A Systematic Approach Is Critical for Demand Development Success
Bulldog Solutions’ 5Ms framework helps business-to-business marketers achieve sustainable, measurable results designed to meet specific sales and marketing goals.
Most seasoned marketing executives have come across the 4Ps at some point in their careers: product, price, place and promotion. This structure for the marketing mix, developed many decades ago, has weathered the years well.
Of course, over the years the details and instruments have changed, and business plans today don’t necessarily follow this classic structure. Marketing plans aren’t written in a laboratory, after all. For example, today competitive analysis is an important influence on the planning process. But in a lot of ways, the essence of the 4Ps remains – any marketing strategy based on defining the right marketing mix is based on those 4Ps.
But what about lead generation strategy? Narrowly defined, lead generation is part of the promotion “P.” In other words, a successful lead generation strategy asks the questions, “How do I find an audience for my products and solutions?” and “How do I identify contacts for my sales teams?” The answers to those questions have changed dramatically over the years.
To accommodate this marketing evolution, Bulldog Solutions has created a workable framework for successful demand development. We call it the 5Ms. Our products and services – from media buying to prospect communications to data collection and reporting – are consistent with that framework, and it drives everything we do for our clients and for our own company.
A Systematic Approach
The biggest evolution in marketing has been in the area of business process management – an evolution enabled primarily by the arrival of information technology and online systems. Measurement and feedback loop integration are critical to understanding how your decisions actually play out and how these results impact the marketing mix going forward.
But there’s also a broader view. To be successful, we must look holistically at the entire process of demand development. We need to learn from executing multiple lead generation tactics. By establishing feedback loops for a mix of various lead generation tactics, product marketing and product management departments can learn important information about positioning, competitive analysis, messaging and the sales model.
In other words, a systematic approach to lead generation surmounts the initial tactical objective. It becomes a process that influences the marketing mix and associated go-to-market execution.
On a tactical level, we can define the success of a lead generation tactic as the number of responses to a tactic or the number of sales engagements or proofs of concept. But demand development today is also about both internal operational organization and sales optimization: The end game is to produce optimal top- and bottom-line results. This means that closing the loop, i.e., following a lead through all of the stages of the sales cycle, is key. It also means that the handover from marketing to sales is a critical tipping point. It’s all about sales and marketing alignment.
Case in point: A SiriusDecisions study found that the conversion between a marketing-qualified lead and a sales-qualified lead – in other words, sales accepting a lead from marketing and taking it to the next stages – ranges from 51.4 percent to a high of 68.3 percent.[1] What these numbers tell us, among other things, is that marketing has spent dollars on projects, tactics and programs that have not resulted in leads. That number should be 100 percent.
The 5Ms framework is designed to achieve that 100 percent marketing-to-sales conversion.
The 5Ms of Successful Demand Development
Management
The 5Ms focus on demand development management. Thus, the first M: management. Management ties all of the elements together with project management, outsourcing and coordination activities required to make the other Ms work seamlessly. For example, management may include a Bulldog Solutions project manager accomplishing a specific set of tasks, and the data analysis and benchmarking features Bulldog brings to the table. It may also include our proprietary Campaign Management Center that allows our clients to access data from among all of their campaigns.
This is where most lead generation programs break down, and why the management “M” is so important to the 5Ms framework. It manages all of the other elements, essentially building the foundation for a systematic approach to lead generation.
Mode
The second M is mode, the type of communication chosen for a lead generation initiative. Modes may include Webinars, podcasts, white papers and blogs, but also may include classic communications such as a phone call, traditional mail or even a handwritten note.
Put another way, when you get a customer to think about your product or brand (or a problem your product would solve), you are using a mode. Different modes can produce different results, so a company’s mode mix will depend on its strategic objectives: There may be primary modes (e.g., a Webinar) and secondary modes (e.g., an RSS feed). A sustainable lead generation program usually incorporates multiple mode types to build a steady stream of qualified, actionable leads.
Media
The third M is media; that is, how you connect the dots between your company and the customer. The media mix may include both internal resources (newsletter subscribers) and external resources (brokered media packages, search engine optimization) and answers the question, “How do I cross the divide between a prospect and sales?” The number and type of people you attract is often a function of the type of media you employ. Media performance is closely integrated with both message and mode, both in terms of theme and timing.
At Bulldog Solutions, the media “M” is enabled in large part by the Bulldog Solutions Publisher Network, a network of B-to-B media companies with whom we work to offer a range of media options to help B-to-B marketers reach their goals. Our media planning and buying capabilities help us develop media plans designed to achieve tactical and strategic goals.
Message
The fourth M, message, is both what you say and how you say it. Message encompasses both tone and look-and-feel. It includes copywriting, design, color and images. If you’re using a Webinar or podcast as your mode, message can also include the subject matter expert or experts delivering the information. Ultimately, efforts to ensure that the prospect “gets the message” fall into this category.
Metrics
The final M, metrics, is the periodic, integrated measurement of all the components of a lead generation program. Metrics use performance measurement and identified trends to compare to performance benchmarks and trends relating to strategic goals. They may include open and clickthrough rates on promotion emails for a lead generation Webinar; performance of specific third-party media buys, based on the quality of prospects the various buys pulled in; and measurement of lead quality and comparison to the lead quality of previous initiatives.
Metrics are critical to the systematic approach to demand development herein discussed. With metrics you can measure your return on investment and close the loop on analyzing the success of your efforts. You can answer the questions, “How many deals did I close that can be tied back to a specific campaign?” and “How effective has a third-party promotion been, over a series of campaigns, compared with other promotions?” At Bulldog Solutions, we’ve developed easy-to-use dashboards to make metrics accessible and understandable, increasing the likelihood they can be used to drive future action.
The 5Ms – management, mode, media, message and metrics – help companies develop and maintain best-practice demand-development programs that provide sustainable, measurable results designed to meet specific strategic goals.
