Albert (Ally) Motz

Ally is a senior sales, marketing and general management executive with more than 20 years experience spearheading the rapid and sustained growth of b-to-b organizations. Ally has a high level of proficiency in launching new ventures and developing growth strategies, including market share enhancement, market expansion and new market segment penetration. He is skilled at working with senior executives to identify and align strategic and financial goals to improve company performance.

Ally gained his expertise in formulating business strategy, developing senior executive relationships, consultative selling, and setting up and motivating effective sales teams during his highly successful career in several leadership roles. Prior to founding SiriusDecisions Canada, Ally was Country Manager for Gartner, where he led the company's Canadian subsidiary to record sales (400 percent growth to 41M), increased profits and world-class client retention results. During his tenure he orchestrated and executed a growth strategy focused on market expansion, new client acquisition, account growth, executive-level relationship development and client loyalty.

At Pitney Bowes, Ally was a top performing sales manager and the senior project manager responsible for the company's first foray into customer relationship management. As general manager at Carpita, he oversaw the company's successful expansion of large-scale retail operations.

Ally has an extensive network of influential senior-level contacts in Fortune 500 companies, as well as in large government organizations. He sits on numerous committees of key business and industry associations, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and industry association events. Ally is the Vice-Chair of the Canadian Marketing Association’s B-to-B Council.

2011 Reputation Management Trends

Smart b-to-b organizations start planning and budgeting well in advance of a new fiscal year. Part of the process requires evaluating strategies and tactics that have been employed during the past year, then deciding which to keep and which to replace. SiriusDecisions has identified key trends that will impact the b-to-b communications function in 2011.

1. Waterfall-Long Social Media: Many b-to-b organizations have experience using social media to monitor their brand, customer perception and sentiment; some are even trying to use it to seed demand creation. This isn’t enough; communications executives now must take a waterfall-length social media perspective. Recently, we outlined five waterfall-related task families that marketing can impact: seed, create, enable, accelerate and nurture. Adding social media into the tactic and offer delivery mix can help create new demand. On the enablement side, leveraging a social platform to build an internal community to facilitate collaboration and best practices sharing within direct and indirect sales channels can help drive incremental sales productivity. Finally, understanding the social preferences of prospects provides the knowledge to apply appropriate social efforts to the nurturing process.

2. The Communications Center: Similar to the value a demand center can provide, a communications center can pay significant dividends if created. Particularly when it comes to global communications, a centralized function can create leveraged programs for retaining key branding and messaging elements while enabling local customization based on defined guidelines. In addition, the approach allows companies to harness key expertise distributed throughout the communications organization and dynamically allocate it as needed, depending on the corporate initiative (e.g. new product launch or merger/acquisition).

3. Link to Demand: While we would like nothing more than not having this as a key issue for 2011, the reality remains that too few organizations – not even 40 percent according to our most recent surveying – tightly link their communications and demand creation efforts. We’ve written extensively on the topic that linking to demand is much more desirable that trying to link to revenue, and that the most effective measurements of this linkage should be results-oriented rather than activity-driven. More traditional communications roles (e.g. public relations, analyst relations) often have the perception that seeding or supporting demand creation is not their job; until the objectives that these roles are judged are changed, there is little reason for behavior to change.

A key theme for communications functions in 2011 will be the ability to deliver impact across the demand waterfall, rather than just at its top. However, this can be a thorny topic for professionals in more traditional roles who have become accustomed to only having to demonstrate activity levels. In addition, the ubiquitous nature of social media means it’s no longer a luxury, but rather an invaluable tool that every marketer can leverage. Those who embrace these two realities will be better positioned to not only build the proper linkages within their organizations; they will have a much better chance to prove their contribution.

Ally Motz

Marketing Touches: Knowing When to Say When

Establishing rules concerning contact frequency should be managed by marketing operations; you will certainly want to include field marketing in the policy definition mix. Policy compliance must involve any data management function responsible for access to contacts, as well as managing name acquisition and data quality. Touch policy development tends to be a work in progress, with many organizations putting in place basic rules to manage contact frequency and building toward more complex guidelines. We have generally observed four phases in this development, including:

1. Legal obligation only. Even an organization that puts no restrictions on how prospect and customer data is used must, by law, adhere to opt-out requests, and thus build a process to ensure opt-outs are processed quickly and correctly. These organizations should also be tracking opt-out levels over time against an initial benchmark (e.g. total percentage of database opted out, opt-out rates by month and quarter) as a way to heighten the need for more well-defined policies.

2. One-size, rules-based, honor system. The initial foray into formal marketing touch policy tends to be defined by both its simplicity as well as its faith in the (general) honesty of people. To reduce the amount of pounding of the database, the organization sets a blanket guideline for contact frequency by email (one per week seems to be a common rule) as well as by telephone and direct mail. Without any formal gatekeeper in place, marketers are relied on to police themselves. Such policies are often accompanied by efforts to educate marketers on why “overfishing” of the database can be harmful to their success in the long term; this at least helps to build awareness about the problem and encourage compliance. Similar to a no-policy scenario, opt-out levels must be benchmarked and tracked over time to help indicate whether marketers are staying true to the policies put in place.

3. One-size, rules-based, safeguarded. Our third phase sees similar types of blanket policies to those adopted in the second phase, but adds a dimension of protection in the form of an individual or team that manages access to contacts in the database, or technology that does so in an automated way. Some organizations have created a formal role (e.g. a data steward) to do the job, while others have appended the duty onto an existing marketing operations resource. This resource will receive list requests from individual marketers, then pull the list to ensure that all names comply with regulations.

4. Multi-dimensional, rules-based, safeguarded. Our fourth – and most complex – phase sees the evolution toward a more complex, rules-based policy that includes buyer preferences, roles and even account type to define the frequency of contacts. This level of sophistication tends to eliminate the human element, simply due to the fact there are way too many moving parts to manage. Companies without marketing automation platforms (MAPs) and/or contact data management capabilities will struggle to get to this stage, especially in distributed marketing organizations with limited visibility into what gets sent to whom.

Marketers are naturally drawn to think that more is more, meaning increasing frequency of communications can only improve results. The fallacy here is that those messages, whether delivered via email, phone or direct mail, are welcome in the first place. If communications are not sought by contacts, and/or if many are not relevant to their specific role and needs, increasing their frequency can drive blanket opt-outs. On the other hand, communicating too little with a contact can also hurt a marketer’s cause, as messages are so infrequent and unpredictable that the company is neither top of mind nor trusted. It also means bad contacts are kept longer, which gets expensive. Once a marketing touch policy is in place, tracking and measurement must then be established to understand the impact of message frequency both on results and the database. This is easiest for email communication: Look at both response measures (was an action taken) and deliverability metrics (did the message get to the recipient, and did the contact opt out). Looking at how these measures change by type of message and frequency of messages overall will show what the threshold is and when it has been crossed. Don’t forget to look at metrics by role to determine if different types of contacts show they prefer different frequency (or types of messages) by opting out at higher rates.

A marketer’s most valuable asset is his or her organization’s database, but it is a fragile ecosystem that decays quickly if not properly managed. Setting rules for the frequency of contact is a good first step toward making sure this decay isn’t an inevitable fact. The next step is to understand what prospects and customers need at various points in the buying process, so relevant options are offered and expectations set. The third – and most important – step is to encourage contacts to define their preferences so your messages are expected and more likely to be relevant. With both permission and preferences in place, your database will grow to become a competitive advantage rather than a detriment.

Ally Motz

The Habits of Highly Effective Reference Programs

Truth. It’s in short supply these days, with sources from politicians to athletes stretching it, hiding it and in some cases absolutely mangling it. As a result, the search for the truth is often a difficult one, particularly for b-to-b buyers looking for honest perspectives about what to expect if they buy a specific product or service. It’s common knowledge that prospects see current customers – especially when they are unscripted and unpaid – as a solid source to rely on during their truth- gathering process. Reference teams, however, often struggle to gain access to their organization’s customers, and then get them to tell their story freely and effectively.

In this post, I will describe three difference makers we see in the customer reference efforts (refers to a set of practices adopted by an organization to enhance customer advocacy around its product or services, e.g., word of mouth) that far outpace those of their peers.

One: Focus and Dedication
Children in schoolrooms more than a century ago read from a primer that included a cautionary statement: “Things done by halves are not done right.” This sentiment applies perfectly to customer reference management, as best-in-class organizations do not treat it as a part-time role. For organizations generating more than $500 million in revenue, we believe a dedicated team is required to deliver high-quality reference results; average organizations tend to tack reference management onto the responsibilities of existing roles such as corporate communications or field marketing. While assigning a specific individual to reference-related tasks may seem sufficient, if it is not a sole focus, superior results will likely never be achieved. This principle extends to the measurement of reference teams as well: If output is not monitored or is held to arbitrary measures of activity, those responsible will routinely fail to deliver because they have other jobs to do.

Two: Division of Labor
Customer reference teams have multiple goals that expand as an organization grows and the demands for information become more complex. First, they must support the sales organization by providing access to customers willing to speak on the company’s behalf. Next, they must document and share the experiences of customers in various ways, including marketing collateral, social media, event participation and much more. Finally, these teams must be equipped to cultivate relationships with customers and with sales in order to better identify willing participants, and develop and manage their participation. While they may be seen as overlapping jobs at the outset, successful reference groups eventually deploy personnel and technology to fulfill different requirements. Automating access to routine requests frees up resources to focus on higher-value activities such as reference recruitment and content development. In contrast, average teams tend to be highly reactive to sales requests and fulfill them in a manual way, meaning they aren’t at all scalable. The more time that is spent in fire-drill mode means it will be challenging to find windows of opportunity to evolve the reference program as a whole.

Three: Direct Access to Customers
Gaining the trust of the organization – particularly sales – is essential to building a proactive, streamlined reference team. Whether or not this trust exists is displayed in the team’s access to customers. Run-of-the-mill teams must ask permission to reach out to a contact; more often than not, they are met with resistance from a sales team fearful of threatening a relationship or jeopardizing a deal in progress. While well-intentioned, over time an abundance of caution leads to a shortage of contacts, which in turn hinders sales’ ability to close other deals. Best-in-class reference teams collaborate with sales not only to identify contacts but to also build relationships on their own. They become a driver of loyalty by protecting customers’ valuable time from overuse and inappropriate application.

A company’s words about itself will never carry the weight of those from a customer, meaning that building a top-notch reference program shouldn’t be looked at as a luxury. With the ways that customer evidence can potentially be used taking on more forms than ever before, marketing has more to manage, and more at risk if it fails. What may seem like an internal inefficiency around helping sales close deals is often emblematic of a much bigger problem: misunderstanding the importance of reputation, and the value of sharing it in a systematic way.

Ally Motz

The Emergence of Influencer Relations in B-to-B

With the rapid rise of social media, buyers are placing growing trust in the opinions of new sources that use blogs, online forums, and sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to spread their message; by doing so, they have morphed AR into a broader category we call influencer relations (IR). Today’s influencers come in all shapes and sizes; they live both outside of an organization’s walls as well as within them, when evaluated as a whole, they fall into four categories, including:

1. Traditional. Just because buyers are placing weight on new groups of influencers doesn’t mean they are ignoring analysts, journalists and associations, particularly when it comes to their most important purchases. The well-respected analyst firms typically carry more weight than individual analysts that have set out on their own; rosters within both categories must be tightly maintained. Gathering feedback from sales will help in understanding when in their processes that buyers are relying on traditional influencers, as well as tracking any changes in behavior. Understanding how traditional sources of influence are using social media means to expand their reach will help ensure your organization is properly monitoring all of the ways that these influencers are talking about your organization and its offerings.

2. Social media pundits. From influential bloggers to Twitter personalities, new groups of pundits regularly come and go, and exert different degrees of influence over buyers that must be monitored. Create a list of criteria that will help set the level of engagement that particular influencers require, using the quality of content, their relevance to your business, search engine ranking data and buyer surveys to understand the degree of influence they exert. It’s not enough to look at quantitative measures to rank influencers; there may be bloggers that gain notoriety simply by being negative all the time; thus, no amount of engagement is likely to change their opinions. When your list is complete, consider how this group wishes to engage; some may only want to be dealt with electronically, while others may be willing to attend live events. Work with local representatives and communications agencies to identify any regional social media influencers under your online radar, as well as how these influencers prefer to be engaged.

3. Customers. Existing customers can have a significant effect on shaping the opinions of prospects in the late stages of the buying process. While traditional case studies and other reference components are certainly valuable, nothing will have as much weight as a happy customer who goes public in forums such as live events, online events and social media vehicles from blogs to communities. The rise of social media means that buyers can now have a network to leverage throughout the buying process to ask specific questions about a vendor. Pay attention to the sentiment and tone of customer postings, and don’t neglect the value of a customer community. Buyers want to engage with other buyers; give them platforms for discussion.

4. Employees. Particularly from a support standpoint, employees who are engaged and forthright have the opportunity to promote positive interactions with a wide range of customers and influencers through social media. Organizations should promote employee use of social media to encourage their potential impact on other influencers. By having a centralized policy to govern the use of social media, organizations can support employee involvement with customers while maintaining policies and procedures on the types of information and content that can be shared publicly. Not only does this strategy act as an early warning system for identifying potential issues, it also heightens the possibility that a company can impact influencer views by engaging quickly and leaving positive impressions in the public space.

While it may be easier to maintain a simple checklist of the usual analysts and journalists to interact with, having a wider influencer universe can help get your message out to a larger range of prospects. The evolution from AR to IR, however, means that communications executives must be more proactive in identifying and engaging new categories of influencers on their turf, and on their terms. Due to the nature of social media, the credibility and influence of individuals can change rapidly; the better you understand your customers’ habits and requirements, the more you’ll know who to engage with and how.

The B-to-B Communications Organization of the Future

The trends we've identified from client interactions, surveys and research studies have formed the basis for our vision of the b-to-b communications structure of tomorrow. While the core contributions of legacy roles from branding and advertising to public relations will remain, the way tactics are delivered as well as how specific roles respond to the evolving needs of various constituent groups must transform. In some cases, these roles will expand and require new skills; in others, they will be subsumed by new functions that provide greater leverage. At the heart of the communications transformation is the creation of what we call the communications center.

Although many organizations currently have an integrated communications function, few extend the linkages to other functions such as field and product marketing. The communications center gathers and distributes communications best practices, policies and skills, including developing and enforcing companywide social media policies; creating and monitoring global branding and content guidelines; and managing the allocation of creative resources. Most important, it also drives the interlock of communications activities within a broader campaign strategy, thus ensuring greater leverage and impact of reputation-focused functions.

Not only will the creation of the communications center streamline the delivery of messages to external and internal constituents, it allows communication functions to pinpoint activities that are isolated and potentially wasteful. The staffing of a communications center is often achieved with existing staff based on skills, and implemented in a shared service structure where appropriate roles can align to different communication functions based on need. The communications center also can act as operations arm, aggregating and packaging measurements to be shared with other parts of the organization.

It is wishful thinking to assume that all communication roles can merely realign their responsibilities to the goals of the company and the new realities of the market. In many cases, existing roles will need to transform radically to maintain relevance and truly impact; to this end, we have identified three key functional pillars on which the communications organization must be built, including:

1. Influencer relations. The era of industry analysts as the single voice of opinion has ended, as vocal bloggers, pundits and community dwellers rapidly gain the respect once reserved for traditional voices alone. This digital group of influencers tend to communicate more frequently and quickly, and thus have the best chance of flying under your radar without a monitoring tool in place. Interacting with influencers within the social media universe requires specific skills, as well as time and resources. Dedicated roles that specifically deal with driving reputation and awareness through social media channels will be necessary for a while, but will eventually go away, most likely absorbed by the communications center. This new structure recognizes that social media must become another tool within every marketer’s toolbox and integrated into the overall workflow.

2. Reputation management. In the b-to-b world, reputation is the sum of experiences and impressions that customers and prospects have by interacting with your organization, while brand is a subset that encompasses the image you project. Public relations (PR) is typically used by organizations to broadcast one-way messages to both target audiences and the market at large. Evolved PR functions cultivate a sense of back-and-forth community with their audiences, enabling them to not only drive awareness and support demand creation programs on a regular basis, but to also become a more credible source of information in the face of negative issues that can blossom into reputation-damaging events. Community management is a fairly new role; for many organizations, it merely acts as the operations and project manager for the online community. What it should be doing is ensuring that content flows into the community, driving adoption and ensuring subject matter experts are engaged.

3. Communication services. At first blush, our third pillar may seem like the only part of the communications organization that isn’t changing. However, instead of merely just serving as the repository for roles with little contact with (and direct impact on) customers, corporate communications must transform to become a well-integrated, widely used service bureau. For corporate advertisers, this means becoming more of an expert in online advertising and search engine optimization; for events, it means focusing on smaller, more targeted and less expensive events rather than large industry affairs. Both roles must expand their skill sets, particularly in regard to social media. In addition, your Website is no longer sufficient as a marketing front door; instead, it’s an interactive way to reach buyers regardless of their stage within a buying cycle. Staff that can assist in Website optimization will find their roles becoming increasingly more relevant, particularly in the area of dynamic content as the more you can align content to the exact needs of a buyer, the more likely he or she is to continue to engage.

Finally, the transition taking place from internal communications to internal marketing is important to note. Whether you are communicating organizational change, market dynamics, human resource issues or public affairs information, internal communications must move beyond the view that creating and sending their messages is a checkbox item vs. ensuring that the message is not only received, but read and understood by employees.

Building and protecting the reputation of a b-to-b organization has become more decentralized, particularly with the rise of social media from both an inbound and outbound nature. A critical success factor is creating a centralized communications center to set policies and procedures, as well as to collect and propagate proven processes and skills where needed. The motivation is the realization that buyers’ habits are changing, the influencers that impact their decisions are different, and every interaction employees have with customers and prospects can have a long-lasting effect. Those who recognize and embrace these new realities and evolve their structure accordingly to meet these demands will emerge as the organizations that best leverage the entire communications function not just today but for years to come.

Ally Motz