Today, I continue my introduction to the new analysts (from April 1st) in our group providing research and advisory for B2B Marketing professionals, including sales enablement. In addition to Laura Ramos, whom I introduced last week, we are also being joined by experienced Forrester analysts Kim Celestre and Lori Wizdo.

So, as an introduction to Kim’s work, let me point you to a recent report: Executive Q&A: How Online Communities Help You Achieve A Social Depth Objective, which is currently on the Marketing Leadership pages on this website. This report discusses the benefits of creating and maintaining online communities, a marketing tactic still undervalued by marketing leaders. As Kim points out, you can better influence how your customers explore your offerings and help move them to a purchase decision by tapping into the content and interactions generated by online communities. She explains about social reach and depth and cites the EMC Community Network online community as a powerful B2B marketing best practice. Through 2015, Kim will also be researching and publishing on the topic of social selling.

Lori’s research over the past year has focused on what Forrester calls the lead-to-revenue management (L2RM) process. We feel strongly that B2B marketers should reduce their emphasis on campaign marketing and no longer consider themselves as managing a funnel (or even a waterfall!). We promote the L2RM concept as a metaphor where B2B marketers, and salespeople, help buyers move through their journey. Her recent report B2B Marketers Can Govern L2RM With The Funnel But Must Design To The Customer Life Cycletalks to this theme, as does her playbook of reports for L2RM in addition to her Forrester Wave™ on L2RM platforms. All of these reports will be transferred to the B2B Marketing role pages next month.

Remember, this is all in addition to the reports we already have, and plan to publish, which are focused on sales enablement – clearly, marketing and sales must work together to execute the L2RM process as pictured above.  Next time, I will point out several B2B marketing topics which we will not cover in our group — because our focus is on revenue-related marketing only. 

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about our planned change. Drop me a note or place an inquiry.

Always keeping you informed! Peter