As vice president of corporate marketing at Sybase, Inc., Mark Wilson is constantly looking for ways to get the most bang for the marketing buck -- especially these days. He says marketing organizations are going to look very different when we come out the other end of this recession, and a good way to get a sneak peek is by networking with peers at events like the 2009 B-to-B Marketing in the New World Conference. "The worst thing you can do in this type of market is put your head in the sand, lay low, and wait for the recovery," he says.

ANA Advertiser continued that conversation with Wilson following his presentation, "Getting the Most Bang for Your Marketing Buck," at the conference. Here's what he had to say.

ANA Advertiser: The latest research from ANA and BtoB magazine shows that almost half of projected 2009 media budgets will be lower than last year, while at the same time enterprises are placing more reliance on marketing functions in a difficult economy. What are the key challenges this combination raises for you and your peers in b-to-b marketing?

Mark Wilson: It's interesting because marketing departments are being asked to cut their budgets, which would suggest a reduction in lead generation, but they're also being asked to generate the greatest amount of leads they can to support the revenue base. At Sybase, that means more scrutiny on marketing because it's absolutely critical in this economy that we hit our revenue targets. But we've actually done well in terms of retaining our marketing budget. The challenge is figuring out ways to change our marketing mix to support elongated sales cycles. It's not all about lead generation in this environment; it's about pushing people into making a decision. We've adopted a whole new methodology called provocation-based sales and marketing. With potential customers much more reluctant to make decisions about IT purchases in a tough economy, we're using provocation-based marketing to significantly shrink the sales cycle and generate more revenue.

ANA: Can you give us a description of what provocative marketing is all about?

MW: The opposite of provocation-based marketing is solution-based marketing. Solution-based selling involves a lot of assessing customer needs, mapping your product to meet those needs, showing them how there's an ROI at the end. You go through a traditional sales cycle with lots of vendors, RFPs, proof-of-concept, and, eventually, you hope, a sale. That doesn't work in this economy. The tactics are fundamentally different in provocation-based selling. Rather than focusing on generating and qualifying lots of leads, you focus on finding, say, the 40 most important accounts that you need to win a particular market segment. If you win those top accounts, eventually you'll see additional benefits from referral-based marketing. You also go after those accounts in a different manner. In solution-based selling, you bring your executives in at the very end to close deals. In provocation-based selling, you front-load your resources at the beginning of the sales process. Instead of trying to reach lots of people in the target organization, you try to reach the specific people who can make the decision to buy. It takes a lot of due diligence and account planning. It's a non-standard point of view that is provocative and can get people thinking in a different way, which is good in this kind of economy.

ANA: The same research cited earlier shows that despite reduced budgets and a recessionary economy, marketers remain enthusiastic about leveraging both new media (Internet, e-mail, search engines) and "newer media" (social networks, blogs, etc.). Why do you think that is the case?

MW: All those technologies are significantly cheaper than the technologies they are effectively competing with, and that's an important point. It's interesting, if you look at previous waves of technological innovation in marketing, such as CRM and self-service-based marketing, they required huge IT investments and a lot of retooling to implement. That's not the case with social networks and other new and newer media. It's all in the cloud. Also, social media is such a huge trend in many areas of people's lives today. It just makes sense for marketing to be moving in that direction. The challenge is getting it right. Instead of sending out a marketing message to 500,000 people, you're sending it to 500 or even 50 people. How do you cost-effectively serve up content to a much smaller audience, and how do you get into a conversation with your customers? Now more than ever you must have something important to say, so the quality of content has never mattered more.

ANA: How can b-to-b companies leverage these channels in ways that optimize their marketing spend? What's working well for you at Sybase?

MW: First and most important, just get started. Know your target market, make sure you've got the right channel, the right marketing mix, but do it. In 2008, we took a little-used conference room in the interior of our building and converted it into a video studio. We bought some equipment and hired a videography student as an intern for about $15 an hour. The whole setup probably cost less than $15,000. We began making low-cost videos and encouraging our customers to do the same, and we've gotten some incredibly creative stuff. You can take the same approach with other new and newer media, whether it's blogging, social networks, viral video. All of these platforms are so inexpensive, you simply need to jump in and do it.