product / industry marketing 2.0

New approach to product / industry marketing, ensuring future sales success, in an increasingly congested and challenging marketplace

Product / Industry Marketing 2.0

Its getting tougher to succeed!

Harder to differentiate

Copyright © 2011 Jeremy Spencer Slide 2 of 13

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Me To!

Me To!

Me To!

Me To!

Me To!

In today’s highly connected world, there’s rapid convergence of market intelligence & customer insight, any category quickly

becomes crowded with competitors making similar claims.

Harder to communicateThe daily bombardment of marketing

messages in all aspects of today’s world is creating message fatigue and active

avoidance and filtering out of your best efforts

Implications

Marketing ROI & sales success

under threat like never

before


“Business is working harder and paying more to pursue people who are trying to watch and listen less to its messages.” ...... Keller & Berry, The Influentials

NeedGreater Efficiency

(doing things well) AND

Greater Effectiveness (doing the right things)

Effectiveness is the big opportunity

Many organisations are up & running on efficiency gains, from inside sales & digital marketing, but……

For these channels to deliver, they need:– Differentiated, compelling value propositions,

i.e. the Right Messaging– Integration with other supporting elements of

the overall sales and marketing mix, i.e. the Right Go To Market Strategy

Get it wrong and you just create a lot of leads that sit at the top of the sales pipeline, going no where

The right messaging, with the right go to market strategy, make efficient marketing channels effective, ensuring more leads turn into revenue, yet…..

Issue of effectiveness is still at the starting line, (can you name one activity you’ve done specifically to address marketing effectiveness?)


Getting messaging and go to market strategy right, ignites sales & marketing channels,

maximising marketing effectiveness

Efficiency

Effectiveness

Common Areas of In-effectiveness


Customer

Sales Machine(Direct & in-direct

sales teams)

Creative Agencies

Marketing Machine

(Marcoms / lead gen teams)

In-appropriate channels,

Targeting in-correctly

Messaging not in tune with customer’s

perspective / language

Those with the agency relationship not category SMEs,

limiting effectiveness of agency briefings

In-appropriate communications mix

deployed, that doesn’t reflect the particular sales process – one size doesn’t fit all!

In practice, sales tools and materials don’t reflect the needs of

the actual sales process

Lack of compelling,

differentiated messaging

SME = Subject Matter Expert

Product / industry marketing is key to effectiveness


Customer

Sales Machine

(Direct & in-direct sales teams)

Creative Agencies

Marketing Machine

(Marcoms / lead gen teams)

Integrated go to market plan, tying together target customers, engagement strategy , marketing tactics & proposition. Ensures alignment attacking most attractive & susceptible

Bring together insight from market,

customers, partners, analysts and sales to guide the creation of

the “big ides”

Complement marketing brand guidance with

real market , customer and proposition insight

to brief agency effectively

Sales enablement process aligned with go to market plan & sales reality, not theory.

Integrated go to market plan, tying together target customers, engagement strategy , marketing tactics & proposition. Ensures marketing tactics aid the sales process needed

Combine creative “big idea” with integrated value matrix , linking

features to benefits to financial value analysis, differentiation and ROI

Product / Industry

Marketing

Challenges of practical reality


You know the importance of customer understanding - Business drivers , purchase behaviour, pre/post sale needs, etc.

BUT In reality, your view of the world takes over, i.e. your starting

point is not the customer but your product/solution and your existing sales & marketing approach – customer needs become retro-fitted

i.e.

“the cart ends up before the horse”

RESULTING IN

Flawed go to market strategy— Go to market plan defaults to existing sales channel structures and existing marketing mechanisms — Wrong skill sets pitching to in-effective contact levels and unlikely / unmotivated purchasers— Poor lead quality exacerbating sales in-effectiveness— Generate a lot of interest that sits at the top of the sales funnel without moving, soaking up resource

Flawed product / industry marketing— Start with solution / product features and benefits— Go to market theme doesn’t resonate with customer language and key purchase criteria— Benefit messages don’t differentiate solution offering— Customer’s struggle to justify investing in your solution

Ensuring Future Sales & Marketing Success

Overcoming practical challenges and responding to a tougher marketplace, means today’s typical product marketing focus, needs to expand


Today’s Focus Expansion Opportunities

Category Expertise Market Solution’s features, benefits

& applications

Value Expertise Financial value drivers mapped to critical

business drivers Differentiation / competitive positioning

Sales Enablement Tools / materials Training

Marketing Enablement Integrated communication tactics Well briefed creative processes

Solution Centric Starting point is internal with

solution Map features and benefits to

perceived customer needs

Customer Centric Starting point is external with customer’s

strategic agenda Map customer needs to solution offering

Requires additional skills and experiences….

Recipe for Successful Product / Industry Marketing


Financial Analysis

Sales Experience

Field Marketing Experience

Creative Vision

Product / Industry

Marketing 2.0

In an ever increasingly crowded marketplace you need a product / industry marketer that can lift your sales and marketing above the competition. This requires, a marketer with : Sales experience Field marketing

experience Creative vision Financial analytical skill

Credibility, knowledge & empathy to drive an effective go to market attack plan, marrying most susceptible target customers with current sales relationships and capabilities.

Credibility, knowledge & empathy to drive an effective comms plan, aligned to sales activities / process, to create an integrated go to market effort.

Contact author for examples:[email protected]

Appreciation, awareness to drive a creative process that creates the “big idea” go to market themes that will resonate with and motivate target audiences.

Financial modelling skills to build business case models and integrated value matrix that maps customer strategic agenda to features, benefits, value driver, differentiators and ROI.

Appendix


More detailed descriptions of the attributes that deliver product marketing success

Successful Product/Industry Marketing #1

Certain key attributes required, for Product / Industry Marketing to drive marketing effectiveness, in today’s changing marketing landscape :


Situation Change Needed

In-effectiveness Challenge

Practical Reality Barrier Key to Success Key Attributes Required

In-appropriate sales channels,chasing in-appropriate customer targets.

Established sales machine, dictating channel and process approach.

Drive collaborative planning process with sales leaders.

Provide clear targeting & positioning rationale & get buy in.

Lead joint GTM attack programme with sales leadership nominating target customers.

Previous direct selling experience & first hand perspective of sales campaign planning & what it takes to execute from the salesperson’s perspective, provides : Credibility (one of us). Insight to reflect & service real ( vs. theoretical) needs

of sales organisation. Comfort & aptitude to help sales people succeed. Ability to embed easily and support sales process

effectively.

Sales tools and materials not reflecting actual sales process.

Established marketing machine churning out standard set of collateral – not tailored for the various decision makers / influencers in the decision making process – “ one size fits all ”

Drive collaborative and adaptive sales enablement process that tackles the real challenges encountered as sales engagement commences.

Integrated set of tools, enabling engagement with the various functional audiences (finance, ops, technical, business, etc.) in decision making unit.

Participate in early sales cycles and act on sales team and customer feedback.

Previous direct selling experience & first hand perspective of challenges sales teams will have gaining initial engagement and subsequent progress.

Appreciation of corporate sales methodology & how to drive it with appropriate tools and collateral.

How to develop customer insight into the buying process and needs of the key component audiences.

How to translate features & benefits into real financial value drivers & how to map these to agendas of the key functional audiences, to create a hierarchical, integrated proposition and message set.






Lack of compelling, differentiated messaging.

Your world view is driven by an internal perspective of your solution, based on your capabilities, limiting proposition articulation to your view of your solution’s features and benefits , no real financial value driver analysis.

Build comprehensive customer insight to truly understand high priority needs and frame your offering to the customer’s strategic agenda, using their language.

Build a comprehensive mapping of features into benefits, into financial value drivers, sources of differentiation, ROI and demonstrable proof points.

Build discounted cash flow models of the value drivers to determine their true worth and shape messaging accordingly.

Work with creative agencies to distil a “big idea” that bridges the customer insight and the value driver analysis.

Business and commercial credibility to engage customer conversations on their priority business issues, i.e. An ability to bring an external perspective.

Logical, structured thought process to map features to financial value and to build corresponding integrated message flow.

Ability to see a bigger picture and map out future scenarios of market dynamics to craft a motivating vision for the solution.

Financial modelling skills and understanding of financial investment appraisal techniques.

Ability to collaborate with creative agencies to ensure bigger picture / big idea thinking resonates with customer insight and solution offering.

In-appropriate communications mix deployed, that doesn’t reflect the particular sales process.

Established marketing machine, automatically applies existing marketing programmes approach.

Start from scratch to determine best mix for the audiences , type of message (level / function, business or technical), volume of activity and sales process that drop out of the agreed sales / GTM plan.

Work out most effective mediums to communicate big idea / messaging and for re-merchandising available content.

Re-merchandise material created as part of feature/value mapping, financial modelling & sales enablement process.

Participate in early sales cycles and act on sales team and customer feedback.

Previous field marketing experience & first hand perspective of building and executing campaigns to provide effective briefs to marcom teams.

Ability to build an integrated messaging framework with proof point analysis and potential sound bites to drive communications machine effectively.

Media trained company spokesperson, who understands how to engage journalists & drive coverage through business value & differentiation expertise.

Ability to evangelise and drive positive perceptions from industry influencers and eco-system partners.






Messaging not in tune with customer’s perspective / language

Your world view is driven by an internal perspective of your solution, based on your capabilities, limiting proposition articulation to your view of your solution’s features and benefits , no real financial value driver analysis.

Build comprehensive customer insight to truly understand high priority needs and frame your offering to the customer’s strategic agenda, using their language.

Run “Big Ideas” workshops with creative agencies, bringing together insight from market, customers, partners, analysts and sales together with agency creative thinkers to guide the creation of the message.

Test messaging and ideas with early / friendly customers, partners and analysts – adapting and fine tuning as necessary.

Business and commercial credibility to engage customer conversations on their priority business issues, i.e. An ability to bring an external perspective.

Analytical skill and logical, structured thought process to gather a broad picture of market and customer insight to aggregate and distil key business drivers and needs.

Programme and cross-functional leadership to bring together a team and drive an effective creative messaging process.

Ability to collaborate with creative agencies to ensure bigger picture / big idea thinking resonates with customer insight and solution offering.

Those with the agency relationship not category SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), limiting effectiveness of agency briefings

Established marketing machine, either not expecting to engage external creative input or will increment existing engagements with limited insight and guidance.

Ensure marketing brand guidance and solution description is complemented with real market, customer and proposition value insight to brief agency effectively.

Write a comprehensive brief, articulating the competitive positioning strategy, points of differentiation, portfolio and brand fit and possible creative directions :

“Give me the freedom of a tight briefing” – David Ogilvy

Creative flair to seek out and collaborate on generation of a big idea, differentiated message.

Experience of briefing , engaging and managing creative agencies.

Knowledge and appreciate of brand srategy, platforms and architecture.

Ability to form and articulate a vision for the particular solution.

Ability to think through creative ideas and determine their alignment with customer insight, solution offering, brand fit and market ambitions.

product / industry marketing 2.0

Technology