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It used to be that B2B software companies would develop their marketing strategy around buying advertisements in specific trade magazines or publications, creating a small budget for Google AdWords, and building a sufficient, if not fancy, website. Beyond that, most additional marketing channels were viewed as experimental or an unnecessary use of resources. The problem with that approach is that a single channel strategy is far too simplistic for B2B technology companies, which tend to sell sophisticated products to very complex segments. That’s why today, B2B marketing is multi-channel marketing. Growing businesses have a huge array of marketing channels at their disposal. From websites, billboards, and blogs, to print ads, brochures, and even skywriting, the options are seemingly limitless. Of course, unless you choose the right marketing channels — the ones that influence your customers most — you risk never truly engaging your audience in the right places. Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels provides a high-level overview of a marketing channel selection process for expansion-stage companies. It is intended for senior executives and project managers who, after reading the eBook, will be able to make sense of the wide and complex range of marketing channels that help bring their message to their customers and pinpoint the ones that are most effective at engaging those customers. Those insights will allow your company to strike the right mix of marketing channels and optimize your marketing dollars so that they have maximum impact. Other benefits of identifying and prioritizing marketing channels, include: - Helping to develop finely tuned annual marketing plans - Improving tracking and benchmarking - Gaining insights into competitors’ marketing strategies - Knowing who to hire for future needs - Setting more realistic goals As the eBook explains, it’s ultimately not a question of whether your B2B company should be incorporating multiple marketing channels to reach your customers effectively. Rather, the questions that need to be addressed are which channels provide your business the best opportunity for customer engagement and acquisition, and how many should you be using.
Citation preview
Table of Contents
Foreword .............................................................................................................................. 1
Chapter 1: The What and Why of B2B Marketing Channels ....................................................... 2
What Qualifies as a Marketing Channel? .........................................................................................3
The Business Benefits of Marketing Channel Discovery and Prioritization ..........................................4
A Quick Look at the Key Players in the Process ...............................................................................5
Understanding the Prerequisites of Marketing Channel Research .....................................................7
Chapter 2: Discovering a Universe of Marketing Channels ........................................................ 8
Narrowing Your Marketing Channel Focus through Preliminary Research ...........................................9
Preliminary Research Techniques ...........................................................................................10
Identifying and Grouping Keywords for Web-based Channel Research .............................................11
Generating Keyword Combinations for Online Research ............................................................13
Generating Hashtags and Short Forms for Your Most Common Keywords ....................................13
Grouping Keywords into Applicable Themes ............................................................................14
Performing Online Research to Build a List of Prospective Marketing Channels ................................15
Building the Data Collection Plan ..........................................................................................15
Executing a Web-based Research Process ...............................................................................16
Removing Junk Data and Channel Duplication ........................................................................18
Qualifying Marketing Channels by Type, Thematic Relevance, Quality, and Feasibility .......................18
Content Quality and Relevance ..............................................................................................20
Channel Feasibility ...............................................................................................................21
Chapter 3: Prioritizing Marketing Channels and Optimizing Your Marketing Plan ....................... 22
Identifying Marketing Channel Prioritization Factors and Relevant Metrics .......................................22
Prioritization Across Different Types of Marketing Channels............................................................23
Defining and Managing the Prioritization Data Collection Process ..................................................24
Establishing a Backup Plan to Address Unanticipated Gaps in Prioritization Data ............................24
Applying the Prioritization Scheme to Qualified Marketing Channels ...............................................26
Gathering and Incorporating Feedback .........................................................................................27
End Note ........................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 32
Marketing Channel Types ............................................................................................................32
Typical Marketing Channel Prioritization Metrics ...........................................................................37
Additional Resources .................................................................................................................41
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 1
ForewordFor much of its 100-year history, outdoor recreation retailer L.L. Bean relied on a straightforward and simple
marketing strategy. The company would send out thick, glossy mail-order catalogs to its best customers and rely on
word-of-mouth or customer referrals to drive new customer acquisition. Outside of that, the Maine-based business did
little else to market itself. Because, well, it didn’t need to.
Then, about 10 years ago, things changed. L.L. Bean CEO Chris McCormick realized that the company’s single-channel
marketing strategy was no longer sufficient. As McCormick told an industry publication at the time, L.L. Bean’s catalog
was beginning to cause customer fatigue and brand apathy. Meanwhile, the company’s primary competitors were actively
engaging the same customer segment through a variety of more recent online marketing channels.
So, McCormick and L.L. Bean’s executive team did what the best companies always do: They reinvented the company’s
marketing strategy. Today, as L.L. Bean attempts to target younger and more mobile consumers, the business is investing
heavily in social media networks like Facebook and YouTube, and it has hired a team of 10 employees dedicated to
those social channels. The company is also leveraging traditional broadcast media by airing television commercials and
publishing magazine ads.
Interesting story, right? But why does any of that matter to growth-stage B2B technology companies? It’s simple, really.
Because it illustrates one company’s recognition that marketing has evolved. While a single channel marketing strategy
might have been effective 20 years ago, it’s not enough anymore.
Businesses today — especially expansion-stage B2B technology companies in competitive markets — must be able
to identify the channels that influence their customers the most. They must dedicate an appropriate amount of their
marketing resources to reach them effectively. If they fail to do that, then scaling technology businesses stand very
little chance of capturing their market’s attention.
OpenView’s eBook, “Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels,” can
help. In the following pages, you’ll find detailed marketing channel definitions, a well-summarized list of multi-channel
marketing business benefits, and a step-by-step process. It’ll bring your company up to speed. But more than that, it will
help you to begin engaging the right customers in the right places.
Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Co-author, Content Rules (Wiley) (now in paperback – spring 2012)
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 2
Chapter 1: The What and Why of B2B Marketing Channels
The average marketing strategy for a startup or growing B2B software company used to be fairly straightforward.
It might involve buying advertisements in specific trade magazines or publications, creating a small budget for
Google AdWords, and building a sufficient, if not fancy, website. Beyond that, most additional marketing chan-
nels were viewed as experimental or an unnecessary use of precious resources.
In many ways, that strategy closely resembled the tactics that much
larger B2C businesses have long relied on: using one primary medium
(e.g., direct mail catalogs) and one or two sub-channels (e.g., pay-per-
click ads or e-mail newsletters) to reach very specific buyer personas.
The problem with that approach is that a single channel strategy is far too
simplistic for B2B technology companies, which tend to sell sophisticated
products to very complex market segments.
Today, B2B marketing is multi-channel marketing and growing businesses
should be tapping into an ever expanding universe of online marketing
channels, including social media, interactive assessments, and virtual
events, to better target their customers. Of course, the range of options
can be burdensome, especially for companies that lack the budget and
staff to experiment with each of them.
However, that doesn’t excuse smaller B2B companies from having to
research and identify the marketing channels that are most appropri-
ate for their business goals. In fact, because of the complexity of their
products, the sophistication of their customers, and, in most cases, the
competition in their markets, it’s more important than ever for those
companies to leverage multiple channels to engage their target customer
segments.
“It’s shocking just how much time
and money companies spend
promoting their products and
services without ever truly
understanding their customers or
prospects. If you don’t know who
you’re trying to convince, what those people need to
hear to be convinced, and what channels you need to
use to reach them, your message is never going to get
across. This eBook advocates the same principles that
we use at Influencer50: understand your customer’s
approach to buying or adopting new providers and
suppliers as well as what affects their choices,
prioritize opportunities, and measure the effectiveness
of your approach to market. It’s shocking, and
completely illogical, how few organizations plan their
marketing outreach around these basic common sense
building blocks.”
Nick Hayes President, Influencer50, Inc.
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 3
So, how exactly do you identify which channels are right for your business? And how many channels should you be using at a time?
“Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels” provides a high-level overview of
one channel selection process — there are certainly others — that OpenView has had great success using. It is intended for
senior executives and project managers who, after reading this, will be able to make sense of the wide and complex range
of marketing mediums that help bring their message to their customers and pinpoint the marketing channels that are most
effective at engaging those customers. Ultimately, those insights will allow your company to strike the right channel mix and
optimize your marketing dollars so that they have maximum impact.
WHAT QUALIFIES AS A MARKETING CHANNEL?
Marketing channels are specific conduits through which a company’s message can reach
its target prospects. Channels can include people, events, and organizations, provided
those outlets offer a medium for connecting a business with its customers and prospects.
The beauty for growing B2B businesses is that effective marketing channels now stretch
well beyond the confining — and often expensive — boundaries of traditional advertising.
Simply put, marketing can occur across a large array of mediums, though not all of them
are appropriate for your business. To avoid confusion, it’s important for your business to
categorize its best marketing channels by media and content types, as well as market
focus and coverage. Doing so will make the discovery and prioritization process much
simpler and ensure that the right messages are being delivered to the right audience.
For the purpose of this eBook, keep the following four specific categories
of marketing channels in mind:
Product-specific
Marketing channels that are relevant to your product’s direct market, which include mediums where
that product — or similar competing products — are normally advertised, reviewed, or discussed.
Product-specific marketing channels are most suitable for targeted demand generation campaigns.
There are hundreds of
different types of marketing
channels, some of the most
common used today being:
} Word of Mouth
} Partner Marketing
} User Groups
} Social Media
} Influencers
(See page 32 in Appendix for a representative list)
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 4
Competitor
Marketing channels where your competitors are not only present, but also active. Applicable chan-
nels include those used directly or indirectly by competitors to advertise, sell, or promote their prod-
ucts, along with channels that frequently mention or review competing solutions. There are various
types of competitors (including direct pure play competitors, direct non-pure play competitors, and
substitutes), all of which are germane to this category.
Behavioral
Marketing channels that are relevant to a customer’s buying behavior (i.e., his or her pain points,
thoughts, intentions, trusted sources and advisors, and buying preferences both online and off).
For example, you might include online communities frequented by your target prospects as well as
the active experts in those communities whose recommendations influence buyer behaviors.
Industry
Marketing channels that are used by the industry as a whole. In other words, the mediums that your
industry’s buyers, vendors, partners, analysts, and journalists use to exchange pertinent information.
Typically, this group covers a broader range of topics and content than the previous categories and is
particularly useful for general market presence and brand-building efforts.
THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF MARKETING CHANNEL DISCOVERY AND PRIORITIZATION
Like any marketing initiative, senior executives want to know how a B2B marketing channel process will impact the bottom
line and what value it will bring in return. While it might be difficult to derive a quantitative return on investment overnight,
the marketing channel discovery and prioritization process can help optimize your company’s marketing spend over both the
short and long term.
As most marketers know, doing so will impact sales and marketing operations almost immediately, fueling better departmental
efficiency and performance — not to mention better market focus — for quarters if not years to come. Some of the other
benefits of conducting a marketing channel discovery and prioritization exercise include:
Helping develop finely tuned annual marketing plans: Most marketing managers suffer through a rigorous annual
guessing game that requires them to predict which conferences they should attend, which analysts they need to engage, and
how much money they will need to do their jobs. By executing a marketing channel discovery and prioritization process, they
can more accurately project those plans and better support them with key data.
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 5
Improving tracking and benchmarking: Once marketing managers have well-defined and prioritized lists of marketing
channels, they can review their performance against those channels and continuously optimize that list accordingly.
Gaining insights into competitors’ marketing strategies: Through the channel discovery process, companies can gain
critical competitive insights into which channels their greatest competitors — especially the ones with similar marketing budgets
— use most.
Knowing who to hire for future needs: If a marketing manager knows that her business’s top online channel is influenc-
ers, she can plan ahead to hire people with the skill sets (public relations and social media, for example) that are best suited
for utilizing that channel.
Setting more realistic goals: With the data derived from the marketing channel discovery process, a marketing team can
set realistic goals that align with a particular channel’s actual opportunities. In turn, marketers can avoid the pitfall of setting
overly ambitious goals that cannot possibly be achieved with the channel they plan to use.
If your business is struggling to gain traction in an increasingly competitive market, each of these five benefits could have a sig-
nificant long-term impact on the development of your business’s marketing strategy. It is important to note that there are other
ancillary benefits that we will not cover in this eBook.
A QUICK LOOK AT THE KEY PLAYERS IN THE PROCESS
Gathering and prioritizing marketing channel data is not a one-person job. It requires significant
effort from several people in your marketing organization, with the key roles falling into three
specific categories:
Typically the VP of marketing or your company’s most senior marketer, the project sponsor is responsible for owning and over-
seeing the entire marketing channel discovery and prioritization process. He or she is responsible for directing the scope and
goals of the project, along with securing company-wide agreement on the research methodology and the ultimate utilization of
the project’s outputs. Specifically, the project sponsor:
Project Sponsor
2Defines the marketing channel prioritization criteria 3
Reviews and vets the prioritization of the marketing channels 4
Incorporates the results into the marketing plan1
Defines and plans the project
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 6
Generally a marketing manager with deep knowledge of the target market segment, the market research analyst’s responsibili-
ties include executing the research and analysis steps necessary to guide the project, and ensuring the reliability and accuracy
of the initiative’s data outputs. Specifically, the market research analyst:
Market Research Analyst
10Organizes and presents the results and incorporates stakeholder feedback
7Defines and manages research efforts to collect prioritization data on marketing channels based on the prioritization criteria
1 Collects target market definition inputs
4Groups keywords into applicable themes
5Defines and manages online research to collect a comprehensive list of potential marketing channels and associated qualification data
8Defines alternative metrics or prioritization strategies to address any unanticipated lack of prioritization data
9Applies the prioritization scheme to prioritize qualified marketing channels
6Qualifies candidate marketing channels by marketing channel type, thematic relevance, and marketing channel quality
2Executes preliminary research to establish the focus of the research efforts (content topics, marketing channels)
3Defines relevant keywords
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 7
The project’s worker bees, the data collection team might include junior-level marketing associates or marketing interns. The team’s responsibility is to carry out the bulk of the data collection and entry processes under the oversight of the market research analyst. Specifically, the data collection team:
It bears repeating that a project of this magnitude should not be left to one or two marketing associates. To be truly impactful, it requires collaboration at both the senior executive and team levels to ensure focus, accuracy, and efficiency. If your VP of marketing does not have the time to sponsor the project or you lack the lower-level team members necessary to assemble a data collection team, wait until you are better prepared before starting.
The reality is that like any strategic marketing initiative, marketing channel research requires businesses to set aside almost as much time for preparation as they do for execution. Before engaging in any of the actual channel discov-ery and prioritization steps, it is critical to examine your market (see sidebar) and identify the universe of potential channels available to your company.
Assembling the right team is critical, too. By identifying the right individu-als for each of the three roles above, it will be far easier to delegate the specific channel discovery and prioritization tasks covered in the remainder of this eBook.
Data Collection
Team
1Carries out online research to compile a comprehensive list of marketing channel candidate URLs
3Collects prioritization data or proxy prioritization data for each qualified marketing channel
2Eliminates duplications and reviews the resulting URLs to remove irrelevant websites and low-quality content sites
4Collects additional information on selected marketing channels to support the implementation process
At the highest level, marketing channel research
requires some basic — but key — pieces of informa-
tion, including definitions of project objectives and
outputs, both of which drive the discovery and prioriti-
zation process and, ultimately, define its success.
Additionally, it is extremely important to execute some
form of market segmentation research before engaging
in this process. Doing so will arm your business with:
} A strong sense of what your ideal buyers look like
} An understanding of the common pain points your targets share
} A comprehensive view of why a particular market segment might be interested in your product
Ultimately, if your effort is not focused on a defined
market segment or product, then the prioritization
process will lead to a faulty apples-to-oranges analysis.
And that, as most marketing managers know, often
does more harm than good.
Lastly, it is critical to set marketing channel goals that
are comprehensive, without being overly sophisticated
and cumbersome. Expansion-stage businesses should
limit themselves to three channel categories and two
or three subtypes within each category. Any more than
that and they risk overwhelming their teams and dilut-
ing their results.
UNDERSTANDING THE PREREQUISITES OF MARKETING CHANNEL RESEARCH
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 8
Chapter 2: Discovering a Universe of Marketing Channels
The Holy Grail of marketing is being able to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. The marketing
channel discovery and prioritization process allows marketers to work toward that goal in many ways, pinpointing the mediums
to best connect with and influence their company’s most important customers and prospects.
As such, understanding your audience is a critical component of market channel research. Before going any further, it is impor-
tant to ensure that you can define the following market components for your company:
Your target market segment: The specific, homogenous subgroup of prospects
you are targeting with your sales and marketing strategies
Your buyer personas: The personal and professional characteristics that define
and distinguish the buyers in your target market segment
Your product value propositions: Messages that explain why your particular
product or service benefits — or adds value to — a specific group of prospects
The competitive landscape you are in: A picture of direct and indirect competi-
tors in your target market segment
Your product ecosystem: The players and products in your target market that
directly or indirectly relate to your target market segment
Understanding these five market components is very important for a couple of reasons. First,
if your target market is too narrowly defined, the discovery process will be equally limited. Con-
versely, if you define your target market too vaguely, you might fail to truly understand your buyer
persona’s specific needs and the direct competitors that stand in your way. Ultimately, that
could lead you to include marketing channels in the prioritization process that are too broad or
inappropriate for smaller, more targeted market segments.
“There are
hundreds of
different
marketing
channels that
you can use to
deliver your message to customers
and prospects. Knowing which
channels to use to deliver that
message, however, will make all
of the difference in terms of if
and how it is received. Fail to use
the right channel, and you
dramatically reduce your chances
of being heard.”
Tien Anh Nguyen Senior Associate, OpenView Venture Partners
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 9
Once you’ve gained clarity on each of these market components, you will be ready to execute the bulk of the marketing chan-
nel discovery and prioritization process that is covered in this chapter. The next several pages cover the multi-step research and
channel qualification process that will help your team build a list of highly qualified potential marketing channels and organize
them by relevance, feasibility, and impact. In Chapter 3, we detail the channel prioritization process that allows you to narrow
your prospective channel list so that it only contains the ones that make the most sense for your business.
After reading the four-step process in this chapter, you will be prepared to conduct your own marketing channel discovery
exercise. Armed with that knowledge, you can adjust your marketing efforts and begin to connect with your ideal customers in a
much more meaningful way.
Narrowing Your Marketing Channel Focus through Preliminary Research
Before the marketing channel discovery process can begin in earnest, businesses need to conduct preliminary
research to help them develop a set of intermediate outputs that will eventually be used in guiding the project’s
full-scale research effort. The goal of the preliminary research process is to define the following:
The most important marketing channel types for your company: Typically, this will include at least five types
of channels as well as a document that details the evidence gathered to support their selection.
The topical themes that are most relevant to the buyers in your product market: Every market has a unique
set of topics that matter most to its buyers. Those topics can typically be grouped into three general content themes:
product features and technical benefits, general industry topics, and behavioral and personal benefits. The marketing
channel discovery process will help tighten the scope of topics that are most relevant to your target customers, ulti-
mately allowing you to better inform the channel prioritization process.
Step
1
Discovery Channel: A Guide to Identifying and Prioritizing Optimal Marketing Channels | 10
Preliminary Research Techniques
There are numerous tactics your business can use to acquire these intermediate marketing channel discovery outputs. Below,
we explore four relatively simple activities that, while not comprehensive or overly methodological, will help you better understand
your target market segment, its unique needs, and the channels that its prospects rely on most frequently to gather information.
Internal interviews: Polling customer-facing team members is
a fantastic way to obtain market information. This group might
include marketing managers, sales representatives, customer ser-
vice associates, and professional consultants. The interviews should
be short, with questions that address distinct customer types, the
channels they are exposed to, and the topics they are interested in.
External interviews: Conducting similar interviews with a small
set of customers or market experts can both validate the informa-
tion you gleaned from your team members and provide additional
insight into channel usage. Limit surveys or interviews to four or
five questions, focusing on the ones that reveal where customers
go for industry information (i.e., specific blogs, experts, or publica-
tions), how credible they think those sources are, and which medi-
ums tend to influence their purchasing decisions the most.
Online surveys: Executing a simple online survey can help
broaden the scope and diversity of research input. Use a simple
tool like Instant.ly, Survey Builder, or SurveyMonkey to develop a
short questionnaire and deliver it to prospects in a specific market
segment. Include questions similar to the ones you ask in internal
and external interviews, and use a mix of open-ended and multiple-
choice queries.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Here are some sample questions that you might consider asking in interviews and online surveys.
Multiple-choice questions:How often do you read industry publications
per week?
Never
Fewer than 5 times
5 to 10 times
More than 10 times
Where do you go for information on the latest technology in your industry? Please select all that apply.
Industry experts
Industry conferences
Trusted vendors
Open-ended questions:
Which vendors in your industry have the best marketing and why?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
1.
2.
3.