One of the group members, Johann Edward from EIMS, was kind enough to compile answers of the thread in a graphic format and share insights in his blog post.

Top challenge: Generating content

It takes a lot of time, discipline, talent and content to write newsletters, blog posts and more. Nothing technical about that. It just takes a lot of quality human time and gray matter; and that’s a challenge.

Challenges 2 and 3: Relevance and Trust

Adapting your corporate and branding message to your target audience is a challenge in all types of communications. What are the criteria used by readers to establish trust in today’s digital age? Trust takes time and effort to earn and can be broken too easily. Think of a negative spiral of comments. It’s a shame that positive actions don’t have the same timely response…

Engagement, Time and Credibility

These three elements came up regularly by B2B Marketers answering the thread. It takes time to engage audiences and build one’s credibility in their eyes. Not only is it a challenge, but organizations are rapidly realizing that engaging an audience is a huge responsibility that requires plenty of resources.

ROI and Focus

ROI came fourth and Focus sixth. Are B2B Marketers looking for guidance on where their focus needs to be? What is the best way to generate regular, relevant content that achieves measurable ROI?

Another angle to it

Here is another twist to Mr. Edwards’ raw data which he kindly shared with me. I took the chance to interpret the answers in themes to get another “view” of this data.

I came up with these: ROI, Delivery, Content, Focus, Trust, Noise, Engagement, Metrics.

ROI

The bottom line really hurts. Soft arguments don’t cut it. B2B marketers are as concerned as their clients are to make a bottom line difference at the end of the day. So ROI is at the top of list.

Execution: Delivery, Content, Focus and Trust

Execution is also a real concern. Delivery, Content, Focus and Trust are quite equal. Content marketing is a definite challenge in execution and strategy. Content and channels multiply. B2B marketing requires a lot of work and often enough, staff in place is not sufficient to strategize and execute the job.

Engagement and Noise

B2B organizations are probably not fully in the engagement phase yet. Social media is for many a series of distribution channels, not an interaction one. Symptomatic to this channel multiplication, Noise occurs. Priority is not there yet either as content challenges are the main concern.

Metrics

Surprisingly enough, questions pertaining to metrics don’t score high in the results. Perceptually, that challenge is more of a technical one. Even though metrics (read feedback) is key, B2B marketers seem to have a grasp on this or use external resources for it. Your comments are welcome for this part.

Conclusion

In everyday B2B Marketing, it’s all about sales. Clients invest in ROI and Content marketing. Appropriately targeting market segments and reaching them at the proper moment is not only a science but an art. B2B Marketers have shared in this thread their frustrations and concerns. You are welcome to share their stories and work creatively to address them.

Join the conversation.

Your prospects and clients search for you on Google and other search engines, from their computer, tablet or smart phone. You know they do because you analyze your web statistics, right? And, of course, you pay attention to the number of visits and of visitors, the pages visited, how long people spend on your site, when they visit, as well as carrying out an in-depth analysis of the keywords and keyword combinations used to find you.

A website’s statistics are part of the most revealing primary data a company has about itself, its site and its offering. When analyzed by a specialist, this information can be extremely rich and often surprising.

Did you know that, according to Google, last year:

• Over 40 % of B2B searches are made outside of office hours?
• The number of requests using 7 words is comparable to the number using only 2 or 3 words

When people search might seem less important but, when you think about it, outside office hours is the best time to look for products and services for some people because it’s the time they’ll be least likely to be disturbed by the daily routine.

Include keywords in your content

It’s interesting to note that B2B internet users search with up to 7 keywords in order to get results that are relevant to their specific needs, taking into account the technical vocabulary necessary. It shows the importance of choosing the correct terminology for your website’s content and of using relevant keywords, i.e. those your prospects and customers will use.

Still according to Google last year, the number of AdWords ads went up 37% in the B2B space. It’s analyzing web traffic statistics, amongst other things, that makes it possible to build online advertising campaigns.

The importance of primary data

That’s why Exo digs for and analyzes methodically and thoroughly the primary data we get from web traffic statistics. Our approach by the figures and by the content enables us to correct the expressions used and identify search trends you might never have suspected from the ton of information we uncover. And they represent opportunities that should be explored rapidly in order to shorten the sales cycle.

Remember therefore that in the strategic analysis or planning phases, web traffic statistics are a prime source of data as they are full to the brim with highly important information. Drill into them! They’re a goldmine that you should work as much as possible. Want to talk to me about it? Give me a call.

In the 1970s, my daddy sold photocopiers to SMEs. Trained in Dale Carnegie’s philosophy, he was soon admitted to the exclusive club formed by the top 100 sales representatives of this century-old multinational. And he taught me these lessons that have stayed with me:

• sales and marketing hate each other
• the customer who comes to see you wants to buy even if there are many reasons s/he won’t today or from you
• if you know your customers, you can sell them something

I never accepted his first tenet, even if I was often surrounded by colleagues who believed it whole-heartedly. I have always tried, in fact, to build a bridge between the strategic considerations of marketing and the more practical knowledge and needs of sales. And while I was doing this, I applied the other two fatherly lessons.

I wonder what he would have thought of content marketing. I’m sure he would have seen it as a victory for sales, and said that at last marketing was coming down from its ivory tower to understand the reality of the field.

Alternative reality

This reality is very different, however, and I don’t know that he understood the impact that the Internet was having on his old profession, however much of a silver surfer he was. The buying company now has all the information it could ever wish for at its fingertips:

• to recognise it has a problem that needs solving
• to define that problem and their needs – really a set of problems composed of the points of view of the users (influencers) and decision-makers (those who hold the purse-strings)
• to research solutions instead of waiting to stumble upon them or to have them offered
• to study, evaluate and eliminate possible solutions
• to identify possible suppliers

In short, chance notwithstanding, when the rep and the potential customer come together today, the buying decision is already two-thirds made.

Changing reality

If we can establish contact beforehand – at the moment when the company is starting to realise it has a problem – we increase our chances of influencing how the sought-after solution will be defined and making it in our own image. This is what my dad used to do when he chatted up the receptionist to find out about their current photocopier: in 5 minutes, he knew who his competition was and what problems the user encountered with it. And he had planted the seed of the solution in her head, a seed she would pass on to her boss.

In this era of the Internet, it is relevant content that sows the seed and nurtures it at every stage of the buying process, through the channels in which we publish it. But to make it available, we need to understand our target audiences (remembering that several people are involved in the decision), their aims and their concerns, and respond to them precisely. Sales has this information for the most part. It is marketing’s role to gather it, organise it according to the buying cycle, plan with sales the content to provide at each stage of the cycle, produce it and publish it so it reaches the targets (SEO, social media), and try to start a conversation between and with the targets through the social networks. It’s marketing really serving sales, to help them get signatures.

This might seem very different from what my daddy knew but, since he was a practical man, I know he would have liked its pragmatism and recognised in content marketing the same approach he had, re-engineered for the Internet age.

Often enough, such organizations are now mature and have a slow growth rate, if any at all. They also fail after a mishap such as losing an important client or going through important changes in technological, regulatory or political environments. The same applies to risks associated with a high concentration in a small number of clients or a loss of market share to unforeseen competition.

Source: www.photo-libre.fr

This best describes the situation in which we find manufacturers and service companies that have many years of experience. Indeed, for the moment, things seem fine. It’s business as usual and companies are making money. But what if something happens? Why wait until all hell breaks loose?

Don’t underestimate KPIs and CRMs

There are already clues that the organisation and its sales team are not proactive enough to prepare for such events or even to mitigate risk. But no key performance indicators (KPI) are in place to raise flags.

Without dashboards based on KPIs, how can management get the true story? Relying on the sales team is not the answer. Sales people have good reasons to explain the market and why sales are down or too optimistic at times. That’s why the director of sales needs to ask the tough questions and motivate his troops to reach new heights and objectives. He’s the one who has to push for tools that will provide him with sales and marketing intelligence, that will in turn provide management with the necessary insight for strategic decisions. That’s why a well implemented customer relationship management system (CRM) is an essential tool. Qualifying leads and supporting the sales funnel and progression of the different sales activities are mission-critical. So then why are companies not leveraging such tools?

Source: www.photo-libre.fr

The answer starts with the management’s state of mind. If management is comfortable with the present situation, orders continue to flow in “naturally;” sometimes big purchase orders just pop in without sales reps seeing them coming. Wow! The business is profitable. Then where is the problem? There isn’t one… until something happens. At that specific moment, the sales people are to blame because they are not doing their job and that all revolves around the founder. The model is not replicable, therefore it is flawed.

Why wait? If you feel your company is in this kind of situation, you should be nervous. If you’re a salesperson, ask yourself why you are against making more money. If you’re the entrepreneur, why would you not want to grow your business and make it more profitable?

Let’s face it: if you’re not ready for the next level, then forget it. We can’t help you. And that’s why there is nothing worse than a company that solves a sales team issue. Otherwise, call us. We can help you avoid failure in difficult times.

Some figures:

• 34% of respondents use virtual communities as their preferred research method.
• 28% of research directors analyze social media.
• 6% of businesses use the gamification method.
• 6% of participants make use of neuromarketing techniques to understand consumer behavior.
• 6% of interviewees use facial expression analysis techniques.

In addition, according to the study, influencers spoke about these techniques in social media more than they really used them.

Interestingly, surveys conducted on cell phones are more and more common. In fact, 23% of companies participating in the study claim to use them for data collection.

Moreover, 20% of participants maintain analyzing texts, 18% of company directors claim using interviews conducted through webcams and 17% use a technique called eyetracking.

Market research, open externalisation and analysis of the virtual environment are other techniques that will be used in 2012.

And you? What research methods will you use in 2012?