The Left Brain Model: The Right Demand Generation Model for the

Brave New World of B2B Marketing

By Malcolm Friedberg, President, Left Brain Marketing

Marketing is evolving and B2B Marketers that fail to embrace this change will become irrelevant. While
shocking to some, this perspective is not new; it’s simply becoming increasingly apparent to the B2B
marketing community. What’s driving this change is the transference of power from sellers to buyers –
for evidence of this, and the broader shift taking place, see Adam Needles in his blog post, Nailing Down
Evidence That the Nature of the B2B Buyer Has Changed, or SiriusDecisions in their blog post, Marketing
Needed for Sales 2.1. The consequence of this transformation is that buyers have taken control of the
buying process. Specifically, they increasingly delay engaging with Sales, preferring instead to consume
Internet-accessible content to address their educational needs, at their leisure.

The evolution to a buyer-centric buying process represents a paradigm shift that requires Sales and
Marketing to redefine established roles. In this environment, Sales is increasingly focused on the final,
downstream decision-making process, while Marketing is playing an expanded role managing upstream
buyer education and lead qualification. For Marketers, this entails going beyond their traditional
marketing roots in brand building and top-of-funnel lead generation and actively collaborating with
Sales to plan and execute process-driven and content-rich Demand Generation programs. Now more
than ever, Marketers also are presented with an opportunity to play a more central and impactful role in
the revenue generation process.

Developing a unified Demand Generation approach requires a collaborative process that facilitates
discussion and ultimately drives alignment on key issues. The results of this collaboration are critical in
order to support Marketers in implementing this new integrated structure. The deliverables of this
process include:

 A shared definition of what constitutes a qualified lead (i.e., a Universal Lead Definition) and the
specific criteria that make up the ‘ideal’ buyer (demographic and behavioral)
 Integrated business processes and work flows that efficiently move leads through this new
environment at a pace appropriate to the buyer
 Mutual understanding of the roles that Marketing and Sales teams play and how each
department engages with the buyer
 A specific set of analytics to monitor and optimize progress and to report success to company
Executives

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Successful implementation of any strategic initiative often relies on the guidance of a model. In the
buyer-centric world, this framework must both address the broader issue of Marketing and Sales
integration and offer specific, tactical advice on how Marketers can support Sales in lead qualification.
While there are several models in the marketplace, it’s our opinion that they don’t adequately address
the changing market and buyer dynamics. Consequently, the goal of this paper is to provide B2B
Marketers with a practical model upon which they can build a successful, modern Demand Generation
program.

The Left Brain Model

Before we walk through the specifics of the model, here are a few notes about The Left Brain Model
(TLBM):

 TLBM is a working model designed to help Marketers build (which is why it goes up) a framework for
measuring Marketing’s contribution to a Demand Generation program and to provide a structure for
the nurturing and lead scoring activities that support this process.
 With TLBM, Marketers have the ability to leverage past data in order to make informed, targeted
decisions about how to improve and optimize Marketing performance.
 Important metrics have corollaries. You may be concerned about conversion, but the non-
converters can be a source of great information as well. While simplicity can be elegant and easy to
digest, it also can fail to capture critical data.
 Any model suffers from the inherent flaw of not being flexible enough to map to a variety of specific
situations. It’s a generic model, not a customized consulting engagement that measures every
aspect of your unique environment.
 TLBM assumes Marketing and Sales have taken the time to collaborate and determine what
constitutes a viable lead.

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Stage 1: Prospects

The first stage of TLBM is the Prospect pool. The Prospect pool is the total population of Prospects a
Marketer must touch in order to generate the responses required to meet the downstream goals. It’s
the very top of the funnel, and ultimately informs you about what you’ll need to spend in order to
achieve your revenue goal. If you’re striving for completeness, the pool should be subdivided into
outbound and inbound channels.

In some cases a Marketer will have information on these Prospects, such as contacts within a Marketing
database. In other instances you might be doing an email blast, collaborating with a third party on a
program such as a webinar or posting content on your site without a registration form. Thus, depending
on your particular mix of tactics, the Prospect pool will be a combination of known recipients and an
educated estimate about the number of unknowns you’ve touched.

One could even make the argument that there is an even earlier stage called “impressions,” a term most
commonly used for measuring eyeballs for traditional, interruptive media such as outdoor, television
and print. Similarly, social media fits nicely into this category because your content might be available
for public consumption without capturing the recipient’s information. Arguably having one metric for
impressions and the next level down for known Prospects would be a more granular model. However,
I’ve only heard a few B2B Marketers ever include impressions in their planning, and since it’s generally
not a B2B Marketing metric; thus, TLBM combines known and unknown into one Prospect pool.

Stage 2: Respondents

The second stage of the model identifies the number of prospects that respond to the Marketing
outreach to the Prospect pool. We counsel that less is more, and fewer required fields will increase your
form conversion. Consequently, TLBM defines a Respondent as a prospect that provides only first and
last name and a valid email address, although you may decide to require other, limited data.

Even if you’re a Marketing superstar, you’re going to get a much higher number of non-responders than
responders. Breaking out the Respondents by source can yield important insights such as which
Prospect acquisition channels are most effective, how certain types of collateral perform, and where to
build follow-up nurturing campaigns. From an analytics perspective, tracking Prospects to Respondents
will enable you to identify which Marketing channel provides the best value (e.g. cost per lead) and
greatest impact (e.g. volume of leads).

Stage 3: Qualified Respondents

The third stage of the model is Qualified Respondents. Qualified Respondents are those that meet the
minimal criteria of qualification, a standard determined exclusively by demographic or qualitative
criteria such as title, company, company size, revenues, industry or role. This information is generally

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collected through form submission but may be augmented by appending Hoovers or D&B data. It can
also come from Sales calls, surveys or other means. In order to move Respondents to Qualified
Respondents, you will need two things: a determination of which demographic criteria constitutes a
Qualified Respondent and a scoring model for evaluating whether a Respondent meets that threshold.

Focusing on the demographic criteria at this stage enables you to zero in on identifying key
characteristics of likely potential buyers. Think of the process of picking a professional basketball team,
and these are the folks who are taller than six feet. In a marketing context, these qualified prospects
could be desirable based the right title, in an industry where your firm excels or from a company that
has sufficient revenues. The goal of this step is to more easily determine which types of demographic
profiles are more likely to become customers― or put another way, which Prospects align with your
definition of a qualified lead. While initially you’ll be making educated guesses, over time you can review
actual data on closed business from your demand generation program to validate your assumptions
about qualified leads and adjust your scoring model accordingly.

Stage 4: Sales Ready Leads

Stage four is Sales Ready Leads; leads that are ready to engage with Sales. Specifically, these are leads
that, in addition to meeting your demographic criteria, now also exhibit a growing level of behavioral
interest that indicates a readiness to engage in a discussion with Sales. Examples of behavioral criteria
include frequent Website visits, collateral downloads and social media engagements.

This step addresses one of the biggest challenges in Demand Generation programs – getting the timing
right with a buyer. You may have a prospective buyer that meets all of the demographic qualifications;
however, if the timing is off for making a purchase, your sales process will stall. Behavioral analysis will
help you get the timing right on Sales Ready Leads. While TLBM by no means solves the challenge of
determining which specific behaviors indicate a prospect’s interest in talking with Sales, separating
behavioral from demographic qualification makes the modeling and management of your demand
generation program considerably less complicated.

A few additional points to note. First, the data collection, interest qualification and scoring processes are
not necessarily linear and all begin with the first engagement. TLBM helps you to manage when and how
to use the data. Second, the path for Qualified Respondents becoming Sales Ready Leads will be varied,
with some Qualified Respondents getting fast-tracked (e.g., a product demo) and others taking longer to
nurture. Third, the model also acknowledges that at the Sales Ready Lead stage the prospect has
evolved from “Respondent” to “Lead” by virtue of being both demographically and behaviorally
qualified and thus, represents a legitimate opportunity.

Step 5: Sales Opportunities

Sales Opportunities are simply that; verified opportunities that Sales has confirmed, usually after a
phone call. Clearly, this will not always be the case. For example, an organization using a Sales-run tele-

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qualification process would hand off the prospect earlier. Regardless of the exact point of exchange, at
some stage the lead is qualified and routed to Sales in order to establish if a potential deal exists. The
Sales person makes this determination and, in some companies, creates an “Opportunity” in the CRM
system with a specific dollar amount. TLBM assumes that Marketing’s role changes once this
determination has been made―the green line.

Stage 6: Closed deals

Deals won … need we say more.

Conclusion

Marketers often are told that they need a specific list of key metrics to measure success. While that
sounds great, I’ve never found it to be that simple. So, I’d suggest viewing the problem another way.
What’s the most basic statement a Marketer can make to his or her CEO – the empirical presentation of
which is both profound and persuasive?

“In order to achieve next year’s company revenue goal, I need $X for Y-specific programs.”

Imagine having the ability to show a formula for how you’ll achieve that goal. You’ll need a variety of
data points. Initially, some will be based on industry-benchmarked conversion rates and yields. Over
time, they’ll be validated by real data, your data. And, if at any time in the process you decide to look
backwards―not to justify your existence but to apply this knowledge in order to improve
performance―using TLBM will facilitate the Marketing metrics to do that as well.

That’s a Demand Generation model that will make any Marketer successful in the Brave New World of
B2B Marketing.

About Left Brain Marketing

Left Brain Marketing is a leading Demand Generation strategy agency, serving some of the largest and
best-known enterprise brands. The agency helps Marketing organizations develop and grow successful
Demand Generation programs. Its approach leverages a proprietary Demand Generation process model
– The Left Brain Model (TM) – powered by marketing automation technology. The agency delivers a full
set of services that span strategy, production, analytics and optimization for Demand Generation
programs.

Left Brain Marketing is based in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

Left Brain Marketing

3130 Alpine Road, Suite 288-154
Portola Valley, CA 94028 | 650-561-3435

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