If you are facing this situation, here are three suggestions:

1.  Increase marketing expenditures and step up advertising and promotion.  In 2008, I researched which companies succeeded during the Great Depression.  I found that those that advertised were much more successful than those that cut back on their marketing expenditures.  Moreover, if your competitors know this, and step up their marketing expenditures and you do not you may get overwhelmed. 
2. Stress value.  Increase the perceived value of your offerings by adding something; be it free shipping, an extended warranty, additional support, etc.  Make the buyer feel that they are getting more “bang for their buck.”  By doing so you not only differentiate your product/service from the competition, you also make it easier for your inside advocates to speak for you.
3. Focus on solutions, not features.  Today’s buyer wants help in solving problems.  Identify the customer’s problem and point out to them how your product/service solves that problem, better than any competition.  For example, if a buyer is concerned about ease of installation and security regarding a software package, show him/her how easy yours is to install and secure.  Do not talk about the customer’s ability to design a custom user interface and report writer.
4. Keep it simple.  Decision makers at all levels will be facing increasingly difficult choices as the year unfolds.  They do not want to wrestle through complicated pricing plans, confusing rebate programs or long-term obligations.  Your message should be, “Our product (which is the best) solves this problem and will cost you this much.”
5. Use social media, when and where appropriate.  The different social media tools are effective when tailored to fit your individual company’s customers.  There is no universal application that works.  Understand how your customer base likes to talk, and then engage them at that level, which can range from a monthly newsletter to daily interaction on twitter and Facebook.  One suggestion, if your product is the least bit complex, explore the use of video as an adjunct to your pre and post sales customer support. 

Will following these 5 steps ensure that you make the year.  No.  However, focusing on them will help you remain competitive and help maintain your slice of the pie. 

Do you have any additional suggestions that your can pass along?  Comment below.

RHM  6/23/2011

From Wikipedia:

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (Danish: Kejserens nye Klæder) is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that are invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages.[1]

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor’s_New_Clothes>

Recently, on days ending with a “y,” I feel that many B2B Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are like the Emperor, and that social media vendors and supporters are the weavers.  They conjure up out of thin air meaningful tapestries of “hits” “bounces” “likes” “followers” “re-tweets” “viewed” and cover them with a cloak of viral.  If I were a B2B CMO and dressed with all this finery I would indeed feel proud and assured when meeting my peers…for they will be able to see how well-dressed I am.

For the B2B CMO who believes this, he will rapidly undressed when the CEO says, “You do look nice today, but tell me how you have helped to generate revenue”  Responses relating to building the Brand, and Brand recognition, along with success with key demographics tend to get tossed aside like dirty clothes thrown in the hamper.  Comments about selective pruning of leads, enhancing the quality of the pipeline, resulting in a large group of potential customers being nurtured via the new marketing automation system tend to appear like clothes that you slept in.  In short, from the point of view of contributing to revenue, “you aren’t wearing anything at all.”

What the B2B CEO wants is increased revenue.  To this end he has his foot on the neck of the VP of Sales, who in turn is saying one of two things; (1) I could close more business, but my team has to spend most of their time prospecting, or (2) Most of the leads we get are old, tired or not qualified. This leaves the B2B CEO with an impression that Marketing is not doing its job.  In this scenario the only solution is for Marketing to deliver an increasing number of qualified leads to the sales organization, month after month.  (This assumes that Sales and Marketing agree upon what is a qualified lead.)

Any other metric beyond a Month-Over-Month increase in qualified leads is like the Emperor’s new clothes, i.e. invisible.  The B2B CMO can, and should, request that he be copied on all lost sales reports so that he can judge the quality of the leads and establish a feedback loop to success.  However, in my experience the sales organization that has the time to focus on writing lost sales reports has one foot out the door.

The bottom line of most businesses in America is profitability.  There are millions of way this can be achieved, but they all boil down to selling your product for more than it costs you to make, distribute and service it.  Selling it requires finding buyers who have a need, and convincing them that your product/service fills that need.  Growth comes from finding more buyers.  Profitability comes from controlling your costs as you grow, or cutting them if your revenue is flat.   One of Marketing’s roles is to find new buyers and pass this information along to sales.

Great marketing organizations provide month-over-month increases in qualified leads.  Good ones do so most of the time.  We need not worry about the ones that don’t, as they a finely dressed in today’s new clothes.

What are you wearing today?

RHM  2/4/2011

Placing a Facebook ad is very easy;   just create a compelling offer, think of a very short tag line (along with an icon or some form of a graphic to go with the text) link the ad to your web site, sit back and let the dollars roll in.

Oh, I forgot, you need to input your customer profile which will provide an estimate of your Facebook audience, assuming that people are not concerned about privacy and have filled in this section accurately (not very good customer segmentation).

Oh, I forgot, you have to pick a price range or limit per day on how much you want to pay for each time someone opens your ad.

Oh, I also forgot to mention, you are competing with thousands of other companies and you have very limited ad space to get your point across, so compose wisely.

Oh, another thing, your product better be the only one in the world, very consumer oriented and have a finely tuned audience.

Oh, and since you are running your ad at the same time that thousands are, be prepared to run it for years before you get an actual hit.

Oh, make sure you email all the 600 million users that you have an ad and that they should sit in front of their computer and sort through the ad section until they see your ad.

Oh, be prepared to tweak your ad when you get no inquiries.

Oh, be prepared to receive a suggestion to increase your spend rate to improve your hit rate (probably increase the rate from zero).

Oh, if the this is your first time  running a Facebook ad, and the results are not good,  have enough dollars to run the ad again because you will think the second time is a sure thing ( this will prove to be wrong but you will do it anyways).

If these are too many Ohs, with less than favorable results, I have a better suggestion, don’t fall into this money sink, either donate your dollars to your favor charity or makes some phone calls (good old sales 101) to potential clients.  Until the next white elephant, happy marketing.

RHL 2/1/11

Much is being written today about aligning Marketing and Sales, a divide which is being exacerbated by social media tools, lead nurturing and new Marketing metrics.

Over the years I have had the privilege of working with some outstanding Sales people and Sales management.  They all have many things in common, but one trait that sticks out is skepticism.  Whether this is inbred or arises out of constant rejection is unclear, but if you scratch the surface of a good salesman you will find a skeptic.

This skepticism comes to the fore in discussions where Marketing trumpets its social media successes: increasing hits on the web site, a new CRM system that allows them to track inquires and downloads, Email open and click-thru rates, etc.  Since many of the charts start at a low level and increase over time, Marketing is looking good, and why shouldn’t Sales be impressed?

The Sales skepticism about the Marketing results can best expressed by the phrase uttered by Rod Tidwell in the movie Jerry McGuire, “Show me the money.”   Sales people aren’t interested in hits, click-thrus, downloads or other Marketing metrics.  What they want are solid qualified leads.  An added plus would be the customer’s potential pain points, as well as multiple contacts within the customer.

If the Sales force has to weed through patches of leads to find one that is worthwhile, then they feel that the work that Marketing is doing is not meaningful.  Sales people are generally paid on a commission, which to them means that time equals money.  The more time that Sales has to spend prospecting, the less time they have to sell and close.

David Merriman Scott recently released a white paper through Hubspot entitled 11 Examples of Online Marketing Success. Each example is indeed a Marketing success, but my skeptical Sales friends would say “show me the money.”  Only one of the examples deals with lead generation, and it relates to how John Deere gave away a tractor.  It does not report on how many of the people who registered to win the tractor were qualified leads for a sale.

I understand that part of Marketing’s role is to build and sustain a brand.  And I also understand that Product Managers are responsible for delivering the right product, at the right time and through the right channels.

But a key part of Marketing is delivering qualified leads.  In 2011 I think it is important that Marketing people don’t get caught up in digital metrics and overlook this important role.  When Marketing delivers qualified leads the conversation about a divide between Marketing and Sales disappears and the skepticism of Sales regarding Marketing goes down, however it never really goes away.

How well are you delivering qualified leads to your Sales forces?  How does this compare to how often are you telling Sales and management what a great job Marketing is doing on building the brand, recording hits, and downloads?

Are you focusing on the right thing?

RHM  1/13/2011

Many of the discussions that Dick, Tom and I have with clients and potential clients center on the lead generation processes and the conversion of  leads to sales.  Most companies have a combination of “older” programs (trade shows, direct mail, advertising, etc.) and  “new” programs (email, blogging, webinars, SEO, etc.) that generate leads.  Whether old or new the recurring question is some form of “how do I do a better job of converting a lead to a sale?”

Under the “older” programs, all leads are turned over to sales, or “qualified” leads that went through some screening process, are turned over to sales.  Once in the salesperson’s hands, it was up to him or her to follow up, understand the potential customer’s pain points and close the sale.

The emergence of the “new” programs and the rise of Customer Relations Management tools and programs add complexity to this process.  Now leads are followed and nurtured until a certain criteria is met, i.e., 3 visits to the web site, 4 downloads of white papers, 2 or more people from the same company looking at pricing, etc.  Then the lead is turned over to sales, who files reports on his contacts, both with the lead and other people in the company, ranking the probability of a sale.  The highest probability are recorded, ranked and followed, with additional resources, i.e., sales management, executive management, being called in at the appropriate time to close the sale.

The CRM tool makers will tell you that their following and nurturing process is more successful than the older process.  Yet we see many companies who employ the older process who are doing well.

Stepping back and looking at the conversion process from a high level, several aspects are clear:

• Today’s buyer has much more information about the vendor, his products and competitors than he has had in the past.
• While price is always important, other elements have significant influence in the buying decision, i.e. pre and post sale service, reference accounts, specific features that match the buyer’s needs, etc.  Conveying these differences to the buyer is difficult.
• Most B2B buying decisions are made by multiple people or a committee.  Frequently a lead that is generated is by a heavy influencer, not a decision maker.
• Reaching all members of the decision making team through digital marketing is problematic.
• Finer customer segmentation is required today to achieve continuing growth.

Our 2011 recommendations for lead conversions mix the old and new processes.

1. Make sure that your web site is current and that you are close to the top via SEO.
2. Understand that the buying cycle will be shorter, and therefore transfer leads to the sales force as soon as it appears to be qualified.
3. Make sure the sales force is trained and/or that there are sufficient SE resources to augment the selling process.
4. Use multiple channels to reach your customers.
5. Use contact information developed by the sales forces to expand the digital process, but don’t depend upon it to impact the sale.
6. Obtain sales and customer feedback via social media.
7. Focus on all high probability sales that fall within a 90 day window.

In short, use the new tools to improve processes that are already in place.

What are your experiences?  Do you think that digital marketing and in-house telesales can take the place of field sales people?

RHM   1/7/2011

Today’s environment has created challenges for all marketing organizations.  First, the economy is probably having a negative impact on your business, which is being reflected in your marketing budget, personnel and flexibility. All of this with increasing requests to generate additional leads (sales). The other challenge is keeping up with and utilizing appropriate new technologies that are emerging daily.

So the real question is not what do I do with fewer marketing dollars (no-one wants to hear this), BUT how to optimize your current resources (dollars and people) to generate additional revenues, all while staying within budget.

There are several ways to attack this challenge. 

• One method is to run a marketing campaign with a specific mix for a period of time (several months or more) and then analyze your results at the end of the specific time frame.  The good news is that you did run a marketing campaign, but the potentially bad news is that if the mix was incorrect, you not only wasted precious time but you have also spent or wasted a portion of your marketing budget.

• Another method is to run two campaigns with different marketing mixes simultaneously and analyze the results as in method number one. The good news here is that you might have gotten some positive results because the two campaigns probably covered a larger “audience”. Unfortunately if neither campaign met their objectives the time lost is huge AND the marketing dollars lost could cripple your remaining activities.

• A third method is to just do the same as you have been doing before.  Given the current economic environment, this approach will definitely be the worst choice as the economy has changed buying habits drastically and the new ways in which your potential clients are gathering information to make decisions.

• A fourth choice is to model your current marketing activities  along with  your goals and objectives, research all the best practices in your similar industries for marketing, create different business modules for the numerous distribution  methods and then integrate all this together and run it against your desired results.   The upside potential is that your might optimize your marketing mix.  More than likely you will have various “errors” in your model and thus end up with less than desirable results. Plus this takes considerable time and resources during which nothing is “happening”.

An alternative approach is to utilize Fire Alarm Marketing’s Marketing Resource Optimizer™ (MRO).  The benefits of our model are; (1) the best practices have been already researched, (2) the various marketing activities have been tested over many years and (3), the newer marketing technologies have been incorporated into the model.

The choice is yours on how to optimize your marketing mix.  Whatever method you pursue, start “optimizing “now before it is too late!

If you would like more details about our model, give us a call (508-643-0411) or contact US

RHL 10/12/10

From an enterprise point of view, Contact Centers are measured by performance metrics regarding the contact center and the agents who man them. These metrics tell us how the Contact Center is doing in terms of efficiency, cost, service quality, and performance.  At a very high level, here are some key indicators:

Business Metrics:

• Revenue Generation- conversion of contacts to sales, sales generation (leads), Note, is the contact center at cost or a profit center?
• Cost efficiency – quality of the agents, infrastructure utilization, call time utilization
• Customer satisfaction – customer’s experience when dealing with the contact center and the agents

People Metrics:

• Abandon Rate-  how long before the caller hangs up  (today the customer is getting even more less likely to wait)
• Availability and Agent Utilization- not just the next available agent but the appropriate agent regarding your issue
• Average Speed of Answer (ASA) – how long is the customer in the queue before someone answers?
• Customer Satisfaction- how fast the issue is resolved with what quality and professionalism to the customer’s satisfaction?
• One Call Resolution Rate- is the issue resolved with just one call?
• Service Level – measures percent of contact handled over a specific time frame

As you can see from a high level, Contact Centers and agents can be measured in many ways (far more than what has been discussed) and the key is having the necessary functions, skills and resources with the correct balance to meet the every growing customer demands.   What makes this even more challenging is that new technologies seem to develop each day and thus new media, new methods or issues come into play for the contact center.

Back to the original question, how is your Contact Center measuring up?  When is the last time you have had Marketing survey your customers, do a competitive analysis to see where you stand, or promote your Contact Center as a differentiator?  

Remember your might just be a phone call away from losing a customer.

For more details on what today’s Contact Center should look like CONTACT US.

RHL 10/05/10

Well, I hope this helps you in your decision process and remember in all marketing, segmentation if one of the first critical step in any successful marketing activity!
RHL 9/9/10

Recent data indicates that tradeshows have been on the decline for a number of years. Reasons for this vary but two are the economy and the newly emerging alternatives to tradeshows.

Now the downturn in the economy made corporations look at expense items and increase their cost cutting activities. Tradeshows were one of the areas that got hit very hard.   It is a very expensive activity when one considers the cost of the floor space, construction of the booth, staffing ( lodging and travel), entertainment, pre and post advertising, lead generation programs, professional hawkers, video production, specialized collateral, give a ways, etc., etc.  And let’s not forgot the potential attendees. They too work for corporations, and their management is doing the same cost cutting activities…getting approval to go to tradeshows is becoming very difficult.

Second, tradeshows in most cases (there are always the exceptions where certain industries, tradeshows are doing fairly well) have become alumni reunions or a chance to pass your resume on to your competitor.   At one recent tradeshow that I attended, I would conservatively estimate that the ratio of potential buyers to vendors was one to twenty! 

The economy probably put focus on the cost versus returns on investment metric for tradeshows, but I think the real negative impact on tradeshows is coming from the increasing alternatives now available.

Some of the byproducts of the Internet relative to tradeshows are seminars, webinars, podcasts, virtual tradeshows, web sites, blogging, user’s groups and live video demonstrations.

The first step for many corporations was to not withdraw from being at a tradeshow, but to cut back on the size and the amount spent, augmenting the shows with some of the above mentioned activities.

This way, there was presence at the show so no one would think they were going out of business and by physically participating some lead generation could be realized and/or a product/service introduction  could be made if it was appropriate.

As the stigma of not attending a tradeshow has decreased, corporations are shifting more to events like seminars, virtual tradeshows and other alternatives. 

So as I have always stated, there are choices and now, more than ever, there are numerous alternatives to tradeshows.

Here are some suggestions on selecting where you might spend your marketing dollars when it comes to tradeshows.

1-      Look at the tradeshows past attendance record, mix, and profile to see how closely it matches your customer profile.

2-      Which one of your competitors, partners or major clients are attending the shows you are considering?

3-      Are you planning on having a major announcement (product, service, technology or partnership) that would generate increased awareness or people to come to your booth?

4-      Will the blend of items like webinars and targeted email campaign deliver a better return on investment (leads/dollars spent) then one tradeshow?

5-      If a tradeshow does make sense, maybe consider “partial” involvement (fewer days, or smaller booth, etc.) and augment the show with a pre or post email campaign.

6-      Consider outsourcing the tradeshow activity to reduce some of the cost and time involvement.

7-      Consider attending the tradeshow as a speaker, with an “off-floor” presence to meet current and potential customers and partners.

8-      Do a complete ROI and potential sales impact on whatever marketing mix scenario you are considering.

See you at the next virtual trade show!

RHL 9/1/10

Note: this article is focused on business to business not business to consumer (spending on items like advertising and promotions are usually greater in the consumer market).

Sales People One primary communication method in the B2B world has been the sales person and their personnel selling efforts, but this method is not only very expensive but does not scale well. Suggest augmenting this with other communication tools.

Advertising’s primary contributions are to provide awareness and provide creditability for the vendor (if you do not believe me, seen all the Toyota ads lately!). It has been proven that sales and profits are better with advertising then no advertising at all. So make sure your advertising first supports the overall marketing strategy and is integrated with other marketing activities. Lastly, if you do use advertising, make sure it will pass the “threshold” of awareness. Too often marketing managers start an ad campaign and don’t run it long enough to create awareness and thus those dollars were completely wasted. So if you don’t have enough in the budget to be successful, utilize the money somewhere else.

Direct mail or email campaigns:  Direct mail is good for promotions, supporting sales activities, and communication to your various channels. Emails can address the same issues with the added benefit of having a quick response or the ability to receive a request or answer a question in a very timely manner.  Again like advertising, one shot will NOT accomplish your goals, you need to contact with your targeted audience via multiple mailings.

Trade shows: Good place for a product or service introduction, speaking engagements, leads, and face to face with potential buyers. But given that, I believe trades how are actually on the decline, so I would highly recommend analyzing the benefits of being at a trade show versus its overall costs.

Seminars/Webinars:  A relatively inexpensive tools, especially if your goal is awareness, thought leadership or demonstrating a customer application.  You can have a “captured” audience and have follow ups with them.

Catalogs:  Are basically dying if not already dead, mainly because of the web and its ability to show products and services in a more robust manner, Web catalogs are less expensive and they can reach a far greater audience.

Social Media (Blogging, twitter, etc.) The use of these media by enterprises is growing every day.  Their primary purposes are for awareness, thought leadership, lead generation and getting feedback from the community. I would recommend as a minimum that enterprises at least “listen” to what your customers are saying about you and your products.

So, again, it is not how much one has, we are all painfully aware of that, but what the appropriate mix is.  You need to balance your marketing communication methods to optimize your returns.   This mix selection will vary depending on what phase your enterprise is current in and your overall goals.  A start-up might use the social media tools to generate awareness and creditability, while an established enterprise might rely on its sales team along with some direct/emails and seminars.

In any case I would suggest testing your mix on a selected sub segment and analyze the results and make any adjustments before going with the full programs.

RHL 8/24/10