3 Demand Gen Trends That Will Shape Your Business in 2021 and Beyond

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:09.330 welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Leslie Cruise, the sweet fish media 3 00:00:09.340 --> 00:00:13.580 today we are continuing on our journey and to demand generation and I am 4 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:18.290 joined today by Israel Blackman, owner of Tln marketing Israel, thank you so 5 00:00:18.290 --> 00:00:22.430 much for joining me on the show. Thank you Leslie for having me. It's a 6 00:00:22.430 --> 00:00:26.980 pleasure to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you today before we get too 7 00:00:26.980 --> 00:00:32.030 deep into demand generation as a whole. Do you mind sharing with our listeners 8 00:00:32.030 --> 00:00:38.650 what T L M stands for and kind of the idea behind your company. So marketing 9 00:00:38.650 --> 00:00:44.100 is a bit to be demand generation agency that was established in 2016 and 10 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:49.350 operates in Israel. We serve global tech companies, start ups, scale ups 11 00:00:49.350 --> 00:00:54.820 and enterprises whose headquarters are in Israel or that have an Israeli 12 00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:59.660 subsidiary. Some of our most prominent clients include Singular, which is a 13 00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:05.129 mobile measurement and uh attribution company, luminous and medical devices 14 00:01:05.129 --> 00:01:09.650 company optimal Plus, which was recently acquired by an eye Amdocs, 15 00:01:09.700 --> 00:01:15.900 amazon, AWS and Cisco. In a nutshell, we plan and execute demand generation 16 00:01:15.900 --> 00:01:21.040 programs that enable our clients to meet their business goals, which mainly 17 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:26.580 means generating the sales pipeline. Before establishing T. L. M. I served 18 00:01:26.580 --> 00:01:31.690 as head of Microsoft, Israel's digital marketing department, a role which I 19 00:01:31.690 --> 00:01:38.280 held for five years just as Microsoft was moving towards sauce and e commerce 20 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:44.320 models. The experience, again in this capacity was incredibly available. I 21 00:01:44.320 --> 00:01:50.080 was able to acquire new digital skills as they were emerging and Diprivan for 22 00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:55.720 the needs of uh tech market leader. Before Microsoft, I was the VP of 23 00:01:55.720 --> 00:02:00.970 strategy and part of the founding team of blink, which is Israel's first and 24 00:02:00.970 --> 00:02:06.460 largest social media agency that was recently acquired by Hamas. That's 25 00:02:06.460 --> 00:02:10.610 great. So you have a lot of experience in digital marketing as a whole, but 26 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:14.630 also in demand generation, which I find very interesting since it's so up and 27 00:02:14.630 --> 00:02:19.610 coming right now. So how would you, in your own words, define demand 28 00:02:19.610 --> 00:02:26.780 generation. My preferred definition of demand generation is a set of targeted 29 00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:34.450 marketing programs formed with revenue accountability in mind. This means that 30 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:43.160 the primary goal of demand generation is to generate sales pipeline. And uh, 31 00:02:43.170 --> 00:02:48.780 I'm very much familiar with the debate that is going on around the definition 32 00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:53.490 of demand generation, with some definitions that lean more towards the 33 00:02:53.500 --> 00:03:00.100 upper funnel, the awareness related part of target India's engagement. But 34 00:03:00.110 --> 00:03:06.420 uh, this is the definition that I feel most comfortable with and it describes 35 00:03:06.420 --> 00:03:13.150 best what me and my team are doing for the past few years. Also, in my point 36 00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:16.910 of view, this definition is helpful because it emphasizes two main points. 37 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:21.920 The first is that it gives a name to what me and my like minded colleagues 38 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:27.920 have been doing for the past years as digital marketers are generating new 39 00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:33.760 revenue streams from digital activities. This also makes it easier to explain 40 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:38.450 what my team and I do. Up until recently, I would say that I build 41 00:03:38.450 --> 00:03:43.020 digital growth engines for my clients, which is the time we would use that 42 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:51.060 Microsoft. The problem was very few people were familiar with this term by 43 00:03:51.060 --> 00:03:56.640 the way. This actually reminds me of the early days of social media As an 44 00:03:56.640 --> 00:04:01.900 agency that was established in 2007. 2 years before the term social media was 45 00:04:01.900 --> 00:04:07.090 coined, we had to use various quickly names to describe what we did, such as 46 00:04:07.090 --> 00:04:13.810 web to the toe marketing, communities, marketing, etc. After the time social 47 00:04:13.810 --> 00:04:17.890 media was going to, we simply call ourselves a social media agency and 48 00:04:17.890 --> 00:04:23.340 everybody knew what we were talking about. Yeah, second, the definition 49 00:04:23.340 --> 00:04:28.660 encourages digital marketers to pay attention to growth drivers rather than 50 00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:33.650 justly generation. Yeah, it's it's really interesting to me that you were 51 00:04:33.650 --> 00:04:38.620 on the forefront of social media kind of before it was really even called 52 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:41.940 social media. You know, you were talking about how you called it a lot 53 00:04:41.940 --> 00:04:44.990 of different things and then then you called it a social media agency and 54 00:04:44.990 --> 00:04:48.050 everybody knew that you were talking about and now that you're here kind of 55 00:04:48.050 --> 00:04:52.510 on the forefront of demand generation, um I do agree that it is definitely 56 00:04:52.510 --> 00:04:57.250 important for marketers to pay extra attention to what is driving growth 57 00:04:57.640 --> 00:05:00.950 rather than just focusing on leads and revenue. And that's what I've learned 58 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:05.810 in my process of this deep dive so far. And recently you published an article 59 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:09.910 on linkedin that I definitely want to talk about and it's about B2B demand 60 00:05:09.910 --> 00:05:15.090 gen trends in 2021. And for those listening, we'll make sure to link this 61 00:05:15.090 --> 00:05:17.950 article in the show notes because I think it is something that's really 62 00:05:17.950 --> 00:05:21.960 valuable for anyone who wants to start implementing demand gen strategies in 63 00:05:21.960 --> 00:05:25.790 the organization as a whole. Um but Israel, can you just share your idea 64 00:05:25.790 --> 00:05:32.670 behind this post and ultimately what those trends are. So as an agency owner, 65 00:05:32.670 --> 00:05:37.110 I enjoy the privilege of working with diverse clients from various industries 66 00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:43.220 sizes and business models. And based on my clients and my personal 2020 Q4 67 00:05:43.220 --> 00:05:51.580 experiences i. e. The planning process of 2021, I was able to take a step back 68 00:05:51.580 --> 00:05:58.210 and reflect on what 2020 will mean for the future. And in my point of view, 69 00:05:58.210 --> 00:06:04.490 2020 was about speeding up existing processes, business accountability says 70 00:06:04.490 --> 00:06:07.840 the marketing environment and a B. M. or concepts and practices that were 71 00:06:07.840 --> 00:06:12.510 discussed and promoted as best practices for the past few years. But 72 00:06:12.510 --> 00:06:19.170 in 2020 we were accelerated matured and moved to the forefront of the desired 73 00:06:19.170 --> 00:06:25.650 marketing practice for the future. And this demanded a different approach to 74 00:06:25.650 --> 00:06:31.810 our marketing planning. And after giving this subject so much fought, I 75 00:06:31.820 --> 00:06:35.900 decided that it's important to articulate these points and share them 76 00:06:35.900 --> 00:06:42.510 with colleagues. So a few weeks back, I interviewed my clients and several 77 00:06:42.510 --> 00:06:49.460 colleagues whose opinion I value and uh and three main trends emerged from 78 00:06:49.460 --> 00:06:56.440 those discussions. The first round, I call it digital old bound and Ron 79 00:06:56.440 --> 00:07:01.290 Konigsberg, who is the chief of growth at single are put it nicely when he 80 00:07:01.290 --> 00:07:06.430 said, there was always a question of diversity within the marketing 81 00:07:06.430 --> 00:07:11.620 portfolio, with digital marketing being part of the mix. Today, digital 82 00:07:11.620 --> 00:07:17.830 marketing is the marketing portfolio and we constantly strive to diversified. 83 00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:24.890 That's good. And this is almost common sense when face to face interactions 84 00:07:24.890 --> 00:07:30.780 are no no longer available for both marketing itself, Digital becomes the 85 00:07:30.780 --> 00:07:36.270 only available channel of business engagement. And this actually presents 86 00:07:36.270 --> 00:07:41.510 a great opportunity as one also emphasized for marketers to become 87 00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:47.610 trend makers rather than following the lead of industry events, exhibits and 88 00:07:47.610 --> 00:07:54.850 conferences. So that is the first trend. The second trend that emerged is, says 89 00:07:54.850 --> 00:08:02.090 the marketing partnerships. I know that you didn't want to discuss much the 90 00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:07.880 sense of marketing alignment trend. It is important so which is important. And 91 00:08:07.880 --> 00:08:12.460 I know that you have discussed that a lot with our guests of your podcast. 92 00:08:12.940 --> 00:08:19.060 But in my opinion, as opposed to the up until recently popular agenda of sales 93 00:08:19.060 --> 00:08:23.620 and marketing alignment, which assumed the clear division of labor between 94 00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:28.000 sales and marketing. Today, both marketing and sales are considered 95 00:08:28.010 --> 00:08:33.030 equally responsible for generating opportunities, which means that they 96 00:08:33.030 --> 00:08:39.830 cannot wait for one another, but rather need to work closely together. And in 97 00:08:39.830 --> 00:08:44.780 terms of KPI S, it means that digital marketing is now being measured in 98 00:08:44.780 --> 00:08:51.290 terms of revenue accountability. That is the number of opportunities and 99 00:08:51.290 --> 00:08:57.240 potential revenue that it generates. And last trend is winning the bank 100 00:08:57.240 --> 00:09:03.140 group. Since marketing is now measured by the opportunities it generates, and 101 00:09:03.150 --> 00:09:07.520 since the the bid to be purchased, decision process is divided among 102 00:09:07.520 --> 00:09:13.600 several decision makers. Marketing must put more effort into identifying, 103 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:18.900 acquiring and engaging with the bank group in order to ensure that an 104 00:09:18.900 --> 00:09:24.010 opportunity is being generated josh. What do you think is the most 105 00:09:24.020 --> 00:09:27.810 irritating thing for B. Two B buyers right now? Man Logan. I love talking to 106 00:09:27.810 --> 00:09:31.720 you about this. You know that the number one challenge right now is that 107 00:09:31.730 --> 00:09:35.790 many customer facing teams in the B. Two B. Space right now are forcing 108 00:09:35.800 --> 00:09:40.250 their potential buyers too by the way that they want to sell, buyers don't 109 00:09:40.250 --> 00:09:44.030 want to buy that way. Right now. They want to by the way they want to buy. We 110 00:09:44.030 --> 00:09:48.400 need to enable those buyers, we call this buyer enablement at sales reach. 111 00:09:48.410 --> 00:09:52.690 We need to enable those buyers to make better decisions quicker in a 112 00:09:52.690 --> 00:09:56.180 comfortable environment that's more personalized for them to move forward 113 00:09:56.180 --> 00:10:00.110 with that process. Dude, that's awesome. I couldn't agree more since I've been 114 00:10:00.110 --> 00:10:03.920 using sales reach in my own sales process. It's allowed me to really 115 00:10:03.930 --> 00:10:08.450 enable the buyer to move more quickly in really two ways. One they don't have 116 00:10:08.450 --> 00:10:11.980 to download a bunch of attachments. I can send them to one page with the 117 00:10:11.980 --> 00:10:16.070 proposal case studies different resources because let's face it, the 118 00:10:16.070 --> 00:10:20.120 proposal is just one part of the sales conversation and probably only one 119 00:10:20.120 --> 00:10:24.240 sales enablement piece of content that you're sending. So it makes it easier 120 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:27.210 on them. And then the other thing is, you know, we're selling to our 121 00:10:27.210 --> 00:10:30.910 champions and then we're making them have to re give our pitch to the entire 122 00:10:30.910 --> 00:10:35.300 buying committee. So one thing I do is put a custom 2 to 3 minute video on the 123 00:10:35.300 --> 00:10:38.870 top of my sales reach page that says, hey, here's all the resources, tie it 124 00:10:38.870 --> 00:10:41.840 back to the conversation. Here's the proposal. Let me know if you have any 125 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:45.960 questions and it allows me to give a little bit of kind of a mini pitch to 126 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:49.560 the rest of the buying committee, introduce myself, which helps me build 127 00:10:49.560 --> 00:10:53.030 trust and credibility and helps the buyer not have to repeat the entire 128 00:10:53.030 --> 00:10:57.420 pitch from scratch. So if anybody is looking to do the same thing in their 129 00:10:57.420 --> 00:11:00.850 own sales process, I'd highly suggest they reach out to you and the team over 130 00:11:00.850 --> 00:11:05.360 at sales, reach for anybody listening, just go to sales reach dot io to talk 131 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:10.320 to josh and the team That's great. I think that these three trends are 132 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:14.440 really going to be crucial to anyone listening to this, who is looking to 133 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:18.300 start implementing more but demand gen strategy into especially, you know, if 134 00:11:18.300 --> 00:11:22.720 your start up or scale up organization that doesn't have, you know, maybe a 135 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:27.020 demand gen department or doesn't have someone specific in that role, These 136 00:11:27.020 --> 00:11:31.310 are going to be three really, really important trends to kind of focus on in 137 00:11:31.310 --> 00:11:35.490 your organization and Israel, you talked a little bit more about in that 138 00:11:35.490 --> 00:11:39.860 article about some of the strategies that are seeing increased budgets in 139 00:11:39.860 --> 00:11:45.460 2021. Can you talk about what those might be and why They're increasing in 140 00:11:45.460 --> 00:11:52.560 2021 specifically? Yeah. So the main strategy that comes to mind is a B. M. 141 00:11:52.570 --> 00:11:58.410 Account based marketing in a natural A B. M. Is a demand generation strategy 142 00:11:58.410 --> 00:12:04.570 that focuses on a targeted account list, a list of specific companies which is 143 00:12:04.570 --> 00:12:11.200 usually generated by or with the sales department by engaging with as many of 144 00:12:11.210 --> 00:12:17.050 the bank groups on the list as possible. We aim to maximize the opportunities 145 00:12:17.130 --> 00:12:22.000 and the reason the strategy has gained tremendous popularity during the past 146 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:27.760 year has to do with all three trends that we have covered earlier. It 147 00:12:27.760 --> 00:12:32.580 closely partners with says it represents strong accountability toward 148 00:12:32.580 --> 00:12:37.860 generating business opportunities and it takes into account the bank group. 149 00:12:38.340 --> 00:12:45.100 Another strategy that comes to mind is growth hacking as a strategy. I turning 150 00:12:45.110 --> 00:12:50.600 growth hacking which is usually perceived as a tactic or or a set of 151 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:56.210 tactics into a complete strategy. And In this case I relate to your 152 00:12:56.210 --> 00:13:00.770 discussion with Sarah Anderson who said that during the past 12 months, 153 00:13:00.780 --> 00:13:05.960 marketers were expected to incorporate more growth tactics into their programs. 154 00:13:06.340 --> 00:13:10.350 These circles back to the business accountability trend that we've 155 00:13:10.350 --> 00:13:16.290 mentioned with a strong emphasis on ri and tangible results. Yeah, that's 156 00:13:16.290 --> 00:13:21.810 really great. And speaking of tangible results, how would you measure success 157 00:13:21.820 --> 00:13:27.410 in a demand gen strategy? Simply put we evaluate demand generation programs 158 00:13:27.410 --> 00:13:32.580 using free main KPs. The first is the number of Rescuers. The number of says 159 00:13:32.580 --> 00:13:37.590 qualified leads. The second is the number of opportunities and the third 160 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:42.200 is the expected annual recurring revenue. That's really interesting. 161 00:13:42.210 --> 00:13:46.480 Kind of spelled out like that. I haven't heard anyone give a direct 162 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:49.570 answer like that, but I think this is really great because this is something, 163 00:13:49.570 --> 00:13:52.240 I mean these are things that are measurable, you know and I think the 164 00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:55.820 issue that people have had with demand generation is sometimes it's not 165 00:13:55.820 --> 00:13:58.780 measurable because sometimes you're working with that word of mouth 166 00:13:58.780 --> 00:14:02.920 marketing or these other things that just aren't easily measurable. But this 167 00:14:02.920 --> 00:14:08.130 is something, I mean these three main KPs are easily measurable and easily 168 00:14:08.140 --> 00:14:13.860 evaluated In your opinion. What do you think is something that B2B marketers 169 00:14:13.870 --> 00:14:21.290 in this industry should start or stop doing When I was writing the 2021 170 00:14:21.290 --> 00:14:27.160 demand generation trans article. Ask one of my clients and friends actually 171 00:14:27.170 --> 00:14:33.340 to share his insights with me. He said that he doesn't have time To sit down. 172 00:14:33.350 --> 00:14:41.350 I insisted and he said I will tell you one thing that relates to marketing in 173 00:14:41.350 --> 00:14:51.040 2021 M. Q. L. Is dead. Uh The guy's name is Jonathan Carson. Um, and he's 174 00:14:51.040 --> 00:14:57.430 the same of cybersecurity startup called R Mo and I didn't actually put 175 00:14:57.430 --> 00:15:02.590 it on my article. But in my opinion, it sums up pretty much everything that 176 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:09.710 needs to be stopped. Marketers who focus on generating SQL ie nurturing 177 00:15:09.710 --> 00:15:17.340 leads until reaching an arbitrary score which may or may not indicate buying 178 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:24.590 intent are limited in their ability to generate growth. Absolutely. Well, this 179 00:15:24.590 --> 00:15:28.400 has been so insightful. Israel, thank you so much again for coming on the 180 00:15:28.400 --> 00:15:31.680 show and sharing with our listeners a little bit more about your experience 181 00:15:31.680 --> 00:15:35.170 with demand generation. Where can our listeners find you if they're 182 00:15:35.170 --> 00:15:40.820 interested in learning more about you or Tln marketing? So you can find me on 183 00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:48.670 both linked in and twitter. Look up style Blackman P L E C H M A N. I'm 184 00:15:48.670 --> 00:15:53.620 always happy to meet new piers. Great. I love it. Well, thank you so much. 185 00:15:53.620 --> 00:15:56.710 This has been fantastic and thanks again for joining me here on GDP Growth. 186 00:15:56.720 --> 00:16:00.470 Thank you very much for having me. It was a true pleasure. 187 00:16:03.040 --> 00:16:06.620 One of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 188 00:16:06.620 --> 00:16:11.310 mouth works. It works really, really well actually. So if you love this show, 189 00:16:11.310 --> 00:16:15.230 it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it. And if 190 00:16:15.230 --> 00:16:19.560 you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend meta, 191 00:16:19.570 --> 00:16:23.200 I know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based networking, how to 192 00:16:23.210 --> 00:16:26.650 instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is 193 00:16:26.650 --> 00:16:32.360 40749033 to 8. Happy texting.