It got me thinking about what B2B marketers need to do during difficult or recessionary times. Here are some of my thoughts:

Even if sales are down 50 percent in your industry, 5 out of the 10 are still buying.

You can replace some of the earlier sales steps (prospect, nurture, qualify) with lower cost per touch marketing so your higher cost per touch salespeople can focus on the later steps (demo, propose, close) in the sales process. This marketing-driven sales approach results in more prospects being found, nurtured and qualified, more productive salespeople, more sales and a lower cost per sale.

B2B marketers need to find ways to convincingly explain all this to their C-level management, especially the folks in finance.

How about you?

Have you been successful in convincing senior management to continue to fund your marketing despite the weak economy?

If so, congratulations! How did you do it? Is there any research you cited in building your case? Where did you find it?

Or was your marketing budget cut recently? If so, what are you spending your remaining funds on? What had to go, and why?

As the jar on the counter says, “Your tips are always appreciated.”

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In my never-ending quest to stay up on the latest in B2B marketing for leads and sales, I subscribe to RSS feeds from lots of marketing blogs.

One of those feeds recently caught my attention. In Dianna Huff’s MarCom Writer Blog, she talks about what should be included a B2B marketing communications professionals’ job description.

I agree with Dianna about today’s marcom professional needing to be able to do much more than write copy and manage multiple projects. I also agree with her suggestions about what else today’s marcom professionals “need to bring to the table.” I especially like the one about knowledge of the sales lead process.

I humbly suggest a few more skills to add to the list:

A good head for numbers.

This is essential in today’s marketing world where senior management requires, no demands, an ROI on marketing investments.

The ability to give a convincing presentation.

This includes presenting one-to-one, in front of a crowd, over the phone, via the web and in email. This essential skill will prove invaluable when trying to persuade your CEO, the CFO and your boss to give you a bigger budget, more staff or maybe even a promotion and a raise.

A up-to-date understanding of marketing technology.

This includes understanding both marketing media and marketing tools. With half of marketing budgets being spent online, and the efficiency and better results you can gain from using software to manage your campaigns, if you want to be successful as a marketing communication professional, you can’t afford to say “I’m not technical.”

What would you add to the list?

Please share your thoughts about the skills, knowledge and experience that are necessary for success in B2B marketing communications today.

Do you have different or additional suggestions for marketing managers, directors or VPs?

How about sharing some suggestions for how your fellow B2B marketers can best acquire these skills?

I look forward to hearing from you.

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Have you ever read something that was completely contrary to your own experience with the subject, causing you to doubt its accuracy?

That’s what happened to me when I read Aberdeen Group’s recent report, B2B TeleServices: The 2008 Buyer’s Guide.

As a consultant who specializes in B2B sales leads, I’m frequently asked by clients to help them select outsourced telemarketing companies, and to implement or improve their outsourced telemarketing lead generation, follow-up and qualification programs. So I was looking forward to reading Aberdeen’s report, thinking it would be a useful resource.

However, I quickly turned from an eager reader to true skeptic as I read some of the findings and conclusions of the report.

For example, the report stated that the companies included in Aberdeen’s study were spending an average of 33 percent of their total lead generation budget on B2B teleservices. And those companies which Aberdeen determined were “best in class” were spending an average of 44 percent.

Based on my own, first-hand experience working on B2B sales lead programs for dozens of leading companies–large, mid-sized and small–these percentages seemed way too high.

So, to check my sanity, I informally polled a number of other industry experts. This included a few CEOs of B2B call centers, a handful B2B marketers who outsource their telemarketing for lead generation, follow up and qualification, and a few other consultants who work in and around B2B telemarketing. I asked them to read the report and let me know if they thought about those particular numbers.

What were the results of my small, informal poll?

While some of the numbers in the report appeared to be more realistic, 100 percent of those I polled agreed that Aberdeen’s percentage of lead generation budget numbers were way too high.

The B2B telemarketing company CEOs wished that their clients actually were actually spending 33 percent to 44 percent of their lead generation budgets on outsourced teleservices. Instead, they reported that their clients are spending far less.

In the opinion of fellow consultant and friend, Michael A. Brown, the Business to Business By Phone® expert, “The Aberdeen numbers (about the percentage of lead generation budgets spent on outsourced teleservices) can’t be correct. They just don’t ring true.”

The sampling of B2B marketers I polled, all users of outsourced telemarketing services as part of their lead generation, follow-up and qualification programs, said that the budget percentage numbers reported by Aberdeen were significantly higher than their own spending.

Michael Brown polled a few of his own clients too. They told him that they believe that the average B2B lead generation budget percentages for outsourced teleservices should be less than half those reported by Aberdeen.

Although my own small, informal poll isn’t statistically valid, perhaps the sampling of companies that Aberdeen studied wasn’t truly representative either. Or perhaps those surveyed by Aberdeen exaggerated their spending. Who knows?

Regardless, I’m sad to say that my skepticism of the high lead generation budget percentage numbers reported by Aberdeen causes me to question all the other numbers in their buyer’s guide as well.

How about you?

What percentage of your B2B lead generation budget is allocated for outsourced teleservices?

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The study, Driving the Bottom Line from the Front Line, took a look at a broad range of marketing and sales variables tied to companies’ go-to-market processes– including their strategies, functional competencies, operational processes, customer knowledge, relationship management practices, budgeting and level of innovation. It appears there is a lot of room for improvement.

To get a no-charge executive summary of the research study, or the full report for $199, please visit http://www.cmocouncil.org/resources/form_bottom_line.asp .

This study got me thinking.

Perhaps marketers should have a significant portion of their compensation tied to meeting their company’s growth and revenue goals. Yes, many marketers will whine that they don’t control the sales process and shouldn’t be held accountable for sales results. But in order to maximize their compensation (or keep their jobs) marketers would have to shift more of their marketing dollars, time and resources from building brand and awareness to moving prospects from awareness to inquiry to consideration and to purchase.

Don’t get me wrong. I do believe that brand and awareness are important, but I also believe they are only a couple of the ingredients in a successful B-to-B marketing program.

What do you think?

marketing

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One of her newsletter subscribers responded about YouTube serving up “inappropriate” images of supposedly related videos on the same page as one of the videos mentioned in the case study.

Dianna blogged about it. Marketing luminaries David Meerman Scott and Bob Bly both chimed in with comments. What are your thoughts?

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This complimentary company data comes with only a few strings attached (i.e. you have to sign up, you can’t resell the data, etc.)

Database-driven direct marketing is a proven tactic for B2B lead generation. So it makes sense to take advantage of free access to a million company records, doesn’t it?

As a consultant who specializes in B2B sales leads, you might think I would be excited about this big giveaway, but I’m not.

Companies Don’t Buy. People Buy.

To be most effective with your direct marketing for lead generation you need to target the business people, by title or job function, who use, recommend and make buying decision about your kinds of products and services.

It is unnecessarily expensive to generate leads by cold-calling companies by phone and asking, “May I please speak to the person who is in charge of…?” You waste too many calls just trying to determine who you should be trying to talk to!

Mailing to “Attn: Person in Charge of…” might be better than doing nothing, but you risk wasting precious marketing funds by not getting past the mail room trash cans, especially at large companies.

Or just try emailing to info@ addresses, asking the recipient to pass along the email to the right person. What are the odds of that working? Slim or none.

Back to jigsaw. Why is it giving free access to its database of companies? As InfoCommerce Group (a consulting, publishing, conference and research company focused on the specialized information and data publishing industry) reported in its ICG Weekly Perspectives e-newsletter today, “Need contact names to go with that company data? Jigsaw has them, but they’re not giving them away. Need to scrub your existing data to blend it with Jigsaw data? Jigsaw can help, with its proprietary data cleansing application, but that service isn’t free. Need ongoing re-verification of your data, including identification of dead records? Jigsaw can help, for a fee.”

Using loss leaders to drive customer visits and sales is a proven tactic. For example, Staples uses the tactic to drive B2B sales at its office supply stores and on its e-commerce Website by promoting low prices on a few key items. Why shouldn’t Jigsaw give it a try?

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