Do You Know How Your Sales Team Really Feels? - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #198
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009Not too long ago a couple of us here attended Eloqua’s Marketing Effectiveness Summit. One of the most interesting things we came back with was their Marketing and Sales Relationship Map.
Check out this post on one of Eloqua’s new blogs, Marketing Insights. It includes a sample relationship map that “can help you identify gaps in perception and prioritize areas for improvement [between sales and marketing], without pointing fingers.” The idea is to have sales and marketing separately rank performance in specific demand generation criteria. Both teams ultimate goal is to drive revenue and this map helps define key metrics and align goals so everyone wins.
I like to think Marketing and Sales here at ReachForce are all one team but I must admit I was a little scared to turn the map over to our Sales team to see how they really felt.
Have you ever done anything like this with your Marketing and/or Sales team? If so, please share.
How to Find Industry Blogs - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #197
Monday, February 2nd, 2009I know you have probably read somewhere that even if you aren’t blogging yourself you should at least be out there to see what other people in your space are talking about. The best way to do this is by reading industry related blogs. To ensure you are keeping up on a regular basis, set up your Google Reader. All of this sounds great but where do you find the right blogs to read for your business?
Here’s what helped me:
- Alltop – or “all the top” sites on the web. ReachForce’s space is B2B Marketing and I looked here for “all the top marketing news.” It has all the top Marketing blogs (even including this one!) based on results of Google searches, review of the sites’ and blogs’ content, researchers, and our “gut” plus the recommendations of the Twitter community, owners of the sites and blogs, and people who care enough to write to us.
- Just Google your space…like “B2B Marketing Blogs.” First on the page was Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs by Marketing and Strategy Innovation Blog. And keep moving down the page for more. Other bloggers also compile lists of top blogs in their space. For example, Web Market Central has a list of Marketing-Related Blogs.
- When looking at other blogs, be sure to check out their blogroll. It is a good way to see what blogs someone else follows and recommends.
So…now start looking for blogs in your industry and get into the conversation!
Customer Experience Index Scoring - Part 7 - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #192
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009This is the 7th in a series discussing Customer Experience Indexing (CEITM) as a way to measure, plan and act on customer feedback. (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5) (#6)
Here is the outline we’ve been following:
- CEI Initiative Planning
- Optimizing the flow of both loyalty and satisfaction feedback
- Analysis of feedback and calculation of actionable CEI metrics
- Using the data for short, mid and long term account plans for retention and growth
- Using the data to plan and deliver action plans aimed at reshaping customer attitudes and opinions
- (We are here) Using the data to locate new prospects using rule based company profiling and role-based targeting
So far we’ve gathered then used CEI response data for scoring to examine three existing customer scenarios as examples:
- An expanded Net Promoter-type way to calculate and measure satisfaction + prompted + unprompted customer advocacy
- Applying CEI-metrics for better account-by-account management planning
- Building CEI-lenses for better strategies and tactics for up-selling, cross-selling and renewals.
Next on the list is to take a look at using CEI response data to help locate, target and engage with net-New prospects.
Reference Account Management
The most obvious and useful way CEI scoring benefits the new sales process is the buttoned down way it sorts advocacy dynamics and pinpoints which current customers would make the best references based on data analysis, not on someone’s opinion. There is nothing more powerful from a news sales perspective than having a well stocked supply of sales ready references. It happens every day across the world, thousands of times a day ― a sales person bursts into the marketing or account manager’s office needing three references to connect with their prospect. Not only is the list of needed attributes arms length, but it all needs to happen before tomorrow afternoon. Sound familiar? Yes it does.
This scenario takes us back to the first exercise we did for determining what a customer’s advocacy rating is. Remember it’s a matter of reading how a customer feels about their entire experience with your company using a scoring schema that takes metrics from both qualitative (loyalty) and quantitative (satisfaction) feedback into account. So if asked to produce recommendations about what customers should be the best sales-ready references we’d produce response scores rendered from a two-step lens build that would look something like this:
Step 1 Top 10 Sales Ready Reference Accounts
Once each row on the customer list has an assigned CEI Advocacy Score, simply sort this column in descending order and in combination with the column for customer response time to your survey plus overall satisfaction scores, plus Key Weight. This (if you remember back to the 1st and 2nd posts in this series) is because the survey invitations were sent as an integrated campaign, i.e. first an email, then another, then a phone call reminder from the account manager, then another from an executive, then perhaps another email, etc., thus determining how quick to respond each survey taker was. It stands to reason that someone who responded quickly in combination with high scores from Advocacy, Satisfaction and Key Weight are going to be a good sales ready reference account.
Step 2 Top 10 Sales Ready Reference Accounts
So the above mentioned sort produces a top 10 list based on:
Next week we’ll cover ways to build rules-based profiles of your most successful customers and your relationships with them and then use the data to score how well new company targets match the rules.
The 6 Principles of Deliberate Marketing: Predictable vs. Spray and Pray - B2B Marketing and Sales Tips #188
Monday, January 12th, 2009This is the fourth post in a series on Deliberate Marketing. Be sure to check out the first 3 posts: Intention vs. Attention, Qualified Buyers vs. Leads and Role vs. Title.
Deliberate Marketing techniques make it possible for Marketers and Sales teams to predict the results of their efforts because they know their direct marketing programs are focused on the right buyers in the right type of company. Deliberate Marketers do not spray a rented list of contacts with a generic message hoping the right buyers will respond. Instead, they deliver a highly relevant message to a targeted audience.
Based on preparation and research, they know they are using the right messages and the right medium to deliver that message based on the buyer profile (or persona). They also know that they are delivering this message to buyers in companies with a similar combination of characteristics as their best customers so their propensity to purchase is higher.
With this approach, Marketers can rely on repeatable lead generation efforts to provide a steady stream of qualified buyers to Sales.
Day in the Life of a Social Media Marketer - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #187
Thursday, January 8th, 2009I know not every company has the option to hire someone specifically for online/social media marketing and here at ReachForce I do have other responsibilities, but my main job is to get ReachForce more interactive online.
There are many reasons companies aren’t taking on social media initiatives - they’re scared, they don’t have the time, they don’t understand the value, etc.. And you already have enough work as it is, right? All true, but as you have probably heard by now…social media is worth investing some time into. To help, I have listed below what I do at least once every day (I have sort of made my morning routine around it), and hopefully you can pick out some things you can start doing on a regular basis too so you can get started online.
Google Reader – This is most important to get started in social media. Every day I read our Google Reader we put together with blogs in our space. I go through reading (skimming) and pick out posts I think would be good for us at ReachForce to comment on.
Twitter – I have my own account and ReachForce has a company account that I update a few days a week. If you aren’t twittering today you should at least be checking out search.twitter.com to see who is talking about your company.
LinkedIn – I scan LinkedIn Answers for ones I think ReachForce can help with or we may have an opinion on. And there are many times our Marketing Director (Amy) is able to offer some good marketing advice. This process has been made easier with the help of groups I have joined and the weekly email I get with discussions, and with inbound marketing system HubSpot.
Facebook – We have a ReachForce corporate page. When needed, I upload photos or videos, put our events coming up or send a message to our fans. I usually always have to update our RSS feeder from our blog…for some reason it doesn’t do it on its own? Anyone else having this problem?
Social Bookmarks – I use Digg and StumbleUpon the most. I feel right now we get the best traffic from them. I recommend using it for your own blog if you have one, or recommending other people’s post you like. (Use your Google Reader to find these)!
Blog – At ReachForce we do have a blog and we post at least 4 times a week. I don’t write all the content, but I do manage it.
To help stay on top of what is going on in the social media realm I look at mashable.com and subscribe to Chris Brogan’s blog and newsletter as a start.
Okay, so this is most of my morning routine (yes it is a little time consuming, but this is what I was hired on to do). Hopefully you can pick out bits and pieces and start putting it in your routine. For those of you who do use social media on a daily basis, what else do you do every day?
Customer Experience Index Scoring - Part 5 - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #185
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009On with the 5th drop in a series (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) discussing Customer Experience Indexing (CEI™) as a way to measure, plan and act on customer feedback. All questions and comments are extremely welcome and I do appreciate those who have already jumped in.
Working our way down a list of six areas:
- Planning
- Optimizing the flow of both loyalty and satisfaction feedback
- Analysis of feedback and calculation of actionable CEI metrics
- (We are here) Using the data for short, mid and long term account plans for retention and growth
- Using the data to locate new prospects using rule based company profiling and role-based targeting
- Using the data to plan and deliver action plans aimed at reshaping customer attitudes and opinions
In the last installment (#4), we rolled out some quick analysis of data from a recent ReachForce Customer Experience survey ― zeroing in on the different angle we took by measuring prompted versus non-prompted advocacy — and what differences exist between companies that are a reference account (92% spending x amount) versus a full blown advocate (73% spending y amount).
It is, glory be, nice to have such high numbers for both reference accounts and advocates at ReachForce. And it’s even nicer to know that as satisfied customers (x) evolve into proactive advocates (y) they also tend, as explained last drop, to buy software and services more often, and in greater amounts (#4). So as a Customer Success team planner it becomes imperative to first figure out why it happens – and set out a continuous plan of improvement to make it more predictable.
To get there, we first establish the Key Weight - or how long and how often does a customer “experience” your company? I have been scolded for this approach in the past by people who say it’s not fair or smart to weigh qualitative feedback from new or infrequent customers more lightly than older ones, and I understand the concern. But I don’t think of it as lower weight = less important (all feedback is important) ― rather, lower weight = less sure.
To work a very simple example, if planning 2009 MBOs for our project managers requires a comparison of two key accounts assigned to the same Project Manager, the following analysis might be used to help step us in the right direction:
For key account planning these numbers tell me the project manager (PM) assigned to these two customers is delivering high marks on both quantitative (data accuracy?) and qualitative (expertise?) fronts ― and with two very different scenarios (new customer/once per month and old customer/once per week). This is good. But because the lower of the cross tab scores are from the (quantitative) ‘PM expertise?’ question, I can foresee the MBOs assigned to the PM in the case of both customers will be warm, fuzzy and relationship directed in order to bolster the customer’s perception of the PM’s expertise. Or maybe the PM gets more training. And closing the planning loop, I’d probably use “Moving Customer 2 up to weekly engagement” as another measurable objective. A higher level of meaningful contact would help.
And as you can see by looking at the % Analysis Scores above, without factoring the Key Weight in the above example, you’d only be fooling yourself about Customer 2 data accuracy and PM Expertise ratings, because you would not be taking newness, or lower frequency metrics into account and an important danger or opportunity might be overlooked. To some, planning account by account MBO strategy this way may seem overly analytical, but I have found no better way to customize and create MBOs to and pinpoint action plans right where the rubber hits the road.
To get some ideas about which cross tab questions to use as lenses for various situations, think of it in terms of Value Delivery (quantitative) versus Obstacles for Value Delivery (qualitative) ― as in our example of Data Accuracy versus Project Manager Expertise ― wherein bad Project Management would be an obvious obstacle to delivering high Data Accuracy.
I’d be happy to provide further example scenarios here, but I think you get the drift. Remember, I think it’s less of a service to create some sort of template, than it is to just spark some thought and let folks craft CEI indexing tools that mean the most to your specific world.
Next week we’ll look at a few more of these CEI ‘planning lenses.’
Book Club Wrap-Up - ReachForce Book Club
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Hope you enjoyed this quarter’s Book Club series. Just in case you missed an eBook or whitepaper we read and discussed, below are the links to them and what we had to say about each of them.
- HubSpots’s Get Found Online
- What we had to say…
- David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Viral Marketing
- What we had to say…
- ConnectDirect’s How to Choose your Carrot: Effective Lead Generation Offers for High-Technology Marketers
- What we had to say…
Happy Reading. We look forward to sharing even more B2B Marketing and Sales tips with you in 2009.
The 6 Principles of Deliberate Marketing: Role vs. Title - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #184
Monday, December 29th, 2008This is the third post in a series on Deliberate Marketing. Be sure to check out the first post on Intention vs. Attention and the second post on Qualified Buyers vs. Leads.
Deliberate Marketing programs do not rely simply on prospect titles for targeting potential buyers.
For example, a B2B Marketer purchases a list or accesses a contact database and pulls a list of 1,000 Communications Analysts. How can that marketer be certain that the contacts who match those titles are involved with Network Communications instead of Corporate Communications?
Titles are simply a label of rank, not an indication of the actual role the prospect plays in the organization or in the buying decision. Instead, Deliberate Marketing programs are focused on “roles,” defined by Webster’s as: a function or part performed. They target communications based on organizational role and level in the DMU as well as stage of the buying cycle.
The average B2B marketing response rate is less than 3%, and it’s getting lower every year. It’s easy to see why title-based lists perform so poorly.
Consider a Fortune 500 company with 90,000 employees.
All told, this company has 500 IT staff.
Of those 500, 150 have a title of Manager, Director, and higher.
Only a handful of those 150 is in the right role to buy your product.
But what’s a marketer to do? Using current list technology, you can only get as specific as target title. So you have to market to all 150 people with ‘hot titles’, jamming the inboxes of the majority with an unwanted, off-topic solicitation. It’s simply not a cost-effective model.
It’s the Holiday Season, Time to Get Social
Tuesday, December 23rd, 20082008 has been a big year for B2B Marketers. The idea of using social media as part of our lead generation programs has become a reality. Whether it be blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook B2B Marketers are taking on new challenges and figuring out new ways to reach their audience through the readily available social media outlets. Here’s a list of some great social media posts from this year. There’s lot of lists and dos and don’ts, if we’ve left a great post out, let us know, we’ll add it to the list.
50 Ways Marketers Can Use Social Media to Improve their Marketing
10 Aspects of an Effective Social Media Campaign
How to Build a Community of Twitter Followers
Ten Elements Every Company Blog Should Have
6 Keys to Bringing Up Social Media
24 Things to do When Stuck for a Topic to Blog About
Health Check: How Trusted is your Corporate Blog?
50 Social Media & Marketing Predictions for 2009
5 Tips for Promoting Your Business Page on Facebook
If you’re already knee deep in the world of social media, please share some of your successes or experiences. Are you able to measure real ROI?
Happy Holidays and thank you for following us on The B2B Lead. We look forward to sharing more B2B Marketing and Sales best practices with you in 2009.
Publish your Content for Free – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #182
Friday, December 19th, 2008So…you have written white papers and eBooks and they are up on your website. They are probably on the resources page and get their fair share of downloads. That’s good, but with some of the free publishing sites out there you can get more exposure.
I have started to put ReachForce content on some of the sites and wanted to share the results, compare with you or ask if you had suggestions.
Content placement sites:
Scribd – the best content placement site I think. You can publish, discover and discuss original writings and documents. It’s easy to set up…sign up and make an account for free, then just upload your documents. I have uploaded all of ReachForce’s eBooks and have gotten 5476 views as of today. People can add your works to their favorites and rate them. You can join groups an add friends.
Docstoc – provides the platform for users and businesses to upload and share their documents with all the world, and serves as a vast repository of documents in variety of categories including legal, business, financial, technology, educational, and creative. I uploaded all our eBooks and have 300 views and 30 downloads as of today.
edocr – upload your documents for sharing by the professional and business community. I uploaded our eBooks, again, and we have 618 views so far. One of our eBooks was featured on the front page when first uploaded.
whitepapers.org – is “all the world’s whitepapers in one place.” I really haven’t figured out how to see how many views or downloads our whitepapers have had.
The pros of publishing your content on sites like this is that it is free to do and can bring unexpected visitors an exposure. The biggest con I can find is that there is really no way to find out who downloaded our content (with information like an email address). To help with this, we added links to all our whitepapers and eBooks to hopefully drive traffic back to our website.
Suggestions?
