Developing a Revenue Marketing Organization: One Quick Tip!

Recently, Kevin Joyce published a blog post on the Business 2 Community (B2C) website which talks about how he would turn inbound marketing into a ‘revenue marketing’ organization. In the post, Joyce recommends that all of marketing should be measured on sales qualified leads (SQLs) and nothing else. It reminded me of the similar experiences I had in the past when I turned my marketing team into a ‘revenue marketing’ entity.

On two different occasions, I took an approach which was quite similar to Joyce’s - I put the entire marketing and the inside sales teams on the same goals - Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and took away all other goals. Of course, this announcement shocked everyone and it took almost two quarters for the teams to successfully collaborate, streamline the process, and hit the mutual goal. In one instance, I had a 15% turnover in staff that included those who could not adjust to the new way of thinking. This proved to be a blessing in disguise, as it gave me the opportunity to hire people with the right mindset.

The concept of revenue marketing meant that my PR team had to change their focus. With the introduction of this concept, PR now had to ‘integrate’ their activities with the marketing team versus writing articles or case studies on any topic that was ‘easy’. This meant getting a view into the events and campaigns that were being planned and developing content on THOSE topics in order to provide ‘air cover’ for the demand generation team.

Naturally, if the PR team is publishing articles and case studies focusing on the same topics as the demand generation team, you will eventually see an increase in webinar attendance, email responses, and ultimately qualified leads. Recently, I wrote a blog post that provides some interesting statistics on this topic where I talk about experiencing a 300% increase in the cost per lead for products that do not have PR ‘air cover’ versus those that do. The ‘air cover’, along with the higher quantity and quality of marketing content coming from PR, also helped the demand generation teams develop deeper campaigns and improved nurturing.

As Joyce also mentions, the mutual SQL goal forced the teams to work together. The marketing team carefully listened to the feedback provided by the inside sales team with regards to both lead quality and campaign ideas. And, over time, the inside sales team religiously followed up on each and every lead that marketing delivered.

Have you had similar experiences turning your organization into a revenue marketing entity?

References:

http://www.business2community.com/marketing/how-does-inbound-marketing-relate-to-revenue-marketing-0564580#XLYO0MdGarvQ3fdu.99I

http://b-to-bmarketingdigestfortheceo.blogspot.com/2013/10/integrated-marketing-its-still-in-isnt.html

Integrated Marketing: It's still 'IN', isn't it?

It's interesting how everything I see and do working with clients always brings me back to the

concept of 'integrated marketing' - a term coined years ago but I believe is just as relevant today. Whether you are talking about digital marketing, revenue marketing, internet marketing, email marketing, PR, AR - anythingmarketing; none of it works unless all dials are tuned and all marketing disciplines, campaigns, activities are integrated across the board.

I wrote about examples of what happens if marketing is not integrated in older blog posts but there is one experience I had that 'showed me the money' - what it costs when marketing isn't integrated.

A client of mine had three different product lines - two of which were their core products and one which was an after-thought product developed by an engineer who thought it was a solid piece of technology. Let us call each: Product A, Product B and Product C.

Marketing activities, either by design or by accident, were integrated for Product A and Product B; the message to customers, the marketplace, media and analysts was consistent and the branding, website, positioning, targeting, lead generation, partner management and field marketing were all aligned.

Product C, on the other hand solved a completely different business problem for a completely different audience than the other Products. Regardless, sales viewed Product C as an easy way to bring in incremental revenue quickly. The Sales VP assigned three full times sales representatives and one inside sales representative to focus solely on Product C and instructed Demand Marketing to run lead generation activities. Corporate Marketing was not supporting any activity over Product C other than the Product Marketing Manager (who was one of the best the company had) to develop marketing content and sales collateral without any oversight to ensure brand and messaging consistency.

The results? Demand Marketing barely generated leads for Product C and the cost per lead was way out of line when compared to the other product lines - over $9,000 per sales lead - 300% higher than the cost of a sales lead for Product A or Product B.

Was it the marketing? You bet it was - a great example of what happens when you do not have integrated marketing.

If you have had similar experiences, I'd love to hear.....

3 Sales Questions You Should Always Ask and Answer

You are working with sales to develop a value proposition for a specific prospect. The presentation is going in different directions as the sales and marketing teams suggest different strategies. Some want to talk about product and features; others want to focus on benefits and ROI. The conversation gets tangled and so does the presentation.

One of the most important things to remember when developing client-facing content is to put yourself in the prospect's shoes. What questions are the BUYERS asking themselves? What do THE BUYERS need to know to justify a buy decision?

It's more simple than you might realize because at the end of the day, the prospective buyer needs to know the answer to only 3 QUESTIONS:

1. Why should I buy?
2. Why should I buy from you?
3. Why should I buy NOW?

Wow! 

Now you are asking yourself, "Why didn't I think of that on my own?" No worries. I can't take credit for developing the 3 questions. The concept was passed down to me from a marketing consultant many years ago.

But I can demonstrate how to respond to the 3 questions, and I decided to use my own company and services as real-life example. Note that I've limited my responses to 5 points because that is the most a human being can digest - 3 points is even better.

Why buy marketing consulting services?

So let's pretend that we are the buyer. We sit in her chair. We wear her shoes. Speaking as the buyer, what want to be able to articulate the business problem?

• B2B marketing organizations need to be agile and move quickly. I need a consultant to keep the wheels on the marketing machine especially when priorities and staff requirements change.
• Sometimes I need to fill a temporary gap in headcount. Other times I need specific marketing expertise fast.
• Hiring great team members takes time and if work stops or slows down, the company can loose its competitive edge which can negatively impact my reputation across the company.
• Sales doesn't care if marketing is understaffed or overworked, sales needs leads.
• The company's revenue number is depending on me. 

Why buy McGee Marketing Consulting services?

The answer to this question highlights your differentiators and the responses change depending upon the specific needs of the prospect. Make sure that for any differentiator you mention, you can provide proof to support your claim. This is an example that I recently provided to a technology company that sells B2B insurance software.

• Over 20 years of 'old and new-school' experience as a strategist with the ability to execute and achieve measurable results. 
• Expertise in 'womb to win' integrated marketing (e.g., from GTM plan development through all aspects of marketing and sales execution). 
• Experience across all marketing disciplines in the B2B technology sector. 
• Domain expertise in both the healthcare and insurance segments.
• Innate ability to quickly simulate with your team and achieve success fast.

Why buy now?

This is a very important question - it is the compelling event that has a strong sense of urgency and can only be answered after a discovery session with the prospect. Here are the reasons why clients have engaged with me - again from their point of view.

• I need an expert to put a new set of eyes over our messaging and value proposition NOW.
• I need someone to manage my PR agencies NOW. I'm spending a fortune and need the PR activities integrated with the rest of marketing.
• I am understaffed and need to launch a new product NOW.
• Sales needs more leads NOW and the current demand generation machine isn't working.
• We are a small company, need help with strategy NOW, but not ready to hire a full time VP of Marketing.

I am interested to get your point of view on the "Why buy...Why buy your company...Why buy now" perspective.

Develop User Generated Content Via Surveys

Here are some quick tips on how to develop more content to support campaign automation and segmentation:

(1) Review your current content for applicability, identifying when and how to use and who to target. Exploit what you have. Identify content ‘gaps’ by audience, marketing/sales lead level, etc. and what you need to fill these gaps.

(2) Develop an Annual Thought Leadership Plan to include Public Relations, Media Relations, Social Marketing, etc. Ramp up thought leadership content to publish white papers, article, blogs and press releases. Look internally to your product management and product marketing teams to develop. Look externally to engage analysts, authors, consultants and other thought leaders to develop or co-develop. Choose topics that are ‘top of mind’ to these audiences but are also relevant to your product or service. Turn yourself into a ‘thought leader’: the ‘go-to-organization’ to obtain information, knowledge and ‘solutions’.

(3) Survey….survey….survey….Take every opportunity to survey your constituents. Again, choose survey topics about industry issues/challenges that are of strategic (preferred) or tactical interest to your audience (and again apply in some way to what you market.) Use survey results as content for research or point of view white papers, articles, press releases and even another campaign to share analysis of the survey results. Encourage survey participation by ensuring every participant is emailed an early copy of the research results. This provides opportunities to get email addresses, demonstrate your understanding of your prospect/customer’s business problems and become a ‘consultant’.

a. Develop an Annual Survey Campaign Plan based on audience, topic, business issue, etc. Be sure to integrate this with the rest of marketing (remember…integrated marketing is what we want to achieve!).

b. Post on-going surveys on your website (home page) or blog and drive participation.

c. Use every customer/prospect touch point as a survey opportunity. During a webinar, break up the PowerPoint presentation and pause to poll the audience on relevant issues. At the end of a Webinar, include relevant ‘industry questions’ with any survey you may provide that evaluates the event itself.

d. At trade shows, conferences and seminars, advertise and provide opportunity in the booth or at the event for individuals to participate in surveys. You can use this as an additional draw to encourage dialogue with the ‘walk-abouts’ on the conference floor.

e. Build out your contact database by using telemarketers to phone survey. Consider hiring industry analysts to perform these surveys if targeting senior level management. Segment your current database and develop survey questionnaires and execute methodically targeting x number of segments per quarter, etc.

f. Provide quick surveys to your internal telemarketing and telesales organizations and encourage them to use these as a way to initiate dialogue when cold calling. Prospects are more willing to talk to someone who can provide knowledge than someone who wants to strictly sell.

g. Build out your database so you know the survey history of every contact.

h. Over time, develop a ‘trending analysis’ where it makes sense on survey topics and publish.

These are some examples of what I have done in the past and I welcome other ideas on this topic. Here is a link to a recent blog that goes into more depth on how to gather feedback from social media.

Part III - Tips on Segmentation, Solution-Selling and Selling Solutions

In order to address segmentation and answer the question: what am I selling to a given vertical that differentiates my product or service from what I sell to another vertical – I find it is good to talk about the concepts of ‘solution-selling’ (or ‘solution selling’) vs. ‘selling solutions.’

I remember working with one enterprise Software Company evangelizing solution-selling as I was working to expand this organizations brand from an infrastructure company to a “solutions” company. Since I had been an early advocate of (and thoroughly trained in) ‘consultative selling’, the notion of solution-selling was natural for me to embrace. I was very surprised about a year into this position when one of the most respected product marketing directors exclaimed: “Terry, when you talk about solution-selling, I thought you were talking about selling applications.” I then realized that I had some work to do to better explain myself.

Even as late as this past year, I’ve been asked the same question or something close to it – “What is solution-selling?”, “What is a solution?”, etc. Some years ago, it was rumored that IBM was asking similar questions and engaged SiriusDecisions to define a “solution”. A white paper on this topic can be found on the SiriusDecisions website (but you may need to have a subscription).

Here are my thoughts on solution-selling, what a solution is, etc.

Solution-selling is different than selling solutions. Typically, when selling solutions, the prospect tends to think you have an “out-of-the-box application” or something quite close to it. Selling an application can incorporate (and should incorporate) solution-selling concepts but solution-selling does not mean you are selling an application…is this confusing?

Solution-selling occurs when you position your marketing and sales message to address a “business pain” that a prospect is experiencing instead of merely selling technology for technology’s sake. In a good economy, such as what we experienced in the late 90’s, your prospect organizations were enamored with technology and were willing to spend big bucks just to have the latest and greatest technology “toys”. In most cases, it was the IT organization that made the buy decisions. When the .com bomb occurred, we saw the pendulum swing away from buying technology for technology’s sake - to the requirement for organizations to invest in technology when a line-of-business (LOB) executive indicated that he/she needed this technology to solve a strategic (or tactical) business problem. The challenge technology vendors had: convince the LOB executives that your technology could address their business pain. Hence, the language of marketing and selling had to change. This is what we call solution-selling.

So, instead of selling features and functions to IT (who could intuitively understand why a given feature/function was important), we had to sell benefits and return-on-investment (ROI) to the LOB executive. Technology vendors had to ‘talk the talk’ of the business executive. If you were selling technology to an insurance company claims vice president, you needed to talk about claims management and processing. If you were selling to a bank’s mortgage department, you had to talk about mortgage servicing and processing.

Since the beginning of time, technology organizations have been working to execute to a solution-selling approach. Even today when I speak to many software organizations, solution-selling is top of mind.

Here are some links to other blogs/articles defining solution-selling which offer similar points of views. There are also many books available that go into detail regarding solution-selling sales methodologies.

http://businessskeptic.firstrulecorp.com/2007/10/13/solution-selling-defined/

http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=3476

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_selling

Next posting, I will talk about my views on the evolution from solution-selling to selling solutions…..

Part II - Tips on how SMB Enterprise Software Companies can better segment

This is a 2nd posting on this topic. See posting dated August 12, 2009 for Part I of this series.

'Segmented messaging’ is typically a first “baby step” that many SMB software organizations choose when “going vertical”. The challenge you face is: where do I get the content? The answers are:

(1) Identify company personnel who have specific industry expertise and/or

(2) Hire part time consultants who have the domain expertise you need as an interim step and/or

(3) If you have already defined your longer term roll-out plan for verticalization and plan to move to “segmented marketing”, you may want to consider hiring marketing professionals with domain expertise.

‘Segmented marketing’ means that you plan to target all of your marketing messages directly to a given segment by developing an “integrated marketing” model and I emphasize the word “integrated”. In the past, I have seen organizations move to segmented marketing but in a fragmented way, e.g., run segmented lead generation campaigns but not segment the message in media, public or analyst relations. I have never seen a fragmented marketing model work. In fact, every like-kind approach was an abysmal failure forcing the organization to revert back to the former “horizontal” model. (And typically try a vertical approach again a few years down the road).

Marketing messages need to be consistent. If your PR team is talking a different talk than your lead generation team, you will more than likely waste marketing dollars and never realize an acceptable ROI on segmentation.

‘Segmented sales’ occurs when the sales force is verticalized but this is not an all-or-nothing approach. In fact, in most cases, sales verticalization is localized. Metropolitan areas may realign sales over verticals where there are large concentrations of companies whereas rural geographies might identify multiple verticals or not verticalize at all. In some cases, both sales and pre-sales technical support may be verticalized or just sales. In other cases, (and this is prevalent in initial phases), sales will not be initially verticalized but sales “domain experts” - what we call “rain makers” - work with sales as an “overlay” function.

Unlike segmented marketing where only an integrated approach will work, there are many successful segmented sales models.

Next blog answers your question: Ok…I’m convinced I need to “go vertical” but what product/solution am I selling?