2. 2
1 INTRODUCTION
Page 3
COMPETITIVE PROPOSITION
Page 4
2
3 USER PROFILING/AUDIENCE DNA
Page 9
4 LEAD GENERATION PREPARATION
Page 10
5 SUMMARY
Page 14
CONTENTS
‘ENSURE
YOUR BRAND
HAS A CLEAR,
COMPELLING
AND RELEVANT
PROPOSITION’
3. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK. 3
UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION.
TICK.
Growing the customer base profitably is a primary and critical objective
for many B2B brands, and in today’s marketing landscape lead
generation is the golden thread between marketing and sales. Yet many
companies are finding leads extremely difficult to find, challenging to
nurture and even harder to convert.
The reality is that without a very clear brand proposition and customer
focused content strategy, the chances are you won’t only be struggling
to differentiate against your competitors, you’ll more than likely be
attracting the wrong type of leads.
As online channels continue to be the primary lead nurturing tools, both sales teams and marketing
professionals need to change tactics. In the often complex, multi-layered world of B2B, it’s no longer
effective to target a single person in a company. In fact, a buyer will be 70% down the buying journey before
they are ready to reach out to the seller for a price. Increasingly, buyers avoid speaking to sales people until
they’ve done the majority of their research. Reaching buyers at an early stage of their buying process is the
key role of marketing today and passing buyers over to the sales team at the right time is also key.
However, to truly maximise your chance to demonstrate credibility, build trust and gain opportunity, you
must first ensure your brand has a clear, compelling and relevant proposition. This is the foundation for any
successful lead generation campaign and, indeed, an ongoing relationship with customers.
We’ve helped many companies transform their lead generation and conversion rates through a brand
positioning strategy. We’ve created this guide, therefore, in the hope we can help many more companies
understand the critical role brand positioning plays in lead generation, and to share some of the techniques
we’ve developed over the past 14 years as a UK top 50 B2B brand and marketing agency.
The tips and techniques we share can be used by a marketer as part of a strategic planning session or can
be used as part of a planning session with the wider team.
We believe it’s vital that you go through this process with an external facilitator in order to provide an
objective perspective. This can be a trusted friend of the company or external advisor; the facilitator needs
to be external to the day to day running of the business and therefore able to challenge you and your team
to answer the sometimes difficult questions to get the most from the process. Why not contact one of our
Planners here at Clock to help guide you through the process?
1 - INTRODUCTION
4. The B2B Barometer survey1
reveals that up to 60% of B2B marketers say
marketing plays second fiddle to sales. 41% of B2B marketers report that
their single highest marketing priority for 2013 is to generate more of the
salesperson’s raw material – leads.
So B2B companies are sales-led and their marketing is required to deliver sales leads. Yet seemingly more
B2B organisations are struggling to generate the quantity of leads they require and even more are struggling
to generate the profile of lead they want.
Our starting point in this scenario is brand position. Does your organisation have a clearly defined
and differentiated brand position a competitive proposition you own? If it does, how well are you
communicating this?
1
The Lead Generation and Nurturing Benchmarking Report by Circle Research & B2B Marketing Magazine
BRAND POSITIONING – WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Essentially, branding is how you communicate the space you occupy in the sector you are in and
how you operate as an organisation. It should be aimed at your ideal customer and be highly
relevant and compelling for them. Brand positioning is not simply what you say you do, it should be
authentic i.e. based on fact and should encapsulate everything that makes your organisation tick. It
starts with the values you live by and operate within, the vision that drives the whole organisation and
the compelling differentiator that matters to customers.
DOWNLOAD AND PRINT
THE DIAGRAMS IN THIS GUIDE
IN LARGE FORMAT AND
PIN THEM UP ON THE WALL
THAT WAY YOU CAN WORK AS
A STRATEGIC TEAM TO START
TO DEVELOP YOUR BRAND.
WWW.CLOCKCREATIVE.CO.UK/
THINKGROWTH
4
2 - COMPETITIVE PROPOSITION
5. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK.
HOW YOU DEVELOP YOUR BRAND POSITIONING
Start with visualising the now. Where are you now? What does the
market place look like? Where are you going? And fundamentally,
why are you different?
We use a perceptual map to plot these and capture the strategic vision. This requires the right
people in the room; those responsible for company strategy and anyone who has a vested interest in
the strategic direction of the business.
DECIDE ON THE AXIS
The first thing to do is decide what should be on your X and Y
axis. The example shown here is for a company who operates
solely in the manufacturing space but finds themselves
competing with companies who are generalists. They are seeking
to understand what the global versus UK landscape looks like.
So their axis are Generalists and Specialists with global and UK.
PLOT THE LANDSCAPE
Put actual companies on the map and discuss where your
organisation sits and plot this too.
SPOT THE GAPS
Are there any spaces on your map? On the example shown the space is as a specialist either
global or UK. So this is the ideal space for our client to sit in – away from the saturated generalist
market. Sometimes the strategy can be, however, to sit in a saturated market and disrupt it.
If this is your strategy that’s fine, just understand who’s around you and what you need to
do to disrupt that position.
PLOT YOUR VISION
Draw where you want to be. Do you all agree that is the vision? Often there’s some debate when you
plot where you are and where you want to be.
Now you’re ready to start working on the strategy to deliver that vision. The perceptual map is an ideal visual
to keep on your wall to remind anyone involved in strategy what position you wish to own.
www.clockcreative.co.uk/THINKGROWTH
OPPORTUNITY
MANUFACTURING
SPECIALIST
SME’S
GENERALIST
GLOBAL
UK
YOU CAN USE THIS
MAP FOR PRODUCTS
OR SERVICES TOO. IT’S
A USEFUL WAY TO SET
OUT HOW TO POSITION
A PRODUCT OR SERVICE
IN A MARKET PLACE AND
UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU
NEED TO DO TO GET IT
WHERE YOU WANT
IT TO BE.
PERCEPTUAL MAP
5
1
3
2
4
6. Using the Clock brand pyramid, start at the bottom. The objective is to
understand what foundations the business is built on, in order to clarify
the brand essence, i.e. why the brand exists. It’s the fundamental reason
for the brand’s existence and critically, should give a clear direction for
the brand that is compelling for employees and customers alike.
CLOCK BRAND PYRAMID
6
7. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK.
Essentially, to develop a differentiated proposition, you’ll need to work
as a team to uncover everything you know about:
Audience Who do you need to reach? What matters to them?
What’s their role? Are there influencers to also consider?
What’s the tier and responsibilities of the decision-maker?
What would be their motivations to do business with you
and what challenges might you face in the process?
Market What do you know about the market, the size of it, your
market share, the key players, your competitors, overseas
market place. Use the perceptual map to plot the
marketplace.
Core insight What’s the customer requirement that drives a need for your
product or service? It’s really important here to think like a
customer and much more broadly than how your product or
service fulfils a need. For example, if the issue you’re solving
is a product part that makes something work, consider the
implications of the larger project failing and therefore what are
you really solving? You may also find insight by considering
why a customer or sector struggles with a particular
challenge that your product or service answers. A core insight
is something that helps you focus your brand on, it’s a market
need that is fundamental to the customer achieving
their objective.
Brand benefits What are the key motivational reasons for buying?
Brand truths Features, attributes and properties that help underpin the
promise (this may be the way you do things as much as what
you do).
Brand promise Summary of what the brand offers and why it’s better.
Brand values Fundamental guiding principles and beliefs.
Brand personality Human characteristics guiding tone, feel and style.
Brand essence Shorthand distillation of the brand’s reason to exist. There
is an art to writing these, every word counts so avoid overly
elaborate language.
7
8. VALUES – WHO EXACTLY ARE YOU?
Next you need to define what it is your organisation exists to do,
what values define you and what problem you’re trying to solve
for customers. It’s often argued that no product or service is
truly unique. However, every company can find uniqueness and
differentiation often in their beliefs and value system they
operate within.
Look inside the organisation by focusing on the why. In B2B organisations there’s a tendency to focus on
the what (the product or service your organisation makes or delivers), but actually what you do is probably
what quite a few companies do. How you do it may be unique to you and therefore offer some competitive
advantage, but why you do it the way you do is the driver of differentiation, particularly if you do it better
than your competitors.
Use the Golden Circles diagram to help you develop your organisation’s “why”?
www.clockcreative.co.uk/THINKGROWTH
WHAT
HOW
WHY
8
The WHAT
What do you do for customers?
The HOW
How do you do it differently?
The WHY
Why do you do it?
1
3
2
9. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK.
At Clock we believe in P2P - people to people rather than B2B. In business to business, the journey from
prospect to customer is usually long and complex; there are numerous decision makers and where the sale
is high value or service-orientated, buyers are seeking reassurance by developing trust before purchase. This
requires a level of personalisation and inevitably, face to face interaction. The better you understand buyer
mindset, the deeper the opportunity for building trust early on.
You should involve people in your company who are involved in
marketing, sales and product development in this process as they
will all bring insights to help you understand your audiences and
their mindsets.
Before you start using the audience profile sheets, start by
considering the levels of influencer (audiences) you need to reach.
For example, you may need to influence the Managing Director,
Financial Director, Technical Director and Purchasing Director. Each
of these will have different needs, wants and challenges that they are
looking for you to answer. You may need to do this for each product
area of the business.
Once you know the levels of influencer, start working with the
audience profile sheet. This will help you to capture deep insights for
each buyer’s mindset.
We find it useful to consider actual customers when doing this exercise as it helps you to think of the ‘real
people’ behind the job titles. You can also use LinkedIn and Twitter to find and benchmark people with the job
titles and industries you are focusing on to better understand them. Your sales people will no doubt know the
characters and challenges they each face intimately.
Work on one profile at a time and start by choosing a name and photo that best reflects the type of person
you want to attract.
Next, capture what matters to them, what their challenges, needs and wants are in relation to your brand. Pay
particular attention to their character and personality as this will help you develop content that suits
their mindset.
Download the template at www.clockcreative.co.uk/THINKGROWTH
9
3. USER PROFILING – P2P NOT B2B
“THE BETTER YOU
UNDERSTAND
BUYER MINDSET,
THE DEEPER THE
OPPORTUNITY
FOR BUILDING
TRUST EARLY ON.”
10. 4. LEAD GENERATION PREPARATION
IT’S A TEAM EFFORT
Most companies will be challenged with changing mindsets from using traditional sales and marketing
methods to one of a customer-centric lead generating organisation.
The culture of the whole company will need to be aligned
to maximise success. In particular, all employees should
understand the brand positioning, what underpins it and the
relevance to customers. Each department and person in it
should understand how to deliver the brand promise and the
brand behaviours required.
You may need content to be generated from many different sources
and therefore everyone needs to understand its importance and feel
confident creating it. Consider how you can measure success and
enourage participation.
Ensure everyone has a copy of your completed brand pyramid,
brand essence and a copy of the audience profiles so they clearly
understand who they are writing for, what matters to them and are
fully briefed on the topics they are being asked to create content for.
Remember not everyone can write, some people may be better in front
of a video or providing information for a writer to turn into content.
In product orientated companies, technical information will be required.
However, training employees on the style of information is key to
delivering customer-centric data.
“TRAINING EMPLOYEES
ON THE STYLE OF
INFORMATION IS KEY
TO DELIVERING
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
DATA”
10
11. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK.
CONTENT STRATEGY –
AS ALWAYS, CONTENT IS KING
Content is key to the success of a lead generation campaign and
you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of developing content
for each audience profile.
Consider the six stages a prospect goes through from needs awareness through to purchase and
rationalisation. It’s important to remember it’s not enough to generate a lead, the role of marketing is to
remain connected post purchase in order to generate the next sale and encourage advocacy.
Needs
Awareness
Research
Decision
Purchase
Rationalise
11
12. CONTENT PLANNING
Your content plan needs to create content for every stage of the buyer
journey and to overlay this with the audience profiles to ensure your
content is relevant at every stage. At stage four, remember in B2B
there will be multiple decision-makers with differing needs, wants and
challenges so creating content that answers their individual needs
is crucial.
Once you’ve listed what content is appropriate for each stage, think
about where this content can be found. One of the key challenges in
B2B is changing team mindsets to see content generation as a key part
of their role and not just something that’s generated by marketing. By
using the brand pyramid, your marketing will be better structured to train
internal teams on brand tone, content type and subject matter.
Don’t underestimate the power of your brand’s proposition in developing
your content style, tone and type. If you’ve truly understood your brand’s
value to your audience and have well developed audience profiles, your
content will be very focused, relevant, and have a consistent message,
tone and style that will give the audience confidence and reassurance.
Your content plan might look something like this:
Stage
NEEDS AWARENESS RESEARCH DECISION PURCHASE RATIONALISE
CampaignObjectivesTypesofcontent
Understanding
Demonstrate
sector knowledge
Position your
brand as
trusted expert
Infographics
Ebooks
Blogs
Expertise
Ensure you
are found
Capture data
White papers
Guides
Video
Educate
Demonstrate
thought leadership
Show best
practice
Slide decks
Data sheets
Knowledge
Segmented
content
Help buyer
sell internally
Demonstrate ROI
Case studies
Industry reports
ROI calculators
Incentives
Process
Build trust
& confidence
Meet the team
Process
diagrams
Client
testimonials
Support
Show you value
them
Make it easy
to buy again
Encourage referral
Thank for the
business
Ask for referral/
recommendation/
product review
Demonstrate
next steps
12
“DON’T
UNDERESTIMATE
THE POWER OF
YOUR BRAND’S
PROPOSITION”
13. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK.
IMPLEMENTATION
Once you have a plan and you have the content ready, you’ll need to ensure you have a system to
implement it. Ideally, you’ll have marketing automation software to help you manage delivery of the content
at the right stage, whilst allowing you to monitor success and integrate activity with the sales team. Use the
data you capture to fine tune your content and in particular to better understand your buyers’ mindsets and
needs. As the buyer progresses through the stages, you’ll ask for their data in exchange for deeper content,
this will help you understand what the buyer values as well as providing valuable data.
Consider how to share the content with your target audience (the user profiles will help you understand
where to find your audience), and multi-layer any online content with offline, such as product literature,
PR, speaking events and opportunities to reach people.
13
“ENSURE
YOUR BRAND
HAS A CLEAR,
COMPELLING
AND RELEVANT
PROPOSITION”
14. 5 - SUMMARY
14
Before you embark on lead generation activity, start by defining the
position your brand is seeking to own, where the value lies in your brand
promise to customers and how you’ll deliver on it.
Invest time to develop detailed user profiles to really understand your target audiences needs, wants and
what makes them tick to put customers at the heart of your marketing.
Consider what is required to change internally before you start and ensure everyone understands the brand
position, values, vision and promise. Focus everyone on understanding the audience and the content
required to help move them closer to your brand.
Develop a content plan for every stage of the buying journey and
consider the decision making layers you will need to influence. Learn
from the online data and don’t be afraid to change or adapt your content
as you progress.
Don’t underestimate that developing a continuous stream of leads to
your sales team takes commitment. It requires a proactive mindset that
is constantly seeking solutions for customer problems and recognises
the need to share your knowledge and expertise. Everyone in your
organisation should use the brand positioning to communicate expertise
and develop a consistent brand message. Managing the brand is
essential for success as messages can be weakened over time, so
internal training and marketing are also important.
The pay off is consistent, quality enquiries and long term customers.
By attracting the right customer and delivering what you promise
you will not only generate leads, but you should also develop brand
ambassadors for many years to come.
“THE PAY
OFF IS
CONSISTENT,
QUALITY
ENQUIRIES
AND LONG-
TERM
CUSTOMERS”
15. UNDERSTANDING EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION. TICK.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann founded clock in 1999, with the ambition of building an agency
that was as strategic as it is creative, that puts its people at the heart
of the business and delivers growth for clients.
Ann has over 20 years experience in branding and marketing.
As North West head of the DBA (Design Business Association),
she champions best practice in the design industry. Ann is a
registered consultant with MAS (Manufacturing Advisory Service)
and passionate about British manufacturing, speaking at many
industry events and working with high growth manufacturers.
In 2013, Ann and Clock were selected by Goldman Sachs for their
high growth programme, 10ksb, one of only 30 companies selected
in the North West.
Follow @annatclock on twitter
ABOUT CLOCK
We’re a multi-platform, strategic B2B branding and marketing agency – one of the UK’s top 50 in fact. That
means we have a wealth of expertise in the team in a wide variety of sectors and we work on an integrated
basis across digital and traditional marketing channels, nationally and internationally. Lead generation,
conversion and competitive positioning are core elements of Clock’s proven process ClockWiseTM
.
Follow @clockcreates on twitter
#ThinkGrowth
Ann Rimmer
“AT CLOCK WE’RE
PASSIONATE
ABOUT DELIVERING
GROWTH FOR OUR
CLIENTS”
15
16. #ThinkGrowth
Clock Creative Communications Ltd
The Former Working Men’s Club,
60 Square Street, Ramsbottom,
Greater Manchester, BL0 9AZ.
www.clockcreative.co.uk
Twitter: @clockcreates
Tel: +44 (0)1706 822 888
