get your head in the clouds: improving green marketing and sales

Get Your Head in the Clouds!Sales and Marketing Optimization through Technology

Christopher JohnsonCofounder and CEO, ifPeoplewww.ifpeople.net | cjj@ifpeople.net

October 27, 2010

Get Your Head in the Clouds

Source: Global Technology B2B Survey, Media Screen LLC

Get Your Head in the Clouds

Source: B2B Buying Patterns and Website Influencers

Get Your Head in the Clouds

About This Session

Goal: Help you increase through more effective sales and marketing for green products

Audience: People in business­to­business salesEntrepreneurs, sales and marketing, business development

What We Will Cover

What do we need to know about today's sales environment?What does it take to be effective in this environment?How can we influence the volume of sales made?

Partnership focused

Relationship­centric

We help green businesses sell more

About ifPeople

Implications• Sales cycle starts long before sales staff engaged

• More people involved in buying process

• Internet and social media are early research channels

Today's Sales Environment

Customer 2.0

• More informed than ever

• Seeking relationships

• Exerting more control

• Expecting companies to engage in dialog with them

Today's Sales Environment

Marketing & Sales Challenge

• Mandate: do more with less

• Technology: crucial but still challenging to adopt

• Insight: Data often trapped in silos and not used in automation

Today's Sales Environment

A huge opportunity...

• Most prospects not ready to buy immediately

• Most prospects not followed up with by sales

• 70-90% of leads are ignored by sales

Today's Sales Environment

0.18

0.12

0.7

Lead Breakdown

%

Discard/DisqualifiedSales-ready NowLongterm Opportunity (with nurtur-ing)

Source: MarketingSherpa

...with achievable results!

• Generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% less cost per lead

• Raise win rates on marketing-generated leads (7% points higher)

• Reduce ignored leads

Today's Sales Environment

Sources: Forrester, CSO Insights, Marketo

How do you capture lead data?• Capture lead:

• On paper

• In spreadsheet

• In central database

Lead Management & Sales Process

What Next?

What type of sales process?• Is your sales process:

• Random?

• Informal?

• Formal?

• Dynamic?

• % 2009 Sales Target:

• 74%

• 78%

• 82%

• 87%

Source: CSO Insights

Sales process considerations• How does it map to the buyer's process?

• Where is the handoff between marketing and sales?

• What is the common definition of sales-ready lead?

Click to edit Master subtitle style

What tools & processes do I need for more successful engagement?

Effective Engagement: Tools & Processes

1. Create collaborative work space

2. Measure and improve

3. Target communications

4. Focus on valuable leads

5. Make the cloud work for you

Get everyone on the same page withcentral information repository

1. Create collaborative workspace for marketing and sales

Prospects

Past dealsProgress

in pipeline

Events, calls,and emails

Staff share information in central place...

...So You Get 360o View

contact infofrom event attendees

Membership staff

Development staff

Programming staff

Fast ResultsLow riskLow cost Scalable

Cloud­Based CRM

Benefits to Cloud  Quick time­to­

value  Pay only for what 

you use  No hardware cost  No software 

maintenance 

Popular Softwares  Salesforce.com  NetSuite  MS Dynamics  SugarCRM  Zoho  ...and many more.

CRM Works!

Average Improvements of 3,500+ Salesforce Customers Surveyed by Market Tools, Inc., December 2008

CRM Discounts for Green Biz

Steep discounts available to certified B Corporations for CRM

75% discount on Salesforce.com

50­100% discount on NetSuiteApply at www.BCorporation.net

2. Measure and refine your approach

Database Dashboard

Web Analytics

What's working? What's not? What can we do about it?

edit content on website

targeted emails

newsletter

3. Targeted, direct communications

campaign management

Capabilities: Segmentation, results track and content deliveryCapabilities: Segmentation, results track and content delivery

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For your relationships to evolve, you must effectively engage your prospects.

To have an effective engagement, you must communicate appropriate content (at appropriate time)to prospects.

What are their needs to make decisions and do their job?

What are their motivators?

What role do they play in the decision making process?

Define Your Audiences

viewcontent

subscribe to content

Product trial

Buy

Refer peers

Defining Process: Ladder of Engagement

High rungs: higher levels of commitment

Low rungs: easy ways to engage

example

viewcontent

subscribe to content

Product trial

Buy

Refer peers

viewcontent

website, pamphlet, direct mail

newsletter, RSS, action alerts, Twitter, Facebook

Case studies, Webinars

Client testimonials, case studies,personalized demo

Collateral to share, incentives to refer, recognition and thanks

Effective messagingmoves people up ladder

viewcontent

subscribe to content

Product trial

Buy

Refer peers

If groups within your audience vary significantly, you can have multiple ladders.

Unqualified Leads

Recycled

Advisors /Consultants

Existing Customers

Engagement begins with people finding you online

Continues as they move to higher levels of interest until they're ready to act.

Some people never move up. That is ok!

A process, Not a destination.

Define Your Content

Content needs to be appropriate to where someone is in the process

Develop needed content before launching campaigns

Grass RootsOrganizers

UndecidedVoters

Requests to hold support parties, participate in rallies, drive others to

polls, etc.

General messaging about policies, hope for

change, etc.

experiencecontent

start something

Obama Campaign

PetitionSigner

AlertSubscriber

subscribe to content

take part

Ask to contact politicians, write letters to editor, forward info to

networks

Info about membership/ services,

invitations to attend events/ rallies

Search engines love new content.

For higher rankings, update content regularly.

Update Content

events

news

stories

4. Focus on valuable leads

What demographic characteristics makes a good prospect for your company?

• C*O title• Company size 

What behaviors indicate strong interest? • Attending a webinar• Trial of product

5.     Automate processes

form submissionssubscriptions

templated responses

Make it easier with tools

Set up “drip campaigns”

Pre-MQL Recycled Reconstituted

Want More?

Sign up for free monthly webinar (ifpeople.net/learn)

ifPeople Newsletter (ifpeople.net)

ifPeople blog (blog.ifpeople.net)

ifPeople Twitter (@ifpeople)

Thank you! Christopher Johnson

cjj@ifpeople.net || 678-608-3408 x1@ifpeople || @nomadslounge

www.ifpeople.net