Last evening the Business Marketing Association Colorado hosted Eduardo Conrado, Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing and Communication for Motorola. Conrado is responsible for the Business to Business (B2B) marketing for two of Motorola’s three units – Home & Networks Mobility and Enterprise Mobility Solutions – which account for over half of the company’s $30 billion in annual revenue. In a talk entitled, “Technology That’s Second Nature: Motorola’s B2B Goes Online,” Conrado explained how in the space of three years the corporate giant overhauled its marketing to meet the expectations of customers who increasingly use the internet to research purchase decisions, and in the process began to rethink the company’s approach to product development and brand strategy.
Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Lever Brothers, is credited with the famous aphorism — “one half of advertising does not work but nobody knows which half”. For a company the size of Motorola, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year on marketing, this was clearly unacceptable. So a few years ago Conrado performed a granular study of customer behavior and Motorola’s marketing mix and learned a majority of consumers were utilizing the internet for product information: 51% of B2B decision makers start their product research at the search bar, and 26% start at the vendor site. Conrado concluded that Motorola’s own web site was its “best media property,” and began diverting resources to bolster its content. In the space of a year the headcount in the interactive marketing department went from ten to fifty; he started allocating money to the IT division with the understanding that this team was necessary to keep the site alive; and he started uploading massive quantities of information to the website.
Conrado makes a distinction between ‘data’ and ‘information’. In his mind, data is helpful but ultimately company-centric, while information pivots on the needs of the customer. With this thinking in place he began diving into his specific customer verticals (Police, Fire/EMS) and designed Internet content for each of these groups with a focus on situational need instead of an emphasis on product. In one breathtaking example, his team created a virtual city with six different emergencies, ranging from campus security to stadium evacuation. The computer-generated animation demonstrates the challenges faced by emergency personnel and then offers solutions through Motorola products. The message is clear: The brand starts with the human element before inserting technology. While not all of the content on the website is this elaborate, Conrado believes that overall “the interactive must be immersive and bring products to life,” and he sees “short, digestible video” supported by white papers and other product information as the best approach. As a result of his efforts the B2B portion of the website attracted over 14 million hits and over 3 million downloads.
Yet creating the customer-focused content was just “the first building block.” By putting a priority on flexibility in content creation he was able to extend the site to 39 countries utilizing 20 languages, and in so doing began attracting a lot of eyeballs. It was at this point – over the course of the last year – where he began implementing his strategy for the second building block: Creating a relationship management system to intelligently manage the sales leads being generated through the website. Conrado believes that content is crucial, but the follow-up is necessary in converting an audience into paying customers. So his team developed vast databases to house customer information as well as an intricate map of relationship management, which is a set of detailed instructions on when and in what format the sales teams should follow up with potential customers. With the program only in place a few months, his team has already surpassed their most optimistic conversion rates for its sales leads.
The Business Marketing Association Colorado is the premier professional development organization providing B-to-B education, networking and resources. BMA Colorado has been voted the number one chapter of this national organization for thirteen of the last fifteen years. The next event for the organization is a Roundtable discussion on March 26th focused on “Selling in Difficult Times,” while the next speaker will be Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks International, at Breakfast with the Boss on April 8th.
