The two largest learning’s from watching hundreds of programs and campaigns work, fail or just exist is that we, as a technology BtB marketing industry, do not pay adequate attention to what matters to customers outside our immediate areas of expertise. We hope that as 2010 planning and execution looms we can garner some insights from the list of assessments below. Some are as small as a tweet, others maybe fall into the IM category and still others are more questions than answers.
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The constant row for resources is invariable driven around the new versus established customers or communications, versus demand generation or even infrastructure investments for lower cost communications going forward (social media, CRM), versus marketing for the now. These debates are hardened by the skills and philosophies of those in each camp (hunters for new accounts and farmers for established business), infrastructure builders for CRM and demand generation swat teams for the now.
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November 9, 2009 | Tags:
marketing skills, planning
By John Steinert
In the two previous entries, I talked about the importance in building momentum of getting internal teams working together (e.g. marketing and sales; headquarters and field). I hope that resonated with colleagues living with the daily challenges of fragmentation and silo-ing. I also hope that many of you said “hey, this is all beside the point, we’re really supposed to be focused on the customer”. Ain’t that the truth? But it’s easier said than done.
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November 2, 2009 | Tags:
marketing skills, planning
By John Steinert
There is a great deal of interest these days in pursuing both strategic consistency and potential savings in marketing by centralizing many activities. Done wisely and carefully, I have seen a number of these efforts realize real quantifiable improvements on both the cost and the effectiveness sides of the equation. Building on the theme introduced in the first entry of this series (Read the Chart from Right to Left), here I want to move from discussing the interconnection of marketing and sales in general to the specific case of the headquarters/region connection. If we support the idea that as companies improve their strategic focus, specialization and eventually centralization makes sense for certain activities, we must also recognize that there are limits and there are certainly pitfalls to be avoided. Since the theme of this entire series is “Momentum”, let’s open the discussion there.
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October 14, 2009 | Tags:
marketing skills, planning
-By John Steinert
You’re on the same team! Get focused, Collaborate, Read the Chart Right to Left
There may have been a time when marketing strategies and sales strategies could be very different and still make perfect sense for your company. These days, if it doesn’t resonate with the sales organization, it’s going to be really, really hard to sustain in the budget. So why even try? Why not simply focus on creating the outputs from your marketing organization that are clearly necessary to drive sales? Why not agree that the plans are clearly and transparently aligned?
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This is not some form of extreme sport to be shown on the ESPN farm sports channel 650, but rather it is the concept that marketing proficiency going forward is far more about corralling the right components together than one shinning action. This video is a lovely visual that you can use to describe your job in a clear metaphor to disbelieving product and sales managers.
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June 16, 2009 | Tags:
marketing skills, planning
We are about to enter calendar Q3 and the proverbial second half of the year. A number of us may already have planned for the rest of the year, however, the vast majority of our client partners who now plan quarterly have some tough decisions to make. There is no simple USA Today headline here, but best practices show we need to take a step back and think about four major decisions. We have talked about some core rules and approaches for managing out of the recession as far back as January (Enough of the recession! Build now for the future in BtB marketing: 8 customer observations we must use to rebuild for now and the future (Part 1)). It may have appeared flagrantly optimistic then, or even irresponsible, but reengineering for a recovery takes time (possibly two or more quarters). We would still recommend clicking on the hyperlink and quickly rereading this one.
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May 27, 2009 | Tags:
planning, recessions
Well, it might sound like we are lifting our heads from the trenches of a recession too early, but we are clearly seeing signs of recovery questions. For example, here are the top three we have received in the last three to four weeks:
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Like billions of school children around the world I dreaded the day when I had to bring home my school report card. Unlike the millions who did well, mine was at best a mixed bag and at worst a consistently weak story. One year, dreading my father’s reaction (verbal and never physical), I “accidentally” lost my report card near the corner store. As luck would have it, some well meaning school colleague handed it in and the shop owner stuck it facing outward for the world (OK, Llanedeyrn Road in Cardiff, Wales) to see. The humiliation may well have spurred me later in life but at the time it was more embarrassing than admitting I listened to music by David Cassidy.
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Sacrilege you might be saying as PowerPoint has become like a warm and comforting place for us all. Pretty colors, transitions, moving slides from one deck to the other. In the current climate we need to have change. This is exactly why we have to pick and choose differing visual methods. In moments of crisis the tendency is to rely on standard methods for agreement and expression.
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