into the
marketer’s world of
dashboards, real-time
marketing analytics
and programmatic
algorithms.
And, as technology advances, instant is swiftly
becoming not good enough. We’re now heading
into the crystal ball business, predicting
behavior with predictive analytics to predictive
lead scoring.
Rather than dwelling on the good old days,
CMOs must now look toward tomorrow, seeking
the next innovation, striving to equip themselves
and their organizations to stay as far ahead
of the fast approaching storm of constant and
continuous change as possible.
Changes in culture, perceptions
and processes
With the average job lasting 61 months
according to the Spencer Stuart Report, B-to-B
CMOs are currently enjoying the longest tenures
in recent history. Despite this new level of
job security, many CMOs are struggling with
significant challenges as CEOs are increasingly
looking to them for strategic input. In fact, the
CMO now comes second only to the CFO in
terms of the influence he or she exerts on the
CEO. According to an IBM CMO Study “Two
thirds of CMOs will be held accountable for ROI
by 2015, but half feel insufficiently prepared to
provide hard numbers.”
The risk of change vs. the risk of the
status quo
While there is some comfort in maintaining
the status quo, marketing in the era of the
empowered buyer amplifies the risk of
stagnation. This new era of B-to-B marketing
elucidates the importance not only of changing,
but also choosing the right direction in which to
change.
The view from above
The purpose of this white paper is to provide a
high-level view for CMOs and B-to-B marketing
leaders. It is geared toward readers with an
advanced understanding of modern marketing
who have followed the trends
up until today.
INTRODUCTION
“TWO THIRDS OF CMOS WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
FOR ROI BY 2015, BUT HALF FEEL INSUFFICIENTLY
PREPARED TO PROVIDE HARD NUMBERS.”

CHAPTER 1
THE “OPT-IN CULTURE”
THE
WORLD
THEN
THE
WORLD
NOW
In today’s opt-in culture, we can no longer tell
people when and where to engage.
Until recently, a marketer could address
customers at times and places determined
by the marketer. Watching a hit television
series also meant watching the accompanying
commercials. The same was true of newspapers,
magazines, radio and, to some extent, even the
customer’s mailbox.
The buyer of the past received current news
and necessary information by newspaper, radio
and television. Fixed parameters controlled
sources of information and possible channels
for communication. Five to seven television
stations per market made viewing choices finite.
There were two local newspapers and 10 local
radio stations. The range of television and radio
signals physically limited access to media. The
only way to opt out was to turn off the medium
or stop paying attention.
Today, when anyone with a mobile device
is a potential journalist, there are billions of
journalists. Overtaking the desktop, mobile is
now the preferred path to the Internet. When
we consider the ubiquity of mobile devices—
there are more devices than there are people
on the planet—we all must come to the same
conclusion: mobile is today’s channel of choice.
Empowered buyers engage and disengage with
brands at will. They have unlimited digital
access in an information instant-gratification
world. Opting in (or out) is now squarely in the
hands of the consumer.
This instant gratification reality fuels the
modern buyer’s “What’s in it for me?” mentality.
Also known as the “me-conomy,” this new
reality has had profound economic impact and
operates on its own set of rules.
The rules of the me-conomy game
Addressable audiences are fluid: The
addressable audience is fluid, as life causes
people to live many roles, such as father,
mother, husband, wife, marketer, analyst, car
enthusiast—and each of those roles defines
an addressable part of the audience. This
fluidity gives marketers a great opportunity to

speak to more human parts of the audience,
even when promoting a business-oriented
product. For instance, perhaps when sharing
business solutions, we engage not only the
businessperson making the buying decision, but
speak to the heart of that person by addressing
one of her more personal roles–such as mother
or hobbyist. People don’t stop being themselves
when they walk into an office.
The “tyranny of choice”: There are more
brands, more places to buy and more
opportunities to source, compare and challenge
than ever before. The tyranny of choice causes
brands to compete harder than they’ve ever had
to before. What used to be a bounded rationality
of decision making with a limited number
of choices has evolved into an unbounded
rationality, where new and greater choices
appear by the minute.
Brands need people more than people
need brands: Why should I buy what you’re
selling? Brand value is waning as more choices
are offered to the modern buyer. Value becomes
diluted as choice increases, commoditizing
products, services and solution sets.
Linear integration is yesterday’s reality:
People will no longer tolerate being told where
to enter and when to leave. Engagement
comes from all entry points and exit points
simultaneously. You walk through the airport
looking at your smartphone until you arrive at
your gate, then you sit down and pull your
laptop out and work on that until the flight
is ready to board. Once you are onboard, you
pull out a tablet and continue to work. Across
all devices, platforms and locations, you are
moving in and out as your life dictates. As
modern marketers, we all know that linear
integration is yesterday’s news. Today’s
empowered buyers follow their own path in
their own time and on their own terms.
WE LIVE IN A MOBILE-FIRST,
CLOUD-FIRST WORLD
But the true power lies in making it intuitive
and human.
ADDRESSABLE AUDIENCES
ARE FLUID
There’s no such thing as one audience, and there’s a
massivedifference between the available market and
the addressable audience.
THE “TYRANNY OF CHOICE”
There are more brands, more places to buy and more
opportunities to source, compare and challenge than
ever before.
BRANDS NEED PEOPLE MORE
THAN PEOPLE NEED BRANDS
Why should I buy what you’re selling?
LINEAR INTEGRATION IS
YESTERDAY’S REALITY
People will no longer tolerate being told where to
enter and when to leave. Engagement comes from
all entry points and exit points simultaneously.
THE ME-CONOMY REALITY
THE ADDRESSABLE
AUDIENCE IS FLUID, AS
LIFE CAUSES PEOPLE TO
LIVE MANY ROLES, SUCH
AS FATHER, MOTHER,
HUSBAND, WIFE,
MARKETER, ANALYST,
CAR ENTHUSIAST

Much has been reported and written over the
past two years regarding the modern B-to-B
buyer’s journey, with almost all of the research
indicating that, in some way, shape or form,
salespeople are being displaced by the ubiquity
of available information on digital channels. The
Corporate Executive Board (CEB) and Google
have been quoted numerous times about B-to-B
buyers traveling 57% of their journey without
ever contacting sales. SiriusDecisions stated just
last year that “67% of the buyer’s journey is now
done digitally,” and many other sources, such
as Forrester and Gartner, have reported similar
statistics, all pointing to the fact that buyers are
completing a majority of the journey without
contacting a vendor’s salespeople.
A 2014 Demand Gen Report on B-to-B
buyer behavior states: “As many as 34% of
respondents said the number of team members
involved in the B-to-B purchase process
increased over the past year,” and TechTarget
chimes in too: “The single buyer is no longer—
team buying is prevalent across all geographies
as 55–75% of respondents indicate that the
most common buying team consists of 2–4
people, but the size of the buying team increases
at larger companies.” CEB puts the average size
of the enterprise buying group at 5.4 people.
The average B-to-B buyer age is
going down
A recent article in Advertising Age states that
millennial influence within B-to-B buying
decision groups is growing rapidly, according to
a new study by Google and the research house
Millward Brown Digital, where 46% of potential
buyers researching B-to-B products today are
millennials, up from 27% in 2012.
We’d like to introduce you to someone quite
important. Someone that you’ll need to become
quite familiar with. We’d like to introduce you
to the business-to-business empowered buyer
of today.

The modern business-to-business empowered
buyer is more complex, sophisticated and
independent than the buyers of yesterday. They
don’t know who you are and, while they may
recognize your firm, they don’t know you.
How much do you really know about your
buyers? Do you really know what they want
or need and do you know how they feel or
what they’re thinking? Do you know what
generational segment that your buyers hail
from? And if you do, you’d better be ready
to speak Boomer, X-er, Y-er and Millennial,
as each generational segment really only
understands their own language.
CHAPTER 2
THE BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS EMPOWERED
BUYER’S MANIFESTO
We have taken power.
We will no longer sit back and be sold to.
We have access to more information than
ever with the mere touch of a finger, and
we intend to use it.
We have a ravenous appetite for content,
not marketing material.
We don’t stand alone. We are constantly
influenced by our network and we make
our decisions in groups. Our strength is
in numbers.
Because of us, marketing will never be the
same. And that’s a good thing.
We work, think and buy on our own terms.
We will create the future to our liking.
We will be unshakably loyal to what
works for us.
And ruthlessly fickle to what doesn’t.
We are the empowered buyer.
Welcome to our world.

THE EMPOWERED
B-to-B BUYER’S MANIFESTO
W
E
ARE THE EMPOWERED BUYE
R
.
W
ELCOME TO OUR WORLD.
WE WILL NO LONGER SIT BACK
AND BE SOLD TO.
We have access to more information than ever with the
mere touch of a finger, and we intend to use it.
WE HAVE A RAVENOUS APPETITE FOR CONTENT,
NOT MARKETING MATERIAL.
We don’t stand alone. We are constantly influenced by
our network and we make our decisions in groups.
Our strength is in numbers.
BECAUSE OF US, MARKETING WILL NEVER BE THE
SAME. AND THAT’S A GOOD THING.
WE WILL CREATE THE FUTURE TO OUR LIKING.
We will be unshakably loyal to what works for us.
AND RUTHLESSLY FICKLE TO
WHAT DOESN’T.
THE EMPOWERED
B-to-B BUYER’S MANIFESTO
W
E
ARE THE EMPOWERED BUYE
R
.
WW
EELLCCOOMMEE TTOO OOUURR WWOORRLLDD..
WE WILL NO LONGER SIT BACK
AND BE SOLD TO.
We have access to more information than ever with the
mere touch of a finger, and we intend to use it.
WE HAVE A RAVENOUS APPETITE FOR CONTENT,
NOT MARKETING MATERIAL.
We don’t stand alone. We are constantly influenced by
our network and we make our decisions in groups.
Our strength is in numbers.
BECAUSE OF US, MARKETING WILL NEVER BE THE
SAME. AND THAT’S A GOOD THING.
WE WILL CREATE THE FUTURE TO OUR LIKING.
We will be unshakably loyal to what works for us.
AND RUTHLESSLY FICKLE TO
WHAT DOESN’T.

Your buyer is part of a buying group of
between three to seven people on average, so
even if you convince your buyer, you’ll also have
to convince their group, or help your buyer to
convince their group, that your solution
makes sense.
Buyers don’t trust your content and only 9%
of them trust content provided by vendors.
However, your buyers do trust content
generated by their peers, as 86% of IT buyers
use social media
networks and peer-
generated content in
the purchase-decision
process.
Do your buyers know
what your brand
means? Maybe they
once knew, or maybe
they never knew; are
you prepared to tell
them what your brand
stands for?
Why would your buyer stop what they’re doing
to listen to you? The attention span of humans
is shorter than ever. You don’t have much
time to convince your buyer. According to the
National Center for Biotechnology Information,
at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the
average attention span of a human being has
dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight
seconds in 2013. This is one second less than
the attention span of a goldfish.
Your buyer is using their own digital resources
on their own times and terms to seek out
solutions. When marketing to the empowered
business customer of 2015, your organization
needs to show up in their research, since the
modern buyer will travel 57% of their buyer’s
journey and download 17 pieces of content
before they engage with a salesperson.
It’s a brave new world with brave new buyers,
and marketers who aren’t adapting to succeed
are flirting with obsolescence.
DO YOUR BUYERS KNOW WHAT YOUR BRAND MEANS?
MAYBE THEY ONCE KNEW, OR MAYBE THEY NEVER
KNEW; ARE YOU PREPARED TO TELL THEM WHAT
YOUR BRAND STANDS FOR?

We’ve come from a world where our audience was
addressable through a mass effort, rather than the
precise pinpointed effort that we need today. The
most challenging complexity that modern B-to-B
marketers face is creating “individualism” within
a mass-media framework. To speak to individuals,
marketers require a model that directly addresses
customer needs, wants and desires.
We have evolved from specific episodic programs
that had a beginning, middle and end, to
continuous, seamless customer experiences
developed to encompass the entire customer
lifecycle. Moving from complex siloes of channel-
specific marketing, we are challenged with
simplifying messages to resonate with audiences
through omnichannel branded experiences. No
longer a one-way affair, with the advent and
proliferation of social media, two-, three-, four-
and more-way communications are now the norm.
Our old processes were slow and methodical, with
feedback coming to us at a snail’s pace. Today
we’re in the throes of real-time marketing, data
collection, data analysis, marketing dashboards,
and instant and automatic multivariate testing
that allow us to optimize on the fly to continuously
improve and streamline programs.
Recently, with the advent of technology-powered
automated programmatic real-time buying,
we have been able to break away from human-
driven media buying, where limitations such as
negotiations and time constraints
have disappeared.
The B-to-B marketer and the new group
dynamic
In the face of all these changes, one incorrect
perception for B-to-B marketers is that, when
marketing products to business clients, they are
marketing to a single decision maker. A recent
study from the CEB and Motista confirms that,
in almost every case of a complex enterprise sale,
there are 5.4 decision makers on average involved
in a group decision. TechTarget puts the number
of people in a group decision team at seven.
Everyone on your sales team knows that groups
make buying decisions.
SiriusDecisions came to the same conclusion as we
did. They unveiled a new B-to-B Buying Decision
Process Framework at their May 2015 Sirius
Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. SiriusDecisions
outlined three types of buying scenarios: Groups
buying by committee (six to 10 people in the
buying group), groups buying by consensus (three
to five people involved in the buying group) and
independent buyers (one to two people in the
buying group). They’ve determined that those
buying independently are usually involved in deals
for less than $50K. They detail the deal size for
consensus buying at a range of $50K to $500K,
and likewise call out the committee buying range
at $500K to millions of dollars.
Recently, Gartner published a report “Gartner
Predicts: Seizing the Digital Business Advantage”
in which they predicted the impact of digital on
the future of marketing. Gartner’s predictions
included:
• By 2023, superior digital business
capabilities will lead four out
of five industry leaders to reposition
their brand promise or build
new brands.
• Digital business incompetence will cause
a quarter of businesses
to lose their market position by 2017.
• By 2017, corporate strategists will
perform daily competitive scans
to compensate for the death of
sustainable competitive advantage.
• By 2017, one in five industry leaders will
have ceded their market dominance to a
company founded after 2000.
CHAPTER 3
HOW IS MARKETING TO THE EMPOWERED
B-TO-B BUYER IMPACTING B-TO-B MARKETERS?

To provide insight into the top business-
to-business CMO challenges for 2015, we
researched, aggregated and assessed over 20
studies from key resources, including Gartner,
Forrester, IBM, Forbes, Altimeter, LinkedIn,
CMO.com, AAMA, Harvard Business Review,
McKinsey, The CMO Club, IDG, The Economist,
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Mobile Marketing
Association, Advertising Age and the Content
Marketing Institute.
1. Creating effective engagements for
today’s empowered customer
B-to-B buyers are now in control of the buying
process and expect new levels of consumer
experiences when interacting with your brand.
How ready is your organization to deal with
empowered and emboldened B-to-B buyers
of 2015 who buy on their
own time frame and terms?
Business buyers spend
just 21% of the buying
cycle in conversations
with salespeople, while
spending 23% of the time in
conversations with peers and
colleagues and 56% of the
buying cycle searching for
and engaging with content
(according to IDG Connect,
2013).
Marcus Starke, Chief
Marketing Officer of Ciena writes: “Many
technology companies are very inward-focused,
looking at the world through a technology
lens and doing everything based on what they
think is right and important. The old ‘build it
and they will buy it’ mantra is still prevalent
in many B-to-B environments and so it is the
marketer’s biggest opportunity and challenge to
turn an inward focus into an outward one, help
the company take on a market and customer
perspective, and put buyers first.”
2. Delivering on the promise to
drive revenue
How can marketers change internal perception
of marketing as a cost center to that of a revenue
driver? CMOs must be prepared to prove total
marketing revenue contribution. According to
a 2015 study by McKinsey, The Fuqua School
of Business and the AMA, it was revealed
that companies are spending 8.3% of revenue
on marketing, blended for both B-to-C and
B-to-B marketers. We generally see 4% to 5%
of revenue for B-to-B companies. Even at the
lower end of the B-to-B budget estimate of 4%,
companies yielding $1B in annual revenue have
an average marketing budget of $40,000,000.
What is the return on the investment? CMOs
must be prepared to answer the big revenue
question in 2015. The Fournaise
Group reports that: “90% of
marketers are not trained
in Marketing Performance
Marketing ROI, and 80%
struggle with being able to
properly demonstrate to their
Top Management the business
effectiveness of their Marketing
spending, campaigns and
activities.”
Marketing must be an efficiency
driver for sales, helping
sales to focus on what they
do best—proposing and closing solutions—
while marketing provides the strategy to
drive preference and consideration through
campaigns implemented with marketing
automation methodologies.
Marketers must create and construct their plans
to align with the sales pipeline and revenue
goals of the organization, while having a plan
in place to report ROI. CEOs are putting even
more pressure on CMOs to generate (and prove
that they generate) incremental customer
CHAPTER 4
THE TOP B-TO-B CMO MODERN
MARKETING CHALLENGES
MARKETING MUST
BE AN EFFICIENCY
DRIVER FOR SALES,
HELPING SALES TO
FOCUS ON WHAT
THEY DO BEST

demand for the companies’ products or services
(i.e., their ability to generate more sales, more
market share, more prospects and/or more
conversions).
3. Delivering differentiated branded
omnichannel experiences
Will marketers successfully engage prospects
and customers with the same brand experience
regardless of channel in 2015?
Business-to-business buyers’ expectations have
changed dramatically due to the advent and
proliferation of rich consumer omni-channel
experiences. B-to-B buyers have consistent
experiences when engaging a B-to-B brand
through various channels. This includes
eCommerce, where applicable, for B-to-B
products; less so for services. While there are
some great examples of B-to-B eCommerce
sites, such as CDW, the people who get “IT”,
most are not so great.
According to a recent report from Forrester
Research, Building The B-to-B Omnichannel
Commerce Platform Of The Future, the top
barrier to omnichannel implementation is back-
office integration across channels (44%); 42%
of B-to-B companies point to difficulty sharing
customer data and analytics between channels,
countries, or locations, while 40% say they are
limited by distribution partners, franchises or
wholesale customers; and 36% report a conflict
between different channel organizations,
implementation difficulty—or lack of business
incentives (33%), limited staff skills (32%) and
employee or management resistance (31%).
B-to-B marketing organizations must strive
to own customer experience by developing
omnichannel experiences that are seamless for
their customers. Controlling the touch-points
of a customer’s full journey is the optimal way
to deliver a truly differentiated omnichannel
experience.
4. Bridging the knowledge gap
The success of any marketing operations team
is reliant on new technological knowledge and
skills. The era of informal marketing skills
development is over. B-to-B must now rise to
the expectations of the customer by employing
all available technology, analytics and alignment
with sales and products. How can marketers
close the gap between what they used to do and
what they need to do in 2015?
Marketing operations personnel must be
capable of presenting a viable business case that
enables a top-down strategic view of marketing’s
return on investment to the business. Proving
and reporting ROI is of the utmost importance
to the CMO, who must do the same for those
sitting at his or her corporate table: the CEO,
CFO, and CXOs.
The best technology stack integration will
amount to no more than a giant paper weight
without proper analysis of the valuable insights
gained. If the marketing operations team is
unable to perform and collect, analyze, interpret
and produce insights from that data, the entire
investment in technology and human resources
is wasted.
As marketing operations for modern B-to-B
marketing organizations require new skill sets,
will those who already possess desired skill sets
become a valuable commodity as new hires, or
will organizations formalize training for these
positions?
5. Making business mobile
Mobile marketing capabilities are a must-have
for marketing organizations in 2015. Mobile
advertising, apps, messaging, mCommerce and
CRM must be part of the marketing mix in 2015
as “70% of marketers see mobile marketing as a
critical enabler of products and services.” People
and companies want and must have mobile
solutions that work anytime, anywhere and on
any device.
According to comScore and Morgan Stanley,
mobile Internet access overtook fixed internet
access in 2014 as the customers’ preferred
channel of choice. The new consumer-like
expectation of modern B-to-B buyers is the
ability to get whatever they want in their
immediate context and moment of need.

Mobile marketing includes advertising, apps,
messaging, mCommerce and CRM on all mobile
devices including smartphones and tablets.
Buyers increasingly switch between their
devices, and brands must be able to create those
omni-channel experiences.
6. Tackling the content marketing
conundrum
With organizations increasing investments in
content marketing, there is growing pressure
on marketers to prove ROI. While nearly all
B-to-B marketers are creating content, few are
creating effective content. The challenge is to
identify what makes
content effective, and
then figure out how to
create it.
• 70% of
B-to-B
marketers
are creating
more content
than they
did one year ago, even those who say
their results are least effective (58%)
and those without any type of strategy
(56%).
• Measurement is a key area where
B-to-B marketers are struggling: only
21% say they are successful at tracking
ROI; however, having a documented
strategy helps; 35% of those with a
strategy say they
are successful.
• Once again, infographics was the
tactic that had the greatest increase in
usage (from 51% last year to 62% this
year).
• 94% of B-to-B marketers use LinkedIn
to distribute content, making it the
most-used social media platform (they
also say it’s the most effective free
social media platform).
• 58% of B-to-B marketers use search
engine marketing, making it the paid
method used most often to promote/
distribute content (they also say it’s
the most effective paid method).
While organizations are anxious to practice
content marketing, why aren’t more
organizations able to develop and create
effective content? From the Fortune 500
marketing boardrooms to the mid-market
marketing meetings, we see a common
issue: a lack of a formalized, documented
content strategy. We also see that even when
organizations do have a formal and documented
content strategy, the focus of the content is
usually from the organization’s point of view,
which totally disregards the thoughts, feelings,
experience, expectations and consideration of
the target audience as they move through the
modern buyer’s 10-stage journey.
7. Harvesting return on technology
investments
Is being a modern marketer dependent
on having the latest shiny new marketing
technology object in the tech stack? Before
marketing departments can request that
new DMP (Data Management Platform) or
marketing automation software, there must
be a data strategy in place that requires those
technologies. How can marketing organizations
understand if they are underinvesting or
overinvesting in marketing technology? And
if the organization does invest in marketing
technology, the prevention of underutilization
of that technology is of paramount importance
in determining the return on investment to the
organization.
WITH ORGANIZATIONS INCREASING INVESTMENTS IN
CONTENT MARKETING, THERE IS GROWING PRESSURE
ON MARKETERS TO PROVE ROI.

The marketing
technology
experiment
ends in 2015.
Marketers
must face
accountability
to prove
commercial
returns
from the
technological
investments,
even if the
organization
acquired and
assembled those technologies one at a time for
different and various reasons. If this is the case
with your organization, a marketing technology
audit is the first step in proving ROI on the
technology investments. A thorough audit can
help you determine the validity and necessity
of each piece of technology as it pertains to the
success of the whole.
8. Accountable demand generation
Will marketers find a way to improve the results
of demand generation efforts? The average
B-to-B marketing organization only converts 3%
to 6% of leads into sales, according to a recent
benchmark study by Implisit. Let’s look at that
a different way: If the organization has deemed
3% to 6% of leads as qualified, then 94% to 97%
aren’t converting.
Organizations drive accountability and
performance from their demand generation
ecosystem by designing and implementing a
best-in-class system of universal measurement
in order to secure trust from the organization’s
leaders in the key performance indicators
reported.
In a push-and-pull battle between sales and
marketing, in which sales demands a quick
handoff of leads and marketing wants longer
nurture times, marketing will inevitably cave
to sales and pass poor quality, premature
leads. Though they are the instigators of the
problem, sales will ultimately be frustrated
by following up on leads that aren’t qualified
and don’t exhibit the BANT criteria. Practicing
accountable demand generation means focusing
on lead quality over lead quantity, regardless
of the “urgent” demand from sales to pass over
more leads.
According to the 2015 Demand Gen Report
Benchmark Study, 74% of respondents rank
“focusing on lead quality over lead quantity” as
being the most important demand generation
goal for 2015.
Recently, KERN unveiled a “Best-in-class”
Demand Generation Ecosystem: The 8 Pillars of
Demand Generation for Revenue Acceleration,
which describes each of the eight categories of
demand generation that must be implemented
to achieve best-practice demand generation.
A 24 page executive preview of The 8 Pillars of
Demand Generation can be found here.
IF THE
ORGANIZATION
HAS DEEMED 3%
TO 6% OF LEADS
AS QUALIFIED,
THEN 94% TO
97% AREN’T
CONVERTING.

Despite the increasing complexity of demand
generation, we can still distill best practices
down to these seven, basic principles.
1. Find ways to break through the
B-to-B marketing clutter
How can you break through to the modern
empowered B-to-B buyer, which now includes
the generational segment of Millennials?
Marcus Starke, CMO of Ciena, writes: “There’s
no reason why B-to-B marketing should be
boring. Instead, your content should be as
engaging, exciting and creative as anybody’s
marketing, whether you’re selling technology or
consumer products. People want to get excited
and make connections, understand and be
understood.”
2. Content strategy is essential to
content marketing
Most modern B-to-B marketers have embraced
content marketing, yet few have a documented
content strategy. According to the Content
Marketing Institute’s Content Marketing
Study of 2015, only 35% of marketers have a
documented content strategy. It’s really no
surprise that the 35% who properly documented
their content strategy are “more effective in
all aspects of content marketing than those
who don’t.” And it’s more than just having
a strategy: it’s really about what ingredients
you used to create that strategy. We’ll explore
those secret content ingredients in Chapter 9,
Next Evolution Demand Generation Content
Strategies.
3. Learn more about your customer
through buyer personas to create
relevant, compelling content
In the Demand Gen Marketo 2015 study, they
found: “Marketers are adopting personas as
a significant tool in their demand generation
strategy, as just a little more than one quarter
(27%) reported that their personas are well
documented and aligned to their messaging and
31% of respondents reported that they do not
have personas in place, but plan to build them
in the coming year.” In addition to personas,
marketers are using the insights gleaned
from harvesting mountains of marketing
data to enable their organizations to learn
more about their customers; some are even
able to accomplish this in real time. KERN
has developed what we call “the evolution of
the marketing persona” in our new persona
development process: Progressive Persona
Profiling. See more about Progressive Persona
Profiling here.
4. People buy things, businesses
don’t. Create personalized content
strategically placed where people are
likely to consume it.
Bryan Kramer, author of Human to Human:
#H2H, states: “There is no B-to-B or B2C—it’s
human to human (H2H) marketing.” Kramer
goes on to say: “The fact is that businesses
do not have emotion. Products do not have
emotion. Humans do. Humans want to feel
something. And humans make mistakes.”
The value and power of the brand can convey
both logical and emotional perceptions of
the brand, to serve as a halo to the sales
organization and eCommerce sites. In a 2015
study, McKinsey states: “In fact, decision
makers consider the brand a central rather than
a marginal element of a supplier’s proposition.
Our survey indicates that a company’s brand is
on par with sales as an influencing factor.”
Branding conveys emotions about a company’s
services and products. Strong brands convey
trust and confidence. Branding and brand
storytelling is important in the age of H2H
marketing. Branding helps human salespeople
tell compelling stories to human buyers.
CHAPTER 5
TODAY’S BEST-PRACTICE
DEMAND GENERATION

In Demand Gen Report’s 2014 B-to-B Buyer
Behavior Survey, “61% of respondents said they
selected vendors who delivered a mix of content
that was appropriate for each stage of their
buying process.” It is important for marketers
to create content relevant to buyers’ needs at
each stage of their journey. Learn more about
KERN’s 10-Stage Modern Buyer’s Journey
and our philosophies and processes regarding
creating a relevant and compelling content
strategy here.
Things have changed. Today, there is no such
thing as “digital marketing”; rather, there is
now “marketing in a digital world.” Placing
the content where people can see it requires
organizations to rethink their B-to-B media
marketing to include the latest in available
media purchase strategies, such as contextual
targeting, behavioral targeting, programmatic
display, Facebook Exchange, content
syndication, site retargeting, social graph
targeting, native advertising, online video, paid
social, search retargeting, e-mail, search engine
marketing and look-alike modeling.
5. Use marketing automation to drive
engagement and nurture prospects
Marketing automation was once a “nice-
to-have” and is now a “must-have.” An
organization’s ability to nurture both prospects
and customers through automated e-mail
streams is essential for marketing organizations
to attempt to stay “top of mind.” And marketing
automation needs companion pieces of
technology to fully realize the potential that it
needs to be connected to. Marketing technology
is a huge field, with hundreds, if not thousands,
of vendors now competing for every marketing
technology dollar. What’s in your tech stack?
Does it deliver on the promise of moving your
organization forward by harnessing your big
data and creating actionable insights for your
team to consider when planning new strategies
or optimizing current strategies?
6. Pass leads that meet lead-scoring
criteria or BANT to sales when leads
become MQL, SQL or SAL
Here is an area where we see many
organizations falling short. It should be simple,
but the inability to define a lead, a marketing-
qualified lead, a sales-accepted lead and a
sales-qualified lead causes marketing teams to
fail. The road to failure starts with the wrong
usage of the word “lead.” What is a lead? Is a
tradeshow attendee a lead? NO! A clear and
concise definition of leads, suspects, prospects
and opportunities
must be created
with a culture
of universal
understanding of
each definition
firmly in place
throughout the
organization
as the very first
step. Without a
clear and precise
definition,
creating scoring
criteria is
impossible.
Organizations
are consistently
frustrated when trying to define the various
stages of qualified leads, and this is causing only
a few of the leads that they deem “qualified” to
actually convert into sales. How “qualified” are
these leads that convert between 3% and 5% to
sales? Probably not that qualified.
7. Route qualified leads to sales for
conversion to customers
It seems simple enough: create scoring criteria,
score leads until they meet or exceed the criteria
threshold, then pass those leads to sales.
However, even here, complexities abound—
especially for organizations with multiple
sales channels. When dealing with VARs
(Value-Added Resellers), distributors, channel
partners, installers, implementers and the like,
organizations are generally routing their leads
into a black hole of unknown results, which
always translates into an organization’s inability
to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of
their marketing efforts. It is impossible to prove
return on investment when this “leads go into
the black hole vortex” dynamic is present in
your sales process. There are software solutions
that can help organizations with channel
partners route and track leads; however, we’re
WHAT’S IN YOUR
TECH STACK?
Does it deliver on the promise
of moving your organization
forward by harnessing your big
data and creating actionable
insights for your team to
consider when planning new
strategies or optimizing
current strategies?

often surprised that organizations with this
problem don’t seek the software solution to it.
For organizations that can track their direct
sales specifically, the routing of leads can be
derailed for a variety of other reasons. Perhaps
the lead scoring wasn’t correct in the first place;
or sales was never on board with the entire lead-
definition process; or sales is distrustful of leads
being sent over by marketing; or the entire lead-
distribution process is broken, since sales insists
on receiving a certain quantity of leads, whether
those leads are ready or not.
Why is demand generation not working for most
organizations? Where are enterprise marketers
failing with their demand generation efforts?
We will attempt to answer these questions in
the next chapter.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE RETURN ON
INVESTMENT WHEN THIS “LEADS GO INTO
THE BLACK HOLE VORTEX” DYNAMIC IS
PRESENT IN YOUR SALES PROCESS.

CHAPTER 6
WHERE DO ENTERPRISE MARKETERS FALL
SHORT WITH DEMAND GENERATION EFFORTS?
MARKETING
TO GROUPS
USING
MODERN MEDIA
STRATEGIES
USING THE
POWER OF
BRAND
OWNING
THE ENTIRE
CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP
CREATING
REMARKABLE
CONTENT
BUILDING A
DEMAND
GENERATION
ECOSYSTEM
WHERE ARE THE AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ENTERPRISE B-TO-B CMO’S?
To help better understand where next evolution
demandgenerationbegins,weshallfirsttakea
look at why we believe enterprise marketers fail
withdemandgenerationefforts.
Opportunities for Enterprise B-to-B
Marketers
• Realize the importance of brand
B-to-B marketers who underestimate
the power of brands in business-
to-business decision making put
their organizations at a substantial
disadvantage.
• Create effective content
Only38%ofB-to-Bmarketersfind
that their content marketing
iseffective.
• Market to groups
In a complex B-to-B sales
environment, there are multiple
stakeholders and decision makers
causing the buying “group” to behave
in an unpredictable way.
• Realize that current media
strategies are obsolete
Never before have marketers had
so many channels to choose from.
Therein lies the challenge: how can
marketers predict which channels
are likely to have the greatest impact,
especially for those challenged with
limited budgets to test new channels?
• Address the entire demand
generation ecosystem
Many organizations take a narrow
point of view when assessing or
diagnosing their demand generation
system. However, to truly understand
what’s working and what isn’t,
organizations need to assess the entire
demand generation ecosystem.
• Focus on the entire B-to-B
customer relationship
It’s time to expand the focus of B-to-B
engagement to the entire customer
relationship, including loyalty and
retention, which are not traditional
priorities for B-to-B marketers.
The following chapters will take a closer look
at each of the areas where marketers are falling
short, starting with the importance of the brand.

CHAPTER 7
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE B-TO-B BRAND
Drive customer decisions | Drive the bottom line | Drive differentiation
| Act as a purchase factor | Add tangible value
BRANDS
ACCORDING TO MCKINSEY
B-to-B brands have stronger influences on
purchase decisions than many marketers
realize. Those marketers who underestimate
the power of brands in business-to-business
decision making put their organizations at a
substantial disadvantage.
According to McKinsey, “Present-day
companies tend to underestimate the power of
brands and trademarks in business-to-business
decision making. If anything, they think of
branding as consumer-facing communication.
Demand generation is powered by the beacon
of brand. Modern marketing organizations need
to build and leverage brand to drive demand.
The illumination that the brand provides to the
demand generation campaign allows buyers
to experience less risk in dealing with a known
quantity, the value of
your brand.
Brand marks, trademarks, logos and taglines
are representatives of a brand, but they are
not the essence of the brand. The essence
of a brand comes from a list of ingredients
including the corporate reputation and the
perception of the brand’s services or products
across every touch point for every customer and
prospective customer. B-to-B buyers look for
signals and emotions related to risk reduction,
efficiency, forward leadership and effectiveness.
Consumers look for personal emotions of joy,
pride and love.
In today’s world, creating an omni-channel
brand experience is at or near the top of the list
of both B-to-B and B2C CMOs. How exactly an
organization should begin the quest to create a
unified brand experience regardless of channel,
touchpoint, or location is a question being
contemplated in marketing boardrooms across
the globe.
With all of the points of contact with both
customers and prospective customers,
organizations have had to put greater
importance on communicating a consistent
brand experience. Nowhere is that more evident
than within the parameters of a B-to-B demand
generation effort.
But, in fact, some of today’s most iconic
brands are not, or at least not exclusively,
consumer brands.
Why does B-to-B branding matter? According
to a 2015 report by McKinsey: “Decision makers
consider the brand a central rather than a
marginal element of a supplier’s proposition.

• Brands drive customer decisions
• Brands drive the bottom line
• Brands drive differentiation
• Brands act as purchasing factors
• Brands add tangible value
• We have examined the correlation
of brand strength and financial
performance–and found it to be
statistically significant
The McKinsey study draws a line in the sand
and states definitively that brands do matter
in a B-to-B complex sales environment. Look
at leaders such as SAP and IBM, which are
some of the world’s most recognizable brands,
regardless of their B-to-B position.
MarketingProfs states that “Fact-based business
branding provides a unique opportunity to
close this gap between suppliers’ messages
and decision makers’ needs” and that “56% of
businesses expressed difficulties building their
brand and developing effective communication
strategies.”
Brand storytelling to extoll the value of the
brand through branded content is extremely
important. As demand generation is powered
by the beacon of brand, that beacon needs to
shine bright and long, meaning that the brand
strategy and work must be firmly in place before
a successful demand generation campaign can
be launched.

CHAPTER 8
MARKETING TO GROUPS
Patrick Spenner of the CEB and frequent
contributor to Forbes, details the complexities
of group buying in a series of compelling and
convincing articles.
Spenner states: “In a complex B-to-B sales
environment, there are multiple stakeholders
and decision makers causing the buying ‘group’
to behave in an unpredictable way.”
Even those marketers sitting upon the
most sophisticated technology stacks aren’t
equipped to measure this important dynamic in
enterprise B-to-B marketing and selling.
Which brings us back to a question that CEOs
and CFOs are constantly posing to their CMO
counterparts: “Why aren’t ‘qualified’ leads
converting into sales?”
Complex enterprise purchase decisions are
rarely, if ever, decided by
one individual.
And, while this notion of a buying group is not
new, this group buying dynamic is now front
and center, facing marketers who are trying
to market to only one member of the group
and wondering why their organizations’ sales
conversions are tanking.
Whether your organization passes leads at the
MQL or SQL level, all of these leads have a “Q”
in the middle of their acronym, which stands for
qualified.
The CEO and CFO want to know: what does
qualified really mean? After all, if leads are
passed to sales in your organization, somehow
these leads are deemed as qualified.
How many of marketing’s qualified leads
don’t convert due to the dysfunction and
unpredictable behavior of the buying group?
No matter
how complex
the marketing
technology
stack,
regardless of
the mountains
of engagement
data that
marketing
automation
and CRM
provide,
group buying
dysfunction
flies under
your radar.
PEOPLE MAKE UP THE
AVERAGE BUYING GROUP
5.4
According to CEB/MOTISTA According to TECHTARGET
PEOPLE MAKE UP THE
AVERAGE BUYING GROUP
2 4TO
OF ALL COMPANIES
GROUP BUY
84%
OF ALL COMPANIES
OVER 500 EMPLOYEES
GROUP BUY
91%
BUYING IN GROUPS IS THE NORM
HOW MANY OF
MARKETING’S
QUALIFIED LEADS
DON’T CONVERT
DUE TO THE
DYSFUNCTION AND
UNPREDICTABLE
BEHAVIOR OF THE
BUYING GROUP?

Group dynamics is an unequal mixture of
personal feelings, fear, risk, politics and
positioning, where the status quo is always the
perceived safest choice.
What is your organization currently doing to
counteract the unpredictability and dysfunction
that takes place within the confines of the
buying group meetings?
Why do modern marketers need to
practice group-based marketing?
According to a recent study by the CEB, a
group is considerably less likely to buy than a
single decision maker.
When one additional
person is added to
the buying decision,
those two people are
26% less likely to buy
than the individual
was. In groups of six
or more people, the
group is 50% less
likely to buy than the
individual would be. These are eye-opening
numbers. If the average buying team or group is
approximately 5.4 people, enterprise marketers
are, and have been, fighting an uphill battle
to convert corporate buying decisions that are
being made by groups.
As marketers, we’re usually first to point out
that dealing with group buying dynamics is a
sales problem. After all, sales is intricately and
personally involved in the back-and-forth with
the prospects. Therefore, sales should know if
there is a group problem and sales should know
how to deal with it.
The truth is, group consensus isn’t a sales
problem: it’s a marketing problem. The reason
why is fairly straightforward. According
to a combined Google/CEB study, group
conflicts peak when the buying cycle is only
37% complete. Sales usually steps in at 57%
completion of the buy cycle. Because group
conflict peaks early, marketing cannot rely on
sales for early conflict resolution.
Therefore, marketing must take on
responsibility for resolving, or better
yet, preventing or mitigating early group conflict
to positively drive purchase consensus.
When you consider the possible mixed
dynamics of any six people in one room trying
to decide whether or not their corporation
should purchase something,
it’s a miracle anything gets sold.
Group decision-making dysfunction can be
attributed to a multitude of things; however,
we can narrow it down to three distinct
dysfunctional areas:
Disparate perspectives: Everyone has a
point of view. The sole reason corporations
have groups making buying decisions is to bring
multiple perspectives and points of view into
balance—in theory, to make the best possible
decision for the organization. It’s a great
philosophical idea; however, with different
perspectives also come different personalities,
goals, worldviews and personal agendas.
Fear: One of the greatest motivational factors
known to humankind is fear. Individuals are
uncertain how others in the group will perceive
them and their points of view and perspectives.
There may be previous baggage between some
of the group members that will influence and
motivate them to behave one way or another.
There are those who avoid conflict at all costs
and, on the other end of the spectrum, those
who seek out and thrive on conflict.
Resistance: Maintaining the status quo,
or simply doing nothing, is always the safest
choice for decision makers. Other forms of
THE TRUTH IS, GROUP CONSENSUS ISN’T A SALES
PROBLEM: IT’S A MARKETING PROBLEM.

dysfunctional resistance include unwillingness
to reason or compromise, the usual political
powerstrugglesandtheeffectsofinterpersonal
struggles on the rest of the group.
Perceived individual risk increases as the
size of the buying group increases
One might think that the fewer people are
involved in the buying decision, the greater
the sense of risk for each person involved will
become. Not so. Most people believe there is
greater risk for themselves as the size of the
buying group increases.
Specifically,losingrespectandcredibilitywasa
concern of 50% of respondents in the CEB study
as the group size reached six members. The fear
oflosingajobissignificantlylessthanthefear
of losing respect and credibility.
How, then, can we as marketers best address
the dynamics of group buying in an enterprise
environment? How can we speak to disparate
perspectives of the buying group members? By
identifying shared needs, wants or goals of the
stakeholders and leveraging those shared needs
within the messaging of the content, marketers
canfindthebuyinggroup’scommonground
and address common needs to establish a
positioning and message that resonates with all
or most of the group.
What can we do to reduce the resistance from
group members, while we arm those most likely
to be change agents to champion our cause?
Enable the change agents within the group with
the collateral ammunition that they need to
engage other group members with persuasive
and compelling facts, tips, tools and coaching.
How do we address and reduce the fear that
group members are feeling? To mitigate the fear
of change, position the reward as being worth
the risk by focusing on the personal, group and
organizationalbenefits.Groupbasedmarketing
begins with understanding customers’ personal
goals and emotions.
What is group-based marketing?
Marketers need to understand the unpredictable
behavior and the other dynamics of group
buying to quell the dysfunction of the buying
group with group-based marketing. In order
to mitigate dissention among group members,
in a quest to help the group make a positive
decision, marketers can include the following:
• Focus on the shared needs of
the group
What is the rally point that all members
of the group can get behind? What do all
members of the buying group need? Start
with the shared need to build the positive
thought process that provides the positive
consensus.
50%
25%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6
RISK:  
LOSE RESPECT  
CREDIBILITY
RISK:  
LOSE MY JOB
SIZE OF BUYING TEAM
PERCENTAGEOFRESPONDENTS

• Address personal stakeholder risk
Rather than avoid the issue of why each
of the stakeholders is vulnerable to
risk, address the risk head-on. Doing
this provides marketers opportunities
to nullify the perceived greater risk by
discussing the actual risk, along with the
greater risk of organizational inertia—the
risk of doing nothing.
• Enable change agents of the group
Use communication and response devices
to identify the likely change agent or
agents of the group, and arm them with
the information or materials that they
need to champion your cause amongst the
other members of the group.
• Understand and leverage
interrelations
The interpersonal interrelation of group
members is an important dynamic to
address. There are generally followers,
leaders, change
agents, apathetic
members and
proactive members
of the group. Develop
communications that
relate to each of these
different dynamics
within the group.
• Group content
strategy
When setting a content
theme, top line
message and strategy
for content across
the 10-stage modern
buyer’s journey;
develop different
content that addresses the different points
of view across the group buying dynamic.
• Group lead scoring, nurturing
One of the major issues with current
best-practice demand generation is that
an individual member of the group may
meet the criteria to be passed to sales as
an MQL, SAL or SQL, while the other
members may be nowhere near ready to
be passed to sales. Scoring and nurturing
needs to be rethought—with the group
dynamics top of mind.
• Group influencer marketing
There are influencers of each member of
the group, as well as influencers within the
group. Understanding the organizational
structure of the targeted prospect
company will enable you to market around
the prospect and the group, as well as
within the group.
• Personalization within groups
We know that personalization works to
significantly lift response and engagement.
Using personalization within the group
allows the proposition to be framed for the
group.
• Group lead distribution
Working within the new parameters
of group lead nurturing and group
lead scoring will require a new criteria
threshold to be determined for the passing
of group leads that meet the MQL, SQL
and SALs.
DON’T MISTAKE GBM FOR ABM
GROUP BASED
Market to members of a buying
group addressable as individuals
and as part of the group
APPLICATIONS
Complex B2B sales with multiple
stakeholders and decision makers
Sub-strategy of ABM
ACCOUNT BASED
Treat named key strategic
accounts as “one” rather than
as individuals
APPLICATIONS
Gain greater share of wallet
from Key Strategic Accounts
Acquire net new accounts

During our development of group-based
marketing (GBM), we fielded several
repeated questions that queried us on the
difference between GBM and account-based
marketing (ABM).
Account-based marketing
The goal of a successful ABM inititive or
campaign is to treat named key strategic
accounts as one rather than as individuals in
order to gain greater share of wallet and/or to
acquire net new accounts.
Group-based marketing
The goal of GBM is to market to members
of a buying group addressable as individuals
and as part of the group to help acquire net
new customers in a complex B-to-B sale
with multiple stakeholders and decision
makers. GBM can be a sub-strategy of an
ABM campaign.
Within the key strategic accounts being targeted
in an ABM campaign, there are business units
that are the segmented targets. Each business
unit may have BANT; however, a group decision
is needed to convert the sale. This is a perfect
example of how GBM works as a sub-strategy
of ABM—marketing to the groups of decision
makers of each business unit within a key
strategic account being targeted in an
ABM campaign.

CHAPTER 9
NEXT EVOLUTION DEMAND GENERATION
CONTENT STRATEGIES
Today’s approach to content marketing lacks
higheffectivenessforthemajorityofmarketers.
While there are some marketing organizations
whohavecreatedeffectivecontentmarketing
programs, most have not.
In 2015, the Content Marketing Institute polled
over 5,000 B-to-B marketers in 25 industries to
learnmoreabouttheadoptionandeffectiveness
of content marketing. A wide majority (86%)
is using content marketing. However, of those,
only8%findthattheircontentmarketingisvery
effective,andlessthanhalf(38%)findthattheir
contentmarketingiseffectiveatall.
Having developed complete strategic demand
generation ecosystems and content strategies
for some of the most recognized B-to-B brands
on the planet, KERN has a unique perspective
on why so many organizations are struggling
withcreatinghighlyeffectivecontentand
proving the return on investment on content.
We believe in the psychology of marketing.
When it comes to people who are making
decisions, it’s a given that we need the best
audience intelligence to even attempt to create
effectivecontent.However,knowingthe
audience and what they are thinking, feeling,
experiencing, expecting and considering isn’t
theonlynecessaryingredienttohighlyeffective
content strategy, creation and activation.
Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness
Hypothesis, uses the metaphor of an elephant
and a rider to illustrate the logical and emotive
decision struggle within our minds.
In Haidt’s metaphor, “the rider represents
ourrationalside,alsoknownasthereflective
or conscious system. It’s the part of you
that deliberates and analyzes and looks into
the future. The elephant depicts our brain’s
emotional side. It’s the part of you that is
instinctive, that feels pain and pleasure.”
While the rider can direct the elephant, or
the logical brain can direct the emotional or
irrational brain, should the elephant really
wanttogoinadifferentdirection,therideris

powerless to control it. Simply put, your logical
or rational brain cannot control your emotional
brain.
According to Dan and Chip Heath, authors of
Switch: How to Change Things When Change
Is Hard, “Change is easy when elephants and
riders move together.”
Thekeytoeffectivechangeisgettingthe
elephant and the rider moving together. The
Heaths write, “Changes often fail because the
Rider simply can’t keep the Elephant on the
road long enough to reach the destination. The
Elephant’shungerforinstantgratificationis
the opposite of the Rider’s strength, which is
the ability to think long-term, to plan, to think
beyond the moment (all those things that your
pet can’t do). To make progress toward a goal,
whether it’s noble or crass, requires the energy
and drive of the Elephant.”
Personal value trumps business value
Does the rider (logic/reason) or the elephant
(emotion) have greater impact on B-to-B
commercial outcomes? In a CEB/Motista
study, when considering a business-to-
business buying decision, personal value
was perceived as having nearly double
the value of business value.
Personal values (importance: 42.6%)
•Professionalbenefits(e.g.,
career advancement)
•Socialbenefits(e.g.,popularity)
•Emotionalbenefits(e.g.,
confidence)
•Self-imagebenefits(e.g.,pride)
Business values (importance: 21.4%)
•Functionalbenefits
• Business outcomes
This is another example of how the “What’s in
it for me?” dynamic helps shape the decision-
making process of organizations. So, while the
rider would like to direct the elephant to make
the logical business decision, the elephant has
other things on his mind, such as professional
benefits,thatwillcomewithmovingforward.
Will he become more popular or respected if
the group makes this decision? Will he feel good
about himself and feel better about his decision
regardless of the business value? In other words,
the elephant is asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Todifferentiatethevalueproposition,wemust
disrupt the buyer’s thinking.
The insights from the CEB study is: “Marketing
can help change customer behavior by teaching
customers their current criteria set may be
flawed,fullofriskandcoststhathavebeen
underappreciated.”
Whatarethedifferentlevelsofeffectivenessof
the messages being conveyed to your audience?
Have you considered that content can be
categorizedintoahierarchyofeffectiveness?
CEB goes on to break down the hierarchy of
contenteffectivenessintothesefivecategories:
1. General information: At the
beginning of this document, we
discussedhowtheworldisdifferent
today than it was a very short 20
years ago. Since all of our readers
already know this, and we are
HIERARCHY OF EFFECTIVE CONTENT

just referencing it, this would be
considered general information.
2. Accepted information: We then
discussed best-practice demand
generation for our audience of CMOs
and marketing leaders who are aware
of best-practice demand generation.
We consider this to be accepted
information.
3. Thought leadership: The section
covered where we feel enterprise
marketers are falling short. Because
we offered our unique perspectives
and insights, we would consider this
to be thought leadership.
4. Insight: From our research and
study of Patrick Spenner’s work and
our own insights and philosophy
on group buying, we have provided
content that would qualify as
“insight.”
5. Commercial insight: We would also
like to add the word “actionable” to
this description because commercial
insight is something that you can act
on to further, enhance, optimize or
better your commercial enterprise.
Our entire presentation is something
we consider to be commercial insight,
as CMOs can immediately take action
based on the insights provided here.
CEB defines commercial insight as:
“Information that disrupts customers’
status quo by teaching
something new about their business
needs that leads to the
supplier’s unique value.”
In order to direct the rider (appeal to the
rational and logical part of the buying group
members’ brain), and to motivate the elephant
(appeal to the emotional, irrational, gratification
part of the brain) and to shape the path (provide
a way for both sides of the brain to get what
they need or want), marketers are faced with a
complex problem. Perhaps this is why so many
organizations are struggling to create effective
content.

CHAPTER 10
B-TO-B COMPANIES ARE NOT IMMUNE TO
THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER
According to the 2015 Forrester report Shift
Focus To The Customer Life Cycle, it’s time
to expand the focus of B-to-B engagement to
the entire customer relationship, including
loyalty and retention, which are not traditional
priorities for B-to-B marketers.
In order to acquire net new customers, we
attempt to steer them on the path to purchase.
How can we expect to gain a greater share of
wallet of our key strategic accounts, or our
customer-centric best accounts, if we fail to
consider the path
to passion?
KERN developed The Modern Buyer’s 10-Stage
Journey based on rapidly changing human
behavior patterns that occurred as a result of
the convergence of faster connection speeds on
both mobile and home devices, the accelerated
adoption of online searching and sharing and
the proliferation of social networks and always-
on communication abilities.
Some may consider it presumptuous to define
all buyer journeys for all products or services
into these 10 stages. So let us first state that
this journey isn’t linear, and many of these
stages can be traversed in seconds or together
in groups. Also, some stages, such as Stage 7:
Social Research, can take place at every stage.
The more complex the service or solution, such
as in large B-to-B marketing endeavors, the
longer the buyer’s journey or buy cycle will be.
When we consider the path to passion portion
of the journey, we consider that in a B-to-B
marketing environment, the marketing stages
of engagement, growth, retention, nurturing,
reward, loyalty and social involvement through
advocacy and evangelism are often ignored or
not even considered. We believe this is a gross
omission and that this portion of the journey
will garner increasing attention over the next
few years.
Part of what we see as next evolution demand
generation is for marketers to consider and
embrace the entire customer lifecycle in a
business-to-business environment. How can we
create emotional loyalty and foster irrational
brand preference in the moments that matter
most, those in which our prospective customer
is finally ready to purchase?
We believe we are on the cusp of a fundamental
shift in marketers’ attention away from the path
“It’s time to expand the focus of B2B
engagement to the entire customer
relationship, including loyalty and
retention, which are not traditional
priorities for B2B marketers.”
Forrester

to purchase and toward the path to passion
portion of the customer lifecycle. As B-to-B
marketers are laser focused on the acquisition
of net new customers, many are coming to the
realization that revenue is being left on the table
by ignoring the path to passion.
Embrace the complete B-to-B customer
lifecycle
• Next evolution demand generation
How do we blend lead generation activities
with elements of traditional advertising to
build awareness while creating demand by
leveraging innovations in technology?
• Audience
intelligence
How can
we better
understand
our audience
so that we
may provide
relevantly
compelling
content and
messages
aligned to
their buyer’s
journey?
• Technology
How can we
use technology
to address
marketing
problems and
challenges?
• Conversion and optimization
How do we make it easy for prospects to
findthesolutionstheywantandmake
it simple for them to purchase while we
continuously test, learn and optimize the
conversion process?
• Customer experience
How do we delight business customers
through our welcome, activation and
performance at every touchpoint to
encouragebrandaffinityandloyalty?
• Customer centricity
How do we identify our most valuable
customers and leverage that knowledge
to source new customers with the same
attributes?
• Customer value
How do we cross-sell and up-sell to
businesses to maximize customer value
through increased share of wallet and
increased retention?
• Customer nurturing
How can we foster the development of
the customer relationship by nurturing
customers with regular communications
to meet their needs through the customer
lifecycle stages?
With insights derived from observing behavior
across the entire lifecycle, especially among
group buying members, we also receive the
benefitsthatcomefromconsidering,planning
and executing on a complete B-to-B customer
lifecycle strategy.
CUSTOMER NURTURING CUSTOMER VALUETECHNOLOGY CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION
AUDIENCE
INTELLIGENCE
NEXT EVOLUTION
DEMAND GENERATION
CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE
CUSTOMER
CENTRICITY
8 VITAL AREAS OF CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE MARKETING

Organizations must activate marketing through
channels. Marketing professionals have never
before had so many channels from which to
choose. Herein lies the challenge: how can
marketers predict which channels are likely to
have the greatest impact, especially for those
challenged by limited budgets?
Which media mix is best for maximum
effectivenessandefficiency,consideringthat
our audience has expanded to include the
generational segment of millennials? That’s the
million-dollar question.
Television is the channel of choice for the
largest 100 B-to-B advertisers. According to
a new report from Advertising Age’s Kate
Maddox, “The largest media category for B-to-B
adspendinglastyearwasTV,withtheB-to-B
100 spending an estimated $2.9 billion on U.S.
B-to-BTVads.Thatwasup7.7%over2013
and made up 60.8% of all B-to-B advertising.
The second-largest category was Internet
advertising, with the B-to-B 100 spending about
$685 million on B-to-B display ads last year,
down 2.7% from 2013, and making up 14.3% of
all B-to-B ad spending.”
So which channel is the best? Contextual
targeting, behavioral targeting, programmatic
display, Facebook Exchange,
content syndication, site
re-targeting, social graph
targeting, native advertising,
online video, paid social,
search re-targeting, email,
search engine marketing,
look-alike modeling, television,
trade shows/events, direct
mail, specialty, radio, out-of-
home, print and alternative,
not to mention organic search,
social and public relations
or publicity? Choosing one
channel from the growing
list of possibilities is one of
marketing’s most daunting
tasks.
Everyone’s talking about
digital, but in-person events
arestillthemosteffective
tactic, according to the Content
Marketing Institute’s 2015
survey. Sixty-nine percent of
respondents believed in the
efficacyofB-to-Btacticsandin-personevents,
followed by webinars/webcasts (64%), videos
(60%), blogs (60%) and case studies (58%).
CHAPTER 11
WHY MODERN B-TO-B MARKETERS NEED TO EMBRACE
MODERN MEDIA STRATEGIES
DOLLARS IN MILLONS. TV INCLUDES BROADCAST AND CABLE. MAGAZINE INCLUDES BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS. INTERNET IS DISPLAY ONLY. SOURCE:
AD AGE DATACENTER ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM KANTAR MEDIA. MORE INFO: KANTARMEDIA.U.S.
2013:
$4.75 billion
2014 vs. 2013:
+0.9%
B-TO-B 100 AD SPENDING
2014 measured-media spending for the nation’s 100 largest B-to-B advertisers totaled $4.8 billion, up 0.9%.
TV accounted for 61% of that spending.
$2708
$684
$299
$201
$704
$155
TV Magazine Newspaper Radio Internet Outdoor
$684
$299
$201
$704
2014:
$4.79 billion $2,915
$585
$252
$216
$685
$140
Source: Maddox, Kate. “Top 100 B-to-B Advertisers Spent $4.8 Billion on B-to-B Ads.”
Advertising Age, August 24, 2015.
http://adage.com/article/btob/top-100-b-b-advertisers-spent-4-8-billion-b-b-ads/300042/

So where is 2015’s marketing spend going?
Forrester and Direct Marketing News report
that a significantly higher share of spend (14%)
goes to in-person trade shows, conferences
and events. Digital advertising/marketing was
second (10%), followed by content marketing,
website and direct marketing (all tied at 9%).
Mobile must be the major concern for all
organizations, as evidenced by the insight from
the CMO survey from McKinsey, Fuqua School
of Business and the AMA, which shows that
marketing spend on mobile is expected to triple
within the next three years.
When that same survey examined the marketing
spend of companies as a percentage of annual
company revenues, it was revealed that 8.3% is
spent on marketing. This study included both
B-to-C and B-to-B marketers. It has been our
experience that in B-to-B organizations, spend
averages close to 5% of annual revenue.
Modern media presents a plethora of choices
and opportunities for B-to-B marketers who
are willing to embrace, test and optimize these
newer channels to activate their programs, as
well as to create an inbound stream of inquiries.
Still reluctant to try new media channels, many
organizations are missing out on some great
new opportunities.

CHAPTER 12
BUILDING A BEST-IN-CLASS
DEMAND GENERATION ECOSYSTEM
Last year, we created a philosophy around
the Best-in-Class Demand Generation
ecosystem, which is, The 8 Pillars of Demand
Generation.
The 8 Pillars of Demand Generation has been
widely accepted by many B-to-B marketers,
including an entire Fortune 50 technology
enterpriseorganization,asthedefinitivebest-
in-class demand generation ecosystem.
Since we have already published and provided
a link to this work, we won’t reiterate the
philosophy here. However, I want to touch on
a key point regarding the adoption of the 8
Pillars.
We’ve all heard the old adage “The squeaky
wheel gets the grease.” When marketers
are attending to their demand generation
ecosystem, the squeaky wheel could be
content strategy, content creation, technology,
big data, lead generation or any of the demand
generation topics covered within the 8 Pillars.
While it may be prudent for marketers to
attend to what demands the most attention,
for those organizations that strive to be best-
in-class, attention to each of the 8 Pillars is
needed to properly stand up and maintain the
best of demand generation.
Let’s say you direct all of your focus on
content strategy and creation. Perhaps the
contentyouareprovidingisoff-strategy
in comparison to your company’s latest
demand generation strategy or business
strategy. Maybe the data you are collecting
and analyzing isn’t accurate due to antiquated
technology or a lack of marketing operations
personnel. What if your lead generation
effortsarefailingtoprovidequalifiedleads
because your lead scoring hasn’t been updated
in a year, and you aren’t moving leads through
your funnel because of it? What if your failure
to optimize your programs has caused your
leadflowtostopcold?
All of the categories within the 8 Pillars
philosophy are not only interrelated, they are
heavily dependent on each other to succeed.
Therefore,settingoutto“fix”yourtechnology
stack without thorough consideration about
howthatwillaffecttherestofyour8Pillars
ecosystem could do more harm than help.
Buildingcontentbasedonaflawedstrategy
or without adequate and accurate audience
intelligence could amount to a total waste of
time and resources. Choosing and selecting
media purchases without considering a way to
leverage and gain earned media can cause you
to leave a lot of money or opportunity on the
table.
In almost every conceivable scenario, losing
focus of any one of the 8 Pillars will certainly
LEADS

lead you to a path of ineffectiveness and
possible disaster.
How then is it possible for organizations
to treat all of the 8 Pillars with equal
importance?
It can be extremely challenging. There’s
a reason why only the top organizations
can be best-in-class, and in this case it is
because those organizations understand the
importance of maintaining high levels of
efficiency and effectiveness in each of all of
The 8 Pillars of Demand Generation.
Since producing the 8 Pillars, we’ve heard
from organizations that have used the 8
Pillars as an assessment of their Demand
Generation Ecosystem, and have gone as
far as to ask us to help fix one or two of
their Pillars. Sometimes we hear, “Oh, we’re
really good at content strategy and creation.
However, we’re having a problem with lead
scoring and lead routing. Can you help us
with Pillar 6?” Other times, we’ve heard
“Our technology stack is state of the art. We
have a new data management platform, new
marketing automation and a new sales CRM.
However, we’re unable to create content to
use for our campaigns. Can you help us?”
Of course, we strive to help our clients and
prospective clients in any way that we can.
However, we have found that our clients
appreciate having KERN as a true partner,
and oftentimes we need to deliver tough-
love recommendations, which may include
a complete and total assessment of their
demand generation ecosystem.
To strive to develop and maintain a best-in-
class demand generation ecosystem, there are
no short-cuts. Complete attention and upkeep
of The 8 Pillars of Demand Generation is
absolutely essential.

Modern B-to-B marketing in the Era of
the Empowered Buyer is causing many
organizations to rethink their strategies. We
are hopeful that some of the information we
have shared with you here will give you new
insights into the current and possible future
state of B-to-B marketing and will help you
to put your organization in a position to best
deal with complexities caused by the Modern
Empowered B-to-B Buyer.
If your organization is struggling with the best
way to overcome the many B-to-B challenges
we have written about, we can help.
KERN drives demand generation effectiveness
through high-precision marketing. KERN is
an Omnicom owned, multichannel acquisition
and CRM agency providing strategic, creative
and analytical leadership for data-driven
marketing programs in all media to maximize
ROI, ASAP.
For the past 25 years, KERN has created some
of the most innovative demand generation
and lead conversion programs for the nation’s
top brands. For more information, please
visit kernagency.com or email Scott Levine at
slevine@kernagency.com.
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