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3 Glorious Guesses for 2018

Prescience delivers popularity.

It’s why so many analysts, pundits and prognosticators share their vision for tomorrow this time of year.  Predictions attract readership and encourage engagement.

I like engaged readers.  So, I guess it is my turn to take a shot at the future.  Cue up the dramatic music because here we go…Marc’s three most glorious guesses for marketers in 2018.

Guess #1: B2B marketers recognize customer intimacy can not be achieved with a platform. Customer relationship management and marketing automation software make the sales process more scalable and predictive. Yet, it fails to replace the relationship building process required to secure the deal.  People do business with companies they know and trust.  A buyer is more than a faceless and vanilla lead score.  Companies need competent and relationship-oriented sales professionals.

Guess #2: Effective content is elegant and sophisticated. Content marketing shops in low cost, international geographies have done their best to commoditize the product. They offer pennies per word leading to an explosion in volume.  A re-discovery of the impact of carefully crafted prose on reader engagement and search optimization will soon arrive.

Guess #3: Simplification of the marketing stack. Once the industry savants at Gartner suggested the CMO will soon outspend the CTO on technology, a myriad of vendors pivoted their development and M&A focus. The result: a complex and disjointed bounty of applications and tools.  Marketers are marketers.  We’re not technologists.  The stack will thin to become more easily understood and implemented.

What do you think?  Am I off target?  Did I miss anything?  Comment here or Tweet me @StrategicGuy.

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Salesforce and Nestle Show Off Their Creative Chops

Executive management at innovative companies embraces creativity in all aspects of the business – product development, marketing, sales, distribution, culture, etc.

Here is an example of innovation in action from Nestle Waters North America (owner of product brands Poland Spring and Pellegrino) and CRM hotshot Salesforce:

Press release:  Nestle Waters Teams Up with Salesforce to Launch Consumer Engagement Center

Once you move past the PR spin that touts fuzzy brand impact (i.e. “Every conversation about beverages on a social platform represents an opportunity for us to engage with our consumers…”), it becomes apparent this is a mutually beneficial and unique relationship that will deliver measurable value for both companies.

Salesforce will test and evaluate new functionality of its software and related applications, prior to general release.

Nestle creates an environment to demonstrate to retailers, grocery chains and restaurant groups how they drive interest and demand in their products in a unique way.  It validates the “this is why we are special” contention.

 

More than water! Nestle’s innovative partnership with Salesforce demonstrates how the company drives customer demand.

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Social, Content & the Soul Crushing Event

When given the option between a week at an industry conference and root canal, nearly 80 percent of marketers and sales professionals chose the dental procedure.

OK…I fabricated that statistic, yet it is totally believable, right?  That’s because a dirty secret in marketing and sales is that most of us despise trade shows.

They are expensive and unproductive.  They generate names (not leads) that are never followed up on.  And when we do return to the office it takes days to catch up on real and meaningful work.

Today’s trade show is soul crushing like mid-day traffic, bad sushi or smug broadcasters who have two first names.  (Just kidding, Anderson Cooper.)

So, why do them?  I called a group of industry friends last week with that very question and here are a few of the answers:

“Because our competitors are there.”

“Our CEO likes to play golf in Orlando.”

“We spent a lot of money on our booth and should probably use it.”

“We have always attended shows.”

While these reasons are understandable (especially the golf one), smart marketers recognize the dissatisfaction with events can be mitigated through a leverage of their company’s content, social and digital programs.

Here is an example:  during the past few weeks Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) has virtually attended, reported on and promoted conferences hosted by sales and marketing automation leaders Salesforce and Oracle/Eloqua.  Starting tomorrow, we’ll be online for Marketo’s Marketing Nation conference in Las Vegas.

By leveraging the Modern Marketing Today site and community, Strategic raises its profile, attracts and engages new readers, identifies sales prospects and generates inbound leads – all at a fraction of the investment required to trudge to each event.

Admittedly, trade show participation and attendance will continue to occupy a line item in the marketing/sales budget.  There are events a company must attend to be seen as a player in their segment.

Yet, the content and social option has emerged as an alternative.  It’s an approach that is smarter, more effective and less costly.

And there is no Novocain required!

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Homage to the Art of B2B Sales

Signage at the Salesforce World Tour in Washington, DC. Hmmm, “Customer Success Platform.” I am not so sure.

One ring…two rings…and then the third.

 
That’s when voice mail typically clicks on. I always call the corporate line because it is rarely answered. Heck, I suspect many a prospect consciously neglects to check their messages on a regular basis. This is certainly true when it is an automated greeting that awaits me.

 
Yet, this is an essential component of the rhythm of business-to-business (B2B) sales. Establish familiarity. Initiate connection. Demonstrate knowledge and relevance.
These will hopefully serve as an entry point to an initial conversation.

 
Back to the call. My message methodology is comfortable and constant. I mention my name and company brand twice. The person’s name is woven in three times for personalization. And I always reference the soon-to-arrive Email which will include the words “Strategic Guy” in the subject line.

 
This is no smile and dial operation though. Prior to picking up the phone I’ve invested time on the prospect’s Web site, reviewed their LinkedIn profile and reviewed an analyst report or two.

 
Like the call itself, this due diligence is part of the cost of entry. If I have put in the time, my view is I have earned the right for a first chat.

 
I’ve been at this now for two decades; selling marketing, public relations and (now) Web2Sales services to corporate executives who work for B2B and government-focused technology companies. Although I am no wizard, I have secured hundreds of accounts that have collectively generated millions of dollars in fees.

 

 

The Pitcher Gets Pitched
Hello from the Washington DC Convention Center where I am on-site to attend the Salesforce World Tour. It’s a day long bonanza of speakers, panels, presentations and demonstrations all designed to convince the 3,000+ attendees to buy (or buy more) Salesforce stuff.

 

There is talk of the marketing cloud and how awesome it is. There is a shill for new features in the sales cloud and how cool that is. And there are partners – lots and lots of partners – hyping how they can make the Salesforce experience more profitable, meaningful and measurable.

 

The author and friend at Salesforce World Tour.

I am a Salesforce guy, and admire the company for its innovation, integrity and community commitment. A myriad of Strategic Communications Group’s (Strategic) clients rely on Salesforce technology to address their customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation needs.

 
That is why earlier this year I hosted a Webinar that featured a conversation with a Salesforce customer success manager to help marketers better understand what is possible.

 
Yet, the World Tour leaves me uneasy because the messaging Salesforce’s reps wax on about fails to stand up in a B2B context. They make two passionate appeals about the company’s products:

 
1. They make sales operations efficient and scalable
2. Companies that use Salesforce capture revenue more quickly

 

The initial contention I buy. The foundation of effective sales activities is to call on the right person at the right time with the right message. That is the core value proposition of both CRM and marketing automation.

 

Does this efficiency produce sales though?

 

 

The Science of Selling Falls Flat

There are three essential attributes that must be in place for an organization to successfully hawk its wares. And guess what? Salesforce has no influence or affect on these must-haves.

 

First, a company needs a good product or service. I realize that may strike some as rudimentary, yet there are many nifty features out there that masquerade as solutions.

 

Additionally, sales teams must target customer segments where there is need and budget.

 

For me, I’d embrace the feel good derived from helping charitable organizations and not-for-profits via our unique Web2Sales methodology. Strategic serves corporate accounts though because they can put forth an appropriate level of spend to fund our programs. It is that elementary.

 

And finally, each step in the B2B sales process must showcase the credibility of the company and its sales rep. No one ever got fired for hiring IBM. It’s a cliché for a reason.

 

Value proposition, messaging, use cases and credibility are all critical elements of the pitch. However, people ultimately buy from people they know and trust.

 

It was true yesterday. It’s true today. And you can bet on it for tomorrow.

 

So, by all means lock-in a sustained commitment to CRM and marketing automation. Even better if it is with the good folks at Salesforce.  Just never lose sight of fact that B2B sales is a relationship-driven endeavor. That’s the art of it.

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Marketers: Pay Heed to the Siren Song of Content and Social

Here is an attention grabbing find from a study conducted in 2014 by the Business Marketing Association, Online Marketing Institute and Forrester Research: 83 percent of marketers are unable to measure business value from their content marketing efforts.

Depressing and disconcerting…yes! Should this be surprising? No!

That is because – like social media – content creation absolutely, positively does not replace business-to-business enterprise sales. And, if marketers use revenue creation as a measurement benchmark, they are destined for disappointment.

Rather, Web, content marketing, social media engagement and digital communications empower experienced, proven and relationship-oriented sales reps. It makes them more effective, efficient and scalable, helping sales teams more quickly identify, nurture and close deals.

Plus, a carefully crafted and integrated program – commonly referred to as Web2Sales – allows a company to derive more value from its investment in marketing automation and CRM platforms.

It powers lead generation and drip campaigns, while the resulting analytics and intelligence informs lead scoring, tracking and forecasting.

That is a measurable ROI!

For marketers, the challenge becomes how to structure these often disparate activities in a programmatic way, syncing everything with a well defined sales initiative.

Chantilly, VA-based Iron Bow Technologies provides us with an example of Web2Sales in action. The technology services company that caters to business and government customers recently launched a new campaign called Telehealth Education Delivered or TED for short.

Disclosure: my consultancy works on the TED program.

The effort aligns an innovative approach to product demonstrations conducted on-site at customer locations with a well defined Web, content, social and digital presence. Sales resources have also been marshalled for cultivation and follow-up activities.

The take-away here is that marketers must pay heed to the siren song of content marketing, social media and digital. These high-value activities are merely part of a more comprehensive Web2Sales strategy, which, when executed effectively, can provide a healthy jolt to a company’s sales pipeline.

 

DIGITAL EAST from Strategic Communications Group on Vimeo.

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