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BtoB marketing professionals answer the question, "What is your biggest challenge in connecting with the IT buyer?"
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June 2008, Issue 52 |
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Ouch! Minimize Your Company's "Collateral Damage"
By Tim Riesterer, CEO, Customer Message Management, LLC
Just Say No to "Clandestine Collateral"
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Did you know:
- Up to 90% of messages and tools created in the name of sales support go unused by the field, and 87% of training is forgotten four weeks after it's transmitted?
- 75% of solution selling efforts are considered failures by the companies that implement them. The number one reason cited is the lack of alignment between Marketing and Sales.
- Up to 40% of sales time is spent searching for content and creating their brand of "clandestine collateral" to support the sales effort.
A survey produced by CSO Insights titled, "Optimizing Sales Performance with Consistent Message Management," correlates company sales results with their ability to communicate consistent messaging to and through their sales force.
So the "collateral damage" within your company—the resources being wasted on collateral that's never used because it doesn't meet Sales' needs and isn't aligned with company messaging—is worth fixing.
Here are four best practices used to minimize "collateral damage."
- Build customer-relevant messaging based on decision-maker roles and goals
- Deliver sales tools specific to the tasks at hand in an identified buying cycle
- Make sure all necessary content is available in a single, central repository
- "Push" content based on selling situation vs. "pull" from a mass of content
Companies that want to avoid collateral damage and drive more consistent, high-quality customer conversations build messaging based on targeted decision-makers and their most pressing business objectives and challenges. They abandon the traditional "inside-out" messaging approach that starts with the company and its products. Instead, they define the customer context, and then map how they best respond to repeatable customer situations.
This literally means creating "Conversation Roadmaps" for each repeatable business objective, filled with messaging about the problem, potential solution, business value and proof points.
2. Buying Cycle-Relevant Tools
If you want salespeople to stop building their own tools and diluting your brand, you must take the time to understand the customer buying cycle and selling activities that take place within it. Ask salespeople what they are trying to accomplish at each step. Find out how and where they are conducting each conversation and interaction. Determine the kind of messaging and level of detail needed to prepare, conduct or respond to the customer. And then, diagram the most appropriate type of tool to deliver that information.
3. Single, Online Repository
Your salespeople should have one online place for everything they need to create, cultivate and close deals. Too many databases, microsites, binders and presentations in too many locations result in an immense drag on sales productivity, increase frustration and can create huge gaps in message consistency and accuracy.
Review your sales resources, consolidate the most useful tools into a single online repository, and work with salespeople to organize content in a way that is intuitive and meaningful to them.
4. Push vs. Pull
When your messages and tools are available in one location, then work on just-in-time, opportunity-specific access by changing your user interface to support the way salespeople think through a sales cycle. Leading companies recognize that their sales teams can't be expected to remember everything about their markets, messages and solutions. Those companies are transforming the intranet experience to push messages and support tools to salespeople rather than making them search and pull pieces of collateral—hoping they find the right stuff.
A "push" interface often takes the form of an "interview" that asks salespeople to answer simple questions about their customer opportunity, such as market segment, decision maker, business needs and potential solution. Based on the answers, the most appropriate content from the site is filtered, customized and dynamically pushed to the salesperson.
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Tim Riesterer is CEO of Customer Message Management, LLC. CMM Forum LLC is a Wisconsin corporation that offers thought leadership, training, and consulting on Customer Message Management. www.customermessage.com
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Marketing Watchdog Journal is a monthly newsletter from Bulldog Solutions, a lead optimization and lead management company dedicated to helping our clients generate more, better leads and turn them into revenue. We welcome your feedback on this newsletter's content and design, and encourage you to share your ideas for topics you would like us to cover in future issues. Please send your comments or questions about Bulldog Solutions to Amy Bills, senior manager of Field Marketing.
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