Along came ad exchanges which allowed publishers to provide agencies and advertisers with direct access to their inventory and more transparency than many ad networks had. Although auction-based models à la search were introduced, the target segments were often pre-set and companies had to work individually on an exchange by exchange basis.

What advertisers really wanted was the ability to bid on relevant people, across ad exchanges, at a price that was fair. And that’s what real-time-bidding (RTB) is offering.

Two things have happened to make this a reality:

1. Agency groups have launched their RTB / trading platforms to enable them to run campaigns across ad exchanges (via demand-side platforms), allowing them to control the targeting, maximum bid levels and frequency of exposure.
2. Targeting has been improved by plugging in data from the likes of Exelate and Weborama to be able to re-target relevant cookie pools, wherever they are online.

And this is as relevant to B2B advertisers as it is to B2C. To give a relevant B2B example: imagine a typical IT vendor looking to target SMB IT and business decision-makers. In the past, the only route to this audience online would have been the tech and business publishers. With real time bidding, advertisers will still continue to use those targeted sites, however they will complement it by:

1. Re-targeting customers off their own site on the networks / exchanges – either to cross / up-sell with targeted messages or even exclude customers if repeat purchases weren’t likely.
2. Re-targeting prospects off the back of the advertising they are already running on targeted sites by building cookie pools and re-messaging them when they are encountered on the networks / exchanges.
3. Even re-targeting from social profiles on Twitter / Facebook in the same fashion as above.
4. Targeting prospects that have been identified by data companies as SMBs and or are IT/business decision-makers.

Although some of the re-targeting options were available already before, RTB means that the agency / advertiser is in charge of who you are bidding for (as opposed to the ad network) and what price you are willing to pay in an auction environment.

Data was previously a missing piece as well, and it’s still not brilliant for B2B / technology. We need publishers to get on board, selling their cookie pools for one off, re-targeting use in order to get sufficient audience volumes. Some publishers like Future have already done this, and more will follow as they recognise the additional revenue stream they can earn from their premium audiences.

To give an example, 100,000 people on a site may generate 1.5 million impressions; however on the rest of the Internet, the same audience will generate perhaps 30 million impressions, most likely more. Selling the data will provide publishers with an opportunity to monetise their audience many times over.

The implications of real-time bidding are vast:

1. It’s changing the face of the online ad industry: demand and supply-side companies have been forming all over the place and ad networks are being squeezed as budgets shift to exchanges, leading to consolidation in the market.
2. Online media buying decisions are being done within the auction environment more and more, with less focus on relationships and the speed of decisions and optimisations are accelerating, à la search.
3. Advertisers will be paying closer to the true value of audiences, cutting out the waste and providing more targeted (and sequential) messaging along the purchase consideration cycle and focusing on optimising against their ROI goals.
4. Power is being taken back to the agency and advertiser from the ad networks.
5. Percentage share of display advertising will increase.

Real-time bidding is transforming the digital advertising landscape as we speak. WPP has been investing heavily in the MIG to capitalise on the opportunity, strongly believing that technology and data combined will transform the industry.

Here’s a helpful, if somewhat confusing, overview of the change that’s taking place in online advertising industry:

Image courtesy of http://www.adpulp.com/gamification_se/

There is a growing opinion in the digital marketing community that the construction of the social layer of the web is now complete, especially with the dominance of Facebook. The next phase will move from establishing social connections to the development of game dynamics that encourage long-term brand engagement and loyalty.

It’s certainly easy to see how game theory has already been applied in consumer marketing e.g. building-up points on FourSquare to get a free coffee at Starbucks. But, the big question is how will it work for B2B?

Well, it’s already happening on sites like LinkedIn, where users feel a sense of achievement if they have more connections than their peers, are recommended more and have a more complete profile. Users are driven by their need for status and influence and the fact that progressing to a new level is relatively straightforward e.g. adding specialities gives you and additional 5% on your profile completeness. The same applies to Twitter updates and followers.

I believe that we’ll see a number of game-based experiences on websites and mobile applications developed specifically to engage the business audience. Whilst they will initially be focused on training and education, over time they will motivate prospects and customers to provide levels of customer insight that would be impossible to obtain through traditional methods – it’s easier to get information from people if they get an immediate reward for doing it.

But, by creating game-based connections with our customers, we need to ensure we align their motivations with delivering real business value to your organisation. In this way, we’ll identify individuals and groups who are genuinely interested in our products and services and who will be long-term advocates.

Image courtesy of The PowerPoint Alchemist

Here’s a good example from Microsoft Office Labs. Ribbon Hero 2 teaches people to use the features of Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint and Word) by playing a series of themed games. They can then compete against friends and colleagues while becoming proficient with the software and emerging as loyal users. Try it out here.

Image courtesy of IBM

And finally, IBM CityOne innov8 is a long-term play to promote Big Blue’s sustainability and consulting credentials around smart city planning. The core message is that IBM wants users to discover how business process management, collaborative technologies, and service oriented architecture enable companies and industries to adapt to new demands and build a sustainable advantage. Nancy Pearson, IBM vice president of SOA, BPM and WebSphere says “Serious games allow professionals to inherently comprehend system interactions, and accurately model the potential business outcomes that can result, in a way that no other medium can do.” You can find out more here.

So watch out for the gamification of your next B2B marketing campaign. If done right, your prospects may not even notice how their behaviour is being influenced. They’ll be too busy building their online status and scoring points.

And there’s no praise if you falter in your tracks, fail to deliver and find your new client heading back to his previous agency or to the close run number two… who said life was ever meant to be easy?

Winning is important but keeping a client happy over a sustained period of time is much more demanding and, unlike pitching, conducted in the real world of blood, sweat and tears.

So how can a long term relationship be developed and nurtured? And how can this be done without pain?

In my last blog I discussed the importance of establishing service level agreements with key suppliers and how they can form the foundation of value-based relationships. Relationships that bring tangible benefits to both parties, publisher and client. Integral to the success of these agreements will be long term client retention and, no surprises, the SLA is a key component of that achievement.

SLAs have a lot going for them. They aren’t generally legally binding so there’s no expensive long drawn out battles with the legal teams – just common sense and an understanding of what both sides are looking to achieve from working together. The SLA will be written around the specific needs of each client and clearly address their individual needs and expectations. It means their values and service levels become imbued in the day to day lives of everyone involved.

The result is a bible for anyone working on an account. Quarterly performance reviews provide the opportunity to assess progress and nip in the bud any real or perceived issues that may endanger the long term relationship. And it is my personal experience that where SLAs are put in place and actively followed they rarely need rolling up and used against the exposed body parts of team members.

But, SLAs are not set in concrete. They need continual review and assessment and will always develop and mature as the relationship grows, forming the cornerstone of a long term partnership.

And remember, SLAs are two-way agreements so both parties, client and agency, need to be bold and expect nothing less of each other.

The result, however, is a better working relationship for everyone involved.

The reality is that mobile is fast becoming the primary screen and communications tool for business people*. But many marketers are under the false impression that their prospects won’t be receptive to business messages when they’re in a mobile frame of mind. They think they’re more interested in catching up with the news, consuming entertainment and updating their status on multiple social networks. This means there’s no opportunity for commercial messages and that nobody wants a relationship with a company through their most personal of devices. Or, do they?

Well the answer is a resounding “YES”. Mobile is all-pervasive and the de facto way people communicate, do tasks, socialise and conduct business. So it is the obvious channel to reach the people that matter. But before you run headlong into developing a shiny new mobile app, here are are few pointers to ensure you don’t fall at the first hurdle:

1. Don’t treat mobile like traditional online communications. Driving your prospects to downloading a whitepaper just isn’t going to work. So, consider the screen real estate that you have to work with and the way people consume content. Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, so a series of 5 minute podcasts will probably work better than a 50 page Forrester report.
2. If you thought privacy was important on the desktop, with mobile you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s as personal as the computer is ever going to get. So pushing out uninvited marketing messages and SMS just won’t work. Ensure you use a phased approach to engage with the prospects at an intrinsic level – appeal to their intellectual side, their need for relationship and provide entertainment. Only once you’ve established this can you mix in a layer of commercial promotion.
3. Think about how you’re going to get them engaging via their mobiles. So consider how you’ll convert from email to mobile, off the printed page with QR codes and through social networks. After all, you can build a clever app but it doesn’t mean that people will use it (most apps are only used once).
4. If you can’t make doing business with your company over mobile devices better, faster and easier, don’t even bother. Don’t try to squeeze your company website onto a mobile device. Instead think what people need from you when they’re on the move and prioritise that content and functionality. So, stuff that’s location specific, support oriented and socially shareable should come to the fore.

The above are just a few pointers. If you’d like to discuss how mobile can be used to enhance your media strategies or extend your marketing communications, drop me a line at michael@b1.com

And finally, if you want to find out more about mobile marketing and how you should be using it today, we’ll be hosting the Banner Mobile Webinar on 1st June at 3pm GMT. If you haven’t already, you can register for this free event here. I’ll be joined by Christina Carstensen, Director of Mobile Strategy at IDG Global Solutions, for this quick-fire session as we explore:

• Key mobile stats and trends
• Future technologies you need to plan for
• How mobile strategy can be incorporated alongside your marketing strategy
• How to maximise social elements
• Practical examples from real-world case studies
• And, the all important measurement and ROI

To join us for what’s sure to be an informative and stimulating discussion, simply click here to register.

* Mobile as “first screen” for all web usage by 2013 – Gartner, 2010

We held another successful Huddle over at the Banner offices yesterday. The subject was all things mobile. And, over the course of the next few blog posts, I’ll be taking you through some of the insights from the various speakers who generously gave their time to make the afternoon such a success:

• Simon Silvester – EVP Head of Planning, Y&R EMEA
• Christina Carstensen – Director of Mobile Strategy, IDG
• Matt Findel-Hawkins – Sales Director, Nikkei BP Europe
• Mark Challinor – Director of Mobile, Telegraph Media Group

Here are a few initial out takes and general trends from the sessions:

• QR codes – they’re on every flat surface in Japan and will become a core component to bridge the gap between print and mobile marketing
• Near Field Communication (NFC) is coming, you already use it in your Oyster cards. And, once built into your mobile devices, it will be used for payment, couponing, events, etc.
• Don’t ignore SMS, it’s still a powerful medium and can be the best first step to get your audience engaging via their mobile devices
• Augmented Reality – as more phones are enabled with the software, marketers will need to seize the opportunity to market in this new view of the real world
• Location-based services will become ever-more important. Where content and experience must be relevant to the person’s location.
• When developing a mobile strategy, don’t start by thinking “What do I want to say?” instead think about how mobile can enhance your service or extend your proposition.
• Mobile CRM – marketers will need to think of new ways to engage with their audience over the whole customer life cycle.
• Mobile should be used to help your customers and prospects. Reality is that many people will prefer support through their mobile rather than face-to-face interaction.
• Mobile will be the primary screen for social media. But be aware that people’s mindsets are different when in “socialising” mode compared to “buying” mode. So you’ll need to engage through these channels rather than push your message.
• When advertising on mobile, response rates and engagement rates are much higher than computer-based interaction. So, make sure you take advantage of the “newness” of the medium. And, video engagement is six times more effective on the small screen.
• But, just don’t do any mobile advertising until you’ve sorted out an optimised mobile destination. And, make sure you don’t just make your website suitable for the smaller screen, think about the content and functionality people actually need when they’re on the move.
• If you haven’t integrated mobile into your event and trade show strategies, then you’re really missing an opportunity to engage with your prospects.

As an approach, they can be pretty helpful. They provide a shorthand way of looking at an audience – one which enables us to form more targeted strategies that speak to the real needs of our key targets.

The problem, however, is that typically they are simply made up.

That’s unfair of course. These segments represent portraits of groupings of characteristics as seen by the researchers. We get a group of people that kinda, sorta look like X. But the point I’m making is that exactly what these groupings are is fundamentally down to the subjective view of the researcher.

Myers-Briggs – the ultimate segmentation?

A few years back, I decided to try to do better. I’d been on some leadership training course and taken a test to determine my Myers-Briggs personality. I found what it told me to be both accurate and intriguing.

Many of you will know of Myers-Briggs – it’s been around some 50+ years and is based on the work of Carl Jung. Essentially it breaks the world down into 16 personality types (which can be clustered into 4 groups). The individual types are given 4-letter codes. Mine is INTP which means I’m Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking and Perceiving. I won’t go into more detail here as you can find out all that on the hundred’s of sites already devoted to the topic.

The key thing for me is that over the years millions of people have taken Myers-Briggs tests (the most widely used is called the MBTI). This means that we have a huge body of evidence about what makes an individual personality type tick. I began wondering whether we could use these types as a kind of über–segmentation system.

Typing IT buyers

We decided that the only way to find out was to try an experiment. At Banner, we created a kind of Myers-Briggs-lite test that could be completed in a few minutes online. We then tested it to see that it broadly delivered the same results as other tests. And then we invited IT professionals in the US, UK, France and Germany to have a go. Everyone who completed the survey got a copy of their results and a little bit of analysis for their effort.

We got just under 1,000 responses. And the results were rather remarkable:

Focusing just on Europe for a moment, out of the 16 types, two alone accounted for 40% of the IT professionals we surveyed. One was my own type, INTP (which we termed Architects) with 22% and the other was ISTP (which we called Craftsmen).

We then compared Europe to the US – astonishingly the top personality type in Europe accounted for just 5% of US IT professionals.

And France and Germany were almost polar opposites.

A presentation of the top-line results is embedded below. You can download it from Slideshare.

The good and the bad

So is this really the panacea for segmentation? Well, not quite.

Where it appears to work well is in specialised job roles. As soon as it is extended to more general business roles (eg general management) the individual personality spikes vanish and the distribution returns to that of the general population.

There are those who are not convinced by Myers-Briggs as an approach to personality – Google ‘Criticisms of Myers-Briggs’ for a pretty comprehensive list. There are a whole bunch of other competing systems.

But, as a possible approach it at least removes some of the subjectivity from segmentation. The profiles we built up (by reviewing every piece of literature on the subject) gave us over 60 different personality attributes – from how people make decisions and how they like to be communicated with through to what kind of parents they make and how they react under stress.

See what you think.

But here’s the rub: whichever you chose, you chose wrong.

In the land of the blind

After all these years, it still amazes me that so many in the industry think in these kinds of binary terms. Brand or demand. Strategic or tactical. Even marketing or sales. It’s a recipe for death by silo.

The truth of course, is that the decision is never binary. Every piece of demand activity you produce is an embodiment of your brand. Likewise every brand communication should drive demand.

To focus on demand generation for a moment – there is a tendency in the industry to think purely in terms of the numbers. How many clicks/downloads/sales/whatevers did this communication achieve? It often leads to a nail the problem, hammer the offer, forget the brand approach (well, we did follow the guidelines). And you know what? It works. To a degree at least.

The problem is that this tends to focus so heavily on what we do it leaves no room for how we do it. The end obliterates the means.

Demand meet brand, brand meet demand

As soon as we focus on how we generate demand and what it means for the brand, something interesting happens.

For one thing, the customer comes more sharply into focus. We think more about how we can help them deal with the problems they face and less about simply what carrot we can dangle to get them to do stuff.

We also take a longer term view. Not of the results – we still need to hit the numbers. But we begin to consider the legacy of what we create. What effect will it have on our reputation? What will the recipients say to friends and colleagues about us? What will they think, the next time they see something from us?

And, while I’ve focused on demand generation here, the benefits also extend the other way. By making more brand-focused communication responsible for growing demand as well as brand, we give it focus. We avoid the upward creep that ends with brands trying to capture lofty ideals that are irrelevant to the context their customers find themselves in (the world peace syndrome).

The result will be a stronger brand, greater demand and increased loyalty. Now doesn’t that sound like a good decision?

As part of the feedback process on the last event, we asked what people thought of the day, the content and speakers. We also asked what changes they’d like to see in the format of the event in the future and what topics they’d like to see covered.

Perhaps predictably, it was the day’s agenda and calibre of the speaker line-up that attracted most people to the first event. Not to mention it was free to our invitees. Of course our speakers scored very highly, but coming away from the day almost all commented on how much they’d valued the opportunity to network. I’m sure they found it cathartic to share some pain and understand that others out there were trying to overcome the same hurdles.

Three key pieces of feedback came through, which we’ve tried to listen to in putting together the agenda for the forthcoming summit:

1. People want more practical content and less of the theoretical. There’s an appetite for stories of bloodied knuckles, as well as a hunger for real learnings from people who’ve been there and done it. We were very conscious not to make last year’s event a beauty parade of vendors and ensure it was client-side marketers telling their stories. This time round we’re trying to encourage our speakers to tell their success stories, and what mistakes they’d avoid the second time round. As an example, Shawn Burns from SAP is coming along to tell the story of how he and other marketers transformed sap.com from a largely brochureware site to a ‘demand generation machine’. Good stuff.

2. Attendees wanted more opportunity to network and learn from their peers. We had some great table conversations at lunchtime last time round, and we tried to allow generous breaks. For the most part people resisted the lure of their BlackBerries, made conversation and benefited immensely. This time round we’ve gone a bit further and we’ve made the afternoon sessions entirely interactive. Attendees will have the opportunity to attend three out of four workshops on social media, accelerating sales, using webcasting and online video, and measuring and optimising campaigns. We’re going to have people capturing learnings from one group to another so that through the course of the afternoon we generate a body of knowledge which can then be shared with all attendees afterwards.

3. In terms of the content, there was a lot of call for tips on making the most of a credit-crunched budget, using social media and proving a return on marketing activity. Our first speaker of the day, Jim Cassidy, is an ex IBM marketer now at European company StepStone. In his previous life with a budget of millions, his greatest challenge used to be how to spend marketing budget fast enough. He’s now in a position where every penny (cent) has to be accounted for. Jim will talk about what he’s prioritising, how he’s making a case for spend with the board, and how he’s making his marketing assets sweat. We’ve also got a great panel line up, led by Cisco’s Amanda Jobbins. They’re going to give their take on some of these topics.

So hopefully that gives you something of a taster for what’s to come on the 30th April. If you need any more encouragement, the venue we’ve chosen this time is simply stunning — a private member’s club at the top of Centrepoint.

About time you registered I think: www.demandgenerationsummit.com

Remember, we’re only accepting registrations from client-side marketers from the B2B services, technology and telecoms sectors. No offence intended to others, but demand for places is extremely high.

Hopefully see you there.

P.S. If you’re of the twittering kind, you can get regular updates by following us at www.twitter.com/demandgentweet or subscribing to the RSS feed

While it gives a slightly mixed picture of just what tech companies are up against, there are some clear take-outs for sales and marketing people. It makes some pretty plausible, pretty harsh predictions, including:

1. Selling strategies that worked last year will not work in 2009
2. Companies that significantly reduce their sales and marketing investments in 2009 will be gone by mid 2010
3. Companies that blame their lack of selling on the economy will also fail by mid 2010
4. Sales organisations will be asked to do more with less (no news there)
5. Companies that shift headcount to inside sales will provide similar levels of customer touch at lower cost…and driver higher customer satisfaction
6. Sales organisations that bolster dedicated investments in lead quality and demand generation will be rewarded with significantly higher sales productivity

There’s more in the report but that gives a fair indication.

It’s interesting that over 60% of respondents feel as confident or more confident about the prospects for sales in the next six months versus the last six months. IDC themselves project revenues on the whole as either staying flat or increasing moderately (although the more commodity end of the hardware market doesn’t look so pretty).

The scariest thing in there for me is the continuing lack of alignment between marketing and sales. On hardly any measure did respondents rate their alignment at over 50%. Fortunately, the one area that rated (slightly) over the midway mark is demand generation as this will be a critical factor in the coming year or two.

At Banner, we’ve seen the rapid change of focus into demand generation activities in the last six months. Our timely partnership with Eloqua has certainly paid off as has the succession of people we’ve sent on training as we’ve recently seen a shift into multiple projects involving content creation, sales enablement, demand generation and lead nuture.

While these could simply be a sign of the times, I personally believe that these kinds of programmes will form the bedrock for the majority of technology companies’ activities for some considerable time to come. And while this may be driven by necesity right now, in the long term it could pay huge dividends for technology companies that get it right.

[slideshare id=923821&doc=idc-2009-sales-barometer-top-ten-predictions-1232120663160379–3]