Best Practices in B2B Demand Generation - demandblog

Twitter to the Left of Me, Twitter to the Right

by Jason Stewart

Twitter has been all over the place lately, and it is one of those things I think I understand the basics - build up a network of friends or like-minded individuals who will tolerate the occasional bit of self-promotion as long as you share other interesting stuff too, and you don't become that insufferable clod at the party who does nothing but talk about himself. That's the easy part. I've always been sort of a wallflower anyway...but I still honestly feel like I must be missing something.

I'm on Twitter (@jasondemandbase) and posting occasionally, and replying and re-tweeting things of interest which is half the battle in and of itself, but I'm concerned that I should have a personal Twitter in addition to a work Twitter...which I don't. Demandbase has a "corporate" twitter account (@demandbase) but we only just set it up and I am sure we are not monitoring it closely enough. Can I monitor more than one Twitter account on a client like TweetDeck or twhirl? Which is better? What's the best Twitter tool for BlackBerry? iPhone? Have I been too indescriminate in who I follow? Is there a better way to stay on top of what's interesting and weed out the "I just ate a delicious sandwich" tweets? Why don't I love this as much as everyone tells me I should? Why does it seem so labor intensive to keep on top of it all, even if you are using RSS feeds to monitor the topics you are interested in?

It's not that I don't "get" it, because I think I do. I just don't know that I am doing all that I can to capitalize on everything Twitter has to offer. So, in an effort to better myself I have been diligently collecting articles on Twitter that I have every intention of reading, but that I simply haven't yet. Feedback welcome! Or add to the list....

• How to Measure Engagement on Twitter—and Savor the Tweet Smell of Success - MarketingProfs
• 5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter - Copyblogger
• SEOptimise has been chock full of Twitter goodness in their "Twitter Friday" series
• • 15 Tools Lists, Twitter Business & Social Life Resources
  • Twitter SEO News
  • Spectacular Growth, Tools Proliferation and the Ethics of Tweeting
  • Twitter Search Craze

I really need to read the SEOptimise stuff, looks really good. Help me prioritize, people!

Joint Webinar Next Week with Marketo

We have a webinar coming up next week, a joint presentation with Marketo's VP of Marketing Jon Miller. It's on Thursday, March 19th at 11AM Pacific, and the official title is Turn Inbound Traffic into Leads and Revenue.

Register here.

Sometimes I like to give a little bit more of a "behind the scenes" description of the content than the "official" description shares. On the surface, this looks like a pretty straightforward webinar sharing some best practices both on the lead generation side as well as the lead management/nurturing end -- the two sides of the coin. And that is not a bad thing! When we sat down with Jon to plan out the webinar, however, the idea was a lot simpler and the description only really hints at it ... since Marketo uses Demandbase, and Demandbase uses Marketo, why don't we share some background on how we use each others tools in our demand generation and lead nurturing programs?

So there you have it. Jon's going to be talking about Demandbase and I am going to talk about Marketo. Feel free to join us next week.

Click here to see the full description and register for the webinar.

Great New Blog...

Back in October I reviewed the TimeDriver product from TimeTrade Systems. Well, these guys are now up and running with a new blog and it is really good.

It's an "impatient little blog" called No Lines, No Waiting: Bringing service to the fore while conserving your cash. I really love the angle here, a little kick in the pants to remind you that it doesn't matter how "Cool" your software or product is if you have no clue how to service your customers and keep them happy. Check it out!

You may recognize the cheif blogger's name from the comments area here from time time to time...Dave deBronkart is opinionated, passionate about marketing and smart to boot. All the things you want from a blogger. Great job, Dave!

According to Wikipedia...

After re-reading my last post, I thought it might be funny to search on the exact phrase "according to wikipedia." I got 993,000 results. Funny, I thought it might be more...I feel like I use it a dozen times a week all by myself.

Theory of Constraints and B2B Sales and Marketing?

by Jason Stewart

I read an interesting post recently at Salesforce Times ... Russian Scientists & the B2B Sales Process.
They give a little bit of background about Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt's book The Goal, a business book disguised as a novel that outlines the basic structure for Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC). Bear with me through a brief definition of TOC to here how Salesforce Times (and I) connect it to B2B sales and marketing...

In a nutshell, TOC (according to Wikipedia) "...is based on the premise that the rate of goal achievement is limited by at least one constraining process. Only by increasing throughput (flow) at the bottleneck process can overall throughput be increased."

What this means is that there is typically (at least) one "constraint" in the manufacturing process that is hampering the completion of your goal. Some sort of supply issue, some sort of technical problem, some sort of scheduling or personnel issue could be the key, if corrected, to improved performance. Where it gets complicated, and what Goldratt's book illustrates extremely well, is cutting through the distractions and "false positives" to discover what the constraint actually is. And of course, what might be even harder, figuring out what your goal really is. 

If you lose sight of what the goal really is, then there is no way to identify the bottleneck.

Coincidentally, before I started at Demandbase I worked for a software company called Maxager Technology which sold exclusively to manufacturers. Maxager focuses on helping manufacturers optimize their product mix based on the products that have the highest "Profit Velocity" which is calculated by combining the profit margin of a product with its production velocity (how long it takes to produce). Production velocity is calculated at the "Velocity Measurement Point," which Maxager defines as "...the point in a manufacturing process where production speed is measured. It is often the constrained step in the manufacturing process."

Constrained, as in "Theory of Constraints." Maxager's roots in TOC happen to be why I read The Goal a few years back. 

So how does this relate to B2B sales and marketing?

The Salesforce Times article looks primarily at B2B sales. Here's a quote:

"B2B sales is very much like a plant that ‘manufactures’ closed revenue opportunities. Leads and new opportunities flow into the sales ‘system’, they hit different sales stages and produce a certain amount of closed deals."

That's a good angle on the sales side...identify the bottleneck that is holding your team back from closing business...but I'm going to talk about B2B marketing, and I am going to make the assumption that your goal is "conversions." People who fill out your form, or download your white paper, or register for your webinar so that they can become leads that you pass over to sales.

One thing you will need to consider when thinking about the "constraints" to completing your conversion goals is what your "Velocity Measurement Point" might be. As any salesperson will tell you, some leads are more valuable than others. Webinar leads are valuable, for example, because of their commitment. These are people that sat through your webinar for an hour! However, when you consider the raw material costs of promoting, advertising, staging, and creating relevant content for the webinar you might find that your "profit margin" is thinner than you had originally believed...

As a B2B marketer, what do you think your "constraint" might be?

I would propose your website as a possibility...the organic traffic visiting your website is inherently valuable because they are proactively searching for something that you have to offer, but the problem is that even the most successful B2B websites "convert" less than 5% of their visitors. That sounds like a bottleneck to me! The question is, what are you going to do about it?