Value of Behavior—a New B2B Marketing Metric

I shared with you my view that calculating true ROI for isolated B2B marketing activities is a very complex, potentially impossible proposition (please refer to the “Marketing ROI or Cost per Desired Behavior?” post August 4, 2008).

Successful B2B marketing and sales is a combination of art, science and sound business practices as the ability to sell any product or service requires that the seller influence a buyer’s behaviors and perceptions. If buying is a behavior and effective selling requires influencing behavior, does it make sense to create a new marketing metric—Value of Behavior (VOB)?*

I believe that a Value of Behavior metric could be used in many cases for effective analysis of specific marketing activities and marketing vehicles.

Let’s take a closer look at this concept. We know that the buying/sales process follows a path—awareness, preference, evaluation, resolution and retention. Sometimes we get lucky and a particular sale or customer acquisition effort moves forward very quickly. However, a typical B2B sales cycle spans several months, sometimes years.

There are steps or stages within the sales cycle. If we could assign a value to customer/prospect behavior, particularly early stage buying cycle behavior, a meaningful metric could be created.

All prospects, leads and opportunities are not created equally. Leads and interest from prospects that fall within a given target customer profile are more valuable than leads or interest outside of that profile. Interest from the economic buyer is more valuable than interest from those further down on the totem pole and in some cases more valuable than interest from higher ups.

I stated in my “Marketing ROI or Cost per Desired Behavior?” post that interest from a company already in your sales pipeline is arguably more valuable than a brand new prospect. We know that it takes numerous sales and marketing touch points to convert and retain a customer, so a white paper download, website visit or phone call from those customers already in the pipeline is incredibly valuable—evidence that you are effectively moving through the buying cycle.

If we assigned a numerical value to customer behaviors or perceptions, or customer group behaviors/perceptions generated by a specific marketing program element, I think we have something. Maybe increasing awareness of your company and/or products within a target customer group is worth five points. Maybe a white paper download from someone other than an economic buyer is worth two points. Maybe a trade show booth visit is worth four and a half points. I think that you get the idea. An effective metric would need to be more complex than this, be able to be tracked and requires less than wholly scientific judgment calls by a qualified person, but I do think that the idea has merit.

One of the problems, amongst several, with many Marketing ROI calculations is the desire to apply mechanical style measurements to complex and involved human behavior. Another problem in many, if not most organizations, is the lack of ability to track message layering and escalating interest behaviors.

For a Value of Behavior metric to work there has to be some delineation between marketing and sales function impact. This comment is contradictory to nearly everything you will ever hear uttered from my being, as I believe B2B marketing and sales have to work in very close concert.

However, in the early stages of the buying/sales cycle the marketing department’s messaging is typically the lead influence of a prospect’s behaviors and perceptions. As a prospect moves along the sales/buying process, the lead influence flips (or should flip) to the sale person(s) responsible for the account. The marketing department is critical throughout the entire sales cycle, but as a deal or customer relationship moves further down the path the voice of the sales department is much louder and marketing messages move, a bit, into the background.

If a Value of Behavior metric is implemented, it might be identified that prospective customers are moving through the initial stages of the buying cycle very nicely. The marketing department developed great positioning messages, selected effective marketing partners, generated interest within the market and qualified leads are in the pipeline. These early stage successes do not mean that opportunities will result in sales. Maybe there are problems with individual sales people, maybe there are problems with an entire sales structure, or maybe there are problems with the performance of the products themselves.

Marketing and sales departments should be integrated and work in tandem. However, via effective Value of Behavior analysis, marketing partners, marketing mediums and isolated marketing activities could be evaluated and larger problems within organizations could be spotted.

From my experience, marketing departments, marketing/advertising agencies and marketing vehicles are often the fall guys when efforts are not as successful as projected. Sometimes marketing departments, marketing agencies and/or marketing vehicles are ineffective to be sure, but sometimes other holes need to be plugged.

**If the term Value of Behavior is adopted by the marketing community, Rose Southard, Putman Media’s IT Director, deserves the royalties. Or, maybe she and I could split the bounty.