I’ve always felt my groaning inbox bore testament to the popularity of email marketing.  Now my suspicions are confirmed. 

The latest report in B2B Marketing’s Benchmark series reveals that a whopping nine in ten (88%) B2B marketers make use of the technique.  Remarkably, amongst those doing so almost one half (44%) broadcast emails once a week or more often.

Click for enlarged infographic

This popularity means that message overload is a real problem.  A business buyer often receives several hundred marketing emails a month.  Inevitably these merge into one indistinct mass. 

Email marketing performance statistics reflect this fact – B2B marketers now achieve an average open rate of 24% and a click through rate of just 2%.  A bit depressing when one considers that email marketing consumes one quarter (24%) of the typical marketing department’s time. 

Despair not though; it is possible to stand apart. 

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First, create quality content.  Ask B2B marketers which style of marketing email gets them the best results and first by far is anything which shares thought leadership.  Likewise, the single most effective route to boosting email performance is felt to be compelling subject matter.  And as a bonus, not only will good content optimise email success, but it can feed other activity such as social media, events and PR.

Second, hook them in.  Behind subject matter, the next most effective route to boosting email performance is felt to be a carefully crafted subject line.  A subject line which is short, intriguing and quickly conveys the value of opening the message.  

Third, focus on data.  A relevant and accurate database is a pre-requisite to email success.  Yet even though most (78%) refresh their database at least 2 – 3 times a year, B2B marketers tell us that data accuracy is still the most significant email challenge they face. 

Finally, remember the simple touches.  You have top quality content, a carefully crafted subject line and a sparklingly clean database; now be sure to strike when the time is just right.  The Benchmark Report reveals that the best time to broadcast emails to a B2B audience is Tuesday between 10am and 1pm.  The worst is Monday between 8am and 10am.

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That’s because a brand is not what an organisation says it is.  It’s what the market believes it to be.  It’s a perception developed through the sum of an individual’s experience.  Through every encounter they’ve had with your organisation, your employees or products.  Through what they hear from you and about you.

Despite this, the B2B Barometer survey reveals that the majority (62 per cent) of B2B marketers don’t research external brand perceptions.  Most may know what they want their brand to be, but not what it actually is.

So what should we measure?

First, decide whose opinion matters.  Customers and prospects top the list because their perceptions impact sales.  But the views of other audiences might also guide your fate.  Are opinion formers particularly influential in your market?  Are investor or regulator views important?  Is the fight for talent so intense that a strong brand could give you an edge?

Employee opinion should also be explored.  After all, they’re often responsible for delivering the brand experience so understanding their perceptions helps make brand aspirations a reality.

Critical audiences defined, we can measure brand health.  There are many measures of this, but here are three of the most valuable.

A powerful brand is mentally prominent.  The aspiration should be that whenever someone thinks of your category, your brand eclipses all others.  Two strong measures of prominence are top-of-mind recall (first brand recalled) and spontaneous recall (recalled without prompting).

The most powerful brands are not just known, but known for the right things.  To explore this, begin by establishing the core criteria stakeholders assess brands in your market against.  Then measure how well yours and competing brands perform in relation to these.

Usually these performance criteria are functional.  But let’s not forget that B2B buyers have emotions too.  Being human they often prefer to work with organisations they feel an affinity with.  For this reason it’s also valuable to measure the extent to which your brand is felt to be on the same wavelength, inspires respect and would be proactively advocated.

Fully informed, action can then be taken to close any gap between aspiration and reality.

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It all began with a study Circle Research conducted for B2B Marketing late in 2011 to establish the ‘state of the nation’ in B2B social media. And after more than 250 interviews with client-side readers we had a solid benchmark.

Amongst other things we knew what success looked like and this gave rise to my first set of Twitologies. Analysing the number of Twitter followers reported in this study reveals five types of corporate account based on success:

• Most (43 per cent) are Dabblers (<250 followers)
• One fifth (18 per cent) are Niche Attractions (250 – 500)
• A similar number (20 per cent) are Rising Stars (500 – 2,000)
• Just one in ten (12 per cent) are B-list Personalities (2,000 – 7,500)
• Only the elite (7 per cent) are A-list personalities (>7,500)

Having a large number of followers certainly seems like a sensible idea. Not only does it boost the ego, but it can increase reach, influence and the odds of positive word-of-mouth spreading. However, the benefits are only realised if quantity is matched by quality. There’s no point having thousands of followers if they’re not listening and engaged.

Quality over quantity

A number of quality measures are battling it out for dominance at present. Each has its own fans and critics, but they all work on a similar principle. Take Klout as an example. It harvests data from a user’s social media accounts and crunches it to establish three characteristics:

• The number of people actively engaging with the user
• The influence that those engaged with a user have themselves
• The extent to which the user’s messages are shared

The result is a Klout score that shows the quality of a social media personality on a scale of 1 – 100.

If you’re a pop star @justinbieber is the gold standard at 100. If you’re a world leader @BarackObama sets a tough benchmark at 86 (poor old @camerondirect scores just 47). Consumer marketers envy @cocacola’s score of 72.

Interesting, but what’s a good score for a B2B brand? I took this question and embarked on a second exercise.

Every year The Centre for Brand Analysis publishes a list of what are, in the opinion of its Expert Council and the 2,000 business professionals surveyed, the UK’s most admired B2B brands. Those making the cut receive the accolade of Super Brand.

Analysing the Twitter activity of the top two hundred B2B Super Brands reveals some useful quality related benchmarks for us mere mortals. Gain a Klout score above 44 and you’re out-performing half of these Twitter accounts. Score above 50 and you’re in the top quartile. Seventy or above and you’re matching the top 10 per cent.

In conducting this analysis I discovered some new Twitologies. Not only did these Twitter accounts differ in their quality, but they differed in purpose and style.

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The Chameleons

Just over one half of these B2B Super Brands have multiple Twitter accounts. One quarter have three or more. Alongside their main account, or indeed instead of a main account, they have adopted multiple identities each focussed on a different audience or subject. I call them ‘chameleons’.

Professional services firm Ernst & Young is a good example. Group-wide company news and thought leadership is shared through @EYnews. Specific marketing activities have a dedicated channel (e.g. @EYTMagazine). Local business units and specialist practices have their own separate voice (e.g. @EY_UKI, @EYIntlTax). And those contemplating a career with the firm can follow @EY_CareersUK.

Seven different styles

Another set of Twitologies becomes apparent when we look at the different styles adopted by these B2B brands on Twitter. Most tend to default to one or a mixture of seven styles:

• Sleepers: Dormant accounts awaiting the right time to take the plunge or until squatters have been evicted.
• London Buses: A variant of ‘Sleepers’. Resource constraints, a lack of strategy and perhaps a loss of interest causes these accounts to Tweet in concentrated bursts before again becoming dormant. Just like waiting for a bus, there are none then they all arrive at once
• Pub Bores: Accounts providing frequent updates on themselves and little else.  Because the broadcaster has little of interest to say or report, they turn off followers
• Raconteurs:  A positive variation of the Pub Bore.  Their updates may relate to themselves but because what they are doing is of interest, so are their tweets
• Mavens: Accounts sharing summaries of and links to deeper content (their own or others). Their success depends on the relevance and quality of content as well as their ability to convey its core message in Tweets
• Philosophers: Those taken to sharing 140 character observations on the world, their business niche or life in general. Some are of course more insightful than others
• Socialisers: These gregarious accounts use Twitter not to broadcast, but to engage. They hold conversations with followers, those followed and the wider ‘Twitterverse’ either to resolve customer service issues or build bonds

Of course, there’s no one right or wrong approach but Mavens with high quality content and Socialisers who genuinely engage seem to thrive in a B2B context.

What kind of Twit are you? What kind of Twit do you want to be?

Find out what kind of Twit I am: @andydalg

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Let me share a story.  It sounds far-fetched, but is true.

Recently I took a holiday.  Not one to ever fully turn off though, I needed my smartphone.  Sadly, it too had decided to take a vacation.  No calls.  No emails.  “No problem” I thought.  I’ll just call the operator’s help desk and get back online.  Inevitably it wasn’t that simple although soon I was back in action. 

A good resolution, but the operator’s brand had been damaged.  Not because of the technical fault, but because of the briefing.  “Soon you will receive The Customer Experience Survey” I was told as the call ended.  “Just a formality really and the score to give is ten”.  And as prophesised the survey arrived on my now fully functional phone.  My feedback was honest.  I gave not the highest score but a fair one. 

Then next day came the call.  It was one of the technical support team.  Why hadn’t I followed the briefing?  Did I understand that this would reduce their bonus?  Needless to say the conversation ended pretty quickly and my trust in the company vanished.

This is an example of experience measurement gone horribly wrong.  Rather than incentivising employees to excel, it has encouraged them to play the system. Worse still, rather than improve the customer experience, it’s been damaged.

Now, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.  The measurement of customer experience is a good thing.  It ensures performance where it matters, drives improvement and ultimately can boost customer loyalty.   Likewise, incentivising the right behaviours can get results. 

Care is needed in execution though.

Measure the right things – the things that customers care about and truly drive loyalty.

Keep it confidential – it encourages honesty and avoids situations like those above.

Prevent fiddling – include a question in the survey to ensure participants haven’t been ‘primed’ and occasionally mystery shop service delivery (this also acts as another valuable measure of service experience quality).

And finally, re-define reward.  By all means keep the financial element as it’s a very powerful motivator, but it’s better if reward originates from within.  Recruit people who want to deliver excellence for its own sake and empower them to do so.

What lessons has your customer experience measurement programme revealed?  Share your thoughts below.

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Follow the seven R’s – Resonant, Rare, Road Mapped, Robust, Rounded, Rooted and Re-used.

Five reasons to develop a thought leadership strategy

B2B marketing has always been better suited to engagement over broadcast.  Personal relationships and being part of the buyer’s eco-system are usually critical.  As part of this there’s an expectation that you’ll have something useful to say; an especially pertinent experience, fresh facts or unique insights to share.  Those consistently doing so and coupling it with solid advice or lateral thinking become known as thought leaders.

It’s a valuable moniker for many reasons:

1. It sets you apart.  Today’s marketing communications environment is noisier than ever.  Offering your target market something of genuine benefit gives them a reason to sit up and listen.  Do it consistently well and ultimately the tables will turn.  Rather than slogging away trying to get the attention of potential buyers, they’ll start to proactively seek you out for your opinion
2. It’s a showcase.  Demonstrating genuine, unparalleled expertise is especially critical in any sector where the product is, well, expertise.  In these circumstances good thought leadership gives potential buyers confidence that the quality of service received will live up to the promise
3. It’s a conversation starter.  Time pressured buyers have become much more discerning in the engagements they have.  Why should they spend valuable time listening to your sales pitch?  After all, to them it probably sounds just like the dozens they receive every week.   Think how differently the conversation would start though if you could share something of value.  Not “I want to tell you about me…” but “I’d like to share something that could really help you…”
4. It’s a conversation changer.  A content based marketing strategy means that rather than selling you’re sharing; showing empathy, understanding and a desire to build mutually beneficial partnerships.  These are all traits valued highly by buyers         
5. It’s social media ‘food’ and SEO ‘link bait’.  Social media channels, especially blogs and Twitter, have opened up new opportunities to connect but require a constant stream of quality content.  Thought leadership content gives you fuel for social media activity and helps form relationships early in the buying cycle.  It also encourages linking to your website and thus benefits SEO

The seven R’s of thought leadership

Unsurprisingly, many aspire to the accolade of ‘thought leader’.  But only a handful truly deserves the label.  What’s their secret?  They follow the seven R’s of thought leadership. 

Resonant.  Rather than diving in and producing a piece on what seems to be the latest hot topic; pause.  Speak with as many people in your market as possible.  What are their pressures and priorities?  What interests them?  What information would they bite your hand off for?  This will ensure your chosen angle is valuable and in demand.

Rare.  Before committing to a particular route take each of the subject areas identified in your discussions with the market and identify competitors for similar mind space (remember, these are competitors for share of mind not necessarily direct competitors, e.g. trade bodies).  Then audit everything already published, map out the angles taken and identify areas of white space.  This will ensure that the thought leadership you produce is not only in demand, but unique.

Road mapped.  Unique and compelling angle in hand, a thought leadership strategy is needed.  At its core should be a theme which will guide all of your activity in a coherent manner and allow a series of complementary pieces to be created.  This gives focus, establishes you as an authority in the subject area and ensures marketing of each subsequent piece benefits from investment in the last. 

Robust.  The temptation now is to leap in and publish a paper detailing ‘our view on…’.  But nowadays readers demand more.  They expect real substance.  Conducting an exclusive survey is a great tool in this respect, but remember that B2B audiences are likely to be research savvy so settle for nothing less than a reliable, representative and solidly executed piece of work.  Likewise, be careful not to turn the outputs into an explicit sales pitch that a smart audience will see straight through.

Rounded.  The best thought leadership goes the extra mile in delivery.  Each piece in the series contains not only exclusive survey findings, but other content which gives flavour and facilitates action.  Ask yourself if the reader would value best practice guides.  What about case studies?  Would video or interactive content add another dimension?

Rooted.  To become known as the ‘go to place’ on a subject, you need to give people somewhere to go.  Develop a separate brand for your thought leadership programme and a micro-site to call home. 

Re-used.  You’ve invested a lot of effort in producing highly valuable content.  To ensure as high a return as possible it needs to be packaged in a way that appeals to diverse consumption preferences.  Publish reports, create video, produce infographics, develop sales tool-kits, run seminars…quite simply, milk the content dry. 

So there we are; some thoughts on thought leadership. 

Share your golden rules or examples of great thought leadership below. 

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Our friends at Marketing Options International (MOI) have just launched the Mind Share Café.  No, not a diversification into tea and cakes, but a virtual hub where they’ve collected together the thoughts of leading B2B technology marketers.  Marketers from players like Dell, Microsoft and Cisco.

Have a look – the Mind Share Café.  You won’t find any pontificating.  No self-serving agendas.  Just technology marketeers in similar circumstances being open about the challenges they face and how they’re approaching them. 

As the Mind Share Café’s research partner, Circle Research’s role has been as catalyst.  To facilitate the discussion and then share its key strands with a wider audience so as to prompt further debate. 

In doing so I was struck by one recurring theme: change.  Of course, the technology sector is defined by constant innovation.  Now though, the marketer not only has to simplify the complex, translate features into benefits, make the novel seem familiar, but they need to adapt these skills to a new environment. 

The marketers we surveyed to form the Mind Share Café’s themes told us about the need to adopt a different mindset in challenging economic times.  A mindset where marketing is always focussed on making a clear contribution to the bottom line.  A mindset defined by an entrepreneurial approach – agility, opportunism and a closer, more integrated relationship with sales.

They told us about a shift in the balance of power driven by the rise of social media.  The democratisation of information means that the technology marketer now has less control.  They need to engage rather than broadcast.  They need to interact with prospective buyers earlier in the sales cycle when preferences are unconsciously being formed.  They need to be brave and share a relevant, valuable opinion with a content hungry audience.

They told us, in a raised voice, about the growing noise their messages need to compete with.  Buyers now listen to many more channels, are inundated by communications in all aspects of their life and have shorter attention spans.  From a ‘broadcast’ perspective, the information floodgates have opened and barriers to entry have fallen.  All this conspires to create a sometimes overwhelming cacophony.  The solution?  Standing apart through creativity, using interruptive channel strategies and deploying media that are easily consumed.

Change is afoot then.  However, it’s also clear that whilst we must adapt, the marketer’s raison d’etre and core principles remain constant.  As one of the Café’s patrons says so well, “the fundamental objective remains to get people engaged with what you offer…it’s about understanding your buyer”. 

Join the debate by commenting below.  In no more than five words, what’s your single biggest marketing challenge?

It was a great project and I’ve written about it elsewhere (read the original conference paper here:  branding and national stereotypes).  The gist is that we were able to identify the best of British in a service context and then aspire to match – or even better it – in all important markets.

And now BA is reminding us that it has always been in the service business.  (How long, I wonder, before we first see “To fry to serve” above a chip shop door in one of those backhanded nods to a strong strapline).  Waxed moustaches, intrepid aviators and wickerwork seats segue into fly-by-wire and Concorde in the advertiser’s portrayal of the airline’s service history – as seen from the flight deck.

An interesting advertising tack!  Doubtless BA’s flight crew offer the highest standards of professionalism, but is flightdeck excellence not a given amongst established carriers?  Is this the most compelling service message for BA’s passengers?  Unless confident of peerless delivery in the cabin, is it not a high risk strategy to talk service, and yet not show it as it affects the paying guest?  Does this advertising not expose us to the hordes of nay-sayers; full of the latest service lapse to befall them on last Friday’s Barcelona flight?

BA service has always been strong and product development has been at the forefront historically.  However, whilst Biggles jackets and Dakotas are lovely to behold and bring on a real frisson of warm nostalgia, there are those for whom peerless cabin service, punctuality and product pre-eminence will always carry more weight.  Perhaps we should suggest that any sequel to the current advertising might shift the focus more in this direction.

It’s tough to answer this question with confidence.  After all, your competitors only share the legal minimum of information about performance.  Information which is also usually opaque and outdated.

Despair not though.  The 2011 B2B Marketing Agency League Table, compiled by B2B Marketing Magazine and Circle Research, fills in the gaps.

It’s a simple idea with a powerful result.  Have the UK’s leading B2B marketing agencies – 43 of them with combined billings of around £150 million – anonymously share key performance data.   Then, after independent verification of financial information, analyse the data to provide accurate performance benchmarks.

The full Benchmarking Report is available for purchase here, but in the meantime here are some­ key numbers to build into your business planning.

Click for enlarged infographic

The back bone of the UK’s B2B marketing sector is the mid-sized agency.  When any consumer projects are excluded, 37% of B2B marketing agencies in the UK bill £2 – 4 million.  The average annual turnover from B2B work is £2,863,803.

This income follows the Pareto principle where the majority of spend comes from a relatively small number of clients.  Typically, 28% of revenue comes from an agency’s single biggest client.

Similarly, the majority of clients come from just four sectors – Technology & Telecoms, Business & Professional Services, Engineering & Manufacturing and Financial Services.

When a handful of loss making agencies are excluded, the average pre-tax net profit margin on this turnover is 11.3%.  However, as an agency grows so too do its overheads and this eats into profits.  The average pre-tax net profit margin for a small agency (up to £2 million turnover) is 17%, but a mid-size agency (£2 – 4 million) sees this fall to 13.1%.  An agency turning over £4 million sees an average of 10.5%.

The single biggest overhead for most agencies is staff.  People management is an area of excellence though.  One in seven (15%) B2B marketing agencies cite attracting and retaining quality staff as their single biggest challenge.   However, at 7% the average employee turnover experienced by a B2B marketing agency is below the UK norm.

Food for thought.  How do you stack up?

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These turbulent times make the latest instalment of the bi-annual B2B Barometer interesting reading.  The survey – conducted in August 2011 and based on the opinions of 137 B2B agencies and marketers in the UK – shows that despite strong headwinds, the last 12 months have been rather rosy for most.

The full report is now available to download – B2B Barometer report Q3 2011 – but here are some highlights to whet your appetite.

The majority of client side marketers have seen depressed budgets return with three fifths (57%) reporting increased spend.  This is the most pronounced rise in budgets since the B2B Barometer’s inception in 2009.

A key beneficiary of this spend, agencies, have also experienced a fillip.  One quarter (26%) report increased billings and a further third (33%) have seen significant increases.  Again, this is in stark contrast to the B2B Barometer’s first reading two years ago when the majority (45%) were seeing revenues tumble.

This strong bounce back is further supported by the findings of B2B Marketing Magazine’s latest B2B marcomms agency league table (conducted in partnership with us here at Circle Research).  Gross income reported by the top 40 agencies in 2010 is, on average, up by 18%.

So, a good year for most and many expect it to continue.  The B2B Barometer finds that two thirds (69%) of agencies and client side marketers are confident in their organisation’s outlook for the next 12 months.

However, whilst few fear for their corporate future, there are signs that growth will be much more muted.  When asked about the number of enquiries received in the last six months, although most agencies (55%) report an increase, the level of growth has dropped markedly from January 2011’s B2B Barometer when two thirds (67%) had seen a rise. Again, the agency league table paints a similar picture.  Just over one half (55%) of agencies describe the current state of the market as either ‘good’ or ‘strong’.  However, the other half describes conditions as ‘static’ (21%) or ‘challenging (23%).

The external economic environment is of course critical to the health of our sector.  However, the B2B Barometer also reminds us that headwinds can just as equally be created internally.

Four out of every five client side marketers (79%) believes that their activities need to be better aligned with those of sales.  Furthermore, 59% see alignment of the two functions as a very important goal.  And with good reason.  Failure to do so is wasting leads (60% report as consequence of mis-alignment), time (53%) and budgets (41%).

Download the full report here:  B2B Barometer report Q3 2011
Past editions of the B2B Barometer can be found here:  B2B Barometer reports

B2B social media; is it a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes?

The latest B2B Marketing Benchmark Report – based on a survey of 274 client side B2B marketers conducted by us here at Circle Research – finally seems to provide a definitive answer. The social media Emperor is getting dressed, but is still in his underpants.

B2B social media has reached the tipping point and in doing so it’s following the classic technology evolution curve.  There was a lot of talk.  Then we saw early pioneers.  Now it’s in the initial stages of becoming main stream with eight in every ten marketers (78%) currently using social media in their B2B marketing activity.

It’s still early days though and most are still dipping their toes in the water - only one quarter (25%) have a clearly defined strategy.  Moreover, the standard approach seems to be trial and error – just one fifth (21%) have received any training in social media.

This haphazard deployment represents an opportunity for the more focussed to catch an edge, but the window of opportunity won’t stay open long.  Most plan to increase their social media investment over the coming 12 months - 76% through greater financial spend and 85% by dedicating more time.

Social media is being used then, but how?

Well, in the main it means the use of social networks, two of which dominate – Twitter (used by 85% engaged in social media) and LinkedIn (77%).  YouTube (66%) and, perhaps surprisingly given its B2C associations, Facebook (67%) also form an important but less prominent part of the mix.  Despite clear SEO and brand positioning benefits, only one half (51%) include blogging in their activity mix.

The big question though is: does it pay?

Those surveyed revealed their performance against various metrics and this provides some clear benchmarks.  Take Twitter as an example.  Analysing the number of reported Twitter followers reveals five milestones of success:

• Most (43%) are ‘Dabblers’ (<250 followers)
• One fifth (18%) are ‘Niche Attractions’ (250 – 500)
• A similar number (20%) are ‘Rising Stars’ (500 – 2,000)
• Just one in ten (12%) are ‘B-list Personalities’ (2,000 – 7,500)
• Only the elite (7%) are ‘A-list personalities’ (>7,500)

In financial terms though, the picture is cloudy.  Only a handful (21%) can consistently demonstrate ROI from their social media investment.

This difficulty in demonstrating tangible financial results is reflected in the five most significant social media challenges reported by B2B marketers.  These are:

1. Gaining internal buy-in (22% spontaneously name as a key challenge)
2. Finding sufficient time (19%)
3. Integrating with other activity (16%)
4. Generating quality, relevant content (12%; see our article on the 7 R’s of thought leadership research for some tips on this)
5. Inexperience (11%)

It seems then that B2B marketers recognise the rewards to be had through social media, but it’s not an easy ride.

Have you faced challenges gaining internal buy-in?  If so, how did you overcome them?  Share your experiences below…

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