The primary job of an organization is to bring in enough revenue not only to survive, but to grow. This is the case with non-profits as well as profits.
Generally, an organization grows best by serving their customer's interests. However, this isn't to say that the customer should drive all operational and strategic choices within the organization, but that the organization should serve their target group of customers best among competing alternatives (determined by the environmental analysis), and relative to whatever the organization's strategic competitive advantage is (as determined through the SWOT analysis).
Not all customers are interested primarily in the lowest price. Also, as anyone in marketing and sales understands, focusing on providing the lowest price is the most difficult way to maintain a competitive position over time. What most customers want is value, rather than low price, and often there are other needs or interests that are more important than price or value, such as image or safety.
Thus, the strategic marketing process. It is up to the marketing group to find out where the gaps are in met versus unmet needs in their target audience, search which environmental factors will impact their marketing, and understand the strategic options available to build the best marketing mix strategies and tactics.
Showing posts with label strategic marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strategic marketing. Show all posts
Monday, November 2, 2009
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Sales-Ready Messaging and Business Success
In Review & Outlook The Panic Stage WSJ 01/19/08, the Wall Street Journal predicts not only market volatility, but also, as a point of encouragement, says that financial institutions are in the middle of a repair process that will prevent systemic failures that have happened in past decades, and that the Fed has proven more credible in managing and has room to maneuver.
The article says, "In his book "Manias, Panics and Crashes," the economic historian Charles Kindleberger describes the stages of financial boom and bust. Students of the good professor will recognize where we now are in the current credit crisis: the panic stage. It isn't a pretty sight, but a crash is far from inevitable if political and economic leaders keep their wits about them and focus on the proper remedies."
In order to respond to the "early stages of this repair operation", I believe that business organizations will be responding by downsizing their R&D, marketing, and labor - the non-revenue producing components of their business in favor of resources that can grow, or at the very least maintain, current revenue levels. This means that sales will need to become more strategic, and marketing will have to become more tactical.
Things that have routinely worked best for me to more effectively integrate the best of marketing and selling (for the past decade at least) in companies I worked with, especially in selling new products to new customers:
1) Marketing (my team) worked with account managers (myself and other sales managers) to develop "sales-ready messaging" (Ch 8, CustomerCentric Selling, Bosworth):
a) Marketing messages were consistent with sales messaging, and focused on helping the sales force consistently communicate where the products and services solved the problems and objectives that the buyer was facing.
b) Marketing made a list of goals and problems based on feedback from customers. Usually this feedback came from the sales and customer support teams. These needs were matched up with products and services we provided – and focused on the "whole product", not just the features and benefits of components – e.g. customers wanted "clean water" not just the parts of a municipal water treatment system; or they wanted to know who called in the last hour, not just the components of a CRM system.
c) Marketing developed a standard series of questions / conversations / presentation topics that moved the buyer to position the offerings as a solution and uncover the buyer's needs and problems – specific business issues that could uniquely be solved by our company.
I believe in a dialogue model (through integrated and interactive messaging and conversations), facilitating customers and partners to discover their own reasons for using the company's products and services, and therefore owning the results. I focus on working with partners and customers to transform their concerns into shared goals.
This standard "scripting" (consistent messaging throughout all the sales tools and marketing literature, ads, website and other communications) helped sales account managers with consultative selling to help the buyer develop a vision in favor of our offerings – sales staff learned to converse with the buyer and listen for needs, rather than simply describe what the prospect needed or talk about features and benefits of our products or services. It helped us develop buyers, regardless of any previous or ongoing relationship, because we had cultivated mutual respect through discussing how to solve a problem that they had expressed.
2) Filling the sales funnel was approached proactively and systematically.
a) Proof of demand was developed before the product was developed, through market research as well as actual orders. We had buyers who not only expressed need, but committed to purchase (at an initial discount for new buyers who also agreed to serve as references). This also served to build a sense of urgency in the company to design and build the product and services, and minimize the "time to market", while meeting the interests for quality and features with current customers. Through this process, we also gained innovator partners who helped us refine the products for the broader market.
b) As head of marketing, I focused company resources on initially achieving a strong loyal following with a single industry, or based on a single buyer issue that was to provide a solid foundation for strong demand growth, i.e., developed a solid and successful "beachhead" to leverage in other markets. This was extremely important, but also very difficult – many opportunities came our way, but each one was evaluated on how much it would take from building the base vs enhancing the foundation. This was critical in conserving company resources for building a strong, supported leveragable base of customers.
c) Everyone in the company was responsible for ongoing prospecting and filling the sales funnel, especially sales people. Sales didn't just rely on new leads provided by marketing – though marketing had a big part in generating new targets. Customer service also was integrally involved in providing new sales opportunities.
d) Buyers were targeted who were not necessarily ready to move toward change. Through market research, I estimated that less than 10% - often closer to only 1-3% - of a market were "qualified" in terms of having a need, money, and interest in a specific solution at a given time. Only targeting "qualified leads" with sales efforts leaves too many potential buyers out of the sales funnel. Due to this, as the marketing strategist, I developed methods to engage a broader group that had a mutual issue, problem, or goal, such as via workshops, trade shows, virtual focus groups, marketing communications campaigns using a variety of media and interactive messaging, etc.
e) Information was gathered through surveys or conversations with current successful accounts, leading to developing messaging and sales literature that featured those customers, issues and solutions.
f) I also worked to get peer-reviewed articles in industry journals and online where the customer target groups would see them.
3) Marketing and sales worked together to develop a quantifiable process that account managers could follow and uniformly forecast where they were in the sales process.
a) The process allowed account managers to determine whether a particular sale was costing a lot of time and resources while not likely to be a worthwhile effort either leading to a sale, or a high cost customer after the sale in terms of resources or negativity. i.e. sales were not only processed, but were also evaluated for resource expenditure - usually in monthly group sales meetings adding group perspective to the account manager's assessment.
b) Ideally, with the best sales managers, the agenda of the sales process was focused on the customer's interests, not just the process.
c) Though each sale was unique in many ways, many common steps made in the sales process were more like project management, whereby the executive and sales teams could follow the process, and the account manager could get the decisionmaker / buyer / buying committee to agree on the steps / deliverables / dates for evaluating the product or service we were offering. This gave us a more reliable timeline and ability to determine sooner whether the selling effort was worth the resources.
4) Satisfied customers were involved in generating demand in workshops, advertisements, email, blog postings, all other types of marketing and sales efforts. This partnership secured these customers' ongoing support, as well as building new demand.
5) C-level executives were targeted initially to establish common goals, and the need and money for our products and services.
a) Usually initial meetings were held with C-level executives to determine the buyer's needs and get a commitment to proceed. These meetings or workshops often involved many of the stakeholders (operations, administration, finance, external partners) to the buying decision.
b) Marketing and sales executives led executive seminars, focused on CFOs and CEOs, or other political and business decisionmakers, with high-level topics and issues they needed us to solve, and co-led by satisfied buyers who could share their experience with mutual problems and goals. The customers helped to start decision-makers down the path to considering the change and investment needed, getting commitment and revenue for the project at the outset. These C-level executives were in an environment where our account managers could engage in conversation with current customers and prospective buyers about mutual company goals, successes, and uncover business issues that we could solve.
After using this process successfully for the past 15 years or so, I finally found a book that articulates this sales process in a way that it can be used as a rulebook or guide for developing a great sales mentality in both the marketing and sales divisions of an organization: CustomerCentric Selling by Michael T Bosworth, Published 2004, McGraw-Hill Professional. I highly recommend that anyone in sales and/or marketing get this book, read it, and keep it handy.
The article says, "In his book "Manias, Panics and Crashes," the economic historian Charles Kindleberger describes the stages of financial boom and bust. Students of the good professor will recognize where we now are in the current credit crisis: the panic stage. It isn't a pretty sight, but a crash is far from inevitable if political and economic leaders keep their wits about them and focus on the proper remedies."
In order to respond to the "early stages of this repair operation", I believe that business organizations will be responding by downsizing their R&D, marketing, and labor - the non-revenue producing components of their business in favor of resources that can grow, or at the very least maintain, current revenue levels. This means that sales will need to become more strategic, and marketing will have to become more tactical.
Things that have routinely worked best for me to more effectively integrate the best of marketing and selling (for the past decade at least) in companies I worked with, especially in selling new products to new customers:
1) Marketing (my team) worked with account managers (myself and other sales managers) to develop "sales-ready messaging" (Ch 8, CustomerCentric Selling, Bosworth):
a) Marketing messages were consistent with sales messaging, and focused on helping the sales force consistently communicate where the products and services solved the problems and objectives that the buyer was facing.
b) Marketing made a list of goals and problems based on feedback from customers. Usually this feedback came from the sales and customer support teams. These needs were matched up with products and services we provided – and focused on the "whole product", not just the features and benefits of components – e.g. customers wanted "clean water" not just the parts of a municipal water treatment system; or they wanted to know who called in the last hour, not just the components of a CRM system.
c) Marketing developed a standard series of questions / conversations / presentation topics that moved the buyer to position the offerings as a solution and uncover the buyer's needs and problems – specific business issues that could uniquely be solved by our company.
I believe in a dialogue model (through integrated and interactive messaging and conversations), facilitating customers and partners to discover their own reasons for using the company's products and services, and therefore owning the results. I focus on working with partners and customers to transform their concerns into shared goals.
This standard "scripting" (consistent messaging throughout all the sales tools and marketing literature, ads, website and other communications) helped sales account managers with consultative selling to help the buyer develop a vision in favor of our offerings – sales staff learned to converse with the buyer and listen for needs, rather than simply describe what the prospect needed or talk about features and benefits of our products or services. It helped us develop buyers, regardless of any previous or ongoing relationship, because we had cultivated mutual respect through discussing how to solve a problem that they had expressed.
2) Filling the sales funnel was approached proactively and systematically.
a) Proof of demand was developed before the product was developed, through market research as well as actual orders. We had buyers who not only expressed need, but committed to purchase (at an initial discount for new buyers who also agreed to serve as references). This also served to build a sense of urgency in the company to design and build the product and services, and minimize the "time to market", while meeting the interests for quality and features with current customers. Through this process, we also gained innovator partners who helped us refine the products for the broader market.
b) As head of marketing, I focused company resources on initially achieving a strong loyal following with a single industry, or based on a single buyer issue that was to provide a solid foundation for strong demand growth, i.e., developed a solid and successful "beachhead" to leverage in other markets. This was extremely important, but also very difficult – many opportunities came our way, but each one was evaluated on how much it would take from building the base vs enhancing the foundation. This was critical in conserving company resources for building a strong, supported leveragable base of customers.
c) Everyone in the company was responsible for ongoing prospecting and filling the sales funnel, especially sales people. Sales didn't just rely on new leads provided by marketing – though marketing had a big part in generating new targets. Customer service also was integrally involved in providing new sales opportunities.
d) Buyers were targeted who were not necessarily ready to move toward change. Through market research, I estimated that less than 10% - often closer to only 1-3% - of a market were "qualified" in terms of having a need, money, and interest in a specific solution at a given time. Only targeting "qualified leads" with sales efforts leaves too many potential buyers out of the sales funnel. Due to this, as the marketing strategist, I developed methods to engage a broader group that had a mutual issue, problem, or goal, such as via workshops, trade shows, virtual focus groups, marketing communications campaigns using a variety of media and interactive messaging, etc.
e) Information was gathered through surveys or conversations with current successful accounts, leading to developing messaging and sales literature that featured those customers, issues and solutions.
f) I also worked to get peer-reviewed articles in industry journals and online where the customer target groups would see them.
3) Marketing and sales worked together to develop a quantifiable process that account managers could follow and uniformly forecast where they were in the sales process.
a) The process allowed account managers to determine whether a particular sale was costing a lot of time and resources while not likely to be a worthwhile effort either leading to a sale, or a high cost customer after the sale in terms of resources or negativity. i.e. sales were not only processed, but were also evaluated for resource expenditure - usually in monthly group sales meetings adding group perspective to the account manager's assessment.
b) Ideally, with the best sales managers, the agenda of the sales process was focused on the customer's interests, not just the process.
c) Though each sale was unique in many ways, many common steps made in the sales process were more like project management, whereby the executive and sales teams could follow the process, and the account manager could get the decisionmaker / buyer / buying committee to agree on the steps / deliverables / dates for evaluating the product or service we were offering. This gave us a more reliable timeline and ability to determine sooner whether the selling effort was worth the resources.
4) Satisfied customers were involved in generating demand in workshops, advertisements, email, blog postings, all other types of marketing and sales efforts. This partnership secured these customers' ongoing support, as well as building new demand.
5) C-level executives were targeted initially to establish common goals, and the need and money for our products and services.
a) Usually initial meetings were held with C-level executives to determine the buyer's needs and get a commitment to proceed. These meetings or workshops often involved many of the stakeholders (operations, administration, finance, external partners) to the buying decision.
b) Marketing and sales executives led executive seminars, focused on CFOs and CEOs, or other political and business decisionmakers, with high-level topics and issues they needed us to solve, and co-led by satisfied buyers who could share their experience with mutual problems and goals. The customers helped to start decision-makers down the path to considering the change and investment needed, getting commitment and revenue for the project at the outset. These C-level executives were in an environment where our account managers could engage in conversation with current customers and prospective buyers about mutual company goals, successes, and uncover business issues that we could solve.
After using this process successfully for the past 15 years or so, I finally found a book that articulates this sales process in a way that it can be used as a rulebook or guide for developing a great sales mentality in both the marketing and sales divisions of an organization: CustomerCentric Selling by Michael T Bosworth, Published 2004, McGraw-Hill Professional. I highly recommend that anyone in sales and/or marketing get this book, read it, and keep it handy.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Social Networking - What are we in for?
I was at a meeting last week where everyone was giving their views on "social networking". Most had pretty strong feelings one way or the other on what was good, bad, ugly.... or even appropriate, and few came to the same conclusions. Perspectives mostly were based on internet communication, and ranged from meeting others with similar interests (such as via Meetup or PerfectMatch) to marketing yourself online.
Cathy Henesey, president of the DFW Texas Recruiters Network, said in a Wall Street Journal Online article, that social networking online is a "trend, which started mostly with Web-savvy recruiters in the technology industry, [that] is now spreading to other industries such as human resources and financial services." With respect to human resource recruiters searching for talent online, this same article alerted readers to be aware that their online presence needed to be strategically planned and monitored, which I agree with. However, this doesn't mean avoid getting online at all costs - in fact, quite the opposite.
The transparency and openness required of an online presence in light of concerns about personal security doesn't raise near the red flags that the concerns about lack of control about the message raises. People are concerned that they can't control communication flows and what is said, or to whom. They can't control who "sees" them. People who are not used to a public face are concerned what key people will think if their picture is seen by people who don't know them. Think about what I just said.
I submit that we have never been able to control the opinions formed about how we look, nor who sees us, nor what is said about ourselves, our products, our companies, nor through which channels others send their messages about us. All we have been able to do-and still are able to do-is strategically plan and manage the messaging that we and our organizations put out there on a day to day basis. This goes for everyone-from our kids who are using MySpace, to organizational and personal Web pages, to individual business networking on LinkedIn. This is why we spend so much time in front of the mirror every morning.
So, what can we do? We can take a step back and see what the total message is that we are sending. We can even measure every impression and result of our messages. After that, it is up to those who grab that message whatever they do with it.
Without innovators in the tech industry - through both private industry and government projects and funding - internet technology and tools for social networking would hardly be what it is today. However, from my perspective, it is the users out in the market that truly are advancing technology and products at breakneck speed. Users have always been the ones that create the "buzz" that makes a "pet rock" a hit, or causes nationwide hysteria regarding apples or pain medication. By the same token, it is strategically planned communication that keeps these situations moving in a positive direction.
Those who use these online tools are also finding they can do an extraordinary amount with much fewer resources. Does anyone remember the days when every executive had their own personal assistant to plan their schedules, type letters, schedule flights, organize meetings? How many of these tasks can you execute now on your Blackberry or Treo while you are waiting in line to board your next plane? How many of you now can arrange monthly meetings for dozens, if not hundreds, through such tools as GoToMeeting, Evite and Meetup?
So, where do we go from here? Well, just as with any other evolving resource, social media takes ongoing learning. There are so many great social networking resources that are easily accessible.
One of these, Clickz, recently had an article that sums up this direction with social networking and social media really well. Dave Evans, creator of HearThis.com, in "Social Media: The Key is Behavior" said that "... what's going on in social media comes down to the simple norms and codes of conduct we use every day. Treat me with respect, give me something cool to talk about, and I'll do your marketing for you."
As I said in Interactive Self Marketing, those who are saying, "look at me" on the internet are transforming all kinds of industries and communication channels. Anyone who is using these online tools, and is comfortable with the transparency required, is finding that if you trust customers, employers, friends to find you on their own, you will have a better match and longer lived relationship in the end.
Cathy Henesey, president of the DFW Texas Recruiters Network, said in a Wall Street Journal Online article, that social networking online is a "trend, which started mostly with Web-savvy recruiters in the technology industry, [that] is now spreading to other industries such as human resources and financial services." With respect to human resource recruiters searching for talent online, this same article alerted readers to be aware that their online presence needed to be strategically planned and monitored, which I agree with. However, this doesn't mean avoid getting online at all costs - in fact, quite the opposite.
The transparency and openness required of an online presence in light of concerns about personal security doesn't raise near the red flags that the concerns about lack of control about the message raises. People are concerned that they can't control communication flows and what is said, or to whom. They can't control who "sees" them. People who are not used to a public face are concerned what key people will think if their picture is seen by people who don't know them. Think about what I just said.
I submit that we have never been able to control the opinions formed about how we look, nor who sees us, nor what is said about ourselves, our products, our companies, nor through which channels others send their messages about us. All we have been able to do-and still are able to do-is strategically plan and manage the messaging that we and our organizations put out there on a day to day basis. This goes for everyone-from our kids who are using MySpace, to organizational and personal Web pages, to individual business networking on LinkedIn. This is why we spend so much time in front of the mirror every morning.
So, what can we do? We can take a step back and see what the total message is that we are sending. We can even measure every impression and result of our messages. After that, it is up to those who grab that message whatever they do with it.
Without innovators in the tech industry - through both private industry and government projects and funding - internet technology and tools for social networking would hardly be what it is today. However, from my perspective, it is the users out in the market that truly are advancing technology and products at breakneck speed. Users have always been the ones that create the "buzz" that makes a "pet rock" a hit, or causes nationwide hysteria regarding apples or pain medication. By the same token, it is strategically planned communication that keeps these situations moving in a positive direction.
Those who use these online tools are also finding they can do an extraordinary amount with much fewer resources. Does anyone remember the days when every executive had their own personal assistant to plan their schedules, type letters, schedule flights, organize meetings? How many of these tasks can you execute now on your Blackberry or Treo while you are waiting in line to board your next plane? How many of you now can arrange monthly meetings for dozens, if not hundreds, through such tools as GoToMeeting, Evite and Meetup?
So, where do we go from here? Well, just as with any other evolving resource, social media takes ongoing learning. There are so many great social networking resources that are easily accessible.
One of these, Clickz, recently had an article that sums up this direction with social networking and social media really well. Dave Evans, creator of HearThis.com, in "Social Media: The Key is Behavior" said that "... what's going on in social media comes down to the simple norms and codes of conduct we use every day. Treat me with respect, give me something cool to talk about, and I'll do your marketing for you."
As I said in Interactive Self Marketing, those who are saying, "look at me" on the internet are transforming all kinds of industries and communication channels. Anyone who is using these online tools, and is comfortable with the transparency required, is finding that if you trust customers, employers, friends to find you on their own, you will have a better match and longer lived relationship in the end.
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