Through these special blog postings, our goal is to offer advice and insights from top BtoB marketers. Recently, Jonathan Salem Baskin, a veteran BtoC and BtoB marketer with more than 20 years of experience and author of the book, Branding Only Works on Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (and drive your competitors crazy), responded to our questions. You'll learn why he thinks BtoB marketers have had it right all along. Also, he'll share some key insights into his career and offer solutions to many of the challenges facing BtoB marketers today.

1. How did you get started in the world of marketing?

I'd wanted to work in advertising since I was in college, as it seemed like the coolest combination of creativity and cultural relevance. So while my contemporaries were waiting tables during the summers, I interned at ad and PR firms. After graduation, I packed up and moved to NYC in search of a job, and found one four months later as an account exec at a PR firm called Edelman. My first client --a spin-off of Continental Grain called ContiCommodity-- was in the BtoB space. 

2. Why do you think this current economic crisis heralds a renaissance for BtoB marketers?

The web has transformed every company into a service provider, as end-users of everything from automobiles to MP3 players expect to be supported and engaged, not just by their individual purchases, but consistently over time. Cars need GPS devices. Music players need songs. Often, the differentiator between branded offerings will be how creatively or well they partner with other businesses to provide said services. Sourcing itself is also emerging as a competitive differentiator, whether due to concerns about economic or environmental justice, or simply of quality. 

The current economic crisis just accentuates the requirement that companies differentiate themselves in more compelling, substantive ways. BtoB marketers will find themselves competing for these new services partnerships, as well as displacing one another for sourcing contracts. It's the context for vibrant, creative competition of the likes that BtoB marketers haven't seen in a very long time.

3. You've been quoted stating that BtoB marketers are better positioned, better prepared and better armed to weather the downturn than BtoC marketers. Why is that?

First, because they've lived the business strategies we call "Web 2.0" since before the trend had a catchy label. BtoB marketing is based on principles of customer relationships, selling relevance to price and utility, and "designing in" input from customers for new products. These habits are all revelations for most BtoC marketers, and they're struggling with how to incorporate them into their top-down, brand-driven marketing strategies. The best BtoB marketers already know what works and how to deliver it.

Second, even if it's sometimes been uneasy, BtoB marketers have had close working relationships with sales. That means the metrics for much of that marketing are simple—sales and profits—instead of the made-up measures that BtoC marketers use to substantiate their efforts. BtoB marketers speak the financial language that the rest of the company uses, so it should be far easier to explain and defend budgets. Not easy, mind you, but just more effective. I think many of the BtoC folks and their mushy metrics of awareness and intent are in for a world of pain.

4. What was the inspiration behind "Branding Only Works for Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (And Drive Your Competitors Crazy)"? 

Most people in the branding world spend their lives feeling misunderstood and unappreciated. Otherwise smart, capable execs just can't seem to get the importance of branding and are always in need of being educated (as the brand trades regularly declare). Brand and marketing are the first budgets to get cut in a downturn, which is the clearest evidence of this ongoing disconnect.

After 26 years fighting that good fight, it occurred to me that maybe all those operational execs weren't stupid; maybe it was we marketers who had the wrong idea about brands.

So I set out to come up with a model for what branding might be if it were the outcome of real, objective behaviors, and not the subjective mental states that are the exclusive domain of marketing. And I discovered a rich vein of thought that raises marvelous questions about how, what, where, when, and why organizations influence purchases.

5. You often say a tough market requires every corporate department to get involved in selling. How can this happen?

It already happens all the time. Customers don't follow orders, and there's no limit to the ways, media, contexts and reasons why and how they can make decisions that lead to purchase (or, conversely, to abandonment). Information sharing doesn't end with the work day and isn't limited to the channels chosen by your marketing department. And the content that factors into those decisions are often, if not mostly, outside of the purview of marketing and instead originate in other departments (sourcing, vendor relationships, prices, service and support, employee-relations issues, environmental practices). 

Marketing can often put the patina of order on this chaos, but it's fleeting. Instead, these factors—all the result of behaviors of one sort or another—emerge within and from every department in your company. The substance of those behaviors is thus far more important to your brand than anything the marketers could create. Again, this impacts your selling right now, whether you're aware of it or not. 

Getting proactive with this involvement requires a new starting point for the conversation: it's not about applying the branding to the departments, but rather allowing their actions themselves to be understood as drivers of the brand. 

6. Other than your own, what business book would you recommend to BtoB marketers?

I really enjoyed "Ogilvy On Advertising," by David Ogilvy.  It's been out for a long time, but Ogilvy understood the humanity inherent in purchase decisions, and that ultimately the business consumer is still a consumer. I think a lot of the distinctions we draw between the BtoB and BtoC practices are artificial and sometimes not even true. Getting people to buy things is a universal; it's only in the details that differences emerge. 

7. What's the best advice you ever received, and or where did it come from?

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from my father when I was in high school. We had agreed to play golf together on a Sunday morning, but the Saturday prior I stayed at a friend's house and forgot the appointment. When I got home, far too late in the morning to make tee time, my Dad calmly explained to me that the worst thing I could do to another person is squander or waste their time. That has stuck with me personally and professionally, and it's an important adage for marketers to remember: be relevant, or be quiet.

8. What has been the biggest challenge in your professional career?

I'm living it right now: talking to marketers about truly changing the marketing paradigm. 

For all the talk about new media and experimentation, most communications follow traditions and conceits that are decades old. Many smart, well-intentioned people are hell-bent on proving that the outdated concepts of branding—telling consumers what to think, believing we could ever know what they're thinking anyway, and even if we were able to, thinking that those ideas would be casually relevant to their purchase behavior—are still valid, only they're not. It would be easier if they were, but it's simply not the case.

Lots of marketers are so accustomed to talking about brands as these all-encompassing things, describable mostly by metaphor, that they have real trouble opening their minds to another possibility. So the challenge is to engage them in this discussion about brands as something more—as behavior—and work with them to redirect their creativity and initiative.

It's the biggest challenge I've faced, but also the most rewarding. 

For more of Jonathan's news and updates, visit his blog at Dim Bulb.

Posted by Will Schnabel at 9:22 AM | Permalink

There's rarely any good news on the financial front these days. So I was pleased when I saw a recent article by Direct Magazine's Ken Magill indicating that 79 percent of surveyed executives said their companies will have spent the same or more on marketing in 2008 than 2007. Also, 42% said they don't expect the economy to have an impact on their marketing budgets.

All too often, when the economy begins to dip downward, companies cut back on marketing activities, hoping to simply weather the storm. But some experienced marketers view recessions as opportunities to grow market share and strengthen their business. I'm excited to see BtoB marketers have apparently chosen to invest strategically to keep their existing clients satisfied and their prospects informed.

Also, I'd like to add two tips of my own to help BtoB marketers weather this storm and make wise decisions.

Align Your Definitions of ROI Measurement. I can't say this enough. The term ROI represents different things to different people and is bandied about by many without solid agreement regarding its true meaning as defined inside the company. In fact, Forrester Research found that nearly seven out of 10 marketers (69 percent) have a hard time arriving at an agreed upon definition of ROI.

Tip: Call a meeting with important internal stakeholders and hash out a definition of ROI.

Gather Relevant Information. Reaching out to customers with messages based on behavioral targeting can help boost revenue and improve customer loyalty and brand positioning. Integrating a Web analytics tool with your email marketing solution can give you an invaluable look at customer desires and concerns.

Tip: Identify the data you want to act on and enlist the assistance of your marketing solutions provider or IT department to create the technical integration points. Like you, they are under pressure to do more with less, and should be incented to make the most of the solutions they have in house. Encourage them to automate the process for passing these data key points in order to make them actionable in your email marketing or other messaging-oriented systems without ongoing manual involvement.

Lastly, just keep on marketing.  Putting our company's "head in the sand" at this time will make it that much harder to react when the economy bounces back.  Like investing, we need to buy low and sell high, and in the end, we'll be ahead of the pack.

Posted by Will Schnabel at 5:01 PM | Permalink

Through these special blog postings, our goal is to offer advice and insights from top BtoB marketers. Recently, brothers Jay and Carlos Hidalgo, founders of The Annuitas Group, responded to our questions. You'll learn about the challenges facing today's BtoB marketers and the Hidalgo brother’s insights for moving beyond them.

1. How did you and your brother, Carlos, get started in the lead management industry?
We actually got started in the mid-90s. I was working at a firm, developing lead generation programs for clients. The programs often generated significant numbers of leads, which we would turn over to the clients' sales force. But because our clients didn't have the processes necessary to properly follow up on leads, we became the "scapegoat" for less than desired sales outcomes. "These leads are no good" we often heard. So, we developed lead follow-up processes and services to maximize the value of those leads. Carlos also started down this road about the same time, as he was managing large scale lead generation programs for some of the biggest IT companies in the world. He also noticed that while his company was generating the leads, the companies were not taking the necessary steps to ensure proper follow-up.

2. When did you realize that companies which only generate leads and fail to manage how they're handled in any consistent way were missing the mark?
Almost immediately. Once in a while, we'd have the chance to prove it by measurement. I remember one client who told us that the 300-plus leads we had generated over a 6 week period were no good. We implemented a "post campaign" research project, and identified that more than half of the leads never received any kind of follow up. Of those, 90% ended up buying from our client's competitors within a 90-day period. It's hard to argue with statistics.

3. Why do you think many BtoB marketers fail to understand the impact of comprehensive lead management programs or to incorporate them into their marketing efforts? 
Our experience indicates that marketers fall into two categories: Those who refuse to acknowledge the impact of not having lead management processes, and those who just don't understand they have a lead management problem. For the first group, it's difficult to convince them otherwise. Myopic thinking or the fear of getting "exposed" often keeps them from doing anything to improve. For the second group, convincing them on the benefits of a comprehensive lead management happens relatively quickly. But understanding that there's a problem, and knowing how to fix it are two different things. And that's where we see the biggest frustration. Marketers know they have a problem, but don't know where to start to fix it.

4. What kind of impact have you seen the current state of the economy have on BtoB marketers and Sales professionals? 
Right now, it's mixed. For some, cutting costs has become the priority, and marketing is looked at as a cost. For others, especially those that understand that marketing is an integral part to growth, the approach has been to figure out ways to be more efficient. In our world, we've seen an increased interest in developing lead management processes, because they lead to greater efficiency.

5. What should BtoB marketers and Sales professionals do to survive a down economy and be well positioned for an upswing?A few things come to mind…
• Don't panic. 
• Spend time and effort on what you know works. Save the "let's try this" items for when things are a little more stable. 
• Assess both marketing and sales processes. Assess where there is inefficiency and waste; fix it and maintain. 

6. Why do you think silos exist between marketing and sales, and which team do you think is more amenable to working with the other?  
Traditionally, marketing considers their job completed when a lead is generated and passed on to sales. When they hear that sales is complaining about lead quality, they get defensive. Sales, historically, gets frustrated because they spend much wasted time trying to sort through all the leads from marketing so they can find the "good" ones. They begin to resent marketing because this "sorting" reduces their selling time and ultimately commissions. Unfortunately, it's too common a dynamic.

I don't believe either "side" is more amenable than the other. For the most part, both want to be successful. Both want revenue to increase.  Both want to close more sales. The key is finding what's important to each role. When both roles come together asking, "What do you need?" instead of saying to the other, "This is what I want," it's amazing how quickly things can come together.

7. What business book have you recently read that you'd recommend?
"Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors" by Pat Lencioni. It's a great "fable" about the barriers that are created in organizations and how to destroy them so that teams work together. This is a helpful read to anyone who needs assistance integrating marketing and sales.

8. What's the best advice you ever received and who or where did it come from? 
Dr. David Beighley told me, "Ask yourself 'What's the NEXT right thing to do?' Then go do it."

9. What has been the biggest challenge in your professional career? 
Leaving established company's to start The Annuitas Group. There are so many unknowns when you finally take the leap, the biggest being whether or not you'll make it. We've been blessed with great clients, great partners and with the ability to provide a service that solves a problem most companies have. We thank God everyday for what we've been able to do.

Posted by Will Schnabel at 9:49 AM | Permalink