Dear Sales,

We’ve had a long and storied relationship.   When we work well together, we’re pretty amazing, when we fight, it’s ugly but overall we make a great team. I feel like we’ve worked through our differences well and that we see eye to eye more often than not, but we really need to talk about one thing…the one thing that bonds us for life but keeps pulling us apart…our data.

I know, I know, it’s no one’s fault.  But that’s the problem.  I supply the data, I nurture the data and then I send it to you so you can make it flourish.  What happens to the data once I send it to you though?  Some of it gets the proper care, it blossoms into an opportunity and then low and behold we win!  Some of it isn’t really ready and gets nurtured some more, some wither and die on the vine, and some of it, well, it sits and it gets lost in the oblivion of it’s home, our CRM system.

So Sales, here is my proposition to you, let’s work together to cultivate our leads, I will continue to feed you nurtured sales ready leads that suit your need and I ask that in return, you help me keep everything straight.  We must communicate, it’s required for our relationship to work.  Get to know the data (your leads), really learn about your companies and our targets and then, tell me what’s not working (and better yet, what is!).

How do you do this you ask, well we’ll work together and make it happen!

Love,

Marketing

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?

Business is growing – awesome, especially in this economy.  Need to expand into a new sales territory – well crap, where am I going to get those new leads?  Buyers don’t just line up in evenly distributed rows by territory no matter how much we would like them to. And we all know keeping a consistent and geographically distributed flow of qualified leads—or even better qualified buyers-in your pipeline is a constant struggle.  Are you feeling the pains of ramping a new sales territory?

Venturing out into a new sales territory comes with challenges like:

• Longer lead time to develop accounts
• Lack of qualified leads in the new region
• Inefficiencies in the Sales organization

To keep your Marketing and Sales pipeline working at peak efficiency you must be able to provide a steady stream of qualified buyers to ALL of the Sales representatives on the team regardless of their territory or tenure.  Here are 5 steps to expanding or growing a new sales territory:

Step 1. Customer Profiling and Sales Wins Analysis

• Identify your top performing vertical market segments by analyzing your current customer wins or use CRM analytics
• Profile your best customers to establish qualifying criteria and identify roles of Champions, Key Players, and Decision-makers
• Identify prospective buyers in vertical segments that meet your criteria and that are located in the new territory

Step 2. Prospect Discovery and Validation

• Map list of prospective companies and required roles
• Identify gaps and augment data with a custom role-based contact data
• Phone screen to check for accuracy

Step 3. Marketing Database Segmentation

• Segment by vertical market and role and tag data
• Upload data into CRM or Marketing Automation system to prepare for targeted marketing campaigns

Step 4. Marketing Campaign Execution

• Execute vertical segment-focused campaigns targeted at each member of the Decision Making Unit
  For Champions/End Users – use White Papers
  • Send direct mail w/white paper offer
  • Email w/ white paper offer
  • Follow-up with email demo offer
  • Nurture with ongoing communications

  For Decision-makers/Executives – use Webcasts

  • Email invitation to executive Webcast
  • Follow-up with emailed executive brief
  • Send door-opener direct mail
  • Follow-up with Sales call
  • Nurture with ongoing communications
• Harvest responders, further qualify
• Funnel sales ready leads to Sales team

Step 5. Lead Nurturing

• Support Sales cycle by periodically reaching out to prospects; provide information/offers to stay top of mind Email white papers or analyst reports
• Email to announce customer wins
• Invite to webinar

Want a visual or a handout you can print?  We have put together a best practice template to use when building out territory specific initiatives.  Check out our Expanding or Growing a New Territory Tear Sheet.

Want more free B2B Marketing Tearsheets, Whitepapers and eBooks?  Check out the ReachForce B2B Marketing Resources page.

LinkedIn Answers can be a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader and connect with colleagues and prospects.  I try to create RSS feeds for almost everything I monitor online; it is more likely I will get to it that way.  The other day I realized I can get an RSS feed of LinkedIn Answers.  Unfortunately, it is not very customizable.  You can only get a feed of an entire topic, not just based on a certain keyword like search.twitter.com.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to LinkedIn.com
2. Click on Answers (it’s at the top)
3. In the right sidebar, under Browse, click on the topic that relates to your industry
4. In the right sidebar look for the orange RSS logo, click the link to add new questions on this topic to your feed reader

*Note you can also subscribe to sub topics.  Keep in mind that many questions are asked each day so the more specific you can be the better.

What is the benefit of being active on LinkedIn Answers?  I know someone who was asked to speak at an industry conference based solely on answering a question on LinkedIn.  We currently have two deals in the pipe that originated on LinkedIn Answers.  I know my sales reps don’t always have the time to keep up with LinkedIn Answers so whenever someone asks a question looking for a solution like ours I pass it along to the appropriate sales rep to follow-up.

I still recommend going in at least once a week to search your company and products’ names since those are conversations you defintely want to be aware of.  Still unsure of what to do?  Check out How to Use LinkedIn Answers in Marketing.

We are starting a new series here on the B2B Lead to bring B2B marketers new and/or remarkable products/companies/ideas that could make your life easier or are just plain cool.

Our first entrant in a series of many to come on this theme is BatchBook CRM by BatchBlue Software.  Now I’m fully aware that there are more CRM systems out there than you can shake a stick at.  What sets BatchBook apart from the rest is this simple assessment (IMHO): if you were to start a company to provide a current, modern CRM system today, BatchBook is what it would look like.  It sports an extremely easy-to-use interface and provides all the features and functionality that the primary end-users of CRM systems (sales reps) actually use.  But what makes it cool is the unique social networking and tagging elements that, whereas all the other CRM vendors are scurrying to retrofit their systems with it, has been built in.   Tracking relationships between social network contacts and keeping tabs on the social chatterings thereof are just some of the interesting capabilities on this front.  Their tagging capability, SuperTags, enables users to capture and search on ad-hoc information, such as “talked to this guy at EventForce”.

It is probably best suited for companies fitting the “S” in “SMB” (which most of their customers are), but the pricing model is attractive and I think we will be seeing some interesting things from this company in the future.

Yesterday on The B2B Lead, we talked about how marketing’s job has changed over the last couple of years from generating general awareness to tracking leads from cold to close.  Gone are the days of dumping lists of random names into the top of the funnel for sales to sort out.  Well, guess what, it turns out they weren’t sorting them out.

According to SiriusDecisions, 79% of leads generated by marketing are not followed up on by sales teams.   Of the remaining 21%, 70% are disqualified by sales because of lack of budget, timing, or other reasons.   Furthermore, 70% of those disqualified leads go on to purchase the product or service from another vendor.

There’s a lot of talk about leaky funnels and marketing’s role in driving more leads to close but is this really possible if leads aren’t truly leaking out, they’re being rejected and kicked out by sales?

This makes me wonder.  Can better targeted lead generation programs be the answer to everyone’s woes?
I think so.

Here’s a few tips to think about before launching that next great program:

• Before you kick off the next quarter, make sure marketing and sales TOGETHER define what a lead is.  Marketing leads are different than sales leads.  Be certain everyone on both teams understands this and how you’re handling the 2 groups.

• Ask the sales team what is working for them.  Where are they winning? Who are the critical decision makers inside of these companies?  Make sure you are targeting the right companies and the right buyers inside.

• What programs deliver the best leads?  And not just the best leads but leads that convert to customers.  Does this align with what sales says?

• Don’t forget to take a look at who is already visiting you. This can be a goldmine.  Target your outreach efforts back at those visiting, don’t just sit and wait for them to come back and announce themselves.

• For those that are disqualified by sales for BANT reasons, make sure sales is able to pass those leads back for more nurturing.  Budgets and project timelines change all the time.  Because they don’t need you now doesn’t mean they won’t ever (just make sure you have the right buyer engaged, marketing to the right company with the wrong buyer won’t get you very far).

At ReachForce, marketing and sales are 1 team.  We know one can’t be successful without the other.

B2B Marketers have been going through big changes the last couple of years.  With marketing automation tools/platforms coming on strong, so are the questions of ROI and the effect marketing really has on the top line.

Our jobs have changed, we are no longer responsible for just general awareness and filling the top of the sales funnel.  Instead, we are tasked with moving leads from cold to close and building a closed loop feedback system with Sales along the way.

Eloqua, one of our partners, has a new whitepaper, The Springboard Effect, that does a great job of describing how our roles have changed and what is now expected of a best-in-class B2B Marketer.

Here’s a few interesting bites from The Springboard Effect:

• Jaap Favier, Vice President and Research Director for Forrester Research, emphasized that intelligence will be a key differentiator in the way companies survive a downturn.  “The name of the new marketing game: targeting.”

We love hearing this, it’s what we’re all about here at ReachForce.

• Aberdeen Group says that “companies with best-in-class lead prioritization and scoring systems have a 192% higher average lead qualification rate than those that do not.”

• According to SiriusDecisions, 79% of leads generated by marketing are not followed up on by sales teams.  Of the remaining, 70% of leads are disqualified by sales because of lack of budget, timing, or other reasons.

Ok – here’s the MOST INTERESTING part – SiriusDecisions goes on to say that 70% of those disqualified leads go on to purchase the product or service from another vendor.

WOW – look at all of the opportunity lost!

Interesting stuff here, be sure to check out the rest for yourself.

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.

What do you arm your sales people with? A phone, a computer and a database of prospects (or worse, a phone book)?  How do you prepare them for what is to come, the rejection, or better still, the prospect who wants to buy?   How do we better equip our sales team and enable them to reach and exceed their goals? These are questions we recently decided to tackle at ReachForce…one of our answers came in the form of training.

Our typical training regime used to be comprised solely of a full-day quarterly kickoff.  During that time we would run through a few “sales” skills specific sessions, some background on our industry, and a piece on what we do and how we do it (for newbies).   Part team-building, part skills training, it was an exhausting day and by the end of it some of our more ADD inclined employees had mentally checked out.  Recently we decided to make some changes.  First, instead of only hosting training sessions on a once a quarter basis, each of our weekly sales meetings would be host to a mini-session led by a sales rep.  Second, our quarterly sales training meeting would be shortened to a little over half a day.

Some of the topics that have been assigned out (and presented) by our sales team are:

• Best Practices: Preparing for a first call – items to research/points to know prior to the call
• Overcoming Objections
• Winning Closing Techniques
• Managing Your Time Effectively
• Creating ‘Date Certain’ Decisions
• Call to action emails
• Bringing a proposal to life
• Upping the average sales price

Each of our reps was assigned a date and a topic.  There aren’t really parameters around what they prepare, some have used PowerPoint, some have just spoken and some have created handouts.  I can’t say that we’ve measured our results, but I can say that our reps have been able to put these things into practice as quickly as they are being taught.  One of the greatest things about this training is that it is led in a peer to peer setting.  We felt it very important to remove senior management from these meetings, thus alleviating the fear of looking stupid or asking questions.   Only our floor managers stay in the room with the sales reps, because our floor managers interact with our reps on a peer level, so they teach and learn alongside their fellow sales reps.

The topics listed above are just a few that we have come up with, our program certainly will continue to have fuel and the momentum of continuing education should have a great impact for us.  What kind of topics would your reps benefit from?

I’m not a marketing or sales guy per se so please help me understand something here.

As the classic saying goes, “I know at least half of my data is bad…I just don’t know which half”.
Marketing Sherpa tells us that contact data degrades at a rate of 2.1% per month (and it’s probably gone up  substantially given the current rate of job loss), it’s easy to see how this is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Having said all that, does it matter you could be sitting on piles of dirty data?

Contact data cleanup seems to experience a run-up of demand at the end of the year when marketers have just enough budget to burn on something small to mid-sized but not enough to do anything substantial with.  Or at least this is what we saw. In fact, we cleaned up some of our own CRM data in December as well.

But come the turn of the new year and new budget, the psychology of “new” is the all the rage.  Sales reps are innately in perpetual want for new leads, but as we say around here, it seems most marketing and sales teams would rather keep building new add-on rooms to their houses than spend the money to fix the basement that is flooded with sewage.

So what is the psychology behind using what you have vs. buying something new?  Is it simply fueled by an unquenchable thirst for “new, new, new” (and the perception thereof)?  Or do you have a more systematic approach to if and when you elect to use what you have vs. buy new stuff?

Is it the same mentality of buying something that is on sale even if you don’t really need it?

I just don’t get it.