#TTGTSummit | www.techtarget.com/ForMarketers © TechTarget Worldwide ROI Summit

Bill Crowley Senior Vice President, International @BillC3

Intelligence-driven marketing/sales for B2B technology

How can topic intelligence improve marketing/sales productivity > 30% - 50%

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● Marketing Impact - Get more qualified prospects per £/€ - Improve quality of prospects by engaging best

prospects with best angle, and steering away from competitor strengths

● Sales Impact - Prioritize inside reps’ efforts on highest potential

opportunities - Convert a higher percentage of target prospects to rep

conversations - Increase sales teams engagement with and belief in

the marketing team and online campaigns

Which data should we collect and act upon?

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● Describe your ideal prospect by - What they LOOK like? - What they ACT like?

● Test theory – Who is likely to have a baby in 3 months?

If you had 1€ to spend, which data would you collect and target on – B2C version

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Demographic Signal

Married in past 1-4 years

Many brothers and sisters

2 income family

30-40 years old

Behavioural Signal

Researched names on Babynames.co.uk

2 purchases from Baby section of

Amazon

Traded motorcycle for 4-door car

If you had 1€ to spend, which data would you collect and target on – Tech B2B version

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Demographic Signal

IT Manager

Financial Services

Lists himself as “decision-

maker”

Behavioural Signal

Visited your site

Asking relevant buying questions in forum

Member of a site named after your sector

(e.g. SearchVMware) with web activity in last

90 days

Where to prioritize collection of this signal

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● Internet - Your website and forums down to topic level - Topic focused publishers - Google searches, keywords

● Email results - Outbound and re-messaging emails

● Marketing automation tools

- Publisher emails, white paper downloads on key topics

● Internal systems, transactional data

Focusing on prospects with best “signal” will improve speed-to-pipeline

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Acting on a more focused set of prospects will let you deliver a more targeted message Based on their topic interest Aided by their demographic information

Better prioritize accounts for sales based on activity

Better data for reps to act upon

Builds credibility in sales/marketing communication

Topical interest “signal” identifies best prospects

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IT Pros

Networking active IT pros

Netwk mgmt

10G Ethernet

Network security

SDN

Last 90 days

Interest ID CTR Acq rate How much better?

General IT

.2% .15% -

Tech Grp .3% .2% 50% Tech sub-topic

.35% .25% 66%

ST - DE .8% .4% 200% ST- FR .4% .3% 100%

Source: TechTarget Internal

As prospects’ activity increase, targeted follow-up accelerates leads to pipeline

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Quality of signal CTR Message Quality Interest in sub-topic Not your product

.35% From TechTarget site, bundled with other topically-focused content

Lots of activity, including “decision-stage” content

.6% to 1.25% ITDeal Alert email from TT site, asking for them to discuss their project

Interest in sub-topic Demonstrated interest in your company

2% to 4% Mention WP download topic. Link to related content. Uses demographic info

Topical signal also applies to branding effectiveness

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Alignment quality

CTR

Tech site .05% - .08% TT site .15% - .25% TT topic alignment 1%

TT topic – extended to Web

.15% - .2%

Re-targeting visitors to vendor site

.2%

Prospect research happens in bursts. Timeliness of follow-up can make a difference

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Demand Engage

Unit

Timely follow up Re-engagemt Good email follow up 2-5% Assets listed inside WPs 20%

Project confirmed thru IT Deal Alert Qualified Opportunity

1 Storage E-Zine 6 Vendor White

Papers

14 Editorial Guides

IT Deal Alert™ Top 200 Account #55 from #426

28 IT Community PV

1 Vendor White Paper

25 Editorial Articles

1 Vendor Podcast

1 Storage E-Zine

Principles are clear, but this process can take a long time

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February

April June

July

Purchasing a backup solution within the next 3-6 months & requests vendor contact

Car manufacturer with backup project

Project research included >100 topic specific actions across multiple researchers at same company ● 29 editorial content

downloads ● 8 vendor content

downloads ● 49 editorial articles ● 20 social

interactions

24 Editorial Articles

Pattern of activity can look random

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Activities as marks of a project moving from research to decision

● New contact at an account - Account penetration

● Repeat engagement from a Contact - Critical Mass of Re-engagements

● Competitive content ● Rise in activity ● Decision making content

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Applying weight to certain actions makes some patterns more meaningful

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78% of marketers said data-driven branding increases acquisition & conversion

71% said it enables the delivery of more relevant messaging to more segmented audiences

68% say drives an increase in clicks & traffic generated

63% say it increases efficiency in media buying & planning

Source: BlueKai

First Party • CRM data • Activity

Patterns • Purchase

history • Account targets • Cross

pollination

Second Party • Look-a-likes

• TechTarget activity data

Joining data sources to increase impact is clear direction for marketing industry

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17% Increase in revenue per rep from effective use of sales intel1

9.3% higher quota achievement in orgs with mature lead gen & mgmt practice3

45% need help prioritizing accounts3

42% Feel don’t have right info before sales call4

Job isn’t done – must address facing sales + marketing + sales process gap

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…need better intelligence to sell

…benefit from mature lead generation & management

…want help to prioritize accounts within their territories

Sources: 1 Eloqua; 2 CSO Insights; 3 & 4 Lattice Engines and CSO Insights

Reps need intelligence to deliver new, expected level of customer, product knowledge

18 © TechTarget Source: McKinsey & Company

1 …interaction anywhere, anytime

2 … interactions delivering exceptional experiences

3 … personalization & targeting specific to needs

4 …easy interaction

Today’s Buyer

McKinsey & Co 4 key trends

ITDMs don’t want to interact with vendors as they once did

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ITDMs say they do not want phone calls until they are ready Do not tell the truth to “interrupted” interactions like cold calls/BANT calls

Need to move sales away from “names in a spreadsheet”

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Get actionable intelligence visible so reps can use their sales and product skills

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Provide activity to prioritize accounts

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Identify as much of the buying team as possible

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Look at the account – what signals do you see?

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Best reps use topical signal, product KX, assets over email to get to first productive call

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● 1 prospect viewed 3 awareness stage assets - Suggest Consideration

asset (reference architecture)

● Bank Prospect in LOB role - Link to FSI industry page

● IT Mgr, 1000+ employees - Repeatable deployment

WP - Find broader buying team -

Who is tech specialist? ● 3 prospects at same company

downloading data sheets - Suggest a meeting

● Old school – hit a meeting quota - Call 3 times - Message > Thanks for

interest in OUR COMPANY, are you available to talk sometime?

- Email subject- OUR Networking Solution ● “Thanks for your interest in

OUR COMPANY. I’m your account manager. Would you be available for a call?”

Process/role changes that are making a difference

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● Sales - Changed expectations about calls/day to touches/day - Sales managers raise the digital intelligence of reps,

especially how to effectively use content to build prospect relationships

- Focus on SalesForce as a dashboard of customer insight ● Marketers

- Take responsibility for regular inside sales training around campaigns, assets and information available

- Take full control over lead qualification/inside sales ops - Doing own weekly prioritization of accounts. Have

conversation with reps and Sales Mgrs on “what happened with this account”

Intersection of Activity Intelligence™ CRM & 3rd party intelligence

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Activity Intelligence™

3rd Party Intelligence

Customer Records

Intelligence-Enhanced Customer Record

Name Account

Activity Intelligence™

Contact

3rd Party Intelligence

TechTarget long term plan to give actionable information to sales reps and managers

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● First step was Activity Intelligence Dashboard ● Next step: IT Deal Alert: Account Watch - SalesForce

- Tell Marketers/Sales Managers what companies in France, Germany, UK are the most active Storage, Security, Data Center, Networking Accounts on the TechTarget network

- Show individual reps (in SalesForce) when one of their accounts has activity on a technology subject related to your products

Marketing stage takeaways

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● Pay attention to and record prospects’ interests and activities in some detail.

● These signals are worth organized action. - Regular re-messaging (email and banner/web) - Good focused site, niche event, another WP - Focus on those with the best “signal”

● Where research is happening, get as much of your content in front of the prospect

Working with sales

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● Give reps the data/signal that can make their attempts to engage more productive.

● LOTS of time explaining to reps/managers what the digital campaign is

● Discuss best way to engage and test the approaches ● Follow up with reps on accounts that seem like the most

likely to progress - More emphasis on activity signal / Less emphasis on Job

Title as a sign of good lead ● This is a multi-quarter, multi-year effort to progress your

marketing and sales process - If you don’t start now, you miss the opportunity to get better

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Questions?

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