2009 is looking up and we’ve been very busy event planning, getting ready for a new webinar with Math Marketing (if you haven’t signed up, you can right here), and still working on our sales playbooks. Here’s where we’re at so far:

Current Issues Identified:

• The Sales team has too much information available to them and aren’t sure to how to use it

• Support materials not aligned with selling situations and buyer roles

• The sales process was not clearly defined causing missed opportunities

• New sales people need help with triggers that move prospects through the funnel

Next we assembled our playbook team and determined our mission to be:

Our sales playbook is going to ensure our sales team is armed and ready to have valuable conversations that help prospective buyers move through the sales funnel as fast and efficiently as possible.

Ok, now we are ready. We started with a list of questions and asked each sales person on the playbook team to think about some of their success stories and start by filling out the list of questions below.

Understanding the Buying Roles and their goals

• Who did you make initial contact with and how?
• Who else was involved in the buying decision?
• Who was the ultimate decision maker?
• What are they being measured on?
• What does success look like to them?

Understanding the pain

• What was their pain?
• What were they doing before connecting with ReachForce?
• What solutions were offered to solve their pain?

Understanding their environment

• What industry are they in?
• What do they sell? Average Selling Price?
• How long is their sales cycle?

Delivering Value

• What value proposition resonated with them? and Why?
• What were the buyer’s information needs at each stage of their problem-solving process?
• What tools and supporting materials were used and when?
• What would have been helpful during the sales process? Supporting materials needed? Presentation needed? Customer Case studies?
• What objections were overcome?
• Who else/What else were they considering?

And the ultimate question… Why did they choose ReachForce?

Next meeting is tomorrow. From here we plan to discuss key moves that converted the prospective buyers into customers and I’ll be busy trying to understand how to align our marketing support (what we have and what’s needed) with each trigger.

Stay tuned for next steps…

Lose Control of Your Marketing is the latest eBook from David Meerman Scott.  It is mostly composed of excerpts from his new book World Wide Rave.  Readers of The B2B Lead already know I am a huge fan of Mr. Scott, especially his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.  However, the ideas presented in this eBook were a little hard for me to accept whole-heartedly.  As the name suggests, he encourages marketers to take down any barriers to their content and lose control to allow their ideas/content to spread.  As a bit of a control freak and one who lives by the mantra that everything marketing does must be measured, I had a bit of an internal struggle while reading this eBook.

According to David, You need to think in terms of spreading ideas, not generating leads. A World Wide Rave gets the word out to thousands or even millions of potential customers. But only if you make your information easy to find and consume.

One of the most difficult ideas for me to accept is the idea that sales leads are the wrong goal.  Isn’t my number one goal as a marketer to provide qualified leads to Sales?  David’s most compelling argument is that he has seen content downloads multiply by as much as a factor of 50 when a registration form was taken off.  I don’t know that I could ever take down every form on my website, but it is worth a shot on an eBook or two, just as a test.

The last part of the eBook focuses on how organizations should create a social media policy for its employees.  At ReachForce we are very open to allowing all employees to participate in social media, but if you are trying to create your own social media guidelines, David gives some great tips.

Helpful hint: if you are strapped for time you can probably skip pages 16-21.  And if you really don’t have time to read this eBook at all, let me leave you with David’s main point: The biggest requirement is that you change your behavior, so let me remind you of the most important strategies for successful marketing in a world of social media:

• Stop obsessing over the old measurements of sales leads and marketing ROI.
• Make your valuable online content free and registration-less.
• Give away lots of good information (videos, photos, data, graphs, audio, blogs, e-books, and the like) to enthusiastic or curious people interested in your products and services.
• Encourage an organizational culture of sharing.

Remember 1999?  The tech bubble had yet to burst, times were good and our biggest worry was Y2K.  Back then marketers had a positive attitude and spent time tailoring messages to their audience around how the benefits of their product would help the prospect.

We all know that times have been tough this year, we don’t need to be reminded in every email, direct mail, blog post and webinar invitation we get.  If I want to be reminded, I just look at my stock portfolio . This is a plea to all marketers out there, STOP talking about the recession.  Don’t remind your audience that their budgets have been cut or that they are now a man down.

If your prospects have had budget cuts and layoffs, there is no need to remind them of the current economic state; they live with the reminder every day.  Instead, now is the time to focus on the positives.

Here are some reasons why you should NOT highlight the recession in your next marketing message:

• Stand out from the crowd.  If you are sending out the same  ways to recession-proof your X, as everyone else, your message will be lost.  I automatically delete any email or webinar invite I get that has the word recession or economy in it.
• You are subtly reminding your prospects that their budgets are shrinking and that they should be spending less.  FYI- your goal is to sell them something meaning you want them to spend more.
• Now is the time to really highlight how you are going to save your prospects time and money.  Make them feel like your product is the one thing that cannot be cut from the budget.
• Perception is reality.  As long as the media and we as marketers continue to propagate the idea that we are in a recession, then we will be in one.  We can all do our part to be more positive.

My point is that we all know we are in a recession and although things are beginning to look up, we don’t need every marketing message to remind us of our budget cuts and staff losses.

Part of my job here at ReachForce is helping our customers with a quick analysis of their marketing database and then helping them update and repair the company and contact information needed for their lead generation programs.  Here’s a list of 10 things I see in almost every marketing and sales database I’ve looked at:

1. Names are mis-mashed up with erroneous information.  Examples:

John “No Longer There” Smith
Jenny (female) Jones
Byron (buy-ron) Doe (Dough)

2. Web-to-Lead forms have left you with a lot of trash.  Examples:

First Name    Last Name    Email                         Company
Test              Test              test@test.com           None
None of        Your              absc@asklfjsl.com    Business

3. Your Customers are still listed as your prospects.
4. You have multiple copies of any one person.
5. Employees of your company are listed as prospects.
6. You have records created with companies someone wants to target but no contacts, instead of holding a valid contact your CRM is being used as a place holder.  OR, you have holey records, pieces and parts of a contact but no whole contact.

Examples:
First Name    Last Name      Email                           Company
Find Name    In Hoovers      na@na.com                 Microsoft
IT                  Dept Mgr        na@na.com                 Exxon
Amy              H.                   ???@reachforce.com    ReachForce
L.                  Wallace           ???@Reachforce.com   ReachForce

7. Phone numbers are missing digits and/or area codes.
8. Bad or Blank email addresses.
9. Invalid or incomplete mailing addresses – maybe you don’t do direct mail, but chances are you need this for something…
10. You have no way to segment your data.  Do you have information on these companies in a standardized format, for instance all tech companies have some kind of tag, or all operations contacts have a specific designation? If not, how are you segmenting your data? Wouldn’t it be easier if everything had the same system of tagging applied to it?

Is is not the most exciting or the most glamorous part of campaign planning but getting your database in order will have a huge affect on the success your marketing programs.

Ready, Set, Go! It’s a short year, 8 months to go and 12 months of results to deliver.

Planning since last Fall has been a challenge, chances are you’ve been holding off (or have ratcheted down) on your spending hoping the bad news would stop and you would be able to get to work as normal. Well it looks like that time has come. The economy seems to be coming back and now you’ve got to make up for lost time. Here’s a few ideas to jumpstart your lead generation initiatives:

• Check out those web logs or unknown visitor reports, this is a great opportunity for you to start reaching out to companies who have already been checking you out. Once you’ve identified the companies, make sure you have the right targeted leads to market to. This is key to your program success.
• Think and be positive/upbeat — get new content (that’s not talking about the recession). Make sure it’s everywhere – your social networks, your website, as a possible link in your email signatures, offered on your blog, your email programs and don’t forget to share it with your customers, this could be used in the introduction you need help with.
• Dust off your old whitepapers, add some images and turn them into a new eBook. Use this refreshed content for your nurture marketing and email programs.
• Put together a news release schedule, remember to include your keywords. Press drives website visitors. Make sure you have your Google Alerts set up so you know when someone picks up your news and don’t forget to check those weblogs and unknown visitor reports so you can market back to those checking you out.
• Don’t forget your customers, they are your greatest asset. Talk to them. Ask them what they need from you. Ask them how you can better deliver your product or service and don’t forget to ask them for a referral or two. There’s no time better than the present to kick off a customer referral program.

The point is to get the most out of what you already have, be everywhere your prospects and customers are, and stay positive.

Newsletters have come a long way. They have evolved from printed pieces that were once mailed to e-Newsletters of many different flavors.  Some use newsletters to communicate with their customer base, some use them to grow their in-house database and some use them as a promotion vehicle for upcoming events, content or announcements.  If you’re considering putting together a newsletter, here’s a few tips to keep in mind as you putting together your program plans and goals.

• Repurpose content you already have – Here at ReachForce we send out a monthly newsletter of the best B2B Lead tips from the last month.  We live in a busy world and we realize that people can’t stop by everyday and some people just prefer to have the content delivered to their inbox so we give them highlights once a month.  It seems to work, our newsletter list grows by 10% every month.

• Event invitations and news announcements – Let them know what are you up to – whether it be a webinar you’re hosting or a live event your sponsoring and exhibiting at.  Newsletters are a great way to get the word out about where you’ll be.

• News – make sure everyone knows when you’ve released a new version of your product.  Remember to highlight benefits not product features.  Also be sure to include a call to action to drive interest for cross selling and upselling opportunities as well as new customer interest.

• Customer case studies – pick 1 and highlight your results. Be sure to include a link to the full case study on your website.

• Want to know what your prospects or customers are thinking?  Ask them in a quick poll or survey.  People like giving their opinion and this says you’re interested in it.  You can post the result in the next newsletter.

• Social networks or a blog?  Are you out there?  Do they know where to find you?  Here’s a great place to spread the word.

• Don’t make it all about you.  The majority of the content should be useful and compelling to the reader and not a company promo.  Otherwise, you risk an increase in unsubscribes.

• Don’t forget the newsletter sign up on your website, put it in as many places as it makes sense.  Remember this is helping grow your inhouse list for lead generation.

Bottom line is whatever you decide to do with your newsletter, the goal is to keep communicating!

Dear Sales,

Now that we’re on the same page about the data, let’s talk specifics on how to make this happen.

• You know that we work hard to segment the data before it goes into campaigns, so first, get to know how we segment things.  Talk to us, find out why we do things the way we do and who gets batched together.   Seeing the world the way we do will help you better understand why certain types of contacts are getting certain messages and will help you better reach out to and tailor your messages to those contacts. We are open to your ideas too.  You know your prospects better than we do.  Help us to help you.
• Get to know the companies in your database, ask for help from Sales Operations or export a report of your prospects.  Spend time learning about each company on your list, what do they do, who do they sell to, what events do they attend, make yourself an expert on them so that when you talk to them they feel like you really do know them and their pain points.   Make notes in the record so that you don’t lose track of this valuable information.
• Do you use mail merge fields in your emails or letters?  If so, then really spend some time cleaning up the names of prospects and their companies.  Make sure people aren’t listed like this: “John NO LONGER THERE Smith” or “Jane SHE IS A REAL JERK Doe” – there is a notes section in your CRM, use it!
• If you’re using salesforce.com, set up views that capture activity, for instance, if your marketing automation tool integrates and marks activity on prospect records, set up a view where you can see that kind of activity.  Keep tabs on what people are doing so that you can reach out to those active prospects.

These are just ideas, but the idea is that if you are truly in the ‘weeds’ of the data, you’ll get a good handle on what you own, who you’re calling and hopefully begin seeing some great results!

Love,

Marketing

Here at ReachForce, we talk a lot about role-based leads, but I have never heard of a role-based website.  I came across a great post by Heather Foeh on Eloqua’s Marketing Insights blog, Segmentation on Your Website.  In the post, Heather shares a well segmented website, rallydev.com.  They give a great user-guided experience letting you choose your role which then delivers you relevant content to fit your needs.

On our new website we also use segmentation.  Instead of segmenting by role, we segment by function.  We sell mainly to marketers, so we ask our visitors if they are looking to do direct marketing, event marketing or online marketing.  We then deliver up a total solution as well as whitepapers and eBooks to help with continued education.

This same logic can and should be applied to other marketing vehicles like email.  We segment our database by role and revenue range and send relevant content that matches the needs of each group.

By now you know that there is more than one person involved in a B2B buying decision.  The DMU (decision making unit) typically consists of the end user, key influencers, management, a financial buyer and others that have their hands in the decision to buy or not to buy.

It’s pretty easy to find the management decision makers with just a little research, but what about the others?  Here’s a few tips to help you identify and build out lead generation programs for those other than the Cs and VPs.

1. Where have you been winning?  This is always a good place to start.  Hopefully your sales team helped you out a little here and included notes about everyone they talked to in the buying process.  If so, are you able to define their roles?  If not, don’t despair, you’re not alone and this is not the end of the road for you.
2. Profile your best customers – talk to your best customer implementation team, talk to the sales person that sold the deal and if possible interview a few customers to better understand who all was involved in the decision to buy.
3. Once you have your roles defined, do you have these people in your leads database?  Remember you are matching roles, not just titles.  If so, tag them with a role identity.  If you’re missing roles, call ReachForce, we can help you fill in the gaps.  (Sorry for the shameless promotion…sometimes it just happens…)
4. You’re finally ready to start marketing to these people.  You are now able to build out very targeted programs focusing on key influencer and end user issues.  Here’s an example –
   
5. Nurture – not all buyers are ready to buy at the same time so be sure you are nurturing all of your prospects as well as those involved in a sales cycle.  Here’s a few ideas for offers for your nurturing programs  -

• Email analyst reports supporting the pain and possible solutions
• Email customer case studies
• Invite to webcasts
• Be sure to share any new content you roll out (whitepapers, eBooks, etc.)

For best results, I recommend you engage with your sales team before launching your newly segmented programs and ensure they are onboard to provide guidance and feedback throughout the process.  To execute a healthy, ROI generating program it’s important to map out each step of the building process taking into consideration budget, timing and appropriate follow up.  Here’s a template if you need help.

This tip comes from our very own Marketing and Sales Operations Manager, Lauren Kincke.  Lauren is responsible for integrating and managing our marketing and sales systems.  She spends most of her time working to make these systems and processes help us be more effective and efficient.  She is an integral part in our closed loop marketing and sales system.

As Sales and Marketing become better aligned, so do our tracking systems and metrics.  For a while, we at ReachForce have struggled with the question of how best to track our campaigns, we wanted to know (for instance), how many emails it took to get someone to respond, what email was it that seemed to be the trigger?  And the bigger piece to this puzzle, since we all know the Sales team doesn’t have the bandwidth to really track this information, how can we automate it?

Lucky for us, salesforce.com has a few cool features that we have found useful in tracking this type of things, the first is their Campaign Management tab.

Within the Campaign Management tab you can create a campaign, drop in the list of people who will be part of the campaign and as opportunities arise from that campaign, you can see exactly who they are.   Along with the ability to watch as opportunities join the funnel as a result of your campaign, you can keep tabs on the cost of your campaign, its possible ROI and its actual ROI.  Campaign Management gives you a full window into your programs.   For a full run-down on the Campaign Management feature as well as new Marketing related features in salesforce.com, you should check out their Marketing Blog.

Outside of the Campaign Management feature, we use individualized Dashboards to track activity on specific events/campaigns. For instance, after Dreamforce (salesforce.com’s user group conference and our one big trade show) this past year, we tagged leads that we gathered as having attended Dreamforce, exhibited at Dreamforce, or having had a conversation with someone at our booth.  To do this, we utilized a custom field we already had on our Lead and Contact records called “Marketing” – we populated all of the leads connected to Dreamforce with the right information (either a tag called “Dreamforce 08 Exhibitor”, “Dreamforce 08 Attendee” or “Dreamforce 08 Scan”).  One quick caveat is that not only did all of our leads go through a rigorous scrubbing process (to determine whether the companies were a fit for us), but in instances where we knew we needed a different person (i.e. we hadn’t had enough conversation to verify that these persons played a role in the Decision-Making Unit or buying process) we submitted the company to a role-based contact discovery project so that we could gather the right person.

Once all of those people were tagged, we were able to track them through the pipeline based on knowing they attended/exhibited at or were scanned at Dreamforce.  We built out a full dashboard tracking this information, it helps Marketing see the value in our investment at the event and helps Sales see the value of the data collected at the event and track to make sure that all of those leads get the proper follow-up.

On the Sales side we set up a view for all of our reps that showed their individual Dreamforce related leads.  This made follow up clean and easy because our Sales people knew exactly who attended Dreamforce and whether they showed up at our booth (we imported certain information to indicate whether leads had been at the booth and who they had spoken with).

Salesforce.com continues to roll-out new features that better enable Marketers to track the progress of their campaigns once from lead to customer.  As we test and use them, we will be certain to share our findings!  Have you found an easy way to track things once they hit the pipeline? What tricks do you have for tracking your campaigns?