lbdga how to guide- generating demand in emea

Making Demand Generation work in EMEAA guide for US enterprizes looking to increase sales overseas.

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Make more of your EMEA marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Why demand generation is your best buddy in EMEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Adapting your existing strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Generating more opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Converting opportunities into sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Retaining customers and increase value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Moving alongside prospects on their buyer journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7The mechanics of successful EMEA demand generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Inbound Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Content Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Marketing Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13EMEA campaign delivery and execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Don’t get lost in translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Widening your reach of your content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Adapting for cultural differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Getting the detail right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Local authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Phased roll-out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22EMEA campaign follow up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Contents

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B2B buyers are 67% through their buying cycle before interacting with suppliersSource: Sirius Decisions

Change is a constant. the internet has fundamentally redefined the way your buyers go about their business.

they have a problem to solve?

they go online to research solutions that could solve this problem, comparing products, prices, functionality, manufacturers.

they join forums to find out what other users have made of the options and suppliers they’re considering. And it’s all on their own terms without the intervention of your sales people. Chances are they’ll be two-thirds of their way through the buying cycle before engaging directly with suppliers.

All of which is more manageable when it’s on your territory.

Further afield, in markets where the culture, the language and the business needs are different, it becomes more of a challenge.

Make more of your EMEA marketing


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The tools and the information to meet needs preciselyregardless of geography or business service, demand generation has emerged as the marketer’s best ally to counter the fundamental changes in buyer behavior and to take on broader audiences. today’s technology gives you the ability to understand and to meet customer needs more precisely than ever before. With the right tools and the right information, you can engage in conversations at the earliest possible opportunity, to influence their decision making process.

if you’re running an effective demand generation program in the uS, your efforts will be around generating more opportunities, converting those opportunities into sales, and increasing the revenue to the business of retained customers. the processes and people you have in place will support you doing these things well, giving you an appropriate return from your marketing investment.

if this is the case, then you’re already ahead of the game in terms of being able to replicate success in other regions. it may be that you already have a marketing presence in europe, the Middle east and Africa that you feel could be working a little harder. you might just be starting out on expansion into the region.

This guide is designed to give you an insight into the issues you need to consider to optimize your EMEA demand generation activities.


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uS marketers are more advanced than peers almost anywhere else in the world. the vast majority of marketing automation platforms are designed and developed in the united States, and 53% of the US B2B audience are actively using marketing automation platforms.

eMeA marketers might not be as mature in demand generation and marketing automation, but in a diverse marketplace with different cultures, expectations and goals, languages, business environments and legislative restrictions amongst other things, these disciplines offer the most efficient means of reaching the right people with the right message at the right time.

Talk to prospects on an individual levelMarketing automation enables you to address the audience at an individual level. Big data and a dynamic analytics function can help you to customize communications and build relationships with prospects based on their business needs and circumstances in the markets in which they operate.

if you’ve managed to achieve deep buyer insight, strong sales and marketing alignment, and the ability to use technology to your best advantage in existing markets, you’ll be well-placed to succeed.

this, after all, is one of the key premises of demand generation, approaching customer relationships with their needs and goals in mind, not yours.

Why demand generation is your best buddy in EMEA


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the fact that the internet has had such a fundamental effect on the marketing process is a positive. Wherever your prospects are in the developed world, whatever their industry or sector, the web has changed the way they buy.

to run an effective modern-day demand generation programme in eMeA, you’ll need to apply the same core principles you’d use in any demand generation activity while recognizing and accommodating the differences into your strategic approach:

• Generatemoreopportunities Attracting, engaging and identifying

more prospects whose motivations, goals and business circumstances will be different to those of uS customers.

By using relevant content and inbound marketing strategies and platforms that take account of these and other variables including culture and language.

• Convertopportunitiesintosales Being attentive and understanding

enough to turn prospects’ interest into sales. Through the empowerment and expertise of your regional EMEA team, and by using personalized content and marketing automation tools that drive their buyer journeys.

• Retaincustomersand increase their value

keeping customers and increasing the number of purchases. By cross-selling and up-selling using digital marketing techniques, supporting increased revenue and enhancing your reputation in the region to maximize word-of-mouth endorsement.

Adapting your existing strategies


“Your website is a key research tool used by visitors during their purchase process, so make sure it’s just as targeted and relevant as your other demand generation marketing efforts.”getSmartContent

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Moving alongside prospects on their buyer journeyyou’ll be aware of the tools available to map and manage a prospect’s journey towards purchase. With the breadth and depth of analytics available, it’s possible to see exactly where in their journey your audience is, and what you can do to support or influence their decision-making at each stage.

it may be that priorities for eMeA customers aren’t the same as those for their uS counterparts depending on the scale and nature of their business. Bear in mind that quite often, a new technology or process is first used in north America and subsequently taken up by other markets. novelty will be an attractive asset, but so will proven case study success.

90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find youSource:DemandGenReports2012


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The mechanics of successful demand generation

Successful demand generation is about using a mix of inbound marketing, content marketing and marketing automation to lead prospects toward purchase. Best practice is a scenario where a central function and a geographically-removed regional hub will share resources to achieve agreed goals.


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93% of business buyers use search to begin their journeySource: Marketo

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in markets where english isn’t the first language, your key priority is to put together translated words and phrases that will improve your rankings. Work with your teams and, if necessary, external resources to define authentic keywords and phrases that will reflect prospect searches.

google trends can help you review keywords and trends relevant to your business propositions across countries, and to identify keywords for optimal performance in these regions.

InboundTo attract your audience from an inbound perspective you have two main vehicles – search and social.


SearchAt its simplest, ‘search’ represents the act of being found when a prospect looks on a search engine for something they want. the goal is to be found by your audience when they are looking for something that you can help them with.

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50%+ of tech buyers seek information about products on social sitesSource: B2B Tech Buyers, IDG websites

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SocialSocial media increases your ability to be found through communities. it enables communities to be the voice of your company and spread your reach beyond your known contacts, identify prospects you can actively nurture and even boost search performance.

Within B2B environments, search and social are fuelled by content. Without content, you will have little to attract audiences with through social media and receive less search traffic. More importantly, without content, the visitors you do generate will remain unknown to you.

Your local team will be expected to research and know the most important local B2B platforms, industry commentators and forums, though LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube are ubiquitous and will probably feature to some extent.

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Develop a united inbound strategyHaving an integrated inbound marketing strategy is key to reducing the silo effect of specialist teams who are geographically dispersed. With this strategy in place, each team can act independently, but with the aim of contributing most effectively to overall direction and goal. this drives synergy but also empowers each team to own responsibility for its actions for the greater good of the enterprise as a whole, and its balance sheet.

The importance of bloggingone of the most effective ways of enhancing keywords on your website and building backlinks is blogging. this requires the continual creation of newsworthy material that people want to share socially and link to from their websites.

By sharing the responsibility of regular contributions to a blog, you support your local team in forging their own identity and voice under the umbrella of your brand.

B2B companies that blog generate, on average, over 50% more leads per month than non-blogging organizations (Source: Socialmedia B2B)

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Content Marketing


Content must be relevant to your business as well as to your potential customers. effective content should support your business objectives and demonstrate your thought- leadership – and accelerate the customer along the pipeline toward a sale.

A business problem is still a business problem, irrespective of geographyWhere content is concerned, it makes sense to talk to prospects in their language. translations that reflect the original meanings need to be carefully thought through, especially if your product range is technically complex, but this is easily achievable with the right support, either internally or bought-in.

remember that even though your brands are really important to you, prospects are more interested in learning about, and finding solutions to, their problems. A customer-centric approach puts every piece of information in the context of a journey, making it more relevant to more people, more of the time.

Make your assets openly available to your teamthere’s no reason not to repurpose existing content to fit the appropriate stages of the eMeA buyer journey, sense-checking for local relevance in terms of prospect’s business priorities. Statistics that reflect the local business environment will help, as will case studies readers can identify with.

Again, your team on the ground is there to monitor industry trends and events where they’re based. open channels of communication will help to identify assets you have that they could use productively.

95% of B2B buyers viewed multiple pieces of content from the vendor they ultimately selectedSource:DemandGenReports

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65% of management decisions are now based on data, not guessworkSource:MIT2011

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Marketing Automationfundamentally, the reasons you invested in a particular marketing automation platform for use in domestic markets will apply wherever you’re focusing your activity.

Data quality is crucialin multiple markets, it’s important to verify the quality and accuracy of data on a regular basis. Simple things like prospect lists become potential minefields when not just the language, but character formats, naming protocols and greeting conventions are different.

one of the main causes of failed marketing automation campaigns is poor data quality. Marketing in new regions brings the additional challenge that data may include not just more than one language, but more than one font or format. Creating a data action plan will help to ensure all your records are complete, de-duplicated and up-to-date before uploading them to your automation platform. regular reviewing will help to maintain quality and consistency of data.

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Centralmanagement, regional empowermentfrom a campaign management perspective, marketing automation platforms give you central management of marketing activity with regional empowerment, enabling you to run integrated campaigns targeting multiple stakeholders via numerous channels across boundaries and language barriers.

this is vital when you’re in the process of creating demand in a new market. used effectively, these technologies help you to create a unified momentum where all stakeholders are informed and motivated.

Centralresources,regionalintelligence

At the same time, you retain ultimate budgetary control and can quickly and easily assess roi, while your local teams have the flexibility to leverage brand assets all the more powerfully when they combine them with local intelligence.

using the same platform, they can customize messaging for their needs, within pre-set boundaries, without compromising brand values, visual identity or tone-of-voice, cost-effectively targeting distinct audiences, in the right language

and formats at the right time. the result is that they feel they have control and responsibility, which leads to greater motivation to roll out campaigns developed centrally.

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Driving demand by getting the message right

the key to success in eMeA is knowledge and its application. the most advanced marketing automation platform in the world isn’t going to work for you unless you have the audience insight and an understanding of their needs and expectations.

Who are you talking to? What are their pain points, channels of consumption and areas of interest? from first touchpoint to purchase and ongoing support, you need an understanding of what information customers need, and how they go about getting it.

you can now incorporate the ‘always on’ channels of display and social advertising

to marketing automation – to nurture beyond the inbox, sequencing ads to prospects on the web based on business demographics and online interests. this has resulted in more than 400 new leads from anonymous prospect targeting; a 64 percent increase in additional conversions from known contacts; and a 233 percent roi for leading B2B companies.*

Building personas

Having personas of your audience types will help. you can start to build these through a combination of previous experience, existing user profiles, market research and local knowledge. refining by title, role, industry or stage in the buying cycle are the first

steps in identifying core communications attributes that will help to establish prospect relationships.

Progressive profiling will help to build an invaluable picture of your prospect. each time you interact with a potential lead, exchange information that’s useful for them with data that helps your cause, gradually building a more detailed picture that, in turn, helps you to refine your resources to meet their needs.


*Statistics represent results from the Bizo Multi-Channel Nurturing for Eloqua beta program, 2013 .

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Fine-tune in real-timethe ability to aggregate and analyze trend data in real-time helps you to reduce costs by helping remove ineffective campaigns, while fine-tuning the performance, productivity and effectiveness of campaigns that work. And of course this works both ways. if you find a product proposition gets cut-through when presented in a certain way in one region, you may well find that a similar approach delivers the same results in another.

talented analysts based centrally will support the most efficient, cost-effective and impactful use of the information. you have to target the right prospects, at the right time, with the right messaging at a regional level.

European B2B email legislation made easy

if you’re considering, or are actively email marketing to european B2B recipients, you need to be aware of the different country email legislations. Many believe that the same law applies to the whole of europe or that laws don’t apply to B2B communications. With 27 eu member states there is, at present, no consistency of data protection rules for use in a B2B context across the region. Some countries insist that B2B email activity should comply with existing, and more stringent, B2C regulations, some don’t.

you’ll find a summary guide of existing legislation here


Marketo Top Tip:

“Make the effort to localise nurturing emails, e.g. by including local customer proof points, language appropriate to your target market, references to events being held in relevant locations and time zones, and most importantly, local contact details.”

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Why the mass market approach won’t workin a new or underdeveloped market, there will always be the temptation to go for quantity over quality. this might materialize as a one-size-fits-all ‘batch‘n’blast’ email campaign. Avoid it. this technique works on the mistaken notion that frequency beats relevance, and that if you shout loud enough and long enough, you’ll bully your customers into buying. Customers aren’t like that. they buy when they are ready to buy. you need to be present when they are, or actively accelerate the process in making them ready to buy.

With the tools available, you can monitor online activities of customers and prospects, read their digital body language and assess which contacts will view your proposition favorably. this will help to increase engagement, cut wastage through perceived spamming and unsubscribes, but also reduce the risk of being alienated by those you’re trying to attract.

in this respect, it’s as well to remember what lead nurturing isn’t, as much as what it is:

•Genericemailssentrandomlytoyourprospect database aren’t conducive to lead nurturing. email campaigns based on existing insight and local market needs, and that adhere to an agreed buyer journey, are.

•ProducinganeNewsletterfullofcompany and product information, and sending to a sketchy prospect list, isn’t lead nurturing. Contributing to local industry forums and providing relevant industry information, is.

•Givingaremotetelesalesteamalistof contacts and telling them to work their way through it isn’t lead nurturing. Listening to your prospects and reacting to their digital body language, where they’re looking for information, is.


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Using customized, country-specific communicationsthe most successful demand generation and lead management programmes involve messaging individually customized for prospects at specific points in their customer journey. And you may well be doing this already in domestic markets. the change here is in mindset, moving to a robust, long-term programme concentrating on filling the sales funnel rather than a short-term, tactical approach that costs more and converts less. Marketing automation enables you to streamline your marketing, to increase the chances of

turning an interested individual into a committed, sales-ready prospect.the more processes that can be automated, the more cost-effective the exercise as a whole. Low-touch or zero-touch programmes cut costs dramatically, and are possible when your regional team is engaged and lead scoring, nurture marketing and data management are automated. When you use the capabilities of the platforms available, and combine them with the experience, insight and intuition of a good marketing team on the ground, success will follow.


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EMEA Campaign delivery and executionoperationally, setting up and maintaining a profit center out-of-heartland brings up some challenges. none of these are insurmountable, however, if you have a strategy in place and stick to it. Here are a few project management issues you’ll need to bear in mind:


Don’t get lost in translationinsist on dedicated, in-country, culturally-aware translation services. in B2B, it’s more likely that the language you use will be technical, with a need for precision and understanding of the subject matter.

Choose a supplier who is prepared to invest time in building a library of terminologies and preferred phrases with the appropriate translations. if the technical detail is correct at the outset, you’ll save yourself significant time and money in the long term.

if your first project consists of a large volume of collateral, it’s a good idea to request that your translators review and analyze all relevant documents and work on the most complex pieces with the highest volume of repetition first. feedback from this work will help to inform translation of the remaining collateral.

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Widening the reach of your contentMarketing automation applications can provide marketing collateral via secure cloud-based applications that can be used by partners, distributors, resellers, dealers, agents and subcontractors. the central marketing function still controls core branding and messaging, as well as user permissions and access levels.

Cloud-based applications can then be accessed from anywhere by any stakeholder in the marketing supply chain. this enables collateral to be customized for the specific requirements of each stakeholder.

Adapting for cultural differencesMarketing automation technology can offer invaluable insights into local attitudes to different media and messaging.

the german business community, for example, isn’t generally appreciative of cold-calling. in these circumstances, a communication, followed by some thinking time and then a sales call, is the most likely way to generate a positive response.

Again the beauty of a marketing automation platform is that you can adapt activity, in real-time if necessary or beneficial, to allow for country-specific attitudes or behaviors. using response rates to inform and fine-tune subsequent activity is well worth the time invested to make budgets work even harder.

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Getting the detail rightrunning a ‘regular’ demand generation campaign in your own region with your own team, there will be a number of things you take for granted, things you don’t even think about.

Some of these things, such as the legislative implications when sending email, can be researched and established quite quickly. But what about greeting conventions that might vary per region? non-roman typefaces like Arabic will mean adding to font libraries and testing to ensure they work on a given marketing automation platform. the length of a paragraph of text will vary by language. And operating in different time zones will impact on approvals procedures and production deadlines.

Local authorityissues are far easier to manage when the local team, the people with the knowledge and understanding of regional markets and cultures, are given the tools, the autonomy and the empowerment to implement a campaign framework according to local needs, attitudes and behaviors.

getting the balance and the understanding right between centralized and local teams is key. unified, strategic direction from a centralized source will maximize brand assets and consistency.

And rather than operating in silos, an inclusive, shared approach to campaign management and results opens up the possibility of successful work being adapted and implemented in multiple regions more time- and cost-effectively.


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Phased roll-outBy adopting a scalable strategy, trying a campaign in one market at a time and learning from each new deployment, you can implement learnings into future deployments, consistently evolving campaigns and improving results as you go along.

EMEA campaign follow uptelemarketing has a key part to play in demand generation. Marketing Qualified Leads will help maximize your investment and nurture leads through to a point where you can share leads with your sales team.

Calls no longer have to be cold. An intelligent nurture campaign will give the telemarketers the information they need to have an informed conversation with the prospect at the right stage in their buyer journey.

So what skills does your telemarketing team need in eMeA?• Experience–atleast3yearsin

business plus an understanding of the sector you are working in – sales and customer service skills are ideal

• Intelligence–tearupthescript, ask the right questions and hold an engaging conversation with your prospects

• Language–you’llneedthecoverageand skills to deliver pan-eMeA campaign follow up

• Culturalawareness–telemarketersthat understand the business culture of their target country and what it takes to be successful in that region are vital to any campaign


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About Ledger Bennett DGA

We are a B2B Demand Generation agency that uses sales and marketing know-how to help customers increase revenue by deploying Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing and Marketing Automation strategies. Our highly focused Demand Generation programs drive our customers’ business performance, helping them to:

n Generate more opportunity

n Convert that opportunity into sales

n Retain customers and grow their value

Using more measurable and cost effective techniques than traditional full service marketing agencies we are able to maximize business revenue in the modern world where the internet has fundamentally changed the behavior of the buyer.

www.LBDGA.com

Telephone: +44 (0)8458 383883 Email: [email protected]

Milton Keynes:

Ledger Bennett dgA tungsten House, Warren road Little Horwood, Milton keynes Mk17 0nr

London:

Ledger Bennett dgA 1st floor Centric House 390-391 Strand, London WC2r 0Lt


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