B2B marketers are becoming increasingly focused on targeting activity to key decision makers, such as board directors or heads of department, according to new research by B2B Marketing in association with telemarketing agency Quantum TM. Seventy seven per cent of respondents said their focus on specific decision makers had increased during the previous 12 months, whilst 84 per cent predict it will increase in the coming year.
The MD and marketing director (predictably) were the two most popular decision makers targeted by respondents, with chairman, sales director and HR director the least popular.
Surprisingly, telemarketing was found to be the most effective medium for targeting key business decision makers, ahead of DM, email and events (see figure 2). Telemarketing attracted the second biggest investment by B2B brands in terms of targeting key decision makers (see figure 1).
Ironically, the effectiveness of telemarketing for this objective is not matched by its popularity, with just over half of respondents actually using it for this purpose, compared to 70 per cent using DM.
However, the effectiveness of telemarketing as a means of accessing this hard-to-reach audience suggests that either the Corporate Telephone Preference Service is, in practice, having little effect on companies’ ability to reach senior decision makers, or that companies are flagrantly flouting the rules.
Intriguingly, the survey revealed that B2B marketers are ignoring some of the more sophisticated targeting mechanisms available, including data variable print (DVP) and personalised landing pages on websites, despite the hype that has long surrounded them.
Forty per cent of respondents had ‘never’ used DVP techniques to personalise their mailings. Only 17 per cent said that they ‘always’ use DVP for campaigns, whilst 44 per cent said that they used it ‘sometimes’.
However, this lack of faith may be the result of experience when expectations were not met: of those respondents who had used DVP, only 14 per cent described it as ‘extremely effective’, whilst 37 per cent said it was ‘no more effective than non-variably printed DM’.
With regards to personalised landing pages, 35 per cent have never used them and only nine per cent use them ‘always’. In terms of effectiveness, almost one third described them as ‘no more effective than general websites’.
It seems that the enthusiasm for the potential of these techniques may be overshadowing reality and that they are not the panacea that they are often touted as.
However, it is not just the newer techniques that B2B marketers are ignoring when it comes to targeting key decision makers. Over one quarter of respondents never conduct research into their target audience, whilst only 14 per cent use research ‘regularly’.
The survey also examined the extent to which B2B brands were seeking to target ‘influencers’; i.e. those within an organisation without final purchasing decision, but with the power to influence. Over 90 per cent of respondents said that the impact on influencers was considered when designing campaigns for decision makers.
The most popular influencer group was ‘other directors or senior decision makers’, cited by 55 per cent, which is logical given their status within the organisation. ‘Team members within specific departments’, meanwhile, was cited by 35 per cent, whilst secretaries or PAs were only the focus of marketing activity for three per cent of organisations. This was reinforced by the fact that ‘gatekeepers’ (as they are sometimes called) were found to be the single biggest obstacle when targeting decision makers, cited by 39 per cent of respondents, ahead even of ‘availability of data’ (29 per cent) and ‘accuracy of records’ (15 per cent).
Of those B2B marketers who do use market research, a significant majority (60 per cent) spend less than five per cent of their overall marketing budget on it. All but seven per cent spend under 10 per cent.
Over one-third of respondents spend less than £1 per mail piece on DM to target key decision makers.
An approximate further third spend £1-2 per mailer, with the remainder spending at least £2.
The cost-per-mailer for non-decision makers is generally much lower, predictably, with 62 per cent spending less than £1 per mailer.
Forty per cent of DM campaigns to decision makers get a response rate of under two per cent, whilst only 14 per cent generate a response rate of five per cent.
