Demand Creation Trends for 2010
As 2009 begins to wind down, most of us feel like we just need a breather. A breather from the breakneck pace of change over the last year. A breather from what at times seemed like a non-stop torrent of bad news. And a breather from feeling on many days like things were simply out of control. Planning season is a perfect time to take that breath, not only to reflect on what is now behind us, but more importantly to consider what is to come. In this post, I explore three core demand creation trends for 2010 that should be top of mind when key strategic discussions begin.
One: Proactive Waterfall Management
The rapid, steep decline in business over the last year has convinced most marketers that a role for their function throughout the demand waterfall – vs. only at its top – is anything but optional. In a growing number of organizations, sales is requesting help with pipeline acceleration, lead nurturing and account-based marketing (ABM), pinpoint programs that when put into place help organizations actively control waterfall performance rather than passively observe (and try to react to) the results that come out of it. Still hindering progress in many companies is the lack of common nomenclature around the types of ABM, pipeline acceleration and lead nurturing potentially at the disposal of an organization. Simply starting by understanding their options, sales and marketing can work together to determine which will address specific issues within the waterfall best, leaving others to be pursued at a later date.
Two: Automation Takes the Next Step
Though SiriusDecisions estimates only 8% to 12% of b-to-b organizations (up to 19% in the high technology space) have implemented a marketing automation platform (MAP), we do expect this number to grow to nearly 50% by 2015, fueled by an increasing number of options available as well as everexpanding functionality. Following recent briefings with a number of organizations within the MAP vendor community, we have honed in on some of the more interesting advances that will be driving the category in the near term. These include ties between social media monitoring tools and the MAP to capture and score these interactions; support for multiple scoring models (both by product and for individual prospects interested in multiple offerings); and greater predictive capabilities. For larger organizations that require it, the tighter integration of marketing resource management (MRM) functionality with the MAP adds a more robust layer of budgeting, planning and tracking. At this point, it remains troubling to us that a number of organizations that have purchased a MAP are still struggling to implement core functionality, including basic lead scoring, lead routing and portfolio marketing. With features being added regularly, these organizations risk being left far behind if they do not get help from external MAP partners, or bring in human resources that have implemented this functionality in other organizations.
Three: Measurement Missing Links
Despite all of the advances in b-to-b marketing technologies over the past 10 years, key areas of measurement that help field marketing, operations and the executive function make better tactical and resourcing decisions have been elusive. Lack of visibility into and connection with CRM/SFA systems; weaknesses in these systems that “credit” only the first or last touch with a prospect; and a weak (if any) closed loop are just three reasons why many marketers still feel like they are operating with one hand tied behind their back. Over the last 12 months, however, a growing number of marketers are finding ways to break through these barriers, typically using a combination of back-end manual processes and lighter-weight, desk-top-based business intelligence (BI) tools to do so. Though these processes help directionally, it is in the greater use of this next generation of BI by marketing operations and field marketing analysts in conjunction with sales operations that we believe the most actionable results will be generated.
For many, 2009 was frankly a year to forget. For those organizations that had put the right people, process and technology in place to drive systematic demand creation in place before the bottom fell out, however, it made all of us remember how best-in-class companies became what they are in the first place.
