Introducing Challenger Marketing

Competing in Todays B2B Battleground

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B2B buying will never be the same.

Customers are cutting suppliers out of their learning...

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.
Learn Dene Needs Assess Options Make Decisions

Customer Engages Supplier

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

Information from Non-Supplier Sources

Historical

Today

Historical

Today

The Challenger Sale revealed that the winning sales reps lead with insight...
The 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. Percentage of high-performing sales reps in complex sales environments

The Challenger
4%

The Relationship Builder The Problem Solver

7%

The Hard Worker

54%

19%

25%
The Lone Wolf

so, how can marketers take the same approach?

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

90%

of B2B marketers are anchoring their lead generation strategies around content marketing.

Effectiveness of Marketing Efforts (Scale of 15)

Commercial Strategy 3.13

Brand Development 3.04

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.

Sales Support 2.94

Customer Segmentation 2.92

Analytics and CRM 2.75

Lead Generation 2.53

Source: CEB Commercial Insight Diagnostic, CEB Research

Most content fails to generate leads because its based on thought leadership, not insight.
The Content Marketing Hierarchy
General Information
Marketers create many avors of content in their aspiration to achieve thought leadership, but only one type of content will produce the desired commercial impact.

Accepted Information

Thought Leadership

Insight Commercial Insight

Commercial Insight:
A compelling, defensible perspective from a supplier that materially impacts a customers performance and directly leads back to their unique capabilities

Dont Teach. Unteach.

The key difference between thought leadership and commercial insight:

Thought leadership teaches customers something about what they could be doing in their business. Content Focus: Benets of alternate action

Commercial insight unteaches customers something they are currently doing in their business. Content Focus: Costs of current behavior

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 rst place. Period.
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How to cut through the noise

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

Spark Concern

Build interest in an underappreciated business problem with provocative infographics, data, and factoids.

Scope the Problem

Present evidence, testimonials, and frameworks illustrating the hidden dynamics of the problem.

Personalize the Pain

Present the problem as it relates to the customers specic business using benchmarking tools, pain calculators, and diagnostics

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

Meet the Challenger marketer.

Customer Native

Understands customer purchase motivators and decisions Synthesizes action plans from customer interactions, observations, and data Tailors and contextualizes information

Possesses experience beyond Marketing Background in Consulting or Strategy Planning Focused on business objectives ahead of marketing metrics.

Business Savvy

Investigative
Thrives in an ambiguous environment Analyzes outliers Decisive, but not overly condent.

Hallmarks of a 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.
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Marketing and sales roles: from handoff to collaboration

Traditional Sales Funnels Sales Funnels for Challenger Marketers

Marketing Marketing Sales Sales

1 2 3

Build Content to Engage Prospects Position Supplier as Thought Leader Generate and Nurture Leads

Prove Superiority of Supplier Value Proposition Buying Center Stakeholders

Partner with Sales to develop commercial insight. Create the conditions and content that enable Sales to build prospect relationships in the pre-funnel.

3 Co-design demand

2 Navigate and Align

generation and content strategy that disrupts how customers think of their own business.

3 Close Deals

4 Collaborate with Sales

to equip reps with Challenger collateral.

Take the Next Steps

www.thechallengersale.com/marketing Assess Your Challenger Readiness CEB Report: Getting Paid for Content Marketing
CEB Marketing Leadership Council

Getting Paid for Content Marketing

Disrupting Customer Buying Criteria
Challenger Marketing Series

Challenger Marketing Series

Roadmap to Building a Challenger Commercial Organization

This study may not be reproduced or redistributed without the expressed permission of The Corporate Executive Board Company.

The Challenger Sale from CEB

@CEB_Challenger

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