Social Media Darwinism » Sales

Shadow Pipeline – accounting for the missing dollars

Paul Dunay — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:26:04 +0000

Well its summertime, a time when we turn down the volume of campaigns and look at the business impact we were able to drive. It’s my favorite time of year to reassess based on our stated strategy and tweak our tactics to match. But can you really get a good handle on the business impact in real time? Not really.

Just because you decided to throw an event at the beginning of the year doesn’t mean anyone wanted to buy your solution or even had the funding to buy your solution. Budget cycles dictate this ebb and flow. You get your budget in January and the decision to fund the typical roster of technology projects at your client was decided upon in December. I always tried to “front load” my budget to get the most impact in the first quarter for 2 reasons: to get a jump on the competition but also to stuff the pipeline early so your impact would be recognized in this calendar year rather than the next year when no one remembers your campaign.

It’s a fallacy to think we as marketers can understand the business impact of our programs in a mere 6 month period – after all we are in B2B marketing not B2C. There are no impulse purchases in Technology or Consulting Services. It’s a highly considered purchase.

There are dollars sitting in your pipeline just waiting to show your marketing impact – what I like to call the shadow pipeline. Projecting those dollars that are showing up in proposal volume as a possible percentage of wins (based on historical win rates) is one way to account for this year’s impact.

There are other shadow dollars that are harder to account for that haven’t shown up yet in the pipeline – you know those projects that magically appear once they get to proposal stage! Depending on your sales force and their comfort with your CRM system you may see some of these “fly in” proposals.

My advice is to use this time of year not just to readjust the current tactics in your marketing plan but to also go back over last years plan to see how much impact your team had. You will be surprised but the results but it will also give you a better sense for how you are doing so far this year.

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The 4 C’s of B2B Marketing

Paul Dunay — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:30:02 +0000

We’ve all heard about the four P’s of marketing.

Product
Price
Placement
Promotion

The four P’s were created mainly to describe the ideal “marketing mix”. The term “marketing mix” became popularized after Neil H. Borden published his 1964 article, Concept of the Marketing Mix.

I would argue this killer combo of marketing is mainly for B2C marketing and thus it is best applied to the marketing of products, especially mass retail products.

So let’s take a look at another more contemporary framework for B2B marketing – the Four C’s. This framework is newer, and in my opinion, more applicable to a wider range of today’s marketing challenges.

The 4 C’s of B2B Marketing are:

Content – the creation of a steady stream of engaging content
Connection – connecting with the audience you wish to attract
Communication – communicating with them in an ongoing conversation
Conversion – and then converting them at the illusive moment of need

Since B2B Marketing is arguably more of a marathon than a sprint in marketing – you need to always have your 4 C’s engine going – creating the best content, finding the connecting with your target audience, sustaining the communications pattern until they are ready to convert – this way you have a fighting chance at making all your marketing efforts count toward one goal – Sales!

In the next post I will show you the new 4 S’s for Social Media Marketing …

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Interview with Leading Sales Expert: Jim Keenan

Paul Dunay — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:16:00 +0000

I had a chance to interview Jim Keenan, the author of the blog A Sales Guy – specifically to get his take on what marketers need to be doing to help sales more. Here is his take …

1) Why do you think it so hard for marketers to tune into what is effective at the sales level?

Marketing is “passive selling”. I think the problem is execution and rests in two places. The first is with corporate structure. Companies can do a better job at integrating the two functions. Marketing and Sales need to be tightly integrated with the same incentive and management plans. I don’t see this enough. I don’t know too many companies where the marketing people are on the same quota plan as the sales people. Marketing supports sales, if sales fails, not sure how marketing can be successful. The creative component is the other problem. I get the need the need for creativity in marketing, however all too often the creativity gets in the way of the message. If it looks cool, is hip, and wins awards for creativity, but doesn’t increase sales isn’t worth anything.

2) What do you think is the most important thing a marketer can do for you to help you sell?

Create a compelling story. I think marketing forgets this sometimes. I see a lot of slick, aesthetically appealing campaigns, but they lack a story. Marketing has an interesting, and I’ll admit, difficult job. They have to connect with their audience through indirect, passive mediums. As sales people we get to talk to folks directly. Sales has the benefit of engagement. If we say the wrong thing, miss the mark with a point, we usually get a second chance to correct it and get back on track. Marketers don’t have that. If their campaign misses the mark they’re in trouble. This is why marketers HAVE to be compelling story tellers. If they miss the mark they don’t get a second chance.

It reminds me of the failed Nissan campaign in the early 90′s, when Nissan launched the Acura Brand. They didn’t show the car for the first few weeks. They ran ads talking about it coming, and how great it was going to be. But they never showed it. It was a cool campaign; it had intrigue, and was hip. But it didn’t work. People couldn’t act. The story wasn’t compelling. People love cars for what they look like. And until Nissan showed you the car, it didn’t matter what else they said.

Compelling stories gives sales a hook. Think of fishing; Marketing baits the hook, finds the best fishing grounds and sets the hook. They then pass the rod to sales to real it in. A compelling story is the bait. Sales needs good bait.

3) What 3 pieces of advice would you give anyone in Sales?

Sales comprises of three simple things: Access, Influence and Delivery. Anything a sales person does MUST impact one of those. It must get them access to their customers, the people buying what they are selling. It must help them influence those they get access to, if you have access, yet can’t influence you’re dead. It must help you deliver on what you say. If you get access, wield great influence, but can’t deliver, it will be a one time sale. Knowing this the advice I give is;

1) You better know your customers business and industry as good if not better than they do. Sales people are business enablers. They provide companies with the tools and information necessary to run their business. Extensive knowledge of your customers business and industry or market gets you access AND allows you to develop tremendous influence. 2) Be an analyst. When it comes to your customer analyze EVERYTHING, their markets, their strategy, their competition, their reasons for doing what they do, the solutions, the timing, the results, the plans, the people, the motives and then ask WHY, why are they doing it that way, why that approach, why that strategy, why that person WHY . . . ask it of yourself, and your customer. Learn how to get to why. The answer is in the why. 3) Believe in what you sell. Ya, I know it’s trite, but it’s true. When someone believes to the fiber of their bones their solution, product can make a difference, it shows. 3 1/2 Be creative. Do things differently. Look at them from a different lens. Push back on the status quo. Be as creative as you can be. 3 3/4 – Bust your hump. No one is coming. Out work everyone else!

4) How has the Sales function changed as a result of the economy?

It’s pretty simple. Budgets are tighter and sales take more justification. It’s become harder. It’s simple supply and demand. Less money is being spent on fewer things therefore the competition is greater. The sales function itself hasn’t change. It’s the execution of the function that has been impacted. Those that can execute better at Access, Influence, and Deliver will be successful. I don’t think it’s anything earth shattering. The economy is just forcing people to be better at what they were doing in the first place.

5) What impact do you think Social will have on the Sales function?

Social media IS having a huge impact on sales today and will continue to have an even greater impact as it matures. Social Media is changing the game when it comes to access and influence. SM is providing new opportunities for sales people to exponentially grow their sphere of influence. Social Sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook give sales people unprecedented access to potential clients at all levels. The ability to connect and establish relationships with clients has never been easier. A new form of access is being created. This new access provides sales people with leads and opportunities once hidden from the world in person to person verbal conversations or the invisible conversation. Access to these “invisible conversations” is game changing. My favorite example of this happened back in April where an executive Tweeted about her “over the top” pushy sales rep and then tweeted 2 hours after about the pushy sales rep competitor seeing the tweet finding her number and calls to “pitch.” Get the full story here. I see cold calling also becoming an antiquated way to connect in the not to distant future. SM is also providing sales people with tremendous information about the customers, and their companies. Tools like Gist will change the information game, providing sales people with real-time, relevant information about their buyers, their companies and their competitors increasing their influence.

Sales is all about Access, Influence and Delivery and social media is changing the access and influence game.

Jim Keenan is a Sr. Sales Executive, Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0 Connector, an Entrepreneur still trying to get it right, and a PSIA Certified Ski Instructor for Vail Resorts. Husband to the Big E and 4 great kids. In a nut shell, he’s a Sales Guy and life is good!

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Hey Marketer – When was the last time you talked with a customer??

Paul Dunay — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:26:00 +0000

It’s an odd dynamic I see in play today – in today’s ever connected environment marketers tell me they feel even more removed from direct customer interaction.

As a former sales person, I used to schedule “ride-along” time with my sales team just to get out on sales calls and hear how we position ourselves in front of the customer, how that message lands on the customer and more importantly what the customer is saying in reaction to how we are positioned.

Today I would argue that is still important (and few marketers actually do it) but with the tools we have at our disposal you don’t even need to get out of the office to talk with customer. In fact, I talk to customers EVERYDAY, even several times a day. How? With Twitter!!

Every week my virtual social media team and I are listening to 1000 – 2500 mentions of Avaya plus a bunch of “Conversations” we are tracking (see Forget Audience Segmentation – Segment by Conversation!)

We are engaging with customers and solving their issues in record time providing excellent service to them around issues such as: Customer Support, End of Life product, Highly Technical questions, Finance and Billing questions, and Partner Relations. In fact we even won our first engagement over Twitter – so watch out DellOutlet we are gaining on you fast!

Our goal as a Social Media Marketing team is to engage in more conversations this week than we did last week and have better relations as every week goes by! With today’s tools there is no excuse for not engaging with customer in real time – what’s stopping you?

The photo in this post is from my sponsor Shutterstock – to learn more go to http://www.shutterstock.com

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Marketing Metrics: Rethinking them Again!

Paul Dunay — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:00:00 +0000

It always seems that marketing metrics is a fertile topic to discuss and write about but after reading a few recent Forrester research reports I think they really helped me to crystallize how I am going to be tracking metrics going forward but they also gave me a sense of what importance I should give to each of them.

While not plagiarizing them outright – I think I have adapted them to things I have blogged about before. I still feel there is only one metric that counts – SALES. Ringing the cash register is the best if not the only way to prove marketing value (as I have told you in the past). And our lead nurturing platform has been immensely helpful in giving transparency into that process and showing that value.

But many of you have questioned my outright simplicity of just using one metric by saying to me – don’t you measure Impressions? or don’t you measure Cost per Click?

Well of course I do but do I then email those stats to the CEO? No. But I do feel they have a place in your metrics so let me give you my 3 tiers of marketing metrics:

1) Reach metrics – Web site impressions, page views, radio impressions etc…
2) Efficiency metrics – Cost per click, time spent on the website, downloads of a paper or podcast etc.
3) Value – Contribution to Pipeline, contribution to Bookings, ROI on overall bookings.

So there you have it and these tiers infer some priority to them – reach being the least and value being the most.

I am also going to begin to look at reach metrics PAIRED with value metrics – ex – graph my weekly lead flow against my media budget looking for spikes or relative lift. This could be a good way to prove lift on a media budget for those budget discussions we all have.

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What Sales Really Thinks About Marketing?

Paul Dunay — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:08:00 +0000

Does Sales really care about leads? Maybe not.

If you ask Bill Binch, VP of Sales from demand generation software provider Marketo, he prefers pipeline and bookings to leads. Ironically, as much as lead nurturing and lead scoring can help generate pipeline and revenue, by framing the discussion around leads too many marketers ignore the equally valid perspective of their sales counterparts. This can lead to diminished success for many marketing-led efforts around lead management.

This is just one of the many disconnects between sales and marketing that we’ve been exploring in the series Sales is from Mars, Marketing is from Venus. This is my 3rd such podcast with Marketo in this area. First we started with a CEO’s perspective then we did a VP of Marketing perspective and now we have the VP of Sales perspective. Getting the Sales viewpoint is critical for marketers since lead management initiatives always require buy-in and support from Sales to be successful.

Special thanks to my friends at Marketo for allowing me to interview their VP of sales for this podcast. They use what they sell to create opportunities for themselves, so there is no better place to look for ideas on how to optimize your own demand generation efforts than by talking with the guys who sell and deliver that for a living. I always learn something I can incorporate into my lead nurturing platform every time I talk with them! I hope you learn something too…

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About Bill

Bill brings 16 years of best practice sales, leadership, and operations experience to his role leading all of Marketo’s sales and customer success activities. Prior to joining Marketo, Binch was VP and General Manager, Distribution, at AVOLENT, where he managed the team focused on the distribution market, small & medium businesses, and install base customers. Prior to AVOLENT, Binch developed his sales and operational experience at Oracle, PeopleSoft, and BEA Systems, where he built and managed direct, inside, and channel organizations and ran business units ranging from mid-market business customers to strategic accounts. Bill graduated from Arizona State University with a BS in Marketing.

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Sales is from Mars and Marketing is from Venus – a CEO’s Perspective

Paul Dunay — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Nothing focuses the sales force on sales like a quota. But what does a CEO use to focus Marketing? Can Marketing really begin to source leads for Sales? And how can you really optimize the relationship between Sales and Marketing?

This podcast is the first in a series we’ve set up along with B2B marketing software provider Marketo to examine the classic sales vs. marketing debate. To start things off, we’ve brought together Marketo’s chief executive officer and his VP of Marketing to discuss the differences in Sales and Marketing as seen from the perspective of a CEO whose company is focused on aligning sales and marketing to create a single revenue funnel, as well as what that looks like day to day from the marketing trenches.

Nothing could be scarier to a marketer than having to answer to the CEO. So I give a lot of credit to Jon Miller, who sat in the hot seat in front of his company’s top executive just for this podcast! Enjoy …

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About Phil Fernandez
President and CEO, Marketo

Phil is a 26-year Silicon Valley veteran and has the scars (and a couple of successful IPOs) to prove it. Prior to Marketo, he was President and COO of Epiphany, a public enterprise software company known for its visionary marketing products. Before this, Phil was COO and SVP of Products and Services at Red Brick Systems, a pioneering data warehouse vendor. Earlier, he held leadership positions at Metaphor Computer Systems, Stanford University Medical Center, and Masstor Systems. Phil holds a BA from Stanford University.

About Jon Miller
VP Marketing, Marketo

Jon has the unique challenge of leading Marketing for Marketo, a company whose mission is helping other B2B marketers drive revenue and improve accountability. Jon explores best practices in demand generation, lead management, and online marketing in his popular blog, Modern B2B Marketing, and is a frequent columnist and speaker at industry events. Before co-founding Marketo, Jon was a vice president at Epiphany, a CRM strategist at Exchange Partners, and a strategic consultant for Gemini Consulting. Jon graduated Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Harvard College and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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