Tech marketers face a whole raft of challenges. But one that has to be near the top of your list is proving the value of marketing, by improving your contribution to sales.
Gone are the days when sales reps could just cold-call, confident the law of averages would guarantee leads.The world has changed. And sales teams are struggling, no matter how good the product or service.
Why is this happening? Buyers no longer work in an information vacuum. In the past, they depended on your advertising and what reps told them to form opinions about their need and your ability to meet it.
Today, the amount and quality of information available at the click of a mouse – or increasingly, the swipe of a finger – is both vast and detailed. Consequently, their buying preferences are already well-formed before they engage with your sales people.
As an aside, let’s just debunk one myth. Customers have always been in control. What’s changed is the stage at which they reach their decision. So, prospects are doing their own research (and, potentially, eliminating your offering before you’ve had a chance to make your case).
But where are they going for that research? What are they looking for, to help them draw up a vendor shortlist? What can you do to ensure their research includes your material? How can you satisfy the disparate needs of a diverse buying constituency? And, most importantly, how can you make sure they know why yours is the right solution? Here are six steps you can take right now:
1. Do a content audit
As well as working on new material, take a look at what you already have. Which assets could be repurposed? While your technology may have moved on since you published that last set of case studies or solution briefs, it’s much easier to edit and amend than to start again. And there’s another point to bear in mind. Markets tend to move much more slowly than vendors. So while you’re throwing the ball out further, the underlying market need is unlikely to have changed much over, say, the last six months.
2. Find out what the sales team need
I once unintentionally embarrassed a sales director by opening the wrong cupboard and finding pristine, unopened boxes of old product brochures. Marketing thought they were exactly what the sales reps wanted – the reps thought differently. I’m sure my experience isn’t unique; chances are, the assets your sales reps employ won’t be the same ones you’ve prepared for them. Sales people know what’s worked in the past, and may be reluctant to incorporate new ideas. So bite the bullet – find out what they need, then give them decks they’ll actually use.
3. Tap their market intelligence
While you’re with the sales team, don’t pass up the opportunity to harness their experience. Five minutes spent chatting over a coffee with clued-up sales rep can unearth customer pain points you didn’t know existed.That speed bump in your software? It might have been cause for celebration in the labs, but other factors – compatibility say, or ease of integration – may be more important for users. You can save a lot of time, effort and money in your marketing and sales efforts by homing in on what really matters to your prospects.
4. Do the same with existing customers
“If only there was someone we could talk to who knows our products as well as we do… who depends our services every day…” OK, so you’re not guilty of overlooking a valuable resource – but I bet there are plenty of marketers who are. Existing customers are often forgotten until they need support, but simple surveys, user group forums and those support logs can tell you a great deal about improving the customer experience (and boosting sales at the same time). And don’t ignore your channel partners. A smart distributor can help you profit from emerging trends.
5. Go to market with more relevant content
Which would you prefer? Scrambling to be included at the last minute, or already well-established on the vendor shortlist when it’s time to tender? This is about getting upstream of the problem, capturing mindshare long before you secure a meeting. By the time prospects engage with your sales people, you want to be influencing their thinking – about their needs, and how you can help. That way, your sales people spend less time on credentials and more on proof of concept – and that means faster closing, on more business.
6. Arm your sales reps with social selling tools
Using social media effectively extends beyond your Facebook page, LinkedIn posts or outbound email campaigns. Social selling is about sales reps being in the right place at the right time, so their contribution to the discussion becomes part of the solution. It’s similar to point five above, but on a much more personal level – building relationships to become trusted expert advisers. The more present your people can be in the early stages of the prospect’s research (on industry forums, at events, responding to prospects’ blogs, leveraging mutual contacts and so on), the easier their job becomes.