Why?

In the tech industry and according to author Tom Grant, Ph.D, companies desire early commitment, due to the industry’s “voracious appetite for leads.” As Grant explains in his report, Tech Marketers Pursue Antiquated Marketing Strategies, the “high-speed innovation” rate drives a hyperfocus on product marketing and lead generation compared to other industries.

In fact, only 22 percent of marketers in the technology industry said that customer relationship management was one of the two most important priorities. Contrast that with 52 percent of marketers in non-tech companies. The focus is obviously on producing a measurable outcome that drives the product P&L: leads.

Developing a relationship with an audience takes time and resources, and it can be perceived as a distraction to the task of finding “ready to marry” prospects. This inward-out view of marketing ignores audience needs and assumes that all audiences are the same, and that all searches must indicate intent.

However, the key to driving demand and lead generation in today’s economy is not being more aggressive and pushing harder, but rather, taking time to develop and nurture relationships. Audiences, like dates, can sense desperation.  Perhaps the way to go faster is to slow down and shift the focal point from the conversion to the conversation.

We have long known that relevancy drives conversion and that conversion drives revenue. Getting to relevancy requires us to engage with the audience to understand their unique needs and motivations. As a result, our role changes from dictating to facilitating and understanding that it’s now on the buyer’s time frame, not ours.

New technologies such as Bizo enable us to know who the audience is at the first interaction. We also know where they’ve been for 30 days (who they’ve been dating, so to speak) before the conversion point, via Google Analytics’ new Multichannel Funnels.

We can serve up custom content through retargeting based on audience profiles, adapt for whatever device they are using, and deepen engagement by providing specific product or brand messages that align with their journey.

95% of prospects on your website are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep.” Source: 2011 MECLABS research

We no longer have to interrupt a buyer’s journey to gauge the interest level.   We no longer have to call a prospect to qualify him or her.  When a company offers something of value (i.e., relevant and personal), buyers are more likely to share their interests, desires and needs, but only if we listen, nurture and respect the relationship. According to Forrester, this intimate information is critical to creating real opportunity (leads) for the sales force.

In the Technology Buyer Insight Study, Forrester found that although tech has done a good job of equipping its sales force to discuss company products, it had failed to provide reps with insight into the buyer’s roles and responsibilities. Only 29 percent of CIOs said that sales reps could “relate to their role”; less than a quarter (24 percent) of business leaders said that reps were “knowledgeable about their business.”

Still too touchy-feely for you? Consider Harte Hanks’ report, Mapping the Technology Buyer’s Journey, which states that the relationship with the vendor is still a top five consideration driver. The first and second most important drivers are what you’d expect: (1) Meets all needs and (2) cost.

Competitors can match your price, but they can’t necessarily match your understanding of the buyer’s need or the relationship developed through that journey.

by Scott Gillum

President, gyro Washington, D.C. and

Head of gyro’s Channel Marketing Practice

Cross-posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

You can follow Scott Gillum on Twitter @SGillum

It’s a good question.

But it’s one I’d answer with a “why wouldn’t you want to listen?”

After all, a lot of time, money and effort is dedicated to trying to figure out exactly what customers want. Companies spend millions of dollars in customer research to influence product formulations, tweak service offerings and get a leg up on competitors.

Social media offers an inexpensive, quick way of gathering marketing insight. You can keep tabs on customer needs, wants and concerns. You can get an intimate view of how competitors are connecting with customers. And you can check out the influencers who give your brand a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down.”

Perhaps more important is the key reason to listen: Social media is a conversation. It’s not a presentation. It’s not a broadcast channel. Why? Because there’s never been a medium that so easily and quickly allows your intended audience to tune you out … if you make it all about you.

Before you engage in social media, you should listen. Check out the social media channels where your industry is being discussed. Learn the vernacular: You may call it the “KR9M945-2E55,” but your customers and prospects call it just “the turbo.” Additionally, you may think that the most important venue is your favorite one to engage, but after you listen, you learn that no substantial conversations are occurring there.

It’s just like a conversation that you have in any other venue. You don’t immediately walk into the room and start screaming your message. You don’t go on and on about yourself the whole time without finding out what’s important to your friends, colleagues or family members. It’s listening and engaging that make these social situations rewarding.

Listening is a skill we learned at an early age. And it’s a skill we should embrace in the corporate world when engaging in social media (engaging being the operative word).

by Denise Suttman
Senior Vice President – Public Relations

Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Keeping your customers means keeping them engaged: having them present, involving them, rewarding them, letting them feel how important they are to your brand.

In many ways, it’s not unlike the romantic idea keeping your spouse or partner happy and more and more in love with you. But face it, personal relationships really don’t work that way. We follow our heart, and there is not always logic or reason behind the choices we make.

In purchasing decisions,consumers want logic. They want rational justifications for the choices they make. With this inclination toward logic, logic, logic we need an incentive to get the heart involved.

Gimmicks might work (more or less) to get your brand into the consumers’ minds when they’re regularly in the purchase funnel. That can move them along the path to consideration and purchase.

But that’s just not enough in the over stimulated world we are living in. To be relevant amid the torrent of information and noise your customer is subjected to every day we need to get to the heart.

Consumers have choices. And they choose brands not only because of the image or the prestige the brand might represent or simply because they can afford it. In the long term, it’s because of the lasting relationship they have with the brand.

They feel it.

That is loyalty, and the way you earn it is by rewarding your customer simply because he or she is your customer.

by Ana Garcia-Hierro
General Manager, gyro Madrid

Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

For me, this came clearly into focus last week with one of our largest clients. Summoned to a meeting with the ominous title of ‘Marketing Efficiencies’ we braced ourselves for a tough conversation and, armed with our best calculators and serious faces, expected to be asked to make happen the marketing equivalent of ‘feeding the five thousand’.

Indeed, we learnt that ATL budgets had been cut and the new advertising push was on hold, but to our surprise the savings weren’t to be put back on the bottom line but re-directed into lead generation and CRM – our area.

Surprising though such decisions are in the current climate, it’s neither a radical or brave move – the facts speak for themselves, this area of marketing ticks the boxes that all companies need ticking right now: it helps to retain and extract value from the precious customers they already have, finds new sales opportunities and – when done properly – pays for itself many times over.

Arbitrary, unilateral cuts to marketing spend don’t take in the whole picture. They are short term-ist and based upon a misperception that marketing is an indulgence. The companies that know this are instead switching spend to harder working channels. Cutting out the chocolate biscuits and the lavish, sugar coated blockbuster TV ads shot in far 
off glamorous locations and replacing them with more targeted programmes designed to retain customers, drive demand and sell product. Bring it on I say…

Chris Hare
Client Services Director
GyroHSR London