The Art of Nurturing: Essential Elements of Successful B2B Demand Generation

Will SchnabelVP Alliances, Silverpop

wschnabel@silverpop.comTwitter: @wschnabel

Agenda

• The art of nurturing• Buyer 2.0 and the buying

process• Nurturing basics• Q&A

Silverpop

• 1300+ customers, 2000+ brands

• Email Marketing and Marketing Automation

• Appexchange Partner with CRM Integration

• >2B msgs/mo sent across our customer base

Key Objectives• Explain why B2B Marketing is now about

engagement

• Understand the building blocks of a solid nurture program

• Explain how lead nurturing can increase number of leads and provide accelerated sales opportunities

• Understand why powering the nurture dialog requires both process and technology capabilities

The Art of Nurturing

Failing B2B demand generation

Source: Bulldog Solutions/Frost & Sullivan, "The Executive Benchmark Assessment"

B2B marketing legacy

Source: MarketingSherpa

B2B demand-gen is a numbers game

• Only 2-5% of raw inquiries coming into the top of the B2B marketing and sales ‘funnel’ convert to sales.

• 25-30% of B2B marketing databases have bad or incomplete records.

Source: SiriusDecisions, SiriusDecisions 2010

Summit, Scottsdale, Arizona

Nurturing = It’s about efficiency

Why lead nurturing?

17.50%

12.50%

70.00%

Average B2B Initial Lead Break-down

Discard / disqualified

Sales-ready now

Longer-term oppor-tunity / worth nurtur-ing

Source: MarketingSherpa

Nurturing = It’s about timing

Source: MarketingSherpa, "2010 E-mail Marketing: Benchmark Report"

sort-of-ready

definitely not ready

Dialogue = Key to Nurturing

Source: Silverpop

Outbound MarketingInbound Marketing

Initial Buyer

Interest

Collect Buyer

Insights + Route

Follow-up / Content

Offer

More Buyer Interest + Action

Initial Human Contact

Sales Follow-up

Marketing Nurturing

Sales Nurturing

Scoring + Segmentati

on + Routing

Add. Explicit + Behavioral

Data Collection

Marketing Automation

to CRM Sync

Email Sent

Web Form Data

Collection

And it really pays off ...

• Nurture campaigns produce 2X the Open Rates and 3X the Click-Through-Rates at of one-off emails

• 23% shorter deal times for nurtured than non-nurtured leads

• Higher win ratios for prospects touched 3-4 times per month by marketing nurture campaigns.

• 47% higher order value from closed sales that were nurtured versus sales that were not

Source: Aberdeen, Sirius Decisions, and Silverpop Research

Buyer 2.0 and the Buying Process Today

The Power Is Shifting

But where are buyers hiding?

Power Shift…Buyer 2.0

“[T]he hunter has become the hunted. Buyers are more informed and seek information independent of sales. ... How sales people want to sell has little impact on how buyers are choosing to buy.”

Source: SiriusDecisions, “Marketing Needed for Sales 2.1”

Information consumption patterns of B2B buyers are rapidly changing.

#1 - B2B buyers are increasingly turning to online sources, on their own, earlier in their process, to research purchases before ever calling a 'live' sales rep.

Turning to online sources…

Source: Enquiro, “Integrated Persuasion: Online and Offline”

As they need things ...

72% of the time ‘fit for a specific need at a specific time’ is the number one reason for a B2B purchase today.

Source: Forrester Marketing Forum 2010 presentation

#2 - B2B buyers are increasingly leveraging social media -- such as Twitter, blogs, etc. – for peer communication in the information collection and validation phases of the buying process.

Leveraging social media ...

Source: B2B Marketing/Base One, "BUYERSPHERE, Survey of B2B Buyers' Use of Social Media" UK data.

Leveraging the Groundswell ...

“The groundswell is: A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.”

Source: Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell.

Source: ITSMA, “How Customers Choose Solution Providers, 2009.” Global data.

Peer influence is king ...

#3 – B2B marketers are shifting their attention away from traditional, ad-driven demand generation channels as B2B buyers shift to new channels.

Education ^ ... Interruption v

Source: MarketingSherpa, "2009-10 B2B Marketing: Benchmark Report.“ Global data.

education

interruption

What hasn’t changed?

B2B buyer decision cycleSatisfaction

Acknowledgment

Decision

Criteria

Selection

Investigation

Reconsideration

MeasurementSource: R. Jolles

What has changed?

“Transforming the BtoB Buying Process,” DemandGen Report Study – February 2010

There is no longer a traditional buying cycle

Defining the Buying Cycle

Emerging buying cycle gap ...Satisfaction

Acknowledgment

Decision

Criteria

Selection

Investigation

Reconsideration

MeasurementSource: R. Jolles

the opportunity

Enter Nurture Marketing

• Middle-of-the-funnel dynamics• Educating vs. selling

Content: The Secret sauce

Content was ...

Content is now ...

• Critical information• Conveyed on specific topics• Carries the buying process forward• Delivered via right channel / timing /

voice

... aligned to specific phases of the buying cycle.

Aligning channel by buying stage

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

CRITERIA

MEASUREMENT

INVESTIGATION

Buying Process Phase Social /

Inbound / Thought Capital

DECISION

E-mail / Outboun

d

Industry + Analyst

Sites

Vendor Sites /

Materials

Mark

etin

g A

uto

matio

n

Sources: Enquiro, R. Jolles, Silverpop.

SATISFACTION

SELECTION

Aligning content by buying stage

AcknowledgmentSocial media

Thought leadership(w/ E-mail nurturing)

Traditional media

DecisionE-mail nurturing

Field eventsSearch

CriteriaAnalyst reports

Blog + Web reviewsSearch

InvestigationDetailed product literature

Sales proposals

MeasurementAnalyst reports

SearchProduct Web sites

Source: R. Jollesw/ A. Needles contributions

Nurturing Basics

Keys to Successful Nurture Marketing

1. Emailing Infrastructure2. Lead Nurture process and framework3. Strong Inbound Web Content4. Lead Scoring5. Dynamic Campaigning6. Sales Collaboration

#1 – Email Infrastructure

Email = Top B2B tactic• 89% of B2B marketers use

email.• Email is the number-one

outbound B2B marketing tactic used today.

Source: Forrester Marketing Forum 2010 presentation

Email strengths and weaknesses• Great for

– Sustaining engagement ... nurturing thread

– Delivering targeted offers to buyers you know

• Not so good for– Front-end lead generation– Repeated mass offers to buyers you

don’t know

2. Lead Nurturing Process

Source: SiriusDecisions

Mktg Nurture Campaign

Lead Nurture

Campaigns

Mktg Nurture Campaign

Sales Acceleration Nurture Campaign

Mktg Qualified (MQL)

Responses

Sales Accepted Leads

ValidResponses

Sales Qualified

Leads(SQL)

Closed deals/

Customer Nurturing

Post-Sales Nurture Campaign

Sales Acceleration Nurture Campaign

Source: The Annuitas Group

Nurture at Every Phase...

3. Inbound Web Content

Inbound is more critical than ever

“[C]urrently, more than half of all new inquiries are generated through the Web; we believe that by 2015, this number will rise to nearly 75%. Inbound marketing [is not] new in theory, but ... marketers must plan for it ... .”

Source: SiriusDecisions, “Inbound Marketing, the Sirius Way”

Strong inbound Web content

• Blog content• Downloads• Social updates, thread

participation• Webinars• White papers• Video

Inbound to outbound integration

GoogleBlog Post

Other Downlo

ad

Nurture

Call ‘Qual’ Team

Inside Sales Pick-up

Search to Inside

TwitterWebin

arWhite Paper

Nurture

Field Event

Field Sales Pick-up

Twitter to Live

Source: Silverpop

4. Dynamic Campaigns

Dynamic campaigning

• Buyer triggered; pull not push• Match content to buyer stage• Persona targeting and 1-to-1

relevance • Inbound-to-Outbound integration• Progressive profiling• Scoring/routing drive next touch

point

Dynamic campaigning

Source: The Annuitas Group

When should sales pounce?

Progressive profiling

Progressive profiling - logic

Source: MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm, “Connecting Through Content"

1st contact

2nd/3rd contact

later contact + behavioral

Progressive profiling - collection

1. Basic Lead Form 2. Returning Leads – Pre Populate

3. Returning Leads – Pre-Populate – Gather More

4. Returning leads – Personalize – Pre-Populate – Progressively Gather More

5. Lead Scoring

Criteria Used for Scoring

Source: Silverpop Research

Dem

ogr

aphi

cB

ehav

iour

alF

irma

grap

hic

Integrated Lead Scoring

6. Sales Collaboration

Before calling a prospect ...

“The sales rep must come to a meeting prepared to discuss the buyer's specific business — yet 31% of sales reps are not prepared with even a basic level of Web available information before taking a buyer's valuable time. Only 16% are extremely prepared.”

Source: Technology Marketing Blog (IDC), “Sales Enablement and the Year of the Sales Rep”

Sales Visibility (Lead Activity)

Sales Visibility (Lead Activity)

Sales Control over Nurturing

Salesperson Email Sending

1

2

3

Sales Collaboration and Alerting

Closing Points

Is it worth it?

• No. of New Leads Generated through existing demand generation activities

• No. of qualified leads sent to sales

• Sales Close Rates

• Cost per Sale

400%

5x

2x

25%

Summary

• Buyer 2.0 requires dialog-marketing tactics

• Automated Nurturing provides substantial returns on investment

• Start simply, then adapt

• Nurturing requires both process and technology

Thank you!

• E-mail: wschnabel@silverpop.com• Twitter: @wschnabel• Resources:

www.silverpop.com/salesforce• Booth #813

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