white paper lead generation reinvented sept 2016

There is a new game in town for B2B digital

marketers to generate leads. Over the last

decade companies large and small have

relied on two technology-based strategies,

Google AdWords and content marketing, to fill

the front end of their lead funnel. Both have

proven they can produce leads. But both have

shortcomings. There are now promising new

lead generation approaches—especially for

companies that market software and related

services.

GooGle AdWords And PAyinG for

fAlse Positives

Every day millions of marketers, from the

largest global firms to Mom and Pops and

startups, bid to insert ads in the paid section

of Google results. These ads are positioned

adjacent to the “organic” results that rank

sites as to the quantity and quality of their

content relevant to the search. Less than

one percent of people who see the ads click

on them. But what advertisers pay per click,

as little as 5 cents to more than $100 in

competitive B2B categories like Internet of

Things or Data Security, accounts for much

of Google’s billions in annual revenue. This

spend by marketers speaks to the results

they get from AdWords.

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BiG dAtA And intent MArKetinG: LEAD GENERATION REINVENTEDBy MArk rOSEnMAn & STEvE MOunT

www.newportBoardGroup.com

A new, promising B2B

lead generation approach

complements Google

AdWords and Content

Marketing—especially for

marketers of software

and related services.

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The Google marketplace

facilitates 80% of all B2B

searches.

notWithstAndinG the success of AdWords, they hAve siGnificAnt shortcoMinGs

you are paying to get clicks from competitors,

students, job seekers, researchers and

others who are searching on your words but

are not at all prospects for your product or

service. While Federal law forbids clicking on

ad words to cause competitors to incur pay

per click charges, such “click fraud” remains

common.

the AdWord MArKetPlAce is not

trAnsPArent

Some players ingeniously game the system,

making it challenging and time consuming

to monitor and tweak your ads and their

placement relative to competitors’. It takes

specialized expertise and constant attention

to understand how your ads are working:

which keyword/s are getting clicks and

converting into sales. you must closely

track trends in the cost of key words and

rOI on your keyword spending. The use of

artificial intelligence to customize ads, while

promising, is another source of complexity

that smaller marketers must navigate.

orGAnic seArch/content MArKetinG:

your content Gets droWned out

Content marketing has been another

mainstay of digital marketing over the last

decade or so. As audiences have become

more sophisticated, traditional interruption-

based advertising such as telemarketing

has become less effective. The use of

ad blockers is growing, cutting into the

effectiveness of online advertising. Open

and click through rates for funnel campaigns

targeting purchased email lists have dropped

significantly in the past five years. Open rates

of unsolicited mail are down to around 10%

for most marketers and typical click throughs

are only 1 of every 300 emails.

Marketers have responded by using

platforms like HubSpot to build “hubs” of

compelling, useful content that can earn

you a spot in Google results when someone

searches for software and services like yours.

When the searcher clicks on the link from


BiG dAtA And intent MArKetinG: LEAD GENERATION REINVENTED

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search results to your site you have the

opportunity to nurture a two-way dialogue

with the prospective customer, starting

with a call to action.

While deploying content on social

media and email marketing has gone

mainstream, it also has shortcomings.

BiG coMPAnies, sPeciAlized sites

hAve Produced content Glut

As content marketers know, original

content is costly to create and promote.

Even a robust content creation effort does

not ensure getting on the first page of

Google results. And if you don’t make the

first page of search results? ninety two

percent of people who search on Google

never go to the second page. Getting on

the first page of search results requires

herculean effort.

Big tech companies like Google, Microsoft,

IBM and Oracle have bottomless pockets

to generate content. The big companies’

spend on AdWords may entitle them to

preferential treatment in organic search

results. They also have a surplus of data

scientists, social media and search engine

optimization (SEO) engineers to optimize

their content and marginalize yours.

A growing number of sites exist solely to

capture the attention of people searching

on Google and turn them into leads and/or

ad revenue. Some use curation techniques

to basically recycle content from other

sites. “Micro sites” publish specialized

content designed to identify leads they

can sell to marketers. native advertising,

intended to blend in with the editorial

content of the publication in which it is

situated, is another source of the glut.


Big Data and Machine

Learning-based techniques

can identify potential

prospects earlier in the

buying cycle.


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BiG dAtA And MAchine leArninG:

identify Predictors of BuyinG

decisions

Big Data and Machine Learning are at

the heart of a new alternative for lead

generation. Both are now proven and

practical strategies. Big Data refers to

semantic tools that can parse massive

volumes of content and data. The tools

can identify meaningful relationships in

repositories that aggregate trusted industry

and professional publications: for example,

a download of content that may indicate

that a company is starting to review options

for a software purchase.

Machine Learning refers to the ability to

create algorithms that can learn over time

the subtle nuances of how audiences

define and associate topics. These

algorithms power predictive analytics that

can evaluate implicit textual evidence.

For example, they can determine how

important legal/regulatory compliance

concerns are to a company’s software

requirements.

eArly sAles cycle interdiction

Another reality that all B2B marketers

confront every day: more than half of future

buyers who exhibit early stage intent to buy

your product/service do their research before

engaging vendors.

To meet this challenge, Intent Marketing

powered by Big Data and Machine Learning

enables early sales cycle interdiction. It works

like this.

• A Big Data/Machine Learning engine

parses large volumes of content that

companies in the early stages of a buying

cycle program look to for unbiased

guidance.

• It spots companies that are:

• Starting to explore the market for the

software and/or services that you sell.

• Exhibiting persistent, surging behavior

that is indicative of genuine intent to

purchase.

• not yet in dialogue with your

competitors—so you have more

control over how they define their

requirements as well as over pricing.



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tools thAt use BiG dAtA And MAchine

leArninG for intent MArKetinG cAn:

• Compare the companies you identify

as initial prospects with the company

affiliations of people in your existing

email database.

• Find leads of self-qualified buyers with their

current emails and phone numbers. Early

adopters have gotten deliverable contact

information at an 88% rate. Traditional

lists of possible prospects typically are

deliverable at a 65 - 70% rate.

• Identify groupings of names and titles

coming from the same company,

indicating that there may be a corporate

buying initiative.

• Eliminate, through application of

predictive filters. “false positives” i.e.

students, stock brokers and job seekers

etc.—as well as bogus names.

• Steadily improve the tools’ accuracy

in identifying early stage prospects, as

Machine Learning comes to understand

the nuances of your target customer

profile.

The real magic of “intent data” is that these

lists are comprised entirely of C-levels and

technical people in your target companies,

who are currently engaged in researching

topics relevant to your products. For

companies selling in a replacement cycle,

this can help you focus your content, email,

social media and telemarketing efforts OnLy

on active prospects.

sPeciAlized service Providers

A growing number of service providers are

steeped in Big Data and Machine Learning

and can provide the tools described above

to generate net new leads--emails you do

not currently have. Open rates on unsolicited

emails based on the intent data are typically

250% to 350% higher than traditional

corporate marketing open rates. Why?

Because the Big Data/Machine Learning

model connects you with prospects currently

active in the market. Sales analysis has

shown that prospects identified as intent


Intent Marketing has produced almost

90% email delivery rates and a 300-350% increase in email open rates.


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leads are four times as likely to buy within the

ensuing 90 days than those names acquired

through lists or from an assembled database

(third party or your own).

neW AGGreGAtions of trusted

content

new aggregations of content provide Terabytes

of raw data for Big Data tools to work on

to identify potential leads. Aggregators are

bringing together premium content (white

papers, webinars etc.) from the sites of

the most trusted business, healthcare and

technology information publishers and

evaluators, along with industry guidance

micro-sites. This is the content that your best

potential prospects are downloading for initial

guidance at the start of their buying process.

BiG dAtA tools Will Also coMB

throuGh:

• Social media knowledge exchanges

(such as LinkedIn and Facebook are

morphing into).

• recruiting content that points to

companies that are hiring for positions

in the functional/topical areas that your

software serves.

WinnoW leAds By dePloyinG

distinctive content

Big Data turns on a big fire hose, uncovering

a lot of self-qualified leads that require a

well-defined process to deal with the sudden

influx of opportunity. Large tech companies,

the early adopters of Big Data prospecting

techniques, are getting 300 to 400 million

record feeds weekly. They use their own

teams of data scientists to evaluate and

prioritize the data. For emerging and middle

market companies, a well-designed email

funnel campaign that understands industry

marketers’ issues is a good start, followed by

progressive selling approaches to map leads

to follow up processes. Prioritized leads can

be contacted in a multi-touch, multi-offer

email campaign to build brand awareness

and solicit additional communication and/



In 80% of deals that software companies close, a representative of the buyer downloaded content from a trusted industry site within three months of the purchase. Intent Marketing is optimized to identify these activities.

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or handed off to a business development

specialist for immediate follow up. There

is an added urgency to follow up on leads

uncovered by intent data and predictive

analytics: wait too long to connect and

your prospect becomes a competitor’s new

client.

Get coMPlete ProsPect

inforMAtion And eliMinAte costly

fAlse Positives

Some machine learning companies go

part of the way down the road to reverse

engineering persona profile information

from a hash urL (allowing for opt out).

Typical leads they return include company

name, address etc., size of company by

revenue and employee count, industry,

phone number, email address and title/role

and function within the prospect company.

They winnow out responses that are not

in the target industry or company size

filter as well as unpromising job titles and

functions.

intent MArKetinG: stePs to test it

Intent data and predictive analytics are

not new. These approaches have been

completely vetted and are currently being

used as a trusted service by 16 of the

top 20 u.S. based software companies.

Specialized Big Data lead generation

research firms are now leveling the playing

field, allowing emerging tech companies

and middle market companies of all kinds

to feast at the same banquet table as the

biggest firms.

next steps for B2B software marketers

looking to explore the new lead generation

approach might include:

• Talk to a consultant who is versed in

the new techniques.

• Investigate whether aggregators

are tracking the content that early

stage prospects for your product are

searching and downloading.

• run a test of a filter made up of

industry and functional terms that are

typically used to get oriented to your

category.

• Execute a pilot weekly email campaign

to test the leads you get.



8www.newportBoardGroup.com


It’s still early days for Big Data/Machine

Learning tools in the middle market, and

in industries outside of tech. Investors,

entrepreneurs and revenue-focused executives

need to understand the new possibilities. As

companies get better at the art of identifying

and interacting with prospects earlier in the

sales cycle, the race will go to companies

actively participating in the new lead generation

model. Failure to see the value of the new

approach will put you at a huge disadvantage

especially versus your largest competitors.

MArK rosenMAn

[email protected]

Mark rosenman is Chief knowledge Officer of

newport Board Group, a national professional

services firm of CEOs and board directors that

serves emerging growth and entrepreneurial

middle market companies and the private

equity firms that invest in them. He has held

senior knowledge and content management

leadership roles at Mckinsey, Gartner, kPMG

and Tatum LLC. He has extensive experience

in content and email marketing.

steve Mount

[email protected]

A veteran of 25 plus years in the software

industry, Steve Mount has held senior

sales and marketing positions at verity,

Autonomy, kony and others. In 2013 he

founded Plan B4 Sales, an outsourced

Sales and Marketing firm that specializes

in getting buyer attention, lead generations

and full sales cycle execution for technology

startups, vC’s and private equity firms and

their portfolio companies.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

white paper lead generation reinvented sept 2016

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