Posted by
Jay Famico on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 @ 11:42 AM
A signature-driven email is a mass email that looks like an email sent directly to the recipient from an individual. This is accomplished by using an individual’s email address, sender name and signature details, and avoiding generic values (e.g. marketing@company.com). Signature-driven emails include the following elements:
Sender: An individual
Subject line: Not a “marketing” subject line
Body copy: Formatted in text and addressed to the recipient. No HTML.
And here's an example of such an email:
Now, let’s discuss the benefits of these emails:
- Improved conversion rates. Signature-driven emails can heighten a recipient’s perception of the email’s relevance and increase the email’s conversion rate (compared to sending out the same message via a company-branded email).
- Workload reduction. Employee workload can be reduced as some personal outreach can be automated so that less effort is required.
- Contact insight. Contacts will often reply and share information when they receive a signature-driven email. This provides the company with additional information about the contact’s interests.
- Deeper relationships. The use of signature-driven emails, especially within prospecting activities, can help establish a relationship between the contact and an individual within the company.
Unfortunately, the potential value of these missives is frequently muted due to their misuse. When using a signature-driven email, do not commit any of the 10 deadly sins of signature-driven emails:
- Frequent use. The more frequently this tactic is used, the less effective it becomes. Avoid using this tactic for marketing emails; if you must, use it sparingly, interjected between corporate-branded emails.
- Multiple sends. When a contact receives the same message a second time, this indicates that the email is not sent from an individual. To ensure this does not occur, hard-code exclusion rules into signature-driven email programs and distributions.
- HTML. When a signature-driven email is in HTML, it’s apparent that an individual did not send it or that the individual used an email template. Send the email in plain text for maximum effectiveness.
- One company, many contacts. As the number of people in a company sent the same signature-driven missive increases, the more likely they will discuss receiving it – highlighting the fact that the email was not sent by an individual. To prevent this predicament, limit the mailing to one person per company.
- No message variations. When two or more of the recipients from the same organization or user group discuss receiving the email, creating several versions of the message helps to foster the illusion that the emails were sent directly from individuals.
- Incorrect relationship. Make sure that it’s believable that the sender would actually email the contact the message in question. For example, an email invitation to a breakfast seminar from a sales rep or marketing manager would be much more believable than the same invite coming from a CEO.
- No sender knowledge. Ensure that the resource ostensibly sending the email has prior knowledge of the email distribution and access to see who received it. Email recipients will reply and call the resource; if the resource is not knowledgeable, the effectiveness of the signature-driven email will be significantly curtailed.
- Bad data. When dynamic inserts of contact information are used, poor data quality can quickly derail the tactic’s effectiveness. Ensure that all fields used for personalization and segmentation are correct and properly formatted (e.g. “Frank” not “FRANK” or “Franky [I think]”).
- Off-hour sending. When emails are sent during non-working hours or always at the same day/time, email recipients come to realize the messages are automated. Ensure that emails are sent out during normal working hours. Also, to help signature-driven emails appear more realistic, vary their distributions by day and time. For example, make sure that these emails are not always sent at 8:30 a.m. on Mondays.
- Opt-out process. To be legally compliant, the emails must contain an opt-out process. Unfortunately, this decreases a contact’s perception that the email was sent by an individual. Several clients have addressed this by including the opt-out link as part of a legal disclaimer, or inserting it within the email’s body content but not allowing the opt-out form or preference management page to pre-populate with the recipient’s email address (this would highlight the fact that the message was not sent by an individual).
While these guidelines can help increase the value that signature-driven emails provide, they do not address the email’s relevance. As with all marketing outreach efforts, if the message/offer does not focus on the recipient’s specific needs or interests, it will generate little value. If your message isn’t pertinent to the contact, don’t send it.
The most prominent factor we see being used to prioritize a feature or version upgrade is ROI; namely, which enhancements will make the most money for the company? However, best-in-class product strategy and management leaders do much more than just the math calculation involved to design their future product or service roadmaps. Here are some tips and best practices to consider when choosing which enhancements to fund for the future roadmap of your offering:
- Look at the enhancement’s potential impact on customer satisfaction and retention, not just potential revenue.
- Assess the impact on the most strategic customers; enhancements that will forge stronger relationships with market leaders and the most sizable accounts should be prioritized higher.
- Prioritize investment by how scalable the capabilities are across the widest set of customers, and whether multiple products or solutions can leverage the enhancement.
- Gauge the urgency and severity of customer needs as part of the prioritization process, as well as the cause (e.g. restricted from performing a function, cannot obtain the right information).
- Assess how the current offering is matching up against the competition and determine the unique differentiators (e.g. features, functionality, service) in the minds of customers.
- Examine the potential impact of technology trends and determine if the enhancement might become obsolete or unnecessary down the road, or might be easier to deploy at a later date on your roadmap.
- Keep a pulse on industry trends and anticipate enhancements based on changes in the marketplace; enhancements that serve to meet new regulations or prevent risk should receive higher prioritization on the roadmap.
- Align to core competencies; the upgrade should be assessed not only on its financial merits but also on its strategic fit (e.g. align to the company’s strategic imperatives).
- Pay special attention to the risks of cannibalizing other offerings, or confusing the positioning or value proposition of other products/services in customer’s minds.
- Estimate how long it will take to get an enhancement to market. The goal of release upgrades is to drive growth; the faster to market, the higher the revenue potential.
- Understand the level of effort it will take for marketing, sales and support services to be poised to articulate/promote this new feature to customers. Do not underestimate this factor – the go-to-market execution is the difference between success and failure.
A common mistake we see organizations make every day is churning customer requirements into future releases like an assembly line, without first considering the business rationale behind each investment. Think through these choices using a fact-based standard set of decision criteria for all investment decisions.
Note that SiriusDecisions has developed an enhancement prioritization framework for products or solutions — it’s a best-in-class decision support tool when building the future roadmap for an offering. Let us know if you'd like more information about getting access to our research brief covering this topic.
Many B2B organizations are taking stock of their 2012 planning process. And many sales and sales operations leaders complain about why the top-down planning process does not work and results in targets that are not aligned with the market’s potential. There are several reasons that I continue to hear (and even once believed) that purport to explain why top-down budgets have no value. I now believe much of what’s stated as fact is really myth. If all B2B companies that made it through the recession or have found ways to show growth are retaining their sales reps, it means someone must be setting revenue targets correctly, right? So I decided to compile a list of myths about top-down planning in an effort to get to the truth. Here goes:
- Myth 1: Senior executives lack market intelligence. The majority of B2B CEOs got to where they are today by spending a successful career in the market that many insinuate they know nothing about. The fact is that CEOs have more access to the best networks and information than any role in a company. Their entire day is filled with meetings and conversations focused on gathering market intelligence via customer interactions, internal meetings and data analysis. The truth is that these leaders are in the best position to understand the market. Period.
- Myth 2: Sales input is never considered in top-down planning. Best practice B2B companies hold business reviews at least every quarter, and many also have two or three off-site leadership meetings throughout the fiscal year. Are we to believe that all that input does not go into the process? Just because sales leadership may not be physically represented at every meeting throughout the planning process, this does not mean that their insights and input have been forgotten.
- Myth 3: Growth targets are designed to satisfy shareholder expectations. There is no such thing as a B2B organization that would be satisfied with flat revenues every year. Growth is what all companies are driven by, and that includes the sales organization. Sales leaders sometimes make this comment because they have not proactively prepared for the planning process by performing an in-depth bottom-up review. Knowing what’s in the pipeline, the capacity of the sales organization, planning for enablement activities to drive productivity, and real-time data are essential to understand what are obtainable targets.
- Myth 4: It’s always about doing more with less. This is a myth to the extent that “doing more with less” is considered an arbitrary or unrealistic component of goal setting. I believe the correct statement is about finding ways to get more out of the resources that the organization has today. Best practice sales organizations are always looking at ways to create greater efficiencies to drive higher productivity. This is not about headcount, but rather about optimizing the skills and knowledge of the people currently in the organization. Next, sales leaders must assess what processes and tools are needed to increase capacity. These discussions should happen before any consideration of increasing headcount.
- Myth 5: Top-down planning is always internally focused, forgetting about the customer. Senior executives know that if they do not retain existing customers and gain new customers they will never be successful. They may not do a great job of communicating this internally, but they are 100 percent focused on the customer every day. Many times their line of sight is clearer, as they move outside the sales process and can focus more on the buying cycle, which is directly tied to the customer.
There are always exceptions to the rule, or in this case companies where one or more of these myths are actually true to some extent, but these are hardly the majority. In the end, debunking these myths does not make the planning process any easier; however, it can adjust the way sales organizations think about the process so they can focus on driving productivity. When I was able to change my view, I saw opportunities to proactively participate instead of feeling the impulse to react defensively to what senior executives might envision for the company. Sales leaders need to understand that both top-down and bottom-up planning are essential to define sales goals and strategies for achieving them.
Just as with purchasing a stock or mutual fund, investments in marketing have an expected return and associated risk. These investments can range from launching a new product to acquiring new marketing software, organizing a major user conference or buying media time. While business managers regularly make marketing investments and often have some form of ROI calculation to justify them, they rarely quantify how likely it is for this return to materialize. For example, many companies use vendor-provided case studies to decide whether to invest in a vendor’s solutions. But these sources focus only on the success stories and do not provide an objective view into how typical the advertised results are. Taking a calculated risk is the key to good decisionmaking because it provides transparency and manages expectations about the rate of return.
As a first step, determine your organization’s risk aversion profile. How comfortable are your management and employees with taking risk? Think of the risk aversion profile as the internal risk boundaries that should not be crossed. A more risk-averse company tends to stick with tried-and-true investments that leave little room for error; less risk-averse companies are willing to experiment with new approaches and tend to be early adopters (e.g. new technology, new product categories). Examining the historical background of your company’s previous marketing investments can be very helpful in determining the risk profile. A typical indicator of a risk-averse company is a high rate of rejection for proposed new types of investments. While this exploratory work might be time consuming, the findings can be applied to a number of investment projects. However, keep in mind that a company’s risk profile may change, especially if there are changes in the management team or if the company starts to take a different business direction.
Risk is an estimate of the uncertainty or deviation from the expected ROI. Some external factors to be considered for risk assessment include the economic climate and outlook, political stability (especially for investments in emerging markets) and market availability. Project-specific risk factors include historical performance of similar investments within your company or as reported by others, vendor viability, residual value (in case an exit is required), cost volatility for ongoing investments and internal investment experience. To aggregate all of these factors, a scoring system can be used with assigned weights for each factor. The rolled-up project-specific risk should be compared to the company’s risk tolerance.
Best practice decision models used to estimate the financial and operational consequences of significant marketing investments have a risk assessment component built in. This approach is not very different from that used by professional investment analysts and includes cost/benefit calculations, probability calculations, sensitivity analysis and qualitative commentary in the form of assumptions. Rate of return and expected risk often correlate directly to each other; if an investment promises a high return, it may also have high risk. Also, a wise investment for one company may be too risky to justify for another. Marketing managers should be aware of these risk/reward tradeoffs and adopt a decisionmaking approach that evaluates project-specific risk not only against the company’s attitude toward risk but also against the risks associated with other potential or ongoing initiatives.
Let's face it, many organizations have multiple Twitter, Facebook and other social accounts that have very little connection with one another. Integrating these and other types of corporate social sites helps to build a more complete network, encourages the consumption and sharing of content, and increases the value of corporate social sites by driving interest and, eventually, demand. Content is the glue that forms these connections, not only in terms of spreading reach but also exposing individuals to the existence of other social properties. Leveraging social content ensures that as many social sites as possible are addressed without expending unfocused efforts.
For example, an organization sponsors a webcast with a third-party analyst. In most cases, the organization would promote the event by leveraging traditional tactics such as email and perhaps banner ads. If the organization uses social channels, it’s often in broadcast mode such as tweeting “Join us with industry analyst X for thought-provoking content laser-focused on giving you greater ROI.” This message is then repurposed on the company’s Facebook page and LinkedIn group, with the same tweet copied and pasted or retweeted by multiple employees. In some cases, organizations automate such tweets, then forget to suspend the automatic posts after the event date. Such activities are labeled as the “social media program,” but response rates are not measured or analyzed to determine the impact of social tactics.
A better approach would be to promote the event as a thought leadership opportunity rather than a thinly veiled demand creation vehicle. This approach should highlight the value of the organization’s social properties as well as driving more attendees. Use quotes from the analyst as a teaser for the event — shorter bursts through Twitter and more in-depth content through other social outlets. Longer content that dives deeper into the subject matter of the webcast can be pushed through a series of blog posts, podcasts and posts on Facebook and LinkedIn. This content should be published steadily over a series of weeks but should not dominate any particular social site. Once the event has been held, post the presentation on SlideShare and use other social properties to drive downloads on a media sharing site.
The key is to use all of the organization’s social sites to constitute an integrated social experience, recognizing the realities and restrictions of each site (e.g. Twitter’s 140-character limit). Instead of following every post with a link to register to the event, link to other social sites. A short post in Twitter can link to a longer post in the blog or a podcast series. This way, as much content as possible can reach as many individuals as possible across multiple social sites. Many organizations object that they don’t want to repeat similar content across multiple sites — even though they have no problem repeating the exact same content for weeks on end within the same site (e.g. tweeting the same post through the same accounts). Refreshing and rotating content with an optimized social content publishing schedule will ensure that even users who read all of the organization’s social sites will rarely see excessive duplication of content.
Sales enablement leaders often ask us how they can better measure whether their efforts are truly making an impact. While there are a number of ways to measure sales enablement, certifying reps is a great way to do it. Based on the increasing number of inquiries we receive on this subject, our clients seem to agree. Here are some key points to keep in mind when putting together a certification program for your sales team.
Certify at Three Levels
The first step is to determine what should be certified (e.g. company knowledge, product knowledge, selling approach). You should then develop a program that will certify reps at three levels:
- Level one: content mastery. At this level, we’re looking to answer the question: “Did they get it?” This is typically done through simple testing. For example, a rep completes a multiple-choice test on the features and functionality of a new product, or on the components of a value-oriented sales call. You determine what constitutes a passing grade; reps who pass are level-one certified.
- Level two: application. It’s one thing to know what to do, and another to actually do it. At level two, you are assessing reps’ ability to apply what they’ve learned in a simulated sales environment – for example, presenting to a group or role-playing a sales call. Here, we’re often looking at both mastery of content and skill usage (e.g. conducting an effective new product presentation), so it’s important that the people doing the assessing have the expertise to recognize effective execution. At level two, the judging criteria must be crystal clear. An assessment guide should be provided to the judges (typically sales leaders, sales managers, enablement leaders or sales trainers) and shared with reps in advance so they know how they’ll be judged (e.g. opening a call using the company’s four-step call opening process) and prepare accordingly (e.g. watching a video that models a perfect presentation or call). This is not American Idol, where the feedback for why one contestant makes it and another doesn’t can seem arbitrary. Feedback on why a rep passed or failed should be based on a combined score from the assessment guide, should be specific and, in cases where a rep does not pass, should be actionable for improvement. If conducting role-plays, where the rep will be selling to a buyer or groups of buyers, the people playing the roles of buyers must be well prepared and scripted (e.g. not to share a certain piece of information unless asked). Allowing the buyer in a role-play to just “wing it” and improvise can take an assessment off track and fail to elicit from the rep the skills and knowledge you’re looking to assess.
- Level three: field execution. Level-three certification involves witnessing reps demonstrate the ability to effectively execute (e.g. skills, knowledge, processes) in the field; this is typically certified by their sales managers. For example, reps might be certified on their ability to successfully navigate a sales call on a new product by demonstrating strong product knowledge, managing customer questions/concerns and executing a call using the company’s sales process. Again, an assessment guide should be used to score the rep to ensure that feedback is specific and constructive.
Some additional pointers
After explaining these three levels, SiriusDecisions is inevitably asked by harried sales managers: “Are we expected to certify all of our reps, on all of our products, at all three levels?” Unless you really want to, the answer is no. You can decide to assess them in certain key areas, such as depth of knowledge regarding a few key products, effectiveness in articulating the company elevator pitch, or ability to deliver your differentiated value message. What you ultimately want to assess is the rep’s “readiness” to sell your solutions to the appropriate buying audiences (what one client calls “customer ready”).
The certification process should not be punitive. We have seen cases where capable reps are crushed after being humiliated during a level-two assessment in front of peers. The rep should be set up for success, with clear expectations established in an assessment guide.
Lastly, we see clients beginning to segment their field force based on “certification gates.” For example, “bronze reps come out of new-hire boot camp fully level-one certified on all products; “silver” status goes to those closing their first deal and reaching level-two certification on specific offerings; while “gold” is reached when reps obtain a certain threshold of sustained revenue and have achieved level-three certification for presenting to a senior executive.
Many of our clients struggle with large opt-out lists that, while containing contacts they’ve identified as a good fit for their offers, are unable to be communicated with due to their current status. The good news: All is not lost.
The first step is to ensure you’re managing opt-outs effectively. This means having three things in place: an opt-out process, at least one person assigned to manage it, and an integrated technology framework to support it. Next, audit current processes to determine compliance with all communication rules in the geographies you communicate with, such as email (CAN-SPAM), telecommunication (do not call) and direct mail (do not mail). From a technology standpoint, all of your systems that enable opt-outs (e.g. sales force automation, services, support, marketing automation) must be integrated, so that when a person opts out of one system, they’re automatically opted out of all other systems. Follow this by segmenting opts-outs according to the types of communication involved, such as email (blanket email or specific communications opt-out, such as events, updates, newsletters), do not call, direct mail, or blanket opt-out of all communications.
Now you can begin focusing on convincing those opt-outs to come back. For contacts opting out of one form of communication, try an alternative form of communication to get them to opt in again. For instance, if a contact has opted out of email communication, you can still call them or send a direct mail, provided they’re not on your do-not-call or do-not-mail lists. To be successful, it’s critical to understand buyers’ needs based on their profiles — including explicit data (firmagraphic and demographic) and implicit activities (e.g. Web, social, response to call or direct mail) — to ensure that you’re providing targeted offers of interest and relevance. Based on their profile, to reduce cost and effort, focus only on contacts identified as having a propensity to buy.
If you receive a blanket opt-out, or over time a contact has opted out of all communications, you can still get them to opt in again by leveraging inbound marketing. The key is to provide relevant content via social media and other third-party channels such as content syndication, search engine marketing/pay per click (SEM/PPC), search engine optimization and association marketing, to provide them with the opportunity to opt in again. If they submit a form with the opt-in box checked or update their preference center profile’s opt-in status, you can legally communicate with them again in the United States. Note that in many countries a double opt-in (second communication confirming opt-in status) is still necessary, so carefully review the laws for all countries in which you communicate.
While working on getting contacts to opt in again, also focus on how to reduce your opt-outs. Do this by addressing the two key reasons people opt out: lack of relevance and frequency. To improve the relevance of content and offers, they must be linked to the individual buyer’s role and stage in the buying process. If you don’t already have a preference center, consider offering one instead of a blanket opt-out. Preference center users can “opt down” instead of opting out by choosing only communications and content types of particular interest; this not only reduces opt-outs, but also increases knowledge of buyer preferences so more relevant content can be offered. In terms of frequency, your preference center will also help segment your target audience more granularly, reducing the number communications required to each audience member and thus opt-outs as well.
One final thought on frequency: Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, track buyer behavior in terms of the frequency, recency and value of interactions they have with you; these indicate their level of engagement, and engaged parties tend to have a higher frequency threshold due to their greater urgency to obtain information.
When someone mentions innovation we typically think of something brand new and, well, innovative. But innovation can also apply to using something old in a new, different and, hopefully, better way. This could be recycling plastic bottles to make carpet or as I'll outline in this post, a new use for a classic marketing tactic, direct mail.
The declining value of direct mail for B2B has been written about extensively so no need to rehash the argument here. But the death of direct mail has been greatly exaggerated as organizations have discovered its use as an effective way to reach the CXO suite through the use of packaged items such as a book or electronic gadget with a clear action item. Our research shows that such direct mail tactics are effective 22 percent of the time with CXOs. While an executive's assistant can toss a letter, a box will typically have to be delivered or at least opened.
Another innovative way to use direct mail is for internal marketing. I recently had an inquiry with a client that needed to better educate their sales team on how some key deals were won. This client had already done the typical internal case studies by creating short, informative videos and blasting these out via email and posts to the internal social community platform. But there was a very low response rate (below 10 percent) and views of the video as well as downloads of the case studies were virtually nonexistent.
To meet this challenge, I suggested they try informing sales of the content through direct mail sent to their offices as few employees will disregard an envelope that comes from corporate. Marketing created a short case study with a link for an online video and printed it up as a one-sided glossy, and then followed up with an email containing the link as well. The net is that the response rate jumped to close to 50 percent and the video was viewed by close to 40 percent of the sales force. For organizations that feel this is an inappropriate use of company letterhead, try finding some of those old interoffice memorandum envelopes — the ones with the string tie on the back — pop gloss one-sheet into it and have it delivered to their desks.
What are some the innovative ways you've seen direct mail being used by B2B companies?
Posted by
Erin Estep on Thu, Nov 10, 2011 @ 10:30 AM
Marc Prensky coined the term “digital natives” in his 2001 essay Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, in which he introduced the metaphor of technology as a culture to which one may be either indigenous or an immigrant (needing to learn, adapt and adopt the local customs). Classifying entire generations as digitally native or immigrant is inherently problematic. The generations most likely to be pegged as “immigrant” are also those from which the technological advances and inventions sprang; however, the terminology is useful as we consider the challenges and opportunities emerging as social media becomes a more established part of the B2B marketing and sales toolkit.
We spend a lot of time discouraging B2B marketing teams from offloading their corporate social properties on “the interns” — that sometimes nameless rotation of young faces seeking meaningful corporate experience and/or college credit. Don’t get me wrong: I think that interns can serve as useful objective voices within the organization — young, creative, energetic, fresh and unfettered by conventional wisdom. But you should never rely on interns for the growth of your B2B corporate social strategy; dexterity is not the same thing as acumen. Most digital natives (including junior-level full-time employees) are not experienced enough to turn your social properties into a strategic tool for brand engagement and demand generation. You don’t hire a nimble-fingered typist to compose your white papers, do you? Just because your intern understands how to use hashtags to make jokes about how everything is #betterwithconfetti doesn’t mean he/she is going to tweet responsibly and strategically on behalf of your organization.
Many digital immigrants are comfortable using social media for personal purposes, but remain uncomfortable using it for professional purposes despite their decades of professional experience. Given this…what psychological phenomenon enables the casual offloading of corporate social responsibilities onto someone who has, presumably, a lot of personal social comfort and little to no business experience?
There are, of course, many other issues with entrusting an intern with your social logistics – consistency of voice and related authenticity issues most prominent among them (the intern population is inherently transient, after all). But this one fundamental flaw in thought, this frightening equation of dexterity and strategy, speaks to a larger flaw in the thinking of many organizations regarding social media whereby the medium unto itself is considered a “strategy.”
Social media is not a strategy unto itself. It’s a set of tools, tactics and virtual locations where strategies can be executed. You don’t go around executing email campaigns just to get out there and make a name in the email space. You use email as an essential tool for sending a larger strategic message — part of an integrated campaign. Certainly a ramp-up period for social media engagement is necessary, during which the organizational competencies, roles and processes are implemented, tested and operationalized. After that, though, traditional campaign planning must be used to guide content strategy, identify objectives (and definitions of success) and set the stage for measurable impact beyond growing the number of followers or fans.
Digital natives may be adept executors. However, to make the case to build a strategic social operations team within your marketing organization, you must have a “marketing native” at the helm — leveraging industry expertise and organizational/strategic insights to forge the organization’s social identity. Who’s taking the wheel of your B2B social operations: a digital native or a marketing native?
Posted by
Jay Gaines on Tue, Nov 01, 2011 @ 12:33 PM
When I began my career in B2B sales, two things quickly became apparent: Selling was largely about relationships, and marketing was mostly useless to me. In fact, marketing actually made my job more difficult. Sure, they made some nice flyers and brochures, but the messages always seemed off; frankly, I also resented their seemingly easy and unaccountable lifestyle. I especially resented the fact that they dared to take any credit at all for my success as a salesperson.
I worked at a large, $1B+ organization and was known for being an above-average sales rep — and a very vocal and harsh critic of marketing. After being forced into a few team-building exercises and some sensitivity training, my employer finally decided to put me in marketing. I think it was viewed as a slightly better option than firing me due to all the complaints from marketing people. Apparently, I was hurting the marketing team’s feelings.
So, I joined marketing on a mission to fix it. I was sure I’d be the most hated person in the department, but instead I found a group of hard-working people anxious to teach me about what they did, and why they did it. I’ve been in B2B marketing ever since — over 18 years at several companies. The funny thing was that within six months of joining marketing at that first company, I started to become critical of sales! They seemed obtuse and lazy. Sales refused to take advantage of our hard work, focused only on short-term results (and their own compensation), and never gave a thought to long-term strategies.
So, in those first several years of my working life I experienced firsthand how different sales and marketing really are. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then in the B2B world sales must be from the Sun and marketing from Pluto, as far apart from each other as possible. So sad, and frustrating, given the boundless potential benefits of the two functions finding ways to help each other succeed.
I’ve spent the remainder of my career trying to figure out how to help marketing and sales work well together. I’ve led several marketing teams and tried many approaches, from compensating marketing people based on contribution to sales performance to insisting that everyone in marketing spend a defined percentage of their time (depending on role) doing ride-alongs with salespeople. While some of these things were valuable, creating deeper understanding and respect, I saw little overall impact on how well they actually worked together.
Since that time I’ve learned that alignment is ultimately about marketing finding ways to make sales more efficient, and sales doing the right things (e.g. properly recording information/activity in sales force automation) to enable marketers to gain visibility into the impact of their work in order to drive improvement.
Especially when it comes to effective demand creation, a primary obstacle to success for many companies is sales and marketing alignment. Now, when I say alignment, I don’t mean that the two functions have to truly like each other. While mutual understanding, trust and respect are nice goals, they don’t suddenly happen overnight; the only way to get there is to first focus on process alignment.
Service-level agreements (SLAs) implemented at key lead handoff points in the demand waterfall are crucial in B2B sales and marketing lead management and alignment. When executed properly, they ensure common understanding and agreement on key terms, lead qualification thresholds, roles and responsibilities, and timeframes, as well as clearer insight into factors that contribute to success or failure. Putting all this in writing in an SLA as part of the planning process will eliminate ambiguity and finger-pointing once programs have started. Keep in mind that the first version of any SLA will not be perfect; it will need to be adjusted as programs progress. Most important is making clear decisions, coming to agreement and documenting the SLA as a starting point for continuous improvement.