By Jan Hutchins, CEO, SocialAgenda Media.

Because you feel strongly about marketing with all its drama and plot twists, roller coaster ups and downs, this article asks you to imagine the demand generation process was made into a movie… Where does your imagination take you with the mention of “The Dark Knight”, “Titanic”, “The Godfather”, “Star Wars”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “Gone with the Wind”, “Avatar”, “Citizen Kane”, “Shawshank Redemption”? Our panelists/critics rose to the occasion spicing up their answers to our questions with movie references that should make consuming these valuable marketing insights even more enjoyable. But before, check the integrated demand generation process flow we’ve designed for you and download the presentation to learn about our LeadGen Journalism as a new demandgen method…  and then enjoy our interviews with marketing experts.

Here’s our panel of “critics” ready to give their thumbs up or down:

Jeff Asada, VP of Business Development at Viscira, a leading provider of interactive, new-media communication and technology solutions for the life sciences industry.

Debra Marino, VP of  Marketing at Datacert, providers of enterprise legal management software and services designed for law departments.

Sarah Noel, Product Marketing Manager at Flexera Software, which enables companies to get more value from their applications.

Barbara Pilliod, VP of Marketing & Communications at Transfinder, which does school bus routing software including GPS fleet tracking, fleet maintenance, and field trip management for pupil transportation.

Nate Pruitt, Senior Director, Demand Generation at Shoretel, whose solutions, whether on-site or in the cloud, exploit the power of IP with unified communication tools.

Susan Vitale, Chief Marketing Officer at iCIMS, a leading provider of software-as-a-service talent acquisition solutions.

Tyler Reed, Manager, Demand Generation & CRM at Control4, home automation solutions and products such as home wide audio, and entertainment center with one universal remote

Craig Weiss, Vice President, Demand Generation at True Influence, which links crowd sourced and verified prospects with the right offer, at the right time via its proprietary targeting technology – the Relevance Engine.

SocialAgenda Media: Considering not just your company but everything you’ve seen done in the industry, what demand generation, sales enablement, social engagement and content marketing strategies and execution processes have you seen turn into tragedies?

SUSAN VITALE:
Over the years, I have seen many organizations experience challenges because of choosing to focus on customer acquisition versus retention and expansion of existing accounts, and it indeed can turn into a tragedy. At iCIMS, we structured the Sales operation so it aligns with the customer experience philosophy and the company’s commitment to customer service excellence.

We innovated a new structure in the industry by splitting the Sales department into two separate entities, one responsible solely for new sales and another responsible for renewing annual technology subscriptions. Companies that choose to de-emphasize the importance of renewing existing customers, often leave renewals to the original sales representative. Unfortunately, these resources are typically more focused (and largely compensated) on new business; often leaving existing customers in the cold. iCIMS became one of  the first companies in the recruitment technology space to provide a dedicated Client Relationship Director for every customer as insurance the customer experiences ongoing success and renewal. This structure has allowed the team to focus on new sales to drive home consistent results against increasingly challenging expectations, and, also steadily increase customer retention and expansion rates.

JEFF ASADA:
From what I have witnessed in the life sciences and pharmaceutical marketing area, “tragedy” occurs around the balance between strategy/innovation and implementation.  Often there is a deep focus on the strategy, but a significant lag with regards to implementation.  The vision for developing a blockbuster of an approach is often there but the obstacles for implementation (both perceived and real) within a highly regulated marketing environment turn “blockbuster” ideas into tragedies that never leave the port.

CRAIG WEISS:
We can call this the tragedy of unrealistic expectations.  Time and time again, I have witnessed organizations try to jump start the sales cycle by treating content syndication and other marketing leads as sales ready leads.  This behavior ultimately causes disconnection between the needs of the sales organization and the customer.  The lack of a comprehensive, well-structured nurturing plan leaves the organization desperate for leads that can close immediately and the cycle gets repeated quarter after quarter.

DEBRA MARINO:
I still consistently see company blogs become “tragedies,” particularly at mid-market companies.  For example, blogs that are updated too infrequently, ones where the content is blatantly self-serving, ones where minimal effort is made to add real value (e.g., simply posting company news releases), etc.  It’s also a recipe for failure when the blog isn’t part of a larger, integrated digital and SEO strategy.  I think many companies launch a blog because they think it’s expected and that it will make them industry thought leaders overnight.  However, they often have no clear understanding of what their desired audience truly wants to learn or a strategy for ensuring the blog’s long-term success or sustainability.  The end result is that, much like Romeo and Juliet, the key players wind up dead at the end, having “poisoned” themselves. 😉

TYLER REED:
The biggest tragedies I’ve seen came a few years ago when social media was still very nascent and every company was still trying to figure out how to monetize social. I was part of a campaign where we tried to treat a Facebook ad campaign to generate actionable leads in the same way we generated many of our other leads. It failed miserably and we had to regroup and realize that social is more about being a part of an existing conversation instead of trying to force our message upon others.

NATE PRUITT:
It’s amazing to me that most marketers still think outbound marketing still works in 2013.  Buyers are much smarter now and the way people buy has changed dramatically over the past few years.  Anything “disruptive” in terms of marketing (emails, banner ads, direct mail, etc.), flat out doesn’t work with 90% of buyers today.  Buyers today are much smarter and don’t want to be “sold to”.  They want to discover, consume, and buy – in most cases without ever speaking to a sales rep.  Marketers need to think like a buyer –and not be a sequel-like traditional marketer from 2005.

SARAH NOEL:
It’s tragic when companies focus on products they are selling from a content perspective to the point where it clearly is a sales pitch.  With all of the content available to them, people see through that now.  People want to feel like a brand understands who they are and are ready to deliver what they want from that brand.

BARBARA PILLIOD:
Entering a market too soon with a product that is not ready for prime time and creating demand that has no hope of being fulfilled and fizzling out as a credible supplier creates an ongoing tragedy for any company.  Personnel become demoralized, lose confidence, and cannot sell with any conviction.

SocialAgenda Media: On the other hand, what strategies and specific processes produced results so successful they qualify as blockbusters?

CRAIG WEISS:
Expertly timed, multi-touch, integrated marketing campaigns create the blockbusters of demand generation.  Placing top of the funnel leads into a well constructed nurture campaign consisting of 5 to 7 key touch points prior to sales engagement can create conversion rates that rival the box office success of Avatar.

TYLER REED:
We have recently had amazing success with 30 second video clips that showcase our products and solutions and ask the prospective customers if they would like to learn more. Producing the videos was high effort but it is really nice to see it pay off with measurable ROI.

DEBRA MARINO:
It’s talked about quite a lot, but content marketing done well, can be a huge success for a company in terms of building brand awareness and credibility, as well as driving lead generation.  This has definitely been our experience over the last year.  Here are some keys to success:

(1)   Have a commitment to developing truly high quality content that is educational and helpful to people at different stages in the buying cycle.  This includes creating white papers that provide real depth and insight and that aren’t just thinly veiled sales pitches.  In addition to white papers, one of the content assets that we’ve had the most success with is to provide sample RFPs to prospects lower in the sales funnel.  These are very highly requested tools and it’s always gratifying when Sales receives an RFP from a prospect that is based on your template.  It also provides very clear indication that the prospect is in an actual buying process.  And of course, ideally, they’ve been consuming educational information from your company for quite a while, as they’ve moved through their buying process, so they already have a very positive perception of you and intend to include you in their purchase consideration.

(2)   Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.  Not everyone learns or wants to consume information the same way.  For maximum coverage and consumption, utilize a variety of mediums for your content assets, including webinars, white papers, checklists, podcasts, videos, etc.

(3)   Leverage media outlets that are already trusted by your target audience to promote your content assets to their established subscribers via email campaigns that drive the requestor back to your site to download the asset.  This is particularly helpful for a market that your company is just entering.  This accelerates the creation of brand recognition/credibility and the development of a high-quality contact database for the new market, and drives increased website traffic.

(4)   Make the absolute most of your content assets.  Have a clear plan for all of the ways that you are going to use them.  For example, don’t just develop a white paper and throw it up on your website.  Get creative and have a strategy that integrates with your other marketing tactics, such as email campaigns, social media, events, etc.  Also, when you promote a content asset via something like an email campaign, take the extra step to segment your messaging about the asset to your various targeted audiences.  You’ve already done the heavy lifting of creating the asset.  Now make the most of it!

Following these and other maxims have made the last 12 months a “blockbuster” year for us in terms of breaking into new markets and lead generation.

SUSAN VITALE:
I would say a blockbuster would be tailored prospect engagement based on the sales stage the contact is in within the company’s cycle. The easiest, but perhaps most damaging thing a Demand Generation Team (including Inside Sales Team) could do is lose focus on prospect engagement and nurturing after contacts are passed through to the Sales Team. Plenty of companies use marketing automation tools to market to non-sales ready leads, but what about the sales-ready ones? For best results, use a tool to automate communications with prospects who are already being nurtured by the Sales Team and you’ll see close rates increase in short order.

JEFF ASADA:
In my opinion, the blockbuster within the pharmaceutical marketing and sales enablement arena is the quick, enterprise-wide technology adoption of Apple’s iPad.  The introduction of the iPad within pharma has led to a significant paradigm shift, and the rapid uptake for the iPad has evolved the industry’s thinking with regards to its customer interactions.  It was great to see pharma, the “sleeping giant” with regards to technology, embrace the device and augment their traditional models to incorporate the benefits.  We continue to see very positive trending dynamics that support this “blockbuster” move that has been implemented broadly across the industry.

NATE PRUITT:
Inbound marketing has been and will continue to be the proper way to execute marketing with a focus on content.  Great content that informs, educates, and helps buyers understand what they need to be a “modern company”, won’t go away and the way people buy today will only become more content driven along with trusted networks.  Those two components will be the most influential elements over the next decade.

SARAH NOEL:
Blocks are busted when the organization totally understands their target audience and how they would like to receive information from the visuals, design, content and approach of the campaign. Reaching that point, they had succeeded before even launching the campaign.

BARBARA PILLIOD:
Entering the Canadian market, we did some research on a high-impact direct mail program that would cause each recipient to actually open it as it arrived as a gift.  Since our company was a location intelligence and bus routing company, we decided on an Innushuk, a welcome stone marker common in Canada that greeted trekkers, orienting them to the terrain, confirming the accuracy of their directions and helping them navigate the often complex landscape. It was an instant hit and gave our company immediate brand recognition.  We also used the Innushuks in our trade show displays, and held drawings at our trade show booth for a large wooden Innushuk.  It was a blockbuster for us and we had many qualified leads and scored our first clients in Canada during the two years we ran the promotion.  It remains our signature in Canada.

SocialAgenda Media: What are the issues in demand generation, sales enablement, social engagement and content marketing that still qualify as genuine mysteries?

NATE PRUITT:
The notion of “buyer personas” and who is your ideal customer, would be the two areas that I believe companies are still trying to figure out and in my opinion, using those tactics means they aren’t focusing on the right things.

SARAH NOEL:
Reaching senior level decision makers in a way that captures their attention amidst all of the other information they receive throughout their working day is still a mystery.

Not exactly a mystery but a major challenge is getting the right balance between the amount of people resource you have available, the amount of budget you have available and the activities you choose to do in each of the markets you are trying to penetrate.

TYLER REED:
Despite the great tools we have for automation it is still a difficult process to produce highly targeted content that gets to the users at the right moment. The mystery isn’t that we need the content, it’s how to make sure it’s the right content is delivered at the exact right moment.

BARBARA PILLIOD:
Having been in marketing for more than 30 years, the tension between sales and marketing still remains strong.  All wins are still credited to sales and little or no recognition is given to marketing for generating the qualified leads that result in sales.  Whenever I’ve made a concerted effort to point to the ROI in marketing, sale seldom acknowledges this.  The marketing/sales relationship in most companies qualifies as a genuine mystery, since both disciplines work so closely together to drive revenue growth.

SUSAN VITALE:
There are a lot of reports and stats on the importance of social media strategy to a company’s long-term branding and lead generation, but since social is ever evolving and it varies depending on B2B or B2C, industry, business segment, etc. there isn’t always a clear view of the impact. It’s easy to execute a social strategy but it can be challenging to report on direct company growth from it. One area where we feel there is a lot of opportunity for success for companies — both in terms of reach and ability to track impact —  is with respect to employee referrals that are solicited via social media. In the recruitment industry, employee referrals are “gold” and recruitment advertising solutions can help companies of all sizes get better at mining this valuable talent acquisition source and rewarding employees for their referrals.

CRAIG WEISS:
Let’s call this one, The Mystery of Buyer Behavior.  In the CRM age, marketers are armed with so much data that it seems that honing in on exact attributes of potential customers would be simple.  Unfortunately, this is not the case in most circumstances. Determining the exact mix of targeting for campaigns and ensuring that campaigns are not too narrowly focused (based on somewhat misleading data) is the key.

DEBRA MARINO:
I think many B2B companies are still struggling with how to incorporate social media into their marketing strategies in a way that makes sense and helps them achieve their corporate objectives.  Like blogs, this is another area where I see companies jump in with no clear strategy, flounder around for a while, and then often abandon.  For us, the key was to clearly define the role that each social channel would play in our strategy, based on the accessibility it provides to each of our various target audiences.  For example, we have found that LinkedIn is the best channel for reaching our target buyers and our partner network, while Twitter is best for reaching targeted industry media.  Having clarity around the role that each channel plays is the first critical step to developing and implementing a social media strategy that supports your objectives.

SocialAgenda Media: What are the most horror-ble marketing mistakes you’re willing to admit making?

DEBRA MARINO:
It’s impossible not to look back at where you started or where you were a year ago and not cringe at some things you did (or didn’t do) that you do differently and better now.  For me, I’d say looking back to a time when we didn’t use our CRM technology effectively enough to have any real visibility into true marketing metrics is definitely “cringe-worthy.”  It’s impossible to make good business decisions without the necessary data and, looking back now, it’s hard to believe that we were ever in the position of not knowing even basic information, such as our true conversion rates.  Today, we have critical KPI data at our fingertips on executive dashboards, so maybe this doesn’t qualify as a “horror” story, because it actually has a happy ending.

SUSAN VITALE:
I would have to say the most visible mistakes had to do with errors using our marketing automation tool. There have been a few instances where, due to simple human error, Marketing Coordinators have sent communications to the wrong list or to the same person multiple times. The mistakes rarely go unnoticed by the recipients. They see it and email right back with how they feel about the situation. It is not the worst thing ever, but it is definitely something we learn from and try to avoid. For us, providing a great customer experience really starts with the Sales cycle, so we certainly want to send the right messaging to the right audience and minimize errors that might irritate potential customers.

TYLER REED:
Relying too heavily on a single piece of content that produced amazing results at a given time. We had great success with a certain campaign so then, every month when we needed sales we went right back to that same campaign to the same subset of customers. It doesn’t take a genius to realize the creative became very stale, very quickly.

JEFF ASADA:
My mistakes were nothing like the “Hangover” but some great lessons have been learned.  Now, before making difficult decisions I always consult my Flux Capacitor!

CRAIG WEISS:
I have developed and delivered programs for organizations that were trying to truncate the sales cycles and treat marketing leads as sales ready. The results were straight out of a Wes Craven film, a real “Nightmare on Elm Street”.

NATE PRUITT:
When feeling the pressure to deliver more revenue for the company, I have been known to get lazy and go back to trying some of the old outbound techniques to force spikes in leads.  It never works and I instantly know when the results are poor, that I shouldn’t have done it.  It happens very rarely these days.

SARAH NOEL:
Doing a campaign where I wasn’t able to show a clear ROI, but I’ve never done anything like “John Carter” or “Heaven’s Gate”.

BARBARA PILLIOD:
I once pushed the envelope too far on an idea that worked in one industry but didn’t translate to another.  The company I worked with had commercialized its first superconductive magnet for MRI systems and our market was the medical (radiologist) community. I created a poster that simulated the experience of entering an MRI system.  To be creative, we designed an image that had an otherworldly look on the cover with a patient suspended in a series of rings.  We printed several hundred as trade show giveaway and few, if any, took one home. It was too large for a briefcase and had to be contained in a tube, creating an obstacle for traveling.  It also reminded too many of a popular movie at that time called COMA! Not a very good image for the medical community. The company had to erect special storage shelves to hold the tubes – and there were hundreds – that never saw the light of day.  Those shelves were built in plain view of my office and amounted to a source of company humiliation and a total waste of the company’s money.  HORROR-BLE!

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• How To Generate Demand And Increase Revenue By Delighting Clients & Delivering Personalized Learning Experience To Employees
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• Leadership The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation – interview with ex-SVP of Apple, Jay Elliot
• Top 5 Most Important But Not Obvious Principles Of Selling And Business In General – interview with speaker Richard Grehalva
• Marketing Through Sports: Secret Sauce of Getting Publicity With Celebrity Endorsement Deals