Snapchat started trading on the New York Stock Exchange on March 2nd, 2017, offering 200 million shares at $17 each. By 12:00pm ET, their price had risen to $25.38 per share.

That all sounds really great for Snapchat, but it doesn’t really help you at all.  So, instead of continuing to bore you with financial data and investment information, I’m going to share with you some ways to get the most out of Snapchat by incorporating it into your marketing strategy. If you haven’t already, that is.

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For the seasoned B2B Marketer tasked with filling their sales funnel in a hurry, on a budget, and under a magnifying glass, understanding how lead generation has changed from 3, 5, or 10 years ago is essential. Tactics have changed. Terminology has changed. Timeframes have changed. Technology has changed. Can somebody please break down today’s modern methods and winning strategies in an easy-to-understand way? Grab your life coach, or your counselor, or the best friend your confide everything to, and watch this webinar. Our expert panelists had a fantastic discussion in this webinar; one of them even described it as “therapeutic”. Enjoy.

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Achieve Marketing stardom.

The biggest killer for any marketing department, marketing campaign, or marketing professional can best be described using one word — complacency.

I’m guilty of it. If you’re honest with yourself, so are you. There is just so much going on in our day-to-day lives, not to mention the non-stop meetings, social posts, networking events, coffee talk, and general gossiping, that we don’t have time to learn something new. After all, if we’re honest with ourselves, that’s why we become complacent. I mean, nobody intentionally wants to be complacent. We all want to be trend-setters and ninjas of the marketing world. We want to see our Klout score rise dramatically, not to mention our LinkedIn influence. We want the corner office with the mega salary. And we all know that the only way to achieve all of our professional hopes and dreams are to be recognized as the great marketers we are by the success our strategies and tactics will surely generate. Right?!

So, why do we all stink at being innovative? Why do we only offer feeble excuses for not doing what we know needs to be done? It’s simple. We don’t make time to try new and bold tactics. We’re scared. New technology, and new approaches, are intimidating. We don’t re-prioritize our time to develop the necessary skills to enable ourselves to execute our vision and our plan. We resign ourselves to our own ineptitude by denying the issue even exists.

We become complacent.

Welcome to the club.

Alright, today we’re going to change this. You and I are going to discuss what you need to learn, and do, to take your skill set, your career, and your success to the next level. Are you with me?

Here we go.

Be the internal change agent

Change starts with you. It’s a mindset. You need to influence the culture within your team, your department, or your company to embrace change. Educate those around you that you’re going to experiment. Some of what you do will be amazing. Other aspects of your efforts…well…not so much. In fact, you might fail. You might spend stupid crazy sums of money and outright bomb. But, you’re doing it for the right reasons. You’re going to learn what works and what doesn’t. You’ll eventually have a competitive advantage over your industry peers. Your prospects and customers will recognize you as the leader you are and will reward you with more business. However, before the Hollywood ending, you’re going to endure hardship and frustration as you devote yourself to learning your craft and refining your campaigns. Like a Hollywood blockbuster, it will take time for the story to play itself out. And you will need the support of those in power. You need to be transparent. You need to get people excited and supporting you. If you do not set expectations now, you will fail at the first sign of a challenge. You need the organization to buy-in to your initiative. So, before you do anything to overcome your complacency, ensure you’ve got the support necessary to succeed.

Video is where it’s at

Are you doing video? Please tell me you’re doing video. I mean, like, really, really, really doing video? No? Why not? Oh right…complacency. Okay, let’s talk about why the heck you need to do video.

• 65 % of executives have visited a vendor’s site after watching a video
• 59% of senior executives prefer to watch video over reading
• 52% of marketers name video as the content with the best ROI
• Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates 19%, CTRs by 65% and reduces unsubscribes by 26%
• Including video in introductory emails reduces subscriber opt-outs by 75%
• 70% of marketing professionals report that video converts better than any other medium
• Video increases people’s understanding of your product or service by 74%

So…that’s why you should be doing video. Let me ask this: why haven’t you been doing video more (beyond complacency)? Is it because you’re scared and don’t know how to do video well? Do you think it has to be expensive and you assume you can’t afford it? Don’t worry. You’re not alone. What would you say if I told you that you could use your own smartphone to make world-class video content? I’m serious. You can. The tools, apps, and online tutorials available are crazy good and easily accessible.

Do you mind if I make a confession? Don’t tell anyone, but almost everything I know about video I learned from Wistia. And they’re just one amazing resource. Check out YouTube, the original video innovator. There are hundreds (actually, probably thousands) of video experts who’ve already posted how-to videos about video. And, best of all, get this…it’s free! Crazy, eh?!

So, the next question you should be asking yourself is how can you use video to your advantage. That’s a great question. There are so many ways. I’ve used video for all of the following reasons:

• Customer testimonials
• Live event capture and playback
• Product demonstration
• Case studies
• Explainers for difficult concepts
• Webinar capture and playback
• Website greetings
• Character profiles for VIPs or key advocates
• How-to guides
• Third-party expert endorsements

Assuming you have a content strategy (we will talk more about that later in this article), part of that strategy should be the medium your content will utilize. You need to ensure video is a huge part of your content medium mix moving forward. By doing so, you’ll engage your audience so much more you’ll be amazed. And, best of all, we haven’t even talked about the uptick you’ll get in your SEO rankings as a result.

One final thought around video. While YouTube is a great place to find as many cat videos as you can consume, it shouldn’t be the only host of your corporate videos. Use a video hosting service such as Wistia or VidYard or Vimeo. The ability to professionally embed your player, match your branding, and analyze the video plays, not to mention the ability to incorporate gates or calls-to-action, more than justify the investment these services require. If your’e going to do video, then all I can say is “do it right”.

Make your content consumable

This one is easy. All I’m saying here is that you need to package your content the same way you like to consume it. If you’re like me, and supposedly I’m like the masses, I like to skim. I don’t have time to read lengthy white papers or watch videos that are longer then films like Logistics. So, before you lose me and I start checking out your competition, make sure your content is quickly and easily consumable.

There are a handful of ways to do this. One, of course, is a short video. That works well. Other ways that are also effective include infographics and listicles.

Like video, infographics can be overwhelming. Again, the objection about having the skills, budget, or resources to create them will come up. However, if you recall, this article is about squashing those lame excuses that keep us complacent and instead kick some serious marketing butt by accomplishing the very things that scare us. So, for infographics, if you do not have the in-house abilities then I simply say outsource it. A good example of an affordable option would be Fiverr. They’re just one option of thousands of vendors that will do it for you. If you prefer to use somebody local then simply get on LinkedIn and ask your network of fellow marketers who they use and you’ll be inundated with incredible graphic designers who will turn your napkin concepts into works of art that even Banksy would be proud of.

Alternatively, if you are feeling adventurous, you can use a variety of services to create your next infographic. Some examples include:

• Venngage
• Piktochart
• Infogr.am
• Canva

What I would suggest you do is determine where, in the Buyer’s Journey, are some areas that need help in moving the conversation along. Maybe you’ve difficulties engaging the prospects at the start of the dialog. When you determine those challenges, rest assured that is a great opportunity to use an infographic.

Similar to infographics, as mentioned above, are the delightful listicle. Keeping it simple, a listicle is simply the process of taking a complex or beefy topic and breaking it down into a series of bullets, or lists, to convey the key talking points you’re trying to convey. Have you noticed how many bullets I’m using in this rather lengthy blog post? It’s not an accident. I’m trying really hard to keep you here, reading, skimming, perusing, and engaging with me. If I’m successful, you’ll get the information you require and you might even reach out to me to help you along the way.

Engage your audience in a dialog

This is an easy one but it will have a huge impact. Are you ready? Hold on because it’s going to rock your marketing world.

Stop posting every press release, company news, and boring factoid about your product, service or firm on social media. Nobody cares. You’re a vendor. You’re biased. You have an agenda. And, frankly, you’re annoying and cluttering up my social media feed.

Instead, be the expert you are. Nobody knows what you know better than you. Others are desperately wanting to learn from you. They’ve followed you for that very reason. They’ve sought you out for your expertise. They really want to leverage your expertise because they have pain themselves and they’re hoping you can help them out.

You know what’s interesting about that last statement? It tells you that your followers have pain. It tells you that you can help them out. I’m pretty sure that’s the start of a purchase decision. It may even result in a sale. Whoa! That’s crazy!

Okay, I know I’m being cheeky but the fact of the matter is that you need to engage in conversation with your audience.

• Be humorous. Share the moments that make you smile.
• Be transparent. Share your own challenges and personal anecdotes.
• Be encouraging. Help them overcome their issues by giving advice and pep talks.
• Be an expert. Your followers are going to find the answers they seek from somebody. It might as well be you. Hence, don’t horde your answers like a prepper hordes meals that are ready-to-eat. Instead, share your knowledge without hesitation. All it does is build up your credibility and causes your followers to trust you, eventually leading to followers becoming customers.
• Be real. The key word in social media is “social”. It’s all about relationships. Talk to them the same way you open up with your favourite pet, except maybe without all of the cutesy pet names and baby talk.

This tactic really isn’t new, or innovative, nor does it cost a lot of money. What it does take is time. Make the investment. The traction you will get will blow your socks off.

Brag, educate, inform and spread the word

You’ve heard about how content is king. While it is a bit of a cliche, it truly is the best tactic out there to drive new leads. However, with such an explosion of content now available to the masses, you need to make good content, consistently.

If you stumbled a bit on my usage of the phrase “good content” I’ll tell you that you should have instead stumbled on the term “consistently”. Content quality will vary from piece to piece, and author to author. However, it truly is the consistency of your publishing that will make the biggest difference. Search engines will reward a consistent publication schedule. Opt-ins will grow dramatically on a predictable rhythm of new content. Sales cycles will continually have something new to engage the prospect and move them through the sales funnel with an ongoing supply of new content.

Creating content is a challenge. Nobody seems able to craft content. Everybody is too busy. Nobody prioritizes it within your firm even though you’ve tried to tell them how critical it is. Let me tell you how to overcome these challenges.

• Identify your personas. Who will be the people reading your content? Once you know that, you can create content, and source subject matter experts, that can appeal to that audience.
• Plan your publishing schedule. If you have two key personas you’re appealing to, then schedule one blog post, per persona, per month. Some will say that publishing frequency is not enough. I say you gotta crawl before you can run. We can always increase the frequency in the future once we hit our publishing schedule consistently. The bottom line is that you need to create a schedule and hit your dates without exception.
• Make it easy. If your subject matter experts don’t have time to write the content, then simply grab your handy-dandy voice recorder and sit in from of them with it turned on. Ask them all of the questions your readers will have on a particular issue. Encourage them to provide examples and to be specific. Steer the conversation to match how you envision the content piece will be written. For example, if I need a case study I’ll ask my subject matter expert questions like: what issue were they having, what options did they consider, why did they select us, how did the implementation go, what challenges did they need to overcome, what successes did they experience, what was the reaction of the stakeholders after the process was complete, and what would you do differently next time. Like a good lawyer, these leading questions will ensure your jury hears what you want them to hear and they’ll decide in your favour when it comes to a buying decision.
• Segment your lists. If you decide you want to promote your new content to your audience by using a massive email blast once per month, take my advice and don’t do it. Instead, segment your audience by job title, or industry, or product, or service and create multiple emails — one for each segment. I typically advise people to identify four industries to start. Send your email out once per week, with each week targeting one of your four industry segments. That means we have four emails going out per month utilizing the same piece of content, but with language and calls-to-action in each email that resonate with that focused audience. It also means you have a continual feed of new leads instead of those monthly spikes that sales hates.
• Mix the mediums. Don’t rely on email only, or just blog posts. Instead, have a mix of video, and infographics, and listicles, and webinars, and live events, and blog posts, and case studies, and so on. Keep it interesting. Not everybody likes the written word. The variety ensures your content will appeal to somebody, and that there is a collection of content that will appeal to everybody.
• Design for re-use. In other words, be smart about what you produce. When I produce a webinar, I identify a key topic, and then break that topic into five talking points. During the webinar, we tackle each talking point one at a time. The entire webinar is recorded. I now can publish the webinar, or I can break the webinar recording into five segment-specific videos, thus giving me six pieces of content. I can then take each of those five segments and write a blog post using what was discussed during each talking point. Now I have eleven content pieces. I can then create listicles or infographics from the content discussed. That may give me one to three more pieces of content. I then post them on Buffer and suddenly that one webinar has given me a whole lot of fresh content that will be published over the next year and it all started with one original piece of content — the webinar. With this approach, you quickly learn that you do not need to have 365 new topics per year but can instead leverage your effort across mediums and topics and segments while still retaining your sanity and your production schedule.

Finally, and this is the biggest aspect of content marketing, you need to syndicate your content. Get it out there in the hands of the influencers. In fact, get them involved in its creation; this way they’re invested in it and ultimately your success. Submit it to a variety of content sites. Submit it for publication by any associations you may belong to. Use it in your search engine marketing campaigns. Issue a press release about it. Cross reference your content in your blogs and your social posts. Talk about your content, and include links to it, in the various forums and discussion you participate and comment in. While Google can be a great friend when it comes to getting your content found, it can’t be your only source of distribution. If you’ve gone to this much trouble to make it, then be sure to cross the finish line in your content race and get it out there with the other winners.

Build up your groupies

You probably thought I was going to talk about building up your social media followers with that headline but you would be wrong. Instead, I’m talking about building up your opt-in lists. Every chance you get, you need to be asking people to opt-in to hear from you. You need to ensure you are Can-Spam, or CASL, compliant. You want them wanting to get your content. The only way you can syndicate like Rupert Murdoch is to ensure you have the subscriber base to receive your publications.

This needs to be a relentless, non-stop pursuit. You need legal opt-ins and you need clean data. You need to gate your content so that they will share their contact information. You need to ensure your forms link back to your master lists, whether you use email services like MailChimp or Constant Contact, or you use marketing automation solutions like Marketo, Pardot, or HubSpot to manage those lists and trigger follow-on nurture campaigns.

When I say you need clean data, I mean it. At the submission of each form, you need to immediately clean the data and ensure compliance with standard nomenclature and formats. There are several tools out there that can help you with this including Data.com from Salesforce.com. Make that investment. If you don’t, you’ll spend more than double what you’d spend cleaning it at the time of form submission to clean it after the fact.

Closing Thoughts

Complacency is a killer. It sneaks up on you despite your objections that you suffer from it. If affects your success and your job satisfaction. Fixing it can be hard. But, like that diet you started on New Years Day, the payoff will be there just like the first time you wear that new swim suit on your summer vacation and realize you did it! When you get frustrated, simply reach out to your friends. They’ll encourage you. They want you to succeed. After all, if you do ultimately get that professional athlete’s salary because you’re now the world’s greatest marketer, your friends will gladly let you express your gratitude by showering them with gifts. That’s what friends do. Now…go forth and slay the complacency dragon.

The post How complacency is killing the Marketer appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Any Marketer who has been on the job for more than a few months will have experienced this. Of course, most sales professionals can claim the same thing. Isn’t it interesting how you never really hear that about Development or Finance or even Human Resources? To be fair, you may hear it about specific individuals, such as the HR Manager, but rarely about an entire department. Marketing and Sales seem to really be the primary targets here. Why is that? Typically, it’s because what they do is so visible. Did Sales hit their numbers? No? Wow. They’re really sucking. Have we seen a huge increase in new leads? No? Wow. Marketing is totally lame. This is further compounded by a lack of knowledge. People do not understand what Marketing does. If they did then they’d probably be in Marketing. Hence, they do not understand that some strategies and tactics take time, and that many of these approaches start small but snowball as they get traction. However, I cannot tell you how many good Marketers I’ve seen lose their job because they weren’t given enough time for their efforts to produce sizeable results. Often Management will kill Marketing to silence the whispers instead of educating “those who whisper” about what Marketing is doing, while holding them accountable for creating a toxic company culture built on gossip and innuendo.

What do I do now?

As many of you who read my posts know, I enjoy mentoring my fellow marketers, hoping they can benefit from the lessons I learned the hard way. Recently I had one text me a good news / bad news story. It went like this:

“So good news…my initial KPI report that severely lacked numbers

The post I’m hearing whispers they’re not happy with Marketing appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

The truth of the matter is that I have incredible respect for sales professionals. It’s a tough career. In fact, let’s be blunt. Sales are a bitch. I’ve been a sales professional myself. I’ve also been a sales executive. I’ve owned that monthly / quarterly / annual quota and it is stressful. I’ve reported to the Board of Directors on why we’re behind on our numbers (often because the numbers were too high to begin with) and I’ve coached my team on how to sell better and more efficiently. I’ve studied Huthwaite spin selling, Miller Heiman strategic selling, Sandler selling, consultative selling, target account selling…the list goes on. So with this as my back story, I can credibly say that sometimes, for a certain percentage of sales professionals, Marketing not only knows Sales is dropping the ball, Marketing can tell you where. And, the biggest irony of it all is that, if Sales simply dropped any associated ego, insecurity, or pride, they’d actually make a lot more money by avoiding the following mistakes.

Marketing knows marketing better.

Too many times I’ve seen sales professionals either completely ignore marketing awareness and demand generation campaigns, or undermine them. Why? Because they think they know better. They disagree with what Marketing is doing. They claim Marketing doesn’t understand the customer or the value proposition or the sales cycle. And because Marketing doesn’t understand what the sales professional understand, the sales professional ignores them because Marketing is just a bunch of morons. Many will go so far as to bad-mouth marketing to whoever will listen which just creates divide within an organization.

Let me use a personal example. My family has generations of success in horticulture. We’ve owned farms, green houses, vegetable outlets, florist retailers, landscaping companies, etc. My father, his father, my cousins…every single one of them has an über-green thumb. I don’t. Not even close. Worse yet…I don’t even care or want to have that gift. I have zero interest. But, like all things in life, if you’re around it enough you do pick up a nugget or two of knowledge. So, with that background, let’s talk about my neighbor Donna. She’s about 80 years old. Her husband recently passed away. She’s an awesome person. My whole family loves Donna. And, like my dad, she is an incredible gardener. My yard, and my gardens, look dull and boring compared to her amazing display of landscaping and floral wizardry. Bluntly, it’s embarrassing being her neighbor because of her God-given gifts. Okay, imagine if you will, with my knowledge of horticulture gained by shear osmosis of being around it growing up, even though I’ve not actually had any personal experience or success with landscaping and gardening, I were to go up to her and tell her that she’s doing it all wrong. What if I bad-mouthed her to my neighbors? What if I pulled out her plantings when she wasn’t looking because, after all, I think I know better?

I think you see where I’m going with this; so let me cut to the chase. Most sales professionals don’t have the same marketing experience as marketing professionals. Marketing is around Sales and Sales is around Marketing but that doesn’t mean one can do the other’s job or that they understand the big picture and where one or two tactics fit in the overall strategy and marketing plan.

Advice #1

Sales professionals – don’t assume you know better then Marketing when it comes to marketing. Instead, have an open, honest, approachable dialog and try to understand the big picture. Support them, just as you’d want to be supported. And, if you don’t agree, simply share your opinion and then be a team player. If you’re right, and the marketer is wrong, the situation will correct itself in short order by either a staff upgrade or some wisdom gained by the marketer on the job.

The time to respond is now.

For most companies, new sales leads are the Holy Grail of marketing success. It’s tough, as a sales professional, getting enough leads on your own to meet your sales targets. So when Marketing brings you a lead to pursue, you need to do the following:

• Do not assume it’s junk
• Do not get upset if it’s not ready to close immediately
• Do not ignore it because you talked to them six months ago
• Do review all of the previous touch points Marketing had with the lead and what the prospect reacted to in terms of the marketing outreach and content pieces
• Do not hide behind a single, solitary email follow-up with the lead
• Do call the lead immediately
• Do continue to call and engage until you connect with the lead and can qualify it further.
• Do return the lead to marketing for additional nurturing if it is not fully qualified
• Do update your CRM system with clean contact information and opportunity notes for further engagement and outreach efforts
• Do give Marketing feedback on how successful the lead was, or wasn’t, so that they can refine their programs and processes continually

My biggest beef here, and I see it with so many of my clients, is the lack of a timely lead follow-up, or the lack of future follow-up, if they are unable to immediately engage the prospect or unable to immediately qualify the lead as a sales opportunity.

Let me share a secret. Marketing doesn’t enjoy sending unqualified leads to Sales. It bothers us. It hurts our credibility. It offends our professional pride. Marketing wants to send amazing leads to Sales. And, when Marketing has success, the last thing they want Sales to do is drop the ball with the follow-up and qualification.

Advice #2

Follow up promptly on any lead provided by Marketing. Continue to engage the lead or return the lead to the nurture pool. Provide Marketing with constructive feedback so that they can improve things moving forward. Help us help you, and then let’s go for drinks and celebrate our shared success.

All things in due time.

I’ve met two kinds of organizations in my career. There are those who are very discriminating with a lead’s quality. They have a company-wide agreed upon lead definition. They nurture and develop leads. They engage them slowly and build a relationship over time. And then, when the time is right, they reach out and take the lead to the next step with a live conversation and qualification. I call those organizations “Best in class”. Then, there are the other kinds of organizations who take any hint of a lead, or an inquiry, regardless of their qualification or lead fit, and immediately want to call them and sell them something. I call those organizations “Desperate”.

Here’s the thing. How would you react if you smiled at somebody you found attractive and they immediately stalked you and talked to you about getting married? Would you be spooked? Typically, a person wants to get to know somebody slowly. They want to be wooed. They want to establish a relationship and build mutual trust. However, if you don’t want to get married immediately and you convey that, would you be sad if they instantly left you and never returned or contacted you? You might be relieved. Or, you might be disappointed because you genuinely found them attractive and you could see yourself marrying them someday; you just don’t want to marry them right now. This example may sound silly but this is exactly what happens when a desperate sales professional wants to follow up on every inquiry immediately. Marketing’s job is to qualify them slowly, establish your firm’s credibility and trustworthiness, and convince them that you’re the right firm to commit to.

Advice #3

Allow marketing to nurture the leads. In the end, the leads they pass you will be much more qualified, and your time will be better spent qualifying and closing real opportunities instead of wasted with prospects who would never be a good fit for you. When those leads aren’t ready, return them to Marketing for further qualification and nurturing. Whatever you do, don’t demand leads that aren’t ready, and don’t drop leads that could eventually be ready. Let Marketing do that for you.

Wow them with content, not with charm.

Here is an interesting fact that many sales professionals never seem to take the time to learn, and it’s sad because their life could be so much better if they did. Marketing has invested a lot of time and effort into documenting the buyer’s journey for a typical sales cycle, along with the various personas for each person who influences a sales cycle. They’ve mapped hot buttons, language, messaging, demographics and psychographics for each stage in the journey, for each persona. And then, they’ve made rich content including webinars, case studies, white papers, info graphics, videos, blogs, etc., that are intentionally meant to engage your prospects relative to who they are and where they are in the journey. It’s crazy impressive. We didn’t do any of this when I first started in the marketing field. Honestly, it blows my mind how far our profession has come.

Now, some sales professionals simply do not understand or appreciate the science behind this process. Even more interesting, some sales professionals do not believe marketing understands the personas or the buyer’s journey and firmly believe they understand it better. Because they understand it better, they chose to ignore all of the content that Marketing has created to move the prospect through the sales cycle. Instead, they rely upon their charm and their gut feelings. Often they will utilize some content that they have personally created but which completely differs from the corporate brand and message. Or, they’ll use nothing at all. Here’s the thing…this approach only serves to confuse the prospect. You have to remember, most prospects have done all of their own exhaustive research before they ever talk to a live person. The reason they choose to talk to a live person is because they liked what they read. They liked the content. The liked the benefit statements. They liked the value proposition. They’re already at the middle-of-the-funnel in their journey. Now, when they suddenly get a different message or benefit statement or value proposition from the sales professional, their primary takeaway is that your company is confusing and they can no longer trust you to fix their problem. You represent risk, and because you represent risk they walk away.

Advice #4

Work with the content that Marketing provides. Be consistent with your messaging and your brand. Use the content to close the deal. Stop trying to be an alpha dog. If you don’t like the content, or you disagree with the messaging and brand, or you think they do not understand the buyer’s journey or the personas, then work with Marketing and the key stakeholders to correct the misunderstandings. Again, Marketing just wants to make cool stuff. If you can help them be successful, they’ll love you for it and gladly welcome your input.

We just don’t talk anymore.

I’ve been fortunate to work with some sales savants over the years. They’re amazing. I watch them in awe. The way they can tell a story, and get a prospect to open up and reveal their issues, is legendary. They learn so much it blows me away. They quickly identify competitor shortcomings, combined with our positives and negatives, and then they use that information to help the prospect connect the dots about what solution is right for them and which solution represents the least amount of risk to them. The prospects immediately trust them and that changes the tone of the entire conversation. I can learn so much from these sales professionals.

And that’s the problem.

Too often, these people who I respect so much, neglect to share their knowledge with Marketing. Instead, they protect it just like Samson protected his hair. They hoard it so that they remain the superstars in the organization. When this happens, everybody loses, including themselves. You see, that sales professional will eventually need something that complements whatever they’ve told the prospect. It might be a presentation, or a case study, or an info graphic, but whatever it is they desperately need third-party validation of what they’ve advised the prospect. That prospect may need to educate someone within their organization who is an influencer in the sales cycle, or they may need it to help build a business case for the economic investment required to purchase your goods. That’s when Marketing is going to let them down. They won’t have it because the sales professional did not share the feedback. As a result marketing did not have a chance to incorporate it into their content and campaigns.

Advice #5

For sales and marketing to function like a well-oiled revenue machine, the two sides need to continually and consistently communicate any knowledge learned with one another. Sharing needs to be viewed as a critical aspect and attribute of each person in the organization. It needs to be cultural.

A rose by any other name…

Throughout this discussion I’ve talked nonstop about a few bad habits practiced by a small percentage of certain sales professionals. The truth is, I could have as easily said Customer Service or Operations or a myriad of other critical roles that exist within your organization. My talking points could also be construed as if Marketing is without fault and that each marketing department is practicing best-in-class processes. We all know that’s definitely not the case, and that many Marketers will frustrate sales professionals non-stop due to their shortcomings. For those marketers, allow me to apologize on their behalf and to ask you to please practice patience and mentorship with them. They need your expertise and life lessons.

What you should take away from this discourse is that the aforementioned five issues are dramatically impacting the success of the organization. All of these issues can be easily remedied hence my final advice is to be proactive and aggressive about implementing a culture of cooperation and knowledge sharing and respect within your company. The journey may be painful but the end result will surpass your wildest expectations.

Join the conversation.

My favorite part about writing these posts is reading your comments, along with learning that my advice made an impact on you or your organization. Can you do me a favor? Please share or like this article. Take a minute and write a comment. Connect with us on social media. If you’re interested in some additional marketing tips and tricks, be sure to spend some quality time on our website.

Share your wisdom.

I’ve only covered off five lessons learned here. If you could add to the discussion, what advice would you offer based on your experience? Tell us in the comments below.

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Recently I had the chance to help a wonderful young lady get a new job which allowed her to finally lead her own marketing team and craft her own go-to-market strategy. It was the next logical step in her career and she was ready for it even if she had a lot of self-doubts. Her primary marketing experience was in the professional services area yet she was now leading marketing at a software company. Within a few days she was messaging me that she was overwhelmed, felt ill prepared, and didn’t think she could do the job. She claimed she wasn’t technical and she did not understand the software world. She was scared, and she didn’t want to fail.

I told her to relax. Breathe. And remember…marketing is marketing. Nothing has changed. She still had the same knowledge she always had. She was ready for this challenge. I reminded her she simply needed to go back to the basics. Like any good marketer, she needed to learn and understand the following:

• What does the product do?
• Why would a consumer want your product? What pains are they experiencing? What benefits would they gain by owning it?
• What about the product is unique and differentiated, and what about it is a “me too” or “gotta have it just to play in the game” feature?
• What does a typical Buyer’s Journey look like?
• What objections, and questions, will the prospects raise at each point during the Buyer’s Journey?
• What FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt) will the competitors utilize to discredit you and position them to win?

After you understood that then it was back to marketing basics. Assess the tools you have to utilize, and then make a marketing plan to achieve your goals. Do a critical assessment and discovery of the following:

• How are you being measured, in terms of your own performance? In other words, whatever you put in place had better achieve those goals otherwise it’s probably a waste of time and money to put it in place.
• What are the business objectives that you need to support? Typically this would relate to revenue, or market share, or new industry launches, etc. Be sure your marketing plan can demonstrably help achieve these goals.
• What assets do you have available to you? Do you have a library of videos, blogs, case studies, white papers, info graphics, research papers, etc., available to you? Or, do you need to develop it from scratch or simply augment whatever you do have?
• Do you have the technology pieces (email, CRM, marketing automation, etc.) you need to support your plan? What other investments should you budget for?
• Do you have the right staff in place to execute the plan? If not, do you need to replace staff, or train them with new skills, or source some contractors to help?
• Is there a defined sales and marketing process in place, with established service level agreements, you need to support? If not, you’d better work with the key stakeholders, including Sales, and ensure you are in alignment.

Finally, once you know all of this you can create a variety of calendars to support the vision including:

• Campaign calendar for demand generation programs
• Content calendar
• Public relations, blogger, and social media calendars
• Events calendar

A very important step is ensuring you have all of this budgeted for. You may need to reduce your scope if the budget doesn’t support your plan, or you may need to go back to the well and ask for more money. However, if you’ve got a defined plan with supporting logic and required tactics then it’s easier to ask for the additional funding.

Finally, you need to measure everything. Get consensus on what KPI’s need to be tracked and reported against. Typically, they will support the very metrics used in your own performance expectations as well as that of the company’s business plan. If you want to be viewed as a Marketing leader then you need to have the courage and confidence to report your metrics. It’s the only way you’ll ever have productive conversations with the key stakeholders.

I think we would all agree the above is what marketing is all about. Marketing is marketing, regardless of the product or service your selling.

After my lengthy diatribe reminding her about what marketing is and that she knows all of this, she responded by reminding me that she still didn’t know what it was they did. After laughing at her I gave her this advice — “Go find a technical resource that people respect (i.e. sales engineer, software developer, Chief Technology Officer, etc.) Ask them to please show you the product and explain why people care because you just don’t understand it and you really, really want to.”

In other words, I told her to be honest and transparent and vulnerable. I also explained that she would earn more respect from the technical folks with that simple admission then she would ever earn by having an amazing direct mail or webinar or trade show. By doing this, the technical team would get behind Marketing because they’d feel like part of the team rather than the more common relationship where the technical team completely disrespects the value and contribution of the marketing organization.

She hung up and said she’d think about it. I don’t think she was convinced I was right.

A few days later she texted me in a blitz of excitement that included uppercase letters and many emoticons. She had done as I had suggested. The technical team had spent hours educating her. It had gone extremely well. She now understood what they did and she even thought it was pretty cool. Best of all, the technical folks were thrilled to be consulted and heard. They were now working together on some future marketing campaigns and she was so happy she had taken the job.

If you can relate to the woman in my story then let me remind you to stop overthinking it. No matter what you’re selling…marketing is marketing.

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• MARKETING – a lead is anybody who fills out a form or submits his or her name.
• SALES – a lead is anybody with an active project, with approved budget, with signing authority, within my target industry, within my territory, who is making a purchase within the next 30 days.
• FINANCE – a lead is a signed purchase order (that cost us zero dollars to generate).

Of course, the challenge of not having a standard lead definition is that the organization is never talking the same language. That results in misaligned expectations and missed performance benchmarks. Ultimately, when revenue numbers are being missed, it results in a lot of finger pointing with everyone believing they’re right and the others have dropped the ball.

There was a time when I would attempt to have a conversation with my Sales counterpart and negotiate an agreed upon definition. The meetings would always go well and I’d feel like we achieved consensus and mutual understanding. However, over and over again when we were missing our sales targets, Sales would blame me for sending inquiries rather than leads and I would act indignant claiming I sent qualified leads and that Sales simply couldn’t close the deals. When we drilled down on this disconnect, it would always come down to a difference of opinion on what we had agreed to. It was a vicious cycle.

Introducing SiriusDecisions
Then, on a bright sunny day surrounded by unicorns and leprechauns, there came a neutral third-party; the arbiter of any disagreements. Life became good and Sales and Marketing achieved harmony (sort of).  I’m talking about SiriusDecisions. If you’re not familiar with them, they are a B2B market research and advisory firm specializing in sales, marketing and product performance benchmarks and frameworks. What they did for me was introduce two specific frameworks that I now use in every new engagement: the Demand Waterfall and the Lead Taxonomy.

Demand Waterfall
The Demand Waterfall is a wonderful encapsulation of a logical lead flow process. It describes how a lead can be generated, by whom, and where it goes next in the sales cycle. It delineates between a Marketing responsibility and Sales responsibility. It creates clear stage names. It gives Sales and Marketing a common framework and language and process. It’s not something that I created, nor is it something that my Sales counterpart created. It was developed by a neutral third-party based on best-in-class research. Nobody within the organization gets an upper hand but everybody benefits from a consensus understanding of how things work.

I use this framework to model our customer relationship management (CRM) processes, our marketing automation processes, and our management dialog. I then use the Demand Waterfall to create Service Level Agreements (SLA) between Sales and Marketing. These are agreed upon response times for each sales stage, action, or trigger (i.e. how long does Sales have to contact a newly qualified lead upon acceptance?).

Lead Taxonomy
While the process alignment is great, the real win for Marketing is the Lead Taxonomy. The proposed model from SiriusDecisions lays it out nice and clear, as follows, using my abbreviated descriptions:

So what do these various levels really mean, when it comes to answering the question how do you define a lead? It’s easy.

• It means I score and grade leads based on their demographics, attributes, and BANT values. The handoff from Marketing to Sales happens when the lead score and/or grade reflect the lead definitions.
• It means I agree with Sales on what level of lead I will provide them, using the above definitions. Typically, I will agree on a Level 3 although I’ve had sales leaders demand the lead at Level 1 because they want to pursue the lead from that point onward.

There is no right or wrong answer to what level of a lead Marketing should provide Sales. It’s specific to your organization and your culture. What there is, however, is a mutual understanding — Sales can safely challenge Marketing on a lead’s validity and Marketing can safely respond to Sales. The lines of communications are open and everybody is speaking the same language.

The other subtle benefit of having an agreed upon lead taxonomy and lead definition is that I, as a marketing executive, have a much better understanding of what I need to budget and staff to support the lead handoff. For example, if I’m providing Level 4 lead then I need staff, and supporting technology, to do the lead qualification. If you combine that with a SLA that may dictate an 8-hour turnaround for the lead qualification, then I need to have enough staff to meet those commitments.

Life after defining the lead
As you can see, even though the title of this post is about defining what a lead is, the implications of not having a lead definition are massive. Further, not having a common framework to guide the discussion and the processes can result in missed opportunities as well as missed revenue numbers. Speaking candidly, my life has gotten much better since I’ve adopted this approach. Now, if I could only get something similar for my familial relationships then my life would be perfect.

The post What is a lead? appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

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