I’ve been following the comment thread on Jep Castelein’s Lead Sloth post from earlier this week, “Will Marketing Automation Be Free?” What struck me about this ‘freemium model’ dialogue is that it is semantically interesting, but fundamentally focused in the wrong place. As important as your choice of marketing automation technology provider is — and it is important — I’d argue that the stumbling block for most B2B marketers attempting to take their demand generation to the next level is not access to the technology, itself. So giving it away for free doesn’t necessarily improve adoption rates.
The major obstacle today for the next generation of B2B demand generation is actually the ‘people and processes’ that must be in place to successfully leverage marketing automation technology. And this is a point backed up by stacks of recent research reports and commentaries by some of the best and brightest in B2B marketing today.
Thor Johnson — who was formerly CMO of Eloqua and who today consults on an independent basis with B2B marketing organizations around their demand generation strategies — said it perfectly in his comment on Jep’s post:
The dominant trend in the market is a totally human one: the rising wave of transition from B2B marketers being primarily PR and branding people to becoming database marketers who embrace metrics-driven process. Oh yes, and they’ve still got to be creative, too.
It’s not about the bike. It’s the rider – and the team (and the sales guys and the CFO, …)
This point is also very timely for me because this week I published a series on my personal blog, Propelling Brands, digging into “The Unspoken ‘Real State’ of Modern B2B Demand Generation.” The focus of my series was on identifying why there is such a gap between ‘best-in-class’ demand generators and the reality for the bulk of B2B marketing organizations. What are the major challenges preventing us from being more successful in responding to the new era of Buyer 2.0 and in leveraging marketing automation? The primary synthesis I garnered from my research, over and over again, is that people and processes are the stumbling block — in leveraging technology, using that technology to link tactics to revenue outcomes and in better centering our demand generation programs around the buyer.
In part two of my Propelling Brands series, Bulldog Solutions shared with me findings from the “Executive Benchmark Assessment” research project they collaborated on with Frost and Sullivan. Their research supports what we’re saying here — noting that the top-three major gaps for B2B marketing organizations in successfully leveraging marketing automation technology are people, process and content. (Graphic below used with permission.)
Source: Bulldog Solutions/Frost & Sullivan; click to enlarge graphic
I like this Bulldog/Frost data point because its supports a model I’ve previously proposed for what it takes to build a successful, buyer-centric B2B demand generation program — integrating lead management processes and a content marketing strategy with your marketing automation infrastructure.
And this is supported by data from SiriusDecisions that they presented at their 2010 summit:
John Neeson said SiriusDecisions believe aggregate marketing automation penetration in the US today is only 7-10% (although he noted his firm believes this will grow to 30% by 2015). He also noted that only about 25% of organizations with marketing automation today are using the platform to its fullest capability. And that’s why process change and training must accompany marketing automation adoption.
So let’s be honest. Marketing automation technology is pretty advanced; moreover, the capabilities of most marketing automation platforms far outpace the skill set of their users.
Our challenge as B2B marketers building a best-in-class demand generation program thus isn’t the technology; it’s our knowledge and skill set in leveraging the technology to support marketing strategy and tactics for tackling this ‘brave new world’ of B2B marketing we all find ourselves in.
So what are we going to do about it?
That’s the question on my mind.
We believe a major answer — and a critical success factor — is for us as a marketing automation software vendor to be investing in the people and processes in tandem with our innovation of the technology. We have to pay it forward.
Bill Nussey, our CEO, said it well in his own comments on Jep’s blog. “If we are going to ‘give stuff away,’ can things like education and training help the industry even more?” Well said.
That’s why we’ve invested heavily in doing just that — with programs such as B2B Marketing University and all of the great B2B demand generation resources and guest posts we pack into our blog. Programs and resources we offer free of charge.
Education … now that’s our freemium!
Have you attended our B2B Marketing University?
This Fall is the one-year anniversary for Silverpop’s live B2B Marketing University (B2BMU) series. Over the past year we’ve held nine B2BMU events in seven different cities across the US and in the UK. This Fall we have planned events in the Bay Area, Boston and New York.
The focus of any given B2BMU event is to help attendees become more situationally-aware of how B2B marketing is changing and to learn about the building blocks you need to build successful, buyer-centric demand generation programs.
The programs are jam-packed with awesome insights from leading firms, including AcquireB2B, The Annuitas Group, Bourne, Conselltants, Lead Sloth, Left Brain Marketing and SiriusDecisions.
There’s no secret product pitch. Really. And attendance is free!
We hope you’ll join us at one of our upcoming events.
I’d note that we recently added a Web component via our semi-monthly ‘Virtual 201′ series. We use these 1-hour Webinars as a way to dig deeper on key topics that are slightly more advanced than what we cover at a typical B2BMU. For example, we recently did a 201 session on email deliverability for B2B marketers that was well-attended — a good one to check out.
What do you want to know about B2B demand generation?
Let me say there are a lot of poorly-written blogs out there — particularly on B2B marketing topics. Too many companies treat their blogs as an afterthought, where they share random thoughts.
We take the opposite approach, and we use our blog as the one place where you can get access to best practices information and resources to cover anything you might possibly want to know about B2B demand generation.
Since we launched B2B Marketing University in October 2009, we’ve published a significant body of content on everything from the basics to advanced topics. So I thought it would be useful to break out these posts and index them by topic.
Here’s our A to Z on B2B demand generation:
B2B Buyer
- Successfully Engaging with B2B Buyer Communities | Kristin McKenna | 7 March 2010
- Four Keys for Success Using Buyer Personas to Focus B2B Marketing Automation Campaigns | Adam Needles | 6 November 2009
- Seven Principles for Building More Buyer-centric B2B Marketing Programs | Adam Needles | 11 October 2009
Content Marketing
- B2B Content Marketing Strategy and Practice Is Steaming Full-speed-ahead. Are You Onboard? | Adam Needles | 14 July 2010
- A Deep(er) Dive Into Content Marketing Basics — Webinar and Q&A with Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 | Adam Needles | 26 March 2010
- What Are the Keys to Finding Success with B2B Content Marketing? | Adam Needles | 5 February 2010
- All Eyes on B2B Content Marketing | Kristin McKenna | 29 January 2010
- Content: The Dirty Underbelly of B2B Marketing Automation | 11 December 2009
Demand Generation
- The Three Building Blocks for Effective B2B Demand Generation — Lead Management, Marketing Automation and Content Marketing | Adam Needles | 12 March 2010
- How Do You Get Your Arms Around the ‘Brave New World’ of B2B Marketing? Where Do You Start? | Adam Needles | 8 January 2010
- B2B Marketers’ Current Top Issues … Plus the State of Their CRM Platform Adoption | Adam Needles | 11 November 2009
Email Marketing
- Make Sure Email Deliverability Isn’t the Weakest Link in Your B2B Demand Generation Program | Adam Needles | 14 June 2010
- Making a Great First Impression with Your B2B Email Nurturing | Kristin McKenna | 4 April 2010
- Taking Your Email Segmentation for B2B Marketing to the Next Level | Adam Needles | 19 February 2010
Lead Management
- The Five Myths of B2B Lead Management | Carlos Hidalgo | 5 August 2010
- Where Do You Start With Lead Management? | Carlos Hidalgo | 1 March 2010
- Forrester on Using B2B Lead Management to Pump Up Your Pipeline | 12 February 2010
Marketing Automation
- What the Converged Engage 8 Platform Means for B2B Marketers | Adam Needles | 9 April 2010
- Where Do You Start with Marketing Automation? | Malcolm Friedberg | 19 March 2010
- What is Driving B2B Marketers to Adopt Marketing Automation Technology | Adam Needles | 22 January 2010
- Key Issues to Consider When Deploying B2B Marketing Automation Globally | Adam Needles | 17 December 2010
Measurement and Analytics
- Getting to More-granular Revenue Attribution for B2B Marketing Programs | Bryan Brown | 30 July 2010
Nurturing
- How Can You Make Nurturing More Strategic in Your B2B Demand Generation Efforts? | Adam Needles | 23 June 2010
- Lead Nurturing … Not Just for B2B Marketing, But Also for Sales … And Beyond | Carlos Hidalgo | 18 April 2010
Online Event Marketing
- Using Online Events to Drive B2B Demand Generation | David Pitta | 7 May 2010
Sales and Marketing Alignment
- The Danger of an Either/Or B2B Marketing and Sales Mindset | Adam Needles | 3 December 2010
Telemarketing and Human Lead Qualification
- It’s Aliiiiive! B2B Telemarketing Lives | Kristin McKenna | 20 July 2010
Finally, our team regularly attends a number of leading industry conferences, and I make sure we convey the top B2B demand generation takeaways from these events here on the blog.
Here are some recent posts from key events:
- Sales 2.0 Boston: My Five B2B Demand Generation Takeaways | Adam Needles | 1 July 2010
- SiriusDecisions 2010 Summit: How B2B Marketing Organizations Can Better “Measure, Align, Transform” Their Demand Generation for “High Performance” | Adam Needles | 20 May 2010
- Forrester Marketing Forum 2010: Implications for B2B Demand Generation | Adam Needles | 27 April 2010
+1 Adam – maybe I didn’t say this as eloquently, but this is exactly what I was trying to convey. The marketing automation vendors are gobbling up too much of the margin that should be going to services. It’s not about freemium software, but a re-application of budget to where it is most needed. I would argue their is a lot of shared spirit in the HubSpot and Loopfuse models.
“Education … now that’s our freemium!”
I love it! Thanks for giving your take on the discussion on my blog and putting it in perspective. I like how you link it to the other great research that you’ve been doing.
[...] Closing the Technology Innovation Vs. People/Process Stagnation Gap in Modern B2B Demand Generation [...]
Adam,
Absolutely agree that education is as important or more than the technology. You guys have done a great job in that area, but every marketing automation vendor puts out reams of free demand generation best practices and information largely because we’re eating our own dog food and understand better than most the importance of thought leadership and the content marketing that drives it.
Now, with a free version of our demand generation product a much larger percentage of marketers will begin to be exposed to the concepts we in the industry are well familiar with and constantly evangelizing. Oh by the way, they’ll be exposed to Genius.com or Loopfuse as the vendor capable of giving them the goods they need to get started. Yes, they’ll need education, but we believe that our seamless setup, intuitive UI, and the ability to track any activity, including social media through to revenue really really easily, they’ll be ramping up the learning curve sooner than later.
And, if you ask me how I feel that they may be using Genius.com as they take their baby steps and maybe stumble, I’ll tell you I like our chances. Yes, there are many great competitors out there, including Silverpop, but we’ve built our business in a different way, focusing on technology that is instant-on and easier to use than some vendors can imagine, and we’re confident this translates well to our free version.
Thanks
Scott Mersy
VP of Marketing
Genius.com
Great post Adam!
I agree that people and process are bigger barriers to success with marketing automation than price.
Success at generating a positive ROI with marketing automation, which is largely dependent on people and process, certainly trumps the price of the MA software itself.
Also, your included list of past posts on marketing automation is very helpful. Thanks for including that.
[...] 16, 2010 by Adam Needles On Friday I published a new post to the Silverpop Demand Generation (DG) blog — one that responded to the comment thread on Jep Castelein’s Lead Sloth post, [...]
If Marketing automation depend on people, processes and content, does it mean that organizational factor (people and processes)are the bigger obstacle?
[...] most powerful marketing automation platform, but we know that technology alone is not enough. As Adam recently commented on this blog, “Our challenge as B2B marketers building a best-in-class demand generation program …[is] our [...]
[...] Vs. People/Process Stagnation Gap in Modern B2B Demand Generation,” which I noted in one of my final posts on Silverpop’s blog. There is tremendous potential to leverage modern marketing technology and pressing need to [...]
[...] increasingly ‘get’ the key building blocks. They know – at least subconsciously – they need both process and technology (even if they don’t act on it). And a growing group understands that in order to do successful [...]
[...] know – and how they approach demand generation are to blame. People, process and content, as I noted in a past blog post. But it’s not their fault. Marketing practice developed over the last forty or fifty years [...]