Company X is a B2B Technology solution provider in need of more effective marketing methods to generate qualified sales leads for their sales reps and account managers. They have recognized the need to modernize their marketing mission as well as include participation and collaboration requirement from other departments to assist in the success of this initiative. They have hired me as an external resource to help them accomplish their mission. Here is what I’ve presented to them after some interviews and an initial audit of their current state compared with their stated desired state.
The Mission
To provide leadership and support for all aspects of marketing, pre-sales and sales, foster great communication across all relevant departments and demonstrate leadership with the overall goal of generating additional revenue for Company X. As your dedicated Marketing Strategist I believe firmly in the concept of The Team and will act as though I’m one of your employees.
Ultimate Goal: There’s only one metric what truly matters – Revenue Growth.
The Plan and Approach
Traditional marketing departments aren’t usually proactive and operate in a bit of chaos and state of panic. Our Team will be proactive, innovative and have a clear purpose. This does not mean we will be rigid and inflexible. The best thing about having a plan is that you can make adjustments as needed.
Shaping the Marketing Strategy
Without a sound marketing strategy we’d be busy doing a bunch of “stuff” and “stuff” isn’t data-driven, process-oriented, scalable or repeatable.
Company X is involved the B2B tech industry. As a leader in providing XYZ technology solutions, we can expect to be ever vigilant and nimble to keep up with changes in the market and customer behaviors. The approach we’ll take is a reflection of our world today. People have endless options for connecting, researching, trying alternatives, and sharing their experiences with others. To that end, we should have a multi-channel, “hybrid of theories” marketing strategy.
To build a marketing machine that is effective we need to be clear about a few things, such as: what specific pain do XYZ solutions solve? Who feels this pain and what is this pain preventing them from accomplishing? What have they tried before that did not fix that pain? If they do not act to resolve their pain, what are the consequences? What is the typical buyer like (persona)? By asking these types of questions we can build a marketing machine based on the answers and be far more effective.
Content Marketing
Fresh, relevant, SEO-optimized content. For example, be sure to appear in the top 3 of a google search for common phrases end-users would use, such as “how can I improve XYZ?” Currently, Company X does not have sufficient content on this subject, so we’re missing out on hundreds of views, which could potentially be customers.
Inbound Marketing
Provide easy, prominently displayed ways to “raise your hand” and request something. People like to do research, especially if it is an easy process and the information is easy to find and understand. To maximize lead generation we need to make everything very easy to do, otherwise prospects “bounce” meaning they will quickly give up and seek solutions elsewhere. We need to have calls-to-action in the right places and presented at the right times in each prospect’s buyer’s journey.
Outbound Marketing
Targeted, focused outreach efforts to generate interest and demand. Our efforts need to be focused on those most likely to become a customer or user of the XYZ solution. We must segment our lists according to industry, region, company size, buyer persona (and more) so we can deliver more meaningful outreach to each subset of contacts and maximize lead generation efforts.
Social Media Marketing
Engaging, sharable, posts and links that our audience finds valuable and interesting. Content needs to be meaningful to the reader, form their point of view and in their terms. We must play in the social sandboxes where the potential customers play.
Supplemental Methods
PR
Press Releases are a great supplement to all the other marketing efforts. This channel is more traditional and therefor requires a different approach. The content submitted for release is a one-to-many, newsworthy message and should be used to make announcements rather than directly promote or pitch XYZ products.
Online/Social Advertising
Advertising is also great supplement to all the other marketing efforts. It is more effective once the marketing machine is up and running and has provided the Team with clear insights into who may be interested, reasons they have an interest, how they typically make decisions and so forth. Armed with that information we can create very specific, highly customized campaigns for maximum ROI.
Events
Traditional, in person events are still very valuable and definitely hold a place in the overall marketing approach. We need to promote and encourage attendance to any trade shows, speaking engagements, user groups, etc. that we are involved with or sponsoring.
Implementing Structure
To be successful and create a foundation for future growth, it is important for the Team to have defined minimum standards and acceptable structure for how we will operate as a unit. We will not operate under assumptions or in a cloud of chaos and panic.
Productive Communication
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- Weekly Team Meetings with Purpose
- One-on-One Meetings
- Interdepartmental Meetings
Creative Processes
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- Brainstorming
- White boarding
- Proof reading
Ongoing Training and Education
The Team will be proficient in the solutions we use. We will place emphasis on using every useful function of each solution. To do so, we will strive to earn certifications wherever offered and attend online, or classroom training courses whenever possible. Although each Team member will have individual responsibilities, we will all be expected to have a working knowledge and be able to support each other as backups so that we all can expand our knowledge as well as contribute toward achieving Team goals.
Coaching and Mentoring
As Team lead, the Strategist will take an active role in continually supporting, coaching and mentoring each Team member. Additionally, each Team member will be expected to provide feedback, support and training to the other members of the Team. There will be an active and healthy frequency of training opportunities to drive this initiative.
Have Clearly Stated and Understood Goals
What can be measured?
As a Team, we’ll measure everything we can until we determine those metrics that hold real value and demonstrate something meaningful toward achieving our goals. Eventually we will focus our metrics on the responsibilities that truly matter for supporting the ultimate metric, which is increasing revenue. A list of example metrics would be: website traffic, ungated downloads, gated downloads, newsletter registrations, blog registrations, “get started” conversions, “test drive” or demo requests, and other things such as social media follows and interactions. Over time, working with sales and other departments we’ll develop additional, meaningful metrics in support of our mission.
Frequency of Review
Metrics will be tracked and discussed in weekly team meetings. Reports will be generated and shared with interested parties outside of the Team on a monthly and quarterly basis.
Reporting
Metrics will be kept in a variety of locations, so it will be important to have monthly, quarterly, and annual discussions about the numbers. Data will come from solutions such as (but not limited to) HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Analytics, etc. and compiled into one report.
Developing Tactical Processes in Support of the Strategy
Define Buyer Personas:
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- Role (C-level, middle management, associate, etc.)
- Users (primary users, admins, other users, etc.)
- Financial Buyer (budget approval, cares about ROI, etc.)
- Demographical (gender, age, region, etc.)
Content Calendar
The Team will have a shared content calendar allowing us to continually preparing and delivering content with a proactive mentality. We will strive to have content completed and ready for publishing two weeks in advance. Depending on the type of content, we may begin as early as two months in advance to be sure and include subject matter experts, get everything proof read and approved and have plans developed to support the promotion of each piece of content.
Content Delivery Types
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- White Papers
- How To Guides
- FAQs
- Checklists
- Infographics
- Webinars
- Videos
- Blog Posts
- Newsletters
- Product Brochures
- Surveys
- Quizzes
Mapping and Understanding the Buyer’s Journey
To maximize our overall effectiveness as a Marketing Machine it will be important to have a detailed understanding of buyer behaviors. By understanding behaviors and seeing things from the customers’ point of view we will be able to more easily identify areas for improvement and adjust our strategy and tactics in support of their reality rather than our “guess” at what we should do.
Typical Buyer’s Journey Phases
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- Awareness
- Research
- Interest
- Opportunity
- Consideration
- Decision
- New Customer
- Customer
- Champion
Key Trigger Events
As we begin to collect and review data, we’ll be able to identify the most common steps buyer’s take along their journey. We’ll need to make note of any specific actions that accelerate their buying process as well as those actions that cause buyers to drop out of the journey. Over time we’ll use this data to optimize our approach and streamline the journey.
Transition Points
Along with mapping the journey and identifying triggers, it is important to make note of specific parts of the journey where buyer behavior places them in phases that pass them from one department to the next.
Departmental Alignment with Each Phase
A buyer’s journey can take many forms. Typically, there is not a linear, direct path from Awareness to Purchase. What’s important is to understand and to accommodate buyers throughout each phase of their journey. This may, or may not, result in departments aligning with specific phases. There may be gaps, there may be overlap. We’ll have to monitor this over time and make adjustment accordingly.
Alignment with Sales
Marketing as an Extension of Sales
Since buyer behaviors have changed over the past decade with the mass adoption of social media and smart phones, the marketing and sales strategies must adjust to account for this shift in how users behave and expect to be served. Most experts agree that typically, between 60% and 70% of a buying decision is completed prior to the solution provider’s knowledge. This means that a buyer may be in the Decision phase of the journey before Company X is aware and engaged. Because of this, it is important to have clear and frequent communication between Marketing and Sales, along with a shared mission, goals and metrics.
Defining a Sales Lead
There needs to be one, agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a lead. Additionally, to maximize effectiveness and drive sales, there needs to be a Service Level Agreement between Sales and Marketing. In other words, to avoid any misalignment we need to minimize any adverse situations that may be brought about by vague, generalized understandings of what a lead is and what actions take place when one is discovered and passed to sales.
Knowledge Sharing and Feedback Loop
Whenever and wherever possible, we should have a communication mechanism allowing the Team to engage with other departments to solicit feedback and continually improve our tactics according to real world experiences.
Competitive Research and Analysis
The Team should seek industry and competitive information whenever possible. We should have a standard method for collecting and sharing any relevant market research so that we can all expand our knowledge and improve our tactics. The Team should meet and discuss any important news, updates, etc. in the market place and determine how to best use that information to achieve our stated goals.
Documentation
Marketing handbook
The Team will contribute to a living document that will act as a guide for how we operate. The handbook will be shared and reviewed and continually improved over time. This will help with sharing responsibilities and also serve as a guide for onboarding any future members of the Team. (this document, in fact, may be used as our handbook)
Brand book
It is important to establish standards for overall branding of Company X and our offerings. A brand book includes guidelines and specifications for logos, how things should appear in print, official color schemes, accepted taglines and examples of imagery we’ll use to tell our story and support our brand. This will be shared with the entire company and reviewed periodically for updates or changes.
Social Media Guidelines
If Company X does not yet have stated standards for how employees should (and should not) use social media, then we shall develop some basics. The Team is encouraged to be active in social media on behalf of Company X, but also to interact and engage with people regarding related subject matter. Social media involvement provides more value when users do more than simply share their own company’s news, announcements and posts.
Process Documentation
Process documents are critical to assist the Team in uniformed approach and delivery. With process documents, it will be easier to cross-train each other and support each other. A process document will be created and maintained for every action taken by the Team. We will conduct a semi-annual review of each process document to ensure accuracy and to update or enhance each document as needed.
