1Competing in Todays B2B Battleground

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Introducing Challenger Marketing

2B2B buying will never be the same.

Customers are cutting suppliers out of their learning...

and theyre getting more and more of their information from outside sources.

Define NeedsLearn

Assess Options

Make Decisions

Todays customers are typically 57% of the way through their purchase process before they contact suppliers. Marketing needs to be present where customers are doing the bulk of their learning.

Suppliers today account for less than one-half of all information that buyers use to aid in their purchase decisions. This means that depending on how many alternative suppliers are being considered, any given supplier likely will receive no more than 10%15% share of mind.

Information from Suppliers

Historical Historical

Information from Non-Supplier Sources

Today Today

Customer Engages Supplier

3The Challenger Sale has disrupted the world of sales by upending conventional wisdom about what matters most for high performance in selling. The book showed that the best sales reps are no longer the relationship builders but rather the Challengers. Challenger Reps push customers thinking and disrupt

purchase cycles. Three things that Challengers do with their customers:

Teach them new insights about their business. Tailor messages for resonance across

prospective buyers.

Take control of the sale using the credibility gained with their insight.

The Challenger Sale revealed that the winning sales reps lead with insight...

so, how can marketers take the same approach?

Percentage of high-performing sales reps in complex sales environments

The Challenger

The Lone Wolf

The Hard Worker

The Problem Solver

The Relationship Builder

25%

19%

7%4%

54%

4Marketers often run to content marketing, but its not fixing lead generation.

of B2B marketers

are anchoring their lead generation strategies around content marketing.

But sales leaders rank lead generation efforts dead last in terms of effectiveness in helping them do their job.

Marketers are trying to position themselves as thought leaders, but it isnt leading to commercial results.

Source: CEB Commercial Insight Diagnostic, CEB Research

Effectiveness of Marketing Efforts (Scale of 15)

Commercial Strategy 3.13

Brand Development 3.04

Sales Support 2.94

Customer Segmentation 2.92

Analytics and CRM 2.75

Lead Generation 2.53

90%

5Most content fails to generate leads because its based on thought leadership, not insight.

Insight

Thought Leadership

Accepted Information

General Information

Commercial Insight A compelling, defensible perspective

from a supplier that materially impacts a customers performance and directly leads back to their unique capabilities

Commercial Insight:

The Content Marketing Hierarchy Marketers create many flavors of content in their aspiration to achieve thought leadership, but only one type of content will produce the desired commercial impact.

6Dont Teach. Unteach.

Thought leadership teaches customers something about what they could be doing in their business.

Content Focus: Benefits of alternate action

Commercial insight unteaches customers something they are currently doing in their business.

Content Focus: Costs of current behavior

The key difference between thought leadership and commercial insight:

Marketers create too much mediocre content in the name of looking smart or being helpful. It doesnt move the commercial needle and only adds to the noise. Marketers creating content that lacks the ability to disrupt customer priorities should stop it. Kill it. Never create it in the first place. Period.

6

77

Commercial Insight Content challenging customers current thinkingthis will more reliably reset the customers purchase criteria decisively in the suppliers favor.

!

Create content paths that lead to commercial insight and disrupt customer purchase processes.

Personalize the PainPresent the problem as it relates to the customers specific business using benchmarking tools, pain calculators, and diagnostics

3

1 Spark ConcernBuild interest in an underappreciated business problem with provocative infographics, data, and factoids.

2 Scope the ProblemPresent evidence, testimonials, and frameworks illustrating the hidden dynamics of the problem.

How to cut through the noise

8Meet the Challenger marketer.

Challenger marketers disrupt purchase processes by generating commercial insight, amplifying that insight in the market and through the sales force. These marketers develop a deep understanding of customers, take an investigative approach to their jobs, and possess savviness beyond marketing.

Possesses experience beyond Marketing

Background in Consulting or Strategy Planning

Focused on business objectives ahead of marketing metrics.

Understands customer purchase motivators and decisions

Synthesizes action plans from customer interactions, observations, and data

Tailors and contextualizes information

Business Savvy Investigative

Customer Native

Thrives in an ambiguous environment

Analyzes outliers Decisive, but not overly

confident.

Hallmarks of a Challenger Marketer

Marketing and sales roles: from handoff to collaboration

Build Content to Engage Prospects

Position Supplier as Thought Leader

Generate and Nurture Leads

Prove Superiority of Supplier Value Proposition

Navigate and Align Buying Center Stakeholders

Close Deals

Marketing Sales

Traditional Sales Funnels

Partner with Sales to develop commercial insight.

Create the conditions and content that enable Sales to build prospect relationships in the pre-funnel.

Co-design demand generation and content strategy that disrupts how customers think of their own business.

Collaborate with Sales to equip reps with Challenger collateral.

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3

3

4

1 1 1

22 2

Sales Funnels for Challenger Marketers

Marketing

Sales

9

10

The Challenger Sale from CEB

@CEB_Challenger

Take the Next Steps

CEB Marketing Leadership Council

Challenger Marketing Series

Getting Paid for Content MarketingDisrupting Customer Buying Criteria

This study may not be reproduced or redistributed withoutthe expressed permission of The Corporate Executive BoardCompany.

Assess Your Challenger Readiness CEB Report: Getting Paid for Content Marketing

Roadmap to Building a Challenger Commercial Organization

Challenger Marketing Series

www.thechallengersale.com/marketing