Siebel and Oracle, two of the largest players in enterprise software, recently weighed in on the strategy and tactics they employ to reach their respective B2B customer segments. Not surprisingly, the web is playing a large role in reaching their targets.

The power of the web to B2B marketers, he said, is that it's an awareness building vehicle, drives leads, it's interactive, cost efficient, targeted, and measurable. Online, he said, touches people along the entire buying cycle.

In 2004 Siebel's not using print advertising at all - they're 25% online advertising and 75% television. Their combination of print and TV is their "one two punch."

Print, he said, in defense of their decision, is expensive, hard to measure, expensive to measure, creatively limiting, and wasn't driving leads - and when it did drive leads they were inefficient leads.

Bill Carper of Oracle, while not deviating too much from their blended strategy of print, web, & TB, had these top ten strategies for business marketers:

1) Plan and execute across the buying process.

2) Work with and through sales.

3) Plan globally, execute locally.

4) Build and leverage an analytics foundation.

5) Utilize a single data problem for real time learning.

6) Plan and execute across the channels - surround the target - manage the context of your message.

7) Couch your ego and forge alliances with trusted brands. (Don't assume that just because you have a big name like Oracle that people will trust you.)

8) Close the loop - define and measure ROI.

9) Test and learn.

10) Treat your agency as a partner.

Both marketers emphasized the importance of tracking marketing actions all the way through to sales. Siebel pointed out that for one time period they received 50 leads from Google. Though this was, in comparison with their other marketing vehicles, a paltry number, when they tracked their media spend all the way through they found out that the Google leads were actually cheaper than any other.