The two largest learning’s from watching hundreds of programs and campaigns work, fail or just exist is that we, as a technology BtB marketing industry, do not pay adequate attention to what matters to customers outside our immediate areas of expertise. We hope that as 2010 planning and execution looms we can garner some insights from the list of assessments below. Some are as small as a tweet, others maybe fall into the IM category and still others are more questions than answers.

Social Media

Experimental touches around social media show signs but it is still a revolution in early execution process. Brands generally are too focused on them delivering the content and not listening, and customers are focused on the exact opposite in most occasions. They want to talk and interact and listen to anybody other than brands. Not all forms of social media are borne equally (forums, chat, wikis. social bookmarking, etc) yet brands seem to lump them together.  The catalysts for change in 2010 need to focus around three variables. The first is moving off broadcast and on to sponsoring and listening. The second is not to use the social media wand to solve all ills. And the third is the creation of small and sequential experiments that prove the increasing value of this set of activities. Our advice is to shout less about it and begin building small steps, which will get you giant leaps.

Print

This may sound bizarre but print is still breathing, at least in the mind of customers and it is not just the older targets that read it. Sure, the impacts have dropped and now we see less gap then ever before between the business titles and the technology titles. So the challenge here is how to use it. In an increasing number of occasions the content needs are richer than before (customer examples, ROI tools) and the choices for how best to use print increasingly involve a trade off between AR/PR and how best we can tie in this type of content for advertising. Do not take a global view on this in certain markets, for BtB technology print appears (at least in the eyes of customers) as a robust and valuable source of information. The reinvention of vendor print as a more impactful source is further illustration of the need to look at the category with a new set of less-media-placement-based eyes going forward. It used to be a “reach battleship” now it is just another part of the armada of choice and we have to think hard about how to invest in it.

Search

No shocks here except a growing feeling and belief amongst influencers that it is not the only place they go to. Content needs have increasingly matured away from the basics to richer and more embedded content. This has pushed some brands we work with to see a steady downward trend in performance of search and also a growing realization that you cannot just buy strings to success. The need to build relevant content drop off points, and the need to sequence and time search around other aspects of campaigns, for example direct communications, is yielding greater controls for the buyers. In effect, widen the elements in search to those that matter to the customer and you will gain more control and leads back because of it.

Online

The obvious is that not all types of website are borne equally (tech info, tech print, business or news online). On top of this is that the content needs within specific websites differs. The more we see content created to execute to these differences, the more we see improved results in metrics.  Our recommendation is not to treat the aspects of each site the same (placement, form of execution and content) but to vary them. Targets may well visit five or six different sites in a purchase, but they rarely look for the same content so mapping these needs is the crucial investment need for 2010.

Direct Sales and Channel

No longer is the direct sales model divorced from the indirect channel contact for the customer. While the investment models should be focused on our models we cannot ignore the overlap in information targets get from the channel. The differences between the site, the telesales and direct sales models (face to face) are too numerous and global to discuss but it is decreasingly true that the cycle is vendor.com to sales (tele/email or face to face). Targets are mixing and matching them together throughout the purchase cycle. The big implication here is that sales people need to know where to push targets to the website for content after they talk. Knowing that the content needs vary between each sales function also means we have to arm each with differing mechanisms for content differentiation too.

Analysts

They matter. They matter more and more and they matter as a destination for targets as well as an enabler of content in areas like social media or white papers or tools. Think hard about how you sculpt those relationships because while there are pieces you can sponsor or buy there are also ways that customers want to interact with them that you can only watch.

Events

The pressure to go web 2.0 here has been massive. If brands were not prepared to make these hard trade-offs they would just cut event investments. This could be incredibly short sighted in that the resource needs for the virtual event world will require many of the skills and focus of the physical event world. The two set of questions smart marketers are asking themselves are: (1) What percent of events could go virtual? And (2) what would those experiences need to look like? How do we better integrate events across all the other touch points in the journey? For example, is it a destination or part of the lead generation process?  Event marketers in 2010 will need to continue to focus on answering these two questions. Their environment is under attack from a range of factors, some out of their control (web2.0, the economy and demographics that see events as less critical for the younger targets, like younger CIO’s than the older CIO’s).

The next two years present a golden opportunity for BtB technology marketers. Faced with a world moving ever more rapidly to near infinite choice and combinations, the land of share of voice is becoming increasingly more worn and ancient. Complexity requires simple start points in conversations (far more grey/gray). This means we have to assess and honestly review the habits of this year and see if they are correctly balanced for the needs going forward.