Does Marketing help? It Better!
Posted on | October 13, 2008 | No Comments
Seems to me that marketing has come a long way in the last ten years but often still falls short of helping sales in a measurable way. Marketing should be a function that moves prospects into the sales funnel and even shortens the sales cycle by building trust, credibility and demand. However these efforts are not always directed to individual decision makers in the B2B landscape.
Your marketing efforts should be focused on extracting the personal, emotional, economic and business value hot points from your audience. Once you have done that, you can create a message that addresses these hot points. Marketing should be integrated into your sales process so that they are one in the same. In my mind within a complex, relationship based, B2B sale, sales & marketing must work as one.
1. Have a framework for your sales/marketing process.
2. Make sure your sales and marketing teams are working from the same playbook. i.e follow a sales process for managing interaction with your prospects, suspects, clients. Use Sandler! Here is a link to my vendor of choice for Sandler – http://www.corporatestrategies-il.com/
3. Identify a tool for managing communications with key accounts. i.e Landslide – www.landslide.com
4. Identify the methods by which you will communicate with your universe of suspects, prospects, clients, etc. – i.e. Webinars, Involvement in the business community, letters, e-mail, voicemail, newsletter, events, trade shows, survey, value added content, etc.
5. Use survey techniques to ask “What is the pain?” Sounds simple eh? Most people do not do it!
6. Communicate in a cross functional way so everyone that touches your sales organization internally and within your universe externally knows what is going on and what you are doing. Again most people do not do it!
7. TRACK IT!
8. After you track it… Keep your data CLEAN! How can you engage and move something forward in the sales process if you do not know who you are talking too? – From my friend Ben Bradley – “Gartner, Inc. estimates that over the next two years more than 25 percent of critical data in Fortune 1000 companies will continue to be flawed. More specifically, the information will be inaccurate, incomplete or duplicated. Another Gartner report cited major reasons why CRM projects fail. At the top of the list is “data is ignored”.
9. Sell More!
10. Start all over again with the next one and make improvements to the process.
Innovation comes from failing early and often. When you capture the value go after it full tilt. Being first makes a difference. When you find the right combination put the pedal to the metal and go!
Good Luck!
Coley
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About Coley
Coley Perry is a 15 year veteran of the sales and marketing grind. Most of his experience is in and around the intersection of sales, marketing, change management, technology and business process helping clients solve business problems through innovative solutions and consulting. He has built sales teams, go-to-market strategies, demand generation engines and sustainable revenue streams. Currently his passion is focused on the convergence of sales, marketing and technology. He wrote a lot of checks to Columbia College and Northwestern University but learned the most from The “Second City” Training Center in Chicago where he studied the Art of Improv.
