digital marketing for smbs

Digital Marketing for SMBs

Atri Chatterjee

Agenda

• A macro view into marketing at SMBs

• What differentiates the top performers?

• Three illustrative case studies

• Ideas for getting started

Some New Research By Act-On

• What– Study of small and mid-sized businesses

conducted by Act-On and Forrester– Survey done in August and early

September 2012; results still preliminary

• Who– 206 companies in North America– Between 50 and 2,500 employees– B-to-B and B-to-B-to-C

• Why– To understand how SMBs are marketing

online– See if any differences between top

performers & the rest

50 to 249 employees

48%

250 to 499 em-ployees

16%

500 to 999 employees

14%

1,000 to 2,499

employ-ees22%

Executive 1% Head of

Marketing17%

Senior manager in marketing

37%

Manager of marketing

45%

Top Performers, At Plan & Laggards

Above Plan; 35%

At or close to Plan; 45%

Below Plan; 20% Top Performers

Laggards

Total respondents = 206

Impact of the Economy on Marketing

How has the economic slowdown affected your approach to marketing?

Other

Increased marketing staff

Decreased market-ing staff

Increased marketing efforts/budgets/ ex-

penses

Kept marketing budget/expenses

unchanged

Reduced marketing budget/expenses

0%

8%

10%

24%

35%

36%

Total respondents = 206

Amount Spent on Marketing Programs

Less than 2%

2% to 4%

5% to 6%

7% to 8%

9% to 10%

More than 10%

Don't know

32%

25%

16%

10%

5%

5%

8%

Total respondents = 206

Marketing Challenges Faced

We don’t have any challenges

Other, please specify

Decrease customer acquisition cost

Sorting the junk from the quality in our inbound leads

Generating net new on-target leads

Shortening amount of time from lead-to-revenue

Driving more traffic to our website

Visibility/Awareness

Closing more deals from existing lead flows

Differentiating from competition

Increasing sales from existing customers

Converting more leads into opportunities

1%

1%

8%

11%

21%

21%

22%

32%

33%

33%

39%

41%

Total (n=206)

What are your biggest marketing challenges right now?

Level of Relevant Technology Use

Customer Relationship Man-agement (CRM) (e.g. Microsoft

Dynamics, Salesforce.com)

Marketing and lead man-agement automation (e.g. Act-On, Marketo, Pardot)

19%

41%

13%

28%

12%

12%

16%

5%

24%

9%

16%

5%

Not yet interested Interested, but no plans

Actively evaluating and planning to implement within the next year Implemented, re-evaluating, have not met goals/are not happy

Implemented, we have met our goals/ are happy Expanding / upgrading implementation

CRM & Marketing Automation

SME Marketers Underestimate Use of Social

• You said that you are not interested in using social media for marketing. Which of the following statements apply to you?

We don't know how to integrate social mar-

keting into our market-ing mix

Other, please specify

Using social media would be too time-consuming for our

staff

The impact of social marketing is too hard

to measure

Our target buyer is not engaged with social media for

business

0%

9%

17%

17%

81%

Total (n=47)

B2B Buyers are already way more active socially that B2 marketers realize.

Almost 23% of respondents said they were not interested in using social for marketing

Business People are Active on Social

86%Engage

in social activity while working.

32%Are

content creators

Base: 645 IT decision-makers at firms with 100 or more employees in the US and Western EuropeSource: Q1 2011 US And European B2B Social Technographics® Online Survey For Business Technology Buyers*Source: North American Technographics® Online Benchmark Survey, Q2 2010 (US)

55% Cite online communities and forums

as influencers on their decisions

Agenda

• A macro view into marketing at SMBs

• What differentiates the top performers?

• Three illustrative case studies

• Ideas for getting started

Top Performers Invest More

Category Top Performers LaggardsOver 5% of revenue invested in marketing programs

40% 25%

Maintained or increased marketing budget even after economic slow down

62% 42%

Top Performers Are Faster Technology Adopters

Top Per-formers

At Plan

Laggards

71%

18%

14%

Have you currently implemented or actively evaluating marketing automation software ?

Top Performers Use Active Techniques

Category Top Performers Laggards

Email marketing 66% 52%

Webinars 62% 57%

Seminars 59% 45%

Active Techniques

Passive Techniques

Category Top Performers Laggards

Content 55% 68%

Website 55% 61%

Newsletters 41% 55%

Source = Forrester Research Act-On webinar presented April 2012

Top Performers are More Deliberate

Attribute Top Performers who measure

Laggards who measure

Cost per qualified lead 31% 17%

Qualified lead over time 32% 17%

Sales accepted leads 32% 20%

They measure more...

They nurture more...Attribute Top Performers Laggards

Nurture leads for less than 1 month before giving to sales

33% 43%

Nurture leads for 1-3 months before giving to sales

56% 32%

Agenda

• A macro view into marketing at SMBs

• What differentiates the top performers?

• Three illustrative case studies

• Ideas for getting started

On24 – Sales integration of Email & Social

• The Company– Platform for webcasting and virtual events– Over 750 customers across many verticals

• The Challenge– A need for better sales

communication with prospects

– Single integrated system across marketing and sales

Email & Social integrated with CRM

• Email– Personalized high quality

email from within CRM system

– No learning curve for sales

• Social – Twitter– Listen and engage on twitter– Find sales ready leads based

on Twitter engagement

• Hot Prospects– Sales tracks prospects in real-

time based on their activity

• Results– Leads up 100%– Opportunities up 25%

Progressive Insurance -- Webinars

• The Company– Large insurance company in business since 1937– Annual premiums over $15B– Sells through 30K independent insurance agents

• The Challenge– Need to provide timely

information to agents– Webinars logistics were

time consuming– Actionable webinar

metrics were needed

Optimizing Webinars

• Webinar Management– Webinar setup with automated

invitations and reminders

• Sophisticated Engagement– Segmentation based on webinar

activity– Customized calls to action based

on behavior

• Results– Automated administration of

events 10x increase in events– Segmentation and scoring has

increased quality of interaction with agents

HA Advantage – Emphasis on Metrics

• The Company– Logistics technology for “Less Than Truckload” LTL shipping– Customers are operations, shipping and logistics personnel in

companies; secondary customers are finance– Revenue of $16M in 2011; growing at 100% per year

• The Marketing Challenge– High quality leads– Quick deployment– Metrics to improve

HA Advantage Confidential 22

Use Metrics to Constantly Improve

• Open rates + Click through rates helped to fine tune messaging early– Segmentation helped really understand their

buying audience– Example: Finance segment performance very low

with “shipping” message; higher with “profit/margin” messaging

HA Advantage Confidential 23

Data Helped Challenge Popular Wisdom

• One offer, one call to action– But what about a complex B2B sales cycle?– Many participants in sale – different needs and

interests• Alignment with objectives

– Increase CTR, drive lead scores

HA Advantage Confidential 24

What version wins?

1 link

17 links

CTR: 20.8% CTR: 48.2%

Agenda

• A macro view into marketing at SMBs

• What differentiates the top performers?

• Three illustrative case studies

• Ideas for getting started

1. Create a strategy

2. Start the dialogue within your team

3. Start small – don’t get overwhelmed

4. Measure and refine

5. Continue to streamline processes with tools

Getting Started

We Can Help…

• Contact me: atri@act-on.net• Call: 1 (877) 530-1555 or email us: sales@act-on.com• Twitter: @actonsoftware