Parallels Between B2B Demand Gen and Display Advertising in the Early 2000s

Wherever consumer preferences go, marketers are sure to follow. And technology helps them follow more closely

Marketing is an ever-changing, dynamic, and multifaceted discipline, and its direction will always follow consumers’ preferences, especially how they prefer to connect with one another. To know the future of the industry, ask how people will connect ten years from now, twenty years from now, or beyond.

How people connect: this is the marketer’s North Star.

While this has always been the case, our ability as businesses to understand consumer preferences, track them, and make that data actionable requires increased sophistication and agility. This is great news, but only for the marketers that use the tools.

Innovative businesses use granular information about consumer preference to improve every aspect of their marketing engine, including who they target, in which channels and with which messages. Businesses that continue to amass more data to drive smarter and smarter iterations of these elements will become far more efficient. They’ll also likely be the first to take advantage of the newest physical and digital experiences that become available to advertisers as technology continues to advance.

Smarter companies anticipate, and the smartest create the future of human connection. As the line between the physical and the digital continues to blur, the smartest marketers will rethink one of their business’s most crucial engines: lead generation.

Lessons from the Past

There’s a reason door-to-door sales were common in the early to mid-20th century and a reason we now post non-solicitation signs near our front doors. Preferences change, and smart companies follow.

This same trend continued in the early 21^st century. In the early 2000s, the marketing landscape underwent a profound revolution propelled by technological advancements, shifting consumer behaviors, and the widespread adoption of the Internet. The availability of broadband internet facilitated global reach for businesses, prompting a reevaluation of marketing strategies.

Social media platforms emerged as influential channels, enabling direct engagement between businesses and their audiences. The ascendancy of search engines, particularly Google, underscored the importance of search engine optimization in marketing tactics. Simultaneously, email marketing evolved with enhanced personalization and segmentation capabilities, while the burgeoning e-commerce sector demanded a digital transformation in marketing approaches.

Amidst these changes, the era witnessed the rise of data-driven marketing, where businesses leveraged analytics to comprehend customer behavior and tailor strategies accordingly. The proliferation of smartphones led to the prominence of mobile marketing, emphasizing the need for adaptive approaches. Additionally, the significance of content marketing grew as businesses recognized the value of creating compelling and relevant content to engage audiences.

Perhaps the most pivotal development was the advent of programmatic media platforms. These platforms revolutionized advertising by automating the buying and placement of digital ads and optimizing targeting based on real-time data. Programmatic advertising brought efficiency and precision to campaigns, allowing marketers to reach specific audiences with personalized messages. This integration of programmatic media platforms further solidified the industry’s shift towards a digital, data-centric, and customer-focused paradigm, shaping the trajectory of marketing strategies in the subsequent years.

The future will be all about applying what marketers learned from the past to the challenges of the future – especially related to demand and lead generation.

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Also Catch, Episode 189 of The SalesStar Podcast: The Modern State of Digital Advertising with Mark Melvin, EVP and General Manager at Mirriad

The Programmatic Revolution

Leads fuel any business. Without leads, there is no one to sell to. But demand generation and lead generation are not the same thing. Demand generation focuses on creating awareness and interest in a company’s products or services among a broader audience, while lead generation concentrates on identifying and capturing potential customers who have expressed interest and are likely to convert.

They’re better together. Properly implementing demand and lead generation strategies involves a multifaceted approach. Firstly, businesses must understand their target audience thoroughly, identifying key decision-makers, pain points, and preferences. Content marketing plays a crucial role in demand generation, where informative and engaging content is crafted to capture the attention of prospective customers. Leveraging various channels, such as social media, email marketing, and online advertising, ensures a broad reach.

Conversely, lead generation involves using targeted tactics like gated content, webinars, and interactive tools to capture valuable prospect information. But businesses shouldn’t “stop” their marketing efforts at lead capture. Too many do this. It’s essential to nurture leads through personalized and relevant communication, providing them with the information they need at each stage of the buying journey.

For marketers to prosper in the future, lead generation must become programmatic – and it will.

Programmatic advertising has been around for roughly two decades. While technology has advanced and new deal types have emerged, the pricing models have mainly remained the same, limited to pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-mille (CPM, or cost per thousand impressions).

But this is evolving, as programmatic platforms are now built to enable buyers to purchase on a cost-per-lead (CPL) basis. Suppose marketers prefer a programmatic, digital purchasing process for media, but their number one priority every year remains to drive more leads. In that case, obtaining a guaranteed number of leads through a programmatic buying platform is a game-changer. It will shift the economics of the industry.

There are five main reasons marketers prefer a programmatic purchase process for media. All five not only apply to lead generation but solve 5 of the largest issues in B2B lead generation:

• Speed-to-market
• Costs-per-lead
• Poor measurement
• Poor data quality
• Lack of trust in a non-objective partner

Lead aggregators may offer a cost-per-lead service model, but it’s a throwback to the late ‘90s and early 2000s ad networks. Manual processes slow speed-to-market, inflate costs to the customer, limit the amount of usable data, and make measurement nearly impossible.

In the coming years, B2B marketers will allocate a lower percentage of their budget to display in favor of tactics that provide greater accuracy and personalization. These include search, social, and lead generation products like content syndication. Tactics that provide a guaranteed level of performance, like pay-per-click and cost-per-lead products, will see significant growth.

A programmatic approach has changed the marketing industry – and it’s about to change again as lead generation gets automated. Marketers will either embrace the change or get left behind.

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Also Catch, Episode 170 of The SalesStar Podcast: Creating Connected Brand Experiences: with Jamie Adams, Chief Growth Officer at Scorpion