Yet there are important differences that may not be apparent at first. Primary among them is that ABM is not a tactic or even a set of tactics; it is a strategy for providers to build long-term influence and trusted advisor status with the company’s top accounts. ABM requires a new level of partnership between sales and marketing. ABM also requires marketers to have a broader range of skills to work effectively with these accounts.

To put the misconceptions about ABM to rest, we have been working with ITSMA’s ABM Council member companies as well as ITSMA’s ABM associates and consultants to paint a picture of the journey that most companies take when they adopt ABM.

A Linear Progression through Four Stages

Our research has shown that there is a linear path to follow in ABM. Try to get ahead of yourself by skipping steps or moving too fast, and you jeopardize the program. Go too slowly and you risk losing momentum and support in the company. Here are the four stages of adoption:

• Pilot. Companies select a few top accounts to prove the concept of ABM to the rest of the organization and to begin developing the skills and people needed to sustain a program.
• Build. Using the lessons learned from successful pilots, the company refines selection criteria for accounts and begins defining common metrics and success criteria. An informal alliance of ABM supporters begins advocating for funding and support from senior executives for a more formal program.
• Standardize. A formal project management office (PMO) is established, along with standard metrics and a staffing model so that ABM can be integrated into the standard reward/recognition system.
• Scale. As the program grows, companies begin to reap the rewards of scale, including shared processes, services, and automation. A knowledge management system helps new account teams get up to speed faster and allows ABM practices to spread to other areas of marketing.

To get the full story of the ABM journey, read the ITSMA Update Four Stages to Full ABM Adoption.

Early in Everywhere, Weber offers a four-step approach to creating social engagement as a model all companies can follow. The steps include setting strategic business goals, aligning the program with those goals, activating and sustaining the program, and finally, measuring and analyzing the program. Throughout each of these steps, the level of customer engagement is a key driver in how marketers should leverage social media.

• Step one, social media engagement begins with business goals, is the planning step. Weber urges companies to have goals beyond just setting up their social media channels; he writes, “successful social engagement is rooted in business objectives, not in a desire to ‘be on Twitter’ or to ‘build a microsite.’” Marketers need to be clear and specific when setting goals; Weber includes examples of clear goals, such as increasing awareness, providing industry thought leadership, and improving customer service. They also need to fully understand how each social media activity touches the target audience.
• Step two, align social programs with business objectives, is about designing the social experience. This is where you align your strategy and business objectives with social media tools. Weber emphasizes the need for marketers to understand more than how customers connect emotionally with an offering; they need to know how customers actually behave. The answers to questions such as “what content does my audience want?” and “which channels do they use at each stage of the buying process?” will help determine a social media strategy that, ideally, will engage the customer and influence the purchase decision.
• Step three, activate your program, highlights where many companies fall short: they build the social media tools, but they don’t nurture the community. Activating the program means reaching out to customers, discovering their hot buttons, identifying key influencers, and inviting and encouraging participation. This is not a one-time step; it is an ongoing process that requires constant attention. This is where Weber’s idea of social sustainment comes into play. He defines this as a “daily and weekly review of program results and identification of new ways to improve the experience.” In other words, to engage with customers in social media, you need to create an ongoing presence. Because content is what drives engagement, you need to focus on generating content in all forms (blogs, tweets, SlideShare, contests, white papers, etc.).
• It is during the last step, measurement and analytics, that the focus on the customer really gels. Weber suggests measuring not just reach but also engagement. The difference? Reach looks at the number of clicks, visits, page views, and so forth, but engagement takes a deeper dive and tells you how and where customers engage with your content. Do they comment on a blog? Do they rate, share, or retweet it? This is the information marketers need to truly understand their audience’s behavior so they can create content in the future that is more relevant to the customer.

Larry Weber is chairman of W2 Group, a digital ecosystem of marketing services companies that build brands, deepen customer and partner relationships, and drive demand for products and services. He is also the author of four books, including Everywhere: Comprehensive Digital Business Strategy for the Social Media Era.

IBM tops the list for the 11th year in a row for unaided awareness, with more than 50% of respondents naming IBM as the company that first comes to mind when thinking about consulting and technology services. This is a significant jump from th e 2010 study.

HP, clearly helped by its acquisition of EDS, has secured its position in the number-two spot for unaided awareness after vaulting ahead of Accenture for the first time in the 2010 study. Interestingly, EDS has just about fallen off the radar one year post-acquisition—a testament to a smooth transition.

“Other” companies, or those named only once, commanded 35% of the unaided awareness, more than any single company, save for IBM.

The India Gap

The data shows that the strong companies are getting even stronger. Based on ITSMA’s Brand Equity Index, IBM’s and HP’s brand equity increased in 2011 while most others’ stagnated. IBM, HP, Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deloitte have the highest brand equity. Global India-based companies continue to lag behind US- and European-based providers. Among these companies, brand equity is highest for Infosys, Cognizant, and Tata Consultancy Services.

In a fragmented market such as this, less well-known players have an opportunity to gain mindshare. However, brand equity cannot be built overnight. It takes consistent and persistent marketing, which means as a marketer, you must:

• Conduct research to find out what is most important to your target market and how clients currently perceive you.
• Promote your areas of strength that align with client and prospect priorities.
• Launch both broad and more targeted marketing campaigns (on- and offline), highlighting thought leadership, not capabilities.
• Market to your current clients as well as your prospects.
• Educate prospective buyers via nurture campaigns that engage clients and prospects on an ongoing basis.
• Substantiate your brand and differentiation with proof points (e.g., case studies, benchmarks, testimonials, simulations, etc.).

Two primary sources for the list are our annual Services Marketing Budgets and Benchmarks and How Customers Choose Solution Providers surveys (this year, we focused How Customers Choose more on how buyers consume information ). These two surveys give us the view from both sides. We know where marketers put their money during the past year and what programs they expect will be successful in the year ahead. Then we go to their target audience (IT and business buyers purchasing solutions at least $500,000 in size) to find out how effective these programs really are.

These and the other surveys we do with members each year help us build a running knowledge of what’s going right and wrong in B2B marketing. This knowledge is continually tested and updated by the discussions we have and presentations we do both online and in person with ITSMA members in a typical year.

We also do custom research projects for members and nonmembers. It’s another way that we get a sense of what’s most important to marketers because it often involves qualitative research where we get to interview marketers and ask them lots of questions.

And then we conduct Insight Sessions (usually presentations or workshops), which we do with members as part of the ITSMA corporate membership. Members tell us how they’d like us to focus these presentations so it’s yet another great signal about the challenges they are feeling most deeply. In addition, we field marketing questions all year through our Ask ITSMA database.

By the time we get to the Board of Advisors dinner (we usually meet twice a year—and we have boards in both the US and EMEA), we feel pretty good about the list we’ve developed for them. Then we start eating and drinking and proceed to have a two-hour discussion that is one of the highlights of my (and our) work year.

Oh, and did I mention that the wine is good?

Here’s our list for 2012:

• Transforming the Marketing Organization. What are the new models, functions, practices, and skills?
• Building the Idea Organization. How to use thought leadership to build brand preference, generate leads, and engage clients.
• Learning to Love the Data Explosion. Realizing the promise of analytics for improved targeting, lead management, and decision making.
• Preparing for the B2B Social Buyer. Determining the right marketing balance for traditional buyers and the new social buyer.
• Sales Channel Enablement. Improving the impact from your portfolio of enablement activities across direct and indirect sales channels.
• Next Generation Account-Based Marketing. Optimizing the model, mix, and staffing across the entire sales and delivery cycle.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback on our choices. Look for lots of good research and thought leadership content on these issues in the coming year. Happy holidays!

Culture not only pervades all our relationships and behaviors, it challenges every aspect of what we know about marketing, says Anja Langbein-Park, a management consultant, corporate facilitator, and executive coach with Trompenaars Hampden-Turner who focuses on cross-cultural business. In her presentation at ITSMA’s 18th Annual Marketing Conference in October, Langbein-Park used examples and anecdotes to highlight two ways marketers can take to build their cultural competence:

• Dig deep into cultural differences to learn. At the core of any culture are basic assumptions that are buried deep within individuals’ subconscious, causing them to think and act in ways that they cannot explain or even identify—that is, until someone with a different set of subconscious beliefs comes into the picture. Because these cultural assumptions are not written down in any manual, you have to dig deep to discover them in customers (and within yourself). Marketers can learn about cultural differences among their customers by spending time with them, making observations, asking questions, and encouraging customers to ask about their own assumptions. But the interest can’t be superficial—you need to believe that you will learn something through the process and commit to seeing it through. The more you ask, the deeper you can get with the customer (and the more relevant and targeted your marketing will become).
• Focus on what you have in common. When we don’t know a culture, we often focus on stereotypes, such as the idea that all Americans are in a hurry or all Germans are punctual. But you don’t learn by focusing on labels. Instead, when marketers leave their comfort zones, they can grow both personally and professionally. Langbein-Park offers two suggestions for how to do this: first, rather than focusing on the cultural differences between you and your customer, look at what you have in common. Second, don’t let the stereotype color what you think of the entire group. When you’re in a new environment, whether in a foreign country or a new business setting, ask how you should behave. Seek help in understanding the culture and the way things are done. Turn your discomfort into an opportunity to learn and connect.

Langbein-Park says that culture is not just another factor to consider; it is the context of everything. Culture pervades all relationships, behaviors, and meaning. In today’s world, where business is global and teaming is virtual, marketers who work on their cultural skills will be offer more value to customers and be better colleagues.

Watch this video to learn more about Langbein-Park’s views on the importance of cross-cultural marketing.

• Brand is what you say about your company.
• Reputation is what others (including clients, prospects, industry analysts, financial analysts, investors, business press, trade press, online media, bloggers, user groups, and online communities) say about your company.

A company communicates its brand through traditional marketing communications activities: identity, collateral, events, email and direct marketing, analyst and press relations, and so on. On the other hand, a company establishes its reputation via services delivery and client and employee experiences.

Beyond delivering consistently superior client and employee experiences, though, reputation cannot be controlled. It can, however, be influenced and amplified:

• You influence your reputation by educating constituents about offerings, providing opportunities and tools to make it easier for constituents to share their stories, and listening and responding to the ensuing market conversations.
• You amplify your reputation by creating advocates who propagate the message.

When marketers understand the difference between brand and reputation, and focus on the activities they can actually control, they can work on creating customer experiences that build loyalty and will enhance their reputation.

1. Establish a base of content. I attended a panel discussion at a conference a while ago with LaSandra Brill, who is a very experienced social media marketing manager for Cisco. She was asked what she looks for in a social media marketing person. I expected her to say something like, “An ability to handle difficult conversations online.” But instead, her quick reply was, “I look for someone who can manage an editorial calendar.” She knows from long experience that very few social media participants contribute anything to the conversation. I’ve highlighted research from the Online Community Research Network (now sadly no longer around) showing that fewer than 10% of people in online communities ever say anything. And fewer than 2% take a leadership role in starting conversations. If you’re going to be successful in social media, you’d better have a base of content first.
2. Most C-level executives are not in social media—they’re in search. ITSMA research shows that 66% of buyers seek information themselves rather than waiting to hear from providers. They seek that information through search: 79% of C-level executives do at least three searches per day. They are more likely to encounter our content through search than through the social media channels themselves. We must ensure that our content is targeted to our audiences and can be found easily before we shift resources over to social media.
3. Social media doesn’t happen in B2B without setting expectations. When we surveyed B2B marketers last year, 50% said they do not have a social media policy. It would be easy to say that B2B companies don’t have social media policies because they just don’t get it or they’re slow and lack resources. But I talk to them all the time and I know that’s not the case for most of them. They hold back because they know that they need the full support, commitment, and participation of the business in social media. Without those things in place, there’s no reason to get into it, because you will fail.
4. Before social media can happen, companies need an idea culture. A lot of B2C social media marketing can come out of the marketing group because consumers are looking for deals, product information, and peer reviews. Marketers can handle all that stuff. But you can’t tweet a 50%-off coupon in B2B. You have to tweet ideas for solving customers’ problems. Marketing can’t do that on its own. Social media is the easy part; thought leadership is the hard part. Top executives and subject matter experts must commit to making ideas part of employees’ individual expectations. One of the reasons I know that B2B marketers get this is because the number one goal of marketers in our survey was to integrate social media into the larger marketing strategy—to link social media to their thought leadership marketing process and their events—the channels that are proven and where the business has committed to contributing content.
5. The business case doesn’t exist for social media, but it does for thought leadership. When we asked buyers last year how important good ideas are to the buying decision, 58% of executive-level buyers (people buying more than $500,000 worth of IT services at a pop) said that they are important or critical for making it onto the short list of providers (that percentage was even higher in 2011—see this month’s Featured Research). We then asked: If a provider brings you a good idea, would you be more likely to buy from them? Thirty percent said yes. Of that 30%, 54% said they’d consider sole sourcing the project. Social media are great for developing those ideas and for making them available to many more people. But first you have to have an engine for creating the ideas.
6. Many B2B companies have already said no to social media. I’ve spoken to marketers who have dipped a toe into social media and pulled it back because they saw that their companies simply weren’t ready. They’ve started blogs where SMEs posted three or four times and then got busy with other things or got bored, and the blog went dark. Someone somewhere latched onto that and declared that blogs don’t work. They blame the channel rather than blaming their company’s lack of commitment. Then that gets translated into “social media don’t work for us.” Thus, many companies need to create a new case for social media before jumping in again.
7. Marketing needs a system of record before it can succeed in social media. Businesspeople don’t care how many Twitter followers you have. They care about the size, speed, and quality of the sales pipeline. We need a lead management process into which we can feed the people who come to us via social media. In our recent lead management survey, just 53% report consistent definitions of lead tracking that are adopted globally. Only 65% have defined the lead flow process. Without a process for integrating social media into lead management, the ROI of social media in B2B will never move beyond brand awareness and website traffic.

To learn more about social media for B2B, check out the ITSMA Special Report: How to Fit Social Media into your Overall Marketing Strategy and Make it Stick.

Epiphany marketing is what happened. The epiphany stage of the buying process is the point at which customers realize an important business need.

Today’s buyers, who are hungry for ideas and information that will help them gain competitive advantage or solve a business problem, have been doing their own research, turning for the most part to the internet and social media. At the same time, we have seen the demise of the trade and general business press, which was once the most important and trusted source of information. This created a void, and in last year’s survey we saw the evidence that industry analysts were filling this void. This year, the survey data shows that solution providers have also stepped up and have become a credible information source.

Solution providers are not providing just any information; they’re providing high-quality thought leadership. This is why buyers are starting to believe.

Solution providers stepped up at just the right time.

Thought Leadership Is Now Critical to the Buying Process

In our 2010 survey, we asked about the role of thought leadership in the purchase process, and we were amazed to see how important it was to buyers when they were deciding which providers would make it onto their shortlists.

This year, thought leadership is not just important, it’s critical to the purchase decision. In fact, 45% buyers who were surveyed say it plays a critical part in determining who makes the short list, as compared to only 23% in 2010.

This is good news for services and solutions marketers, who are doing great research, providing excellent case studies, and sharing best practices. Because as the quality of the content continues to improve, so will the relationship with the buyer.

Read ITSMA’s 2011 survey How B2B Buyers Consume Information Study: The Rise of the B2B Social Buyer.

The case for relevance is clear. Our 2010 How Customers Choose Solution Providers survey showed that when solution providers personalize their marketing and sales efforts to address specific business issues, nearly 50% of buyers are more likely to consider purchasing from that solution provider.

And it’s not just new buyers—existing customers are also looking for more intimacy and relevancy. Yet marketers may not be spending enough on programs aimed at existing customers. At ITSMA, we’ve identified five critical actions for increasing relevance and client intimacy:

1. Become data driven. ITSMA’s 2011 Online Survey on Data Driven Marketing shows that it pays to be data savvy:

• 55% of data-savvy marketers report shorter sales cycles.
• 53% of data-savvy marketers report lower sales costs.
• 82% of data-savvy marketers report greater market share.

Data-savvy marketers have moved from just tracking data—measuring a campaign or program’s numbers or statistics—to using the data to direct targeted marketing campaigns given a particular customer’s issues and challenges. They are using data to make connections with customers and influence business strategies.

2. Expand your portfolio of thought leadership and content. In ITSMA’s 2011 survey How B2B Buyers Consume Information Study: The Rise of the B2B Social Buyer, 80% of respondents indicated that thought leadership was critical or important during the purchase process. Marketers need to expand their definition of thought leadership and create the content that their customers want to consume to make decisions.

And what content do buyers want? Respondents said the most helpful sources of information when they are selecting a shortlist of solution providers are:

• Industry/technology research data and analysis
• Proof points (case studies, success stories, return-on-investment (ROI)/total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) calculators)
• Industry/business process best practices
• Online discussions
• Pricing, service-level agreements (SLAs), and contract terms and conditions
• Industry/technology news

3. Formalize lead management processes. ITSMA’s 2011 B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks online survey shows that although demand generation and lead management are top priorities for B2B marketers, only 9% of companies ITSMA surveyed consider lead management a core competence. But a formal lead management process—with integrated systems, agreement between sales and marketing on lead definitions and scoring, and a process for handing leads over to sales—is key to increasing customer relevance and intimacy. Both sales and marketing alike will know who the customer is and what the customer wants at all points in the sales cycle, and they can work together to address these needs.

4. Aggressively integrate social media with the rest of marketing to create a continuous, connected dialogue with buyers. In ITSMA’s 2011 B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks online survey, we find that 91% of buyers use social media during the purchase process, with 41% saying social media is very helpful. Social media is no longer a standalone marketing tactic but a tactic that must be part of an integrated and comprehensive marketing strategy.

5. Deepen engagement with existing customers by making them part of your planning and strategy process. There’s a number of ways you can do this:

• Invite them to participate in advisory boards and councils.
• Share strategy and plans with them.
• Ask them to participate in account planning sessions.
• Proactively bring them ideas.
• Collaborate with them to solve their business problems and develop new offerings.
• Develop interdependent relationships.

It’s critical to remember that all five areas are important. Pursuing just one or two will help your marketing efforts, but it’s not enough to create customer intimacy. To do that, you must re-examine your marketing spending allocation; invest in analytics and technology specialists; implement a holistic lead management process; include customers in your planning process; and begin developing a client intimacy index that can help you monitor how you are doing and make important improvements along the way. It’s time to get passionate about your client intimacy!

For more information about building customer relevance and intimacy, read ITSMA’s 2011 survey How B2B Buyers Consume Information Study: The Rise of the B2B Social Buyer, our 2010 How Customers Choose Solution Providers survey, our 2011 Online Survey on Data Driven Marketing, or our 2011 B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks online survey.

Building Client Loyalty and Trust

Diamond Award: HCL America
Gold Award: Cisco

Developing New Markets

Diamond Award: IBM
Gold Award: SAP

Driving Business with Thought Leadership

Diamond Award: Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP
Gold Award: Cognizant
Gold Award: IBM

Enabling Sales Channels

Diamond Award: Fujitsu
Gold Award: Cisco

Generating and Nurturing Leads

Diamond Award: IBM
Gold Award: Microsoft Corporation

Marketing with Social Media

Diamond Award: HP
Gold Award: HDS

To access the case studies on the winners, go to 2011 ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards Summaries (PDF).