BtoB Media Business - April 2011 - (Page 8)

COVER STORY tion,” Vaughan said. “Once they’re up and running, they realize that they don’t have three things: One is a full content library to attract, engage and keep nurturing the audience—research shows that b-to-b buyers use third-party information and information from peers as well as vendor product information during the purchasing process; the second element is an engaged relationship with prospective and current customers; and third are the expertise and human resources to manage content and relationships at scale.” These are all core competencies of b-to-b media companies, he said. Tom Smith, TechWeb’s senior VP-performance marketing, added that business media companies also understand the stages of the buying process in their respective vertical markets. Lead nurturing is based on the idea that a person’s content choices signal their buying readiness—so knowing which content is appropriate at each point in the cycle is essential to increasingly popular lead nurturing programs. “Companies with a publishing legacy need to understand that the lead nurturing process is complex,” Vaughan said. “I see a lot of people using the word ‘nurturing’ when they simply mean recontacting.” “Real lead nurturing is targeting assets or messages to audience members that are specific to where they are in the buying cycle, based on their content consumption,” Smith added. “That’s significantly more advanced than sending people a new asset two weeks after they downloaded the first one.” Engagement, a term that’s becoming more popular with marketers, is a critical component of the nurturing process. “We want to engage the audience with editorial content that is meaningful to them,” Smith said. “One way we do that is by presenting independent content right beside the marketing offers. We feel that the independent content and the client’s marketing offer have more value when the two are paired together.” Josh Heitsenrether is senior VP-integrated marketing and client services at Ziff Davis Enterprise, which provides a number of lead-gen programs for its clients, including lead nurturing. “Because of our media-to-audience relationships, we have a tremendous amount of knowledge about the people who are ultimately going to be converted to leads on behalf of our clients,” he said. “In order to generate leads through Gearing up for lead-gen To escape escalating price pressure, b-to-b media companies are investing in technology and people By MARIE GRIFFIN ore than ever before, lead generation requires investment in technology. As the number of lead-gen customers increases, a b-to-b media company’s ability to handle such programs manually decreases quickly. Technology, however, enables those businesses to scale up to new levels. B-to-b media companies are also using technology to vault themselves out of the hyper-competitive commodity-price tier of M lead generation by offering such advanced services as lead nurturing and scoring. Although lead generation has been a buyers’ market for some time, the increasing adoption of marketing automation by business marketers may put some power back into the hands of media companies, said Scott Vaughan, CMO of United Business Media’s TechWeb. “Most b-to-b marketers today have or are [installing] a system that enables lead genera- 8 | Media Business | April 2011 | mediabusinessonline.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - April 2011

Btob Media Business - April 2011
Contents
Down Is Up
Farm Journal Media Takes Home the Grand Neal
Publishers Step Up Investments in Lead-Gen Capabilities
Tapping New Technologies
Sales & Marketing
Carving a Niche
Registration Conundrum
Events
People
Benchmarks
Powerful Media Brands, Powerful Industry Advocates

BtoB Media Business - April 2011