At a strategic level, aligning sales and marketing can mean embarking on a major organisational change programme. Sometimes it only happens when there’s a change in personnel at the top. Waiting and hoping for that to happen can be very frustrating for professional marketers ‘stuck’ in a company that doesn’t give them scope to make a difference to business results.

But I think there’s a ‘ground-up’ approach that can be more effective, simpler – and certainly more fulfilling – than waiting for some seismic organisational change to happen.

Every campaign can be aligned with sales at a more practical level to create the kind of programme we can all be proud of.

You often hear marketers complaining that ‘we hand leads over to sales and nothing happens with them’. Assuming that these are good opportunities in the right organisations, the difference can come down to how well engaged sales were with the campaign. Does the number/quality of leads match up to what sales need to hit their targets? Do they know how the leads were generated and qualified? Do they know what content converted these leads? Do they have the relevant materials to help them run meetings or follow up with the leads?

It’s also important from the perspective of your prospects. Does the handover to your sales team feel like a natural continuation of the journey that your marketing campaign took them on? Does the sales meeting or call live up to the promises that your marketing made in terms of the value they would get from taking this next step?

The six steps to getting your sales team fully on board

1.     Make sure that marketing is pitching what sales are selling – and vice versa

There’s often tension between marketing’s desire to campaign around strategic business issues and big ‘solutions’ that shift the audience’s perception of a company’s offerings, and sales’ need to be out pitching things that they know people can buy, the company can deliver and they are comfortable selling. In reality, both sides can learn from each other and there is usually a happy medium where elements of the campaign can be pitching the big vision and providing sales with materials to be more comfortable in strategic conversations, while also creating ‘point’ sales opportunities around specific products/solutions. But unless you work with sales upfront to agree this ‘happy medium’, don’t expect sales to be effortlessly engaged by the ‘opportunities’ that your campaigns deliver.

It’s about mixing an ‘outside-in’ approach (aligning campaigns to audience needs) with the best elements of the traditional ‘inside-out’ approach (running campaigns around what your business is best at and where you have a track record).

2.     Use the sales team as a source of messaging and content

Marketing often turns to product teams, customers or even external analysts for input when creating content and messaging plans. But running sessions with sales can also be highly productive – both in terms of ideas for content and messages, and also in ensuring that sales feel part of the campaign from the start. Here are some good questions to ask your salespeople:

• Who is your best customer? What makes them unique?
• Can you talk through some recent deals that you’ve won? How did they come in as a prospect? Why did we win?
• And some deals that you’ve lost – why did we lose? Who/what did they go with instead?
• What alternatives do prospects have? What solutions do they typically have in place, what are the consequences of doing nothing, what’s the competitive landscape?
• Are there any specific elements of the overall solution that you use as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to open up wider deals?
• What kind of questions/issues are buyers typically struggling with in the first sales meetings?
• What do you typically talk through in your first sales meetings?
• If you were approaching someone ‘cold’ and making the case about why they should meet you, what would you say?
• Are there any resources/presentations that you think work best as leave-behinds/prompts that move people along the sales process?

3.     Properly define what makes a ‘lead’ relevant to sales and how many they need

It’s not just about handing over BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timescale) qualified leads to sales. Sales may actually want something completely different – a smaller number of earlier stage opportunities with named accounts, coupled with better market intelligence and relationships for the future.

Try to:

• Uncover potential opportunities within named accounts that sales weren’t actively working;
• Build intelligence across all named accounts and strengthen relationships with decision-makers;
• Nurture the wider addressable market with the goals of building a long-term reputation and mapping the potential for future years to support a re-alignment of the sales team.

Marketers also need to be confident setting the right targets, which involves asking some tough questions (it’s surprising how many sales teams may not readily know the answers!). What’s the business target? How many deals are needed? What’s the typical conversion rate (and what will the conversion rate be for the type of lead defined above)?

4.     Understand what resources sales are really using

We need to understand what assets and resources sales will find most useful both to generate their own meetings and use during/after the meetings that are booked.

We researched ten salespeople from one of our clients and these waere their top four requests:

• More proactive content about where the company is going in the future – a video or one sheet summary;
• Fewer, more targeted presentations with standard templates;
• Information on competitors and how they are better (supported with examples);
• More case studies and creative examples.

5.     Brief sales on the campaign plan, calls to action and content.

And keep briefing them as the rollout happens. Include links to relevant campaigns/content with leads that are handed over so they can see the materials that prospects have already received. Also, supply ideas of presentations they can use for their next steps.

On a recent European campaign we even included a tool that helped Sales search for relevant content or tools according to the kind of meeting they were going to.

6.     And, of course, your sales and account teams are also a channel to market

Leverage the social media profile of the sales team; they can pull through blogs and SlideShare presentations to their LinkedIn profiles, and you can prompt them with ideas of content/views to share on twitter or in LinkedIn groups. If sales are fully engaged with a campaign, they’ll also be taking the proposition direct to their best prospects. One of the big wins of your campaign could be how well educated sales are on the proposition and audience issues it solves.

In summary, for every external campaign there’s an equivalent internal programme to engage sales that is just as important. You can generate all the leads in the world, but if sales aren’t engaged or equipped to follow them up then it can easily come to nothing.

Tom Upfold, one of our very own senior copywriters, was invited to take part in a live, online Q&A with The Guardian this month on how to start a career in zoo keeping…only joking, copywriting.

He joined a panel of enthusiastic and experienced copywriters from around the UK to give their advice and opinion on questions put to them from budding copywriters looking to break into the industry.

Questions poised included: ‘What other worlds are copywriters used in other than marketing?’, ‘What should my portfolio comprise?’, ‘Is there any specific training or qualifications I should get?’ and ‘How do I go about getting work as a freelancer?’

The full discussion can be followed here – http://careers.guardian.co.uk/copywriting-careers – but Tom is always on hand to chat with anybody looking for an insight into life as a copywriter. Just email Tupfold@themarketingpractice.com.

“Content is King” – but maybe it’s time to consider regicide?

Wading through the morass of predictions for B2B marketing in 2012 (#irony), you can’t move for hearing that “content is King”. But I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that there’s already a near-overwhelming weight of content out there competing for my attention. At some stage you have to switch off and trust a few sources and people in your network to bring you the best of the content – or that you’ll stumble across what you need while searching on a topic.

I certainly don’t disagree with the objectives behind content marketing – it’s just that I think it’s becoming too easy and too mechanical (heard a good comment recently about the limitations of a ‘white paper factory’ approach).

So we need to be looking for what’s next – finding another dimension to add to our content marketing that will keep it ahead of the pack.

I think there’s an answer that’s about creating ‘experiences’ over and above individual pieces of content. Content can be useful; an experience can be engaging. Experience is more likely to contribute to a lasting reputation for your brand in the mind of the prospect. And at the same time, hopefully an experience is more likely to prompt a prospect to take a next step with you (proposing this next step can even be part of the ‘experience’).

I’m aware that ‘experience’ might sound a bit vague, so here’s an attempt to define what I mean.

At one level, it could be simply about content that invites audience contribution or that they can interact with. Or about having what would pass as a proper ‘journalistic’ story (the opposite of the ‘white paper factory’ approach). Experience is also a useful way of thinking about the journey that prospects (and then customers) take with your business. Differentiating with this journey can be just as important as differentiating your core product or service.

But at a specific campaign level, the most successful programmes that I’ve seen in the last couple of years have been about actually ‘doing’ something rather than just talking about it. There’s a great example in what O2 Enterprise (disclosure: our client) has done to take it’s ‘Joined Up People’ (think ‘flexible working+’) proposition to market. Rather than create lots of theoretical marketing collateral about the proposition, they’re sharing the story of how O2 itself has implemented it and the benefits they’re seeing. This coverage does a great job of summarising how different the approach is.

“It’s rather refreshing to see a big tech company actually do this kind of thing rather than just talk about it. It most certainly makes the conversation with other enterprises highly authentic, given that o2′s done it all itself.”

When we look back at the end of 2012, I’m sure that the content marketing programmes that stand out will be the ones that head in this direction of being ‘experiences’.

If you’re wondering where to look for an idea of an experience to create for your market: it’s where your expertise intersects with the audience’s interest. There’s only limited point in making a noise about something that you can’t sell to – and no point at all making a noise about something the audience isn’t interested in.

Why have 1 in 5 buyers been put off a supplier by information found through social media? This presentation gives a special focus on the critical issue of trust that came up in our decision-maker research on social media (see here for the full research overview).

In April, we researched 100 UK decision makers’ social media attitudes and behaviours. The findings have made for interesting reading, confirming some suspicions but surprising us in other areas. Above all, they’re intended as prompts in terms of important considerations when planning social media engagement.

You can read the results as both supporting the importance of social media and illustrating why it can’t succeed on its own:

For: We’ve seen that half of decision makers feel that suppliers should be active within social media, and that a surprising number have met and given business to suppliers following a first interaction via social media.

Against: But the influence of social media dips at some key stages of the buying cycle, and more traditional channels are becoming seen as more valuable than ever before in the face of ‘overwhelming’ digital interactions.

To summarise our conculsions:

Social media has reached a point where it is almost universally used, but is at its most effective alongside other channels – hopefully we have reached the stage where it can be sensibly considered as an element of any wider marketing strategy rather than hyped as a standalone silo…

If you are interested in any further information from the full findings (over 20 different question areas and variations by size of organisation/age/job function), please contact peverett@themarketingpractice.com.

I’ll start with an example. A couple of years ago, a company approached us with a single, clear requirement – the marketing team wanted 150 BANT qualified leads within 6 months. (BANT is shorthand for a decision-maker who has a defined Budget, the right level of Authority, a clear Need for the solution, and a Timescale for the project.)

This kind of detailed qualification is often important when dealing with ‘commodity’ purchases and is increasingly used when trying to industrialise the handover between Marketing and Sales (often the case with marketing automation systems). But in this example, the BANT qualification was being applied to multi-million pound IT programmes, and it’s a great illustration of the kind of issues facing lead scoring and qualification for complex B2B sales.

Where’s the downside of handing over a lead when it gets to the ‘BANT’ stage?

Well, if you have a high-value proposition – or if you have a commodity proposition but want to shift to a value-sell – then by the time they reach this stage, the prospect will probably already have been working with one of your competitors to define their needs and a potential solution. There’s every chance you’ll be making up the numbers at RFP stage and Sales or Business Development will have an uphill battle to prove your competitive value.

If you really talk to Sales leaders in these businesses, they usually want a broader mix of opportunities for their teams. It’s good to have some highly qualified leads (less time to the potential close, less effort required, very useful to give to new people in the sales team), but it’s also important to have the earlier stage pipeline too (often these become the biggest value deals as they have the chance to work with the prospect to define the solution, and for a similar reason they can have a higher conversion rate once they become competitive).

If you’re handing leads over manually to Sales, this isn’t too complex. Have an honest conversation about what kind of organisations they’re most interested in (or analyse existing customer information if you have the opportunity to get more scientific!), what kind of people they talk to early in deals, and what the signs are that they are interesting to take further. Then talk through leads as they are handed over to refine the picture of what makes a good or bad early-stage opportunity.

There are two main challenges that we see when using automation to hand over early-stage opportunities:

1. Setting up marketing automation scoring or lead ranking with a model to flag likely prospects at an earlier stage where you’re able to shape the deal. The scoring models will probably need frequent adjustment based on feedback from Sales, but the general idea is to score based on activity (how frequently a person has responded or accessed what kinds of information in how short a timeframe) as much as specific information (e.g. job roles or budgets). Looking for related information, I found this great story on Eloqua’s blog (”But What if I Want to Follow Up on ‘D’ Leads?“) with another angle on why sales people want access to early stage leads and how difficult it is to get lead scoring right. It’s exactly these kind of human factors that muddy the waters of automation.
2. Supporting joint working between Sales and Marketing. It’s inevitable that if you are trying to uncover earlier stage opportunities, then some (however good your lead scoring) won’t be right for Sales to keep hold of. Which makes it very important that they can hand prospects back into the Marketing process (avoiding the infamous leaky funnel). It’s another argument for tighter integration of Sales and Marketing people and systems.

It’s still all about the marketing, not just about the systems…

But actually, the bigger marketing challenge is a counter-intuitive one and doesn’t relate to systems or automation at all. Earlier stage leads are often simply harder to engage with than BANT qualified ones. Once they have a budget and project timescales, people tend to be more willing to give up their time to talk to relevant suppliers and are busy searching online for information. But if you’re looking for the opportunity to raise a potential issue with a prospect before they’ve properly defined a solution, then you really need good ammunition delivered in the right way to make a successful claim on their time.

The best marketing automation system, with the most appropriate nurture tracks and lead scoring, is nothing without the content, targeting and proposed next step that can bring the next opportunity to life.

Forrester’s recent research (’How Managing Leads Pays Off In A Stronger, More Qualified Pipeline‘ – registration required) makes for interesting reading. Sponsored by marketing technology vendor Silverpop, the research is based on interviews with 15 senior B2B marketers in the US.

The interviewees paint a consistent and compelling picture of what lead management can deliver:

• Healthier pipelines (both better qualified and higher in volume as more leads are nurtured through to opportunities)
• More accountable marketing (consistently planned, measuring the right things and drawing out valuable intelligence)
• Greater efficiencies (more re-use of content, smarter contact strategies, less blanket comms)
• More appropriate communications (a better experience for customers and prospects)

What’s particularly refreshing (for a paper sponsored by a technology provider) is how much emphasis is given to getting the lead management and content creation process right before selecting the technology platform to use.

It’s exactly as we’ve seen across long term lead nurturing and relationship programmes – the technology is essential (whether that’s Salesforce or Siebel, Eloqua or Silverpop or even just Excel) but there are so many other factors that need to be considered first:

• Building the necessary alignment with sales
• Setting valid goals and designing the overall process
• Understanding the audience (to reach them, meet their needs, and score them)
• Creating the content that will make a difference to the audience
• Designing the campaign components to distribute the content (and mapping these into communication flows that take contacts on the right journey)
• Defining how issues like data quality and sales handover (in both directions) will be managed in the ongoing programme

After all of these (and there are several useful models to consider in the report), comes the right technology solution. There’s rarely just a single answer – far more often it comes down to the ability to integrate different platforms to make the desired process possible.

One major element that the report begins to highlight is the importance of the human factor. In our experience, there are very few processes that can be fully automated – this is where the ideal lead management process needs to account for things like efficiently handling inbound responses and making the most of opportunities for personal interaction like initial sales workshops. Above all,  it demands a new skill-set from B2B marketers to conceive, deliver and operate a lead management process.

Smurfs may be great gardeners, but would they make it in B2B marketing? With this whole ’spot the difference’ idea, they’ve clearly bought into the common marketing principle of ‘differentiate or die’. But is that just qualifying them out of potential deals?

[/end tenuous Smurf analogy/]

I’m worried that many people (me included, too often) put too much faith in the ‘differentiate or die’ message. It can lead us to try and create USPs at a point in the sales cycle when we should be concentrating on answering customer needs. Just because competitors also answer these needs, doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t talk about it too.

Take an example: let’s say there are lots of companies acknowledging a need for your kind of solution (some in the sweet spot where you really do have better features than the competition) – but there are two or three big names always getting on the shortlist for the RFP.

Now, do you really need marketing to differentiate yourself from the big three? Or is the issue actually that people see them as exactly placed to answer their needs and perceive you as too different already (or don’t see you at all)?

Perhaps there’s an argument that marketing up to the point of the RFP should be all about ‘me too’ – we have a great client list (like them), we have delivered great results (like them), we have features x,y,z (like them)…

The chances are that knowledge of what one of the big competitors can do is already helping the prospect to shape their RFP  – so the only thing you’re going to achieve with differentiation is to discount yourself from the deal. This obviously isn’t a hard and fast rule (and would I imagine vary according to market and product maturity), but should be food for thought before we jump to look for a USP to market around rather than a clear customer need.

Of course, if the competition is bigger than you, then you will need one kind of differentiation – not necessarily to do with what you say, but all to do with how/where you say it. They’ll own various saturated marketing channels (think Google AdWords, tradeshows/exhibitions, industry publications, analyst activity…) – but it’s your opportunity to get smart and targeted with your direct communications to really deliver that ‘me too’ message in a way that gets ‘me too’ onto the shortlist…

And once you’re on that shortlist and having your sales meetings – that’s the time to really stick it to the competition (and your sales team need all the support they can get to highlight the places where your product/service differentiators meet the pain points of the prospect).

But start the differentiation too soon and you’ll end up needing to create a whole new market before anyone will buy from you (which is a great challenge to have, if you’re up for the fight!).

So, anyway, have you spotted the 5 differences in the smurf picture? Go here to see if you got it right!

The Marketing Practice is six years old today. It’s really important to celebrate such milestones, so we had a birthday party. After much cake and champagne, many balloons, cards, party bags and a pick and mix bar featuring flying saucers and flumps we’re all off home with sugar shock.

As well as thinking proudly about what a talented group of people we have here, we’ve been reflecting on the past 6 years’ marketing campaigns today. We’ve run literally thousands of B2B campaigns over the last 624 weeks. Whilst communication channels and industry buzzwords come and go the fundamentals of great campaigning haven’t changed.

One-off, knee-jerk campaigns run in response to an immediate derth of sales leads never prove as successful as a considered, long-term approach. You are building a lifelong relationship with people and companies, it can’t be done in a matter of days or weeks. 

Building a reputation is a bit like making a friend for life – it take time and it can’t be rushed. Relationship programmes like Fujitsu’s Executive Discussion Evenings are a great example of a far-sighted flagship campaign designed to generate sales opportunities today, and create an easier selling environment tomorrow.

This week the Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth (which explores words and the way they are used) explored the language of the medical profession. During a debate, one commentator made the point that doctors tend not to mix outside a medical setting, and that this affected their use of language.

He went on to quote a scientific study which showed that medical students communicated better when they entered medical school than when they left it.

The commentator said that whilst the students showed empathy and common sense at the beginning of medical school, at the end they based judgements purely on their skills and disease knowledge.

I wondered whether the same sometimes happens to us B2B marketers.

I think we sometimes become so wrapped up in the language and the process of marketing that we forget about what really matters – the living, breathing person we are trying to influence. The person that’s right now sitting in their office, creating a presentation, rushing to catch the train, searching for information on the web.  And above all, the person looking for ways to achieve their goals.

Whilst the “B” in B2B is important, we can get all too focused on industries and accounts. Too often we forget that empathy individuals is what creates marketing that actually works.