B2B leaders may be under pressure to drive revenue, but corporate vanity still has the potential to influence marketing spend. That’s one of the revelations from a roundtable of senior B2B marketers, hosted by Joel Harrison, editor-in-chief at B2B Marketing
Brand versus demand: it’s the eternal conflict for B2B marketers. The sales team and the CEO are screaming for high quality leads in order to drive revenue. But as any good marketer knows, without a strong, consistent and well-communicated brand, their organisation will not even get considered, let alone reach the shortlist.
So how do senior marketers resolve this struggle? How do they retain focus on one, without losing the effectiveness of the other? This was the focus of a roundtable discussion run by B2B Marketing, in association with Ogilvy, for senior marketers in June. The event also sought to explore content marketing, the current hot buzzword in B2B, the changing role of media and advertising particularly in the wake of the recession and how marketing can work best with sales.
The conversation took place over breakfast, at the Hospital Club in London’s Covent Garden, with Chatham House Rules in place, meaning no individual quotes were attributed. Those in attendance were all in leadership positions in marketing within B2B companies, with attendees including CMOs, marketing directors and heads of marketing (see panel overleaf), working across a variety of different industry sectors. Below is a summary of the key points to emerge and conclusions drawn.

1. It’s not brand versus demand. You can do demand generation work that impacts on the brand, but not always explicitly. Arguably you always have to do both at the same time. One tactic to avoid conflict can be to do brand activity surreptitiously, without emphasising brand-based objectives. The idea is not to let other stakeholders know they are making a choice between brand and demand. Instead of talking about brand or demand, talk about the themes you will be focusing on.
2. The corporate ego is still an important factor in spend. Revenue-focused marketing is the priority, but companies and the powers that be within them still want to see the organisation featured in the press to satisfy their personal ego or corporate vanity. Sales people also want to see prominence of the brand, they want the feel-good factor from that. In the worst case scenario, marketers can be asked why the brand isn’t advertising in more airports one minute and why its ROI is not greater the next. It’s the marketer’s challenge to steer a course through this. Sometimes the factors that govern marketing spend are not completely logical.
3. Don’t get swept away in the content avalanche. Content is the voice of the brand. But the main problem now is not about creating more content, but creating the right sort. Furthermore, the chief problem many marketers are facing is less about convincing people to write, but more that they cannot write, or at least in a format usable for marketing. Marketers also face the challenge of packaging content in a format that is relevant and appealing to the target audience. They then have to convince individuals to disseminate it and understand that results are a slow burn.
Content audits are really important, understanding where gaps exist, and making creation more of a formalised process, before anything is commissioned, will improve results. All content activities should be pre-planned and should be analysed afterwards.
4. Sales is key to effective content marketing. The best sales people are the ones who really understand content marketing and make the most use out of it – there can be a pretty direct correlation between sales success and content consumption. Good sales people are also great in terms of providing feedback and helping content generation, by driving their customers to create case studies.
5. Thought leadership must permeate the entire organisation. Thought leadership is very important as part of the demand generation process, not just in terms of convincing individuals within the organisation to become commentators, but also for rank-and-file employees, ensuring the overall message is driven through every interaction.
6. New skills are required for content marketing. The migration to content marketing has had a massive impact on marketing skills. These days project management skills are just as important as creative skills for a marketer. In particular, brands are employing content experts, such as ex-journalists, to create materials for them.
7. Marketing campaigns are dead – long live programmes. Marketers are increasingly talking about programmes, rather than campaigns, as they are longer term, and more strategic in nature. Some brands have actually banned the use of the word campaign. Even those brands that continue to use the word see the focus being on sustaining the peak of the campaign over a longer period. The advantage of migrating towards programmes rather than campaigns is that it allows marketers to start measuring at a customer level, rather than a campaign level, and seeing the longer term benefits of marketing activity through multiple initiatives.
8. Marketing automation is increasingly essential. Attendees are either using it, are looking to use it, have previously used it, or would very much like to use it. Marketing automation can have a profound change in how the organisation functions, and can allow brands to become more interesting, but it could also make them become more intrusive. Automation also allows marketers to really focus on which messages are working, and it allows targeting by behaviour, rather than by message. However, marketing automation is a complex beast and it takes a long time to get it working, and get people onboard.
9. Traditions refuse to die out. Besides advertising, traditional forms of marketing still have a role to play, although they are generally used slightly differently. Events are still key, and there’s great overlap with social media. Integrated face-to-face and online events are a growing challenge – can they complement one another? Direct mail is still useful as part of the mix, but these days it is increasingly focused around part of a structured engagement programme. Investment in PR has actually increased because marketers feel this is a better way to target their audience.
10. Variety is the spice of life for content. The whitepaper is very much alive and kicking, and continues to play a role, but lots of different types of content are important. Case studies are particularly valuable, but can be hard to identify and get delivered. Customer stories in any format are very compelling, and should be a key focus as clients are looking for proof of why they should invest. Pandering to the egos of the client companies also helps. The best kind of content can be spun and re-used in lots of different directions and channels.
Find out why James Myers, head of planning, Ogilvy believes managing content is the only challenge marketers face here