Archive for the ‘Sales Model’ Category
Digital Marketing Strategy
Build Foundation for Success
The key to success is to create:
- Clear Value objectives (or Clear Return on Investment objectives or Business Case)
- Clear measurement (“You can’t manage what you don’t measure”)
Value = Total Benefits – Total Investment.
Deliver Value
The Value delivered by a Digital Marketing Strategy is:
- Customer Sales
- Part or all of the sales process depending on sale complexity.
- For Complex B2B Digital Marketing can:
- Create Awareness & Stimulate interest,
- Generate Leads
- Audience Engagement
- Customer/Market Insight
- Is the market aware, Ready to buy? Are my customers satisfied?
- Used for Product Development or to Gauge the Appropriate Sales & Marketing Strategy.
This post will focus only on Customer Sales & Audience Engagement.
Deliver Customer Sales
Digital (Online) Marketing integrated into the Sales Process
Digital Marketing allows niche markets to be targeted at a comparatively reduced cost.
Create Awareness
Use
- Display Advertising
- on websites that are relevant to the product being sold.
- Social Media & Blogs
- to engage with target market, to help educate and to announce new products.
- Email Marketing
- to distribute newsletters, whitepapers to stimulate interest.
- Website
- to educate.
Use in combination with Offline Marketing in the right blend to enhance success.
Generate Leads
Use
- Search (a mixture of organic and paid),
- Display Advertising (on websites that are relevant to the product being sold) &
- Email Marketing.
- Social media (networking and leads from engaged audience)
- Website (Capture inbound inquiries)
Use in combination with Offline Marketing in the right blend to enhance success.
Search has historically been the strongest digital channel for lead generation. It has been found that the yield is improved when combined with other channels such as Display Advertising.
Demonstrate Value using a Marketing Funnel
Use Marketing Funnel Above Sales Funnel to demonstrate Value
Whether you are B 2 B, B 2 C or non profit your marketing activities can be best viewed using the sales funnel.
Marketing at its heart is geared towards lead generation, but can also help in development and closure. The Value of any Marketing Campaign must be measured in the number of leads generated and opportunities created.
A Marketing Funnel may therefore be added above the Sales funnel. The exact breakdown of the Marketing and Sales Funnels will vary depending on the nature of the customer buying process. In general for B2B, the Marketing Funnel moves the target market members to Awareness, To Lead and To Converted Lead which then becomes an Opportunity for development by Sales. In Small Sales Teams, with no specialized Marketing help, this may well be all done by the sales team.
Demonstrate Value using an ROI Model
The actions to create a model are as follows:
- Map out a number of channels whereby a target company engages and becomes a lead, for example:
- Search Engine –>Main Site –>Download Whitepaper –>Registration
- Search Engine –>Blog–>Main Site–>Enquiry Form
- Twitter–>Blog–>Enquiry Form
- Facebook Fan page–>Main Site–>Enquiry Form
- Display Advertising Banner–>Product Microsite–>Main Site –>Enquiry Form
- Create KPIs and predicted relationships between KPIs and Leads generated, for example:
- Main Site Visitors
- Actions Performed (eg Download Whitepapers)
- Facebook Fans
- Twitter Followers
- Create Model
- Predict Customer sales
- Estimate Break down by Lead Generated and Path
- Estimate Costs
- Do Pilot Campaigns
- Compare Different blends and strategies
- Implement most successful on full market.
Initially, Social Media will be all about building awareness but if an engaged audience can be created then inevitably it will generate leads.
Social Media sites like Linked In are used by Sales Teams as part of their networking strategies.
Measurement and evaluation are very important. Every business is different and requires some testing to achieve the optimum blend of digital marketing channels.
Deliver Audience Engagement
The collateral benefit of Digital Marketing strategy is the creation and growth of engaged audiences (customers and prospects). A more engaged audience delivers the following benefits
- More Likely to purchase – A Mature engaged Social Media Audience can be a Lead Generation source.
- Better Retention – more likely to stay
- Brand Advocate leading to referrals and good references
Digital Marketing is Now Mainstream
Value Delivered is Nothing New.
The value delivered by Digital (or Online) Marketing is nothing new. It delivers, or helps to deliver:
- Insight into customer requirements
- Customer Sales
- Customer Service
Digital Marketing uses the internet which has taken market share from Newspapers and other traditional media and provides new ways of gaining customer insight and delivering customer service.
But, Digital Marketing Is Now Mainstream
But, Digital Marketing is now Mainstream and must be a key part of any sales and marketing strategy.
In the US it is a substantial $26Bn business (2010 comScore):-
- 15% year on year growth from 2009 (and 11% growth from 2008 – 2009 declined)
- 16% of the total advertising spend in the USA in 2011 (comScore and IAB/Pwc)
- 25% of predicted total advertising spend by 2015 (IAB/Pwc).
- No.2 in spend to TV. Newspapers number 3.
Globally, it is an estimated $55Bn business (using Google splits of US/International as guide)
The UK it is £4.1 Bn and is about 25% of the total Advertising spend( Enders Analysis).
- 13% year on year growth
- 25% of total advertising spend
Search still dominates . Search is dominated by Google at approx 70% market share with Microsoft Bing at approx 24% (comScore) now that it has done deals with Facebook and Yahoo.
Display has shown good growth, driven by Social Media and led by Facebook. Facebook had approx 40% of all impressions in 2010 and passed the trillion mark with Yahoo next at half that amoun
Driven by the pull of Online Content
The growth in online content is pulling a greater audience online and keeping them there longer:-
- Stores (From Cars to Music)
- Entertainment (YouTube, BBC iPlayer etc)
- News (Mainstream to Blogs, Video to Text)
- Search
- Social Networks
The growth in richness of the online content is enabled by the growth in bandwidth to the home (in UK average is 6Mb and growing )and the penetration of internet globally.
And Online Advertising Cost Effectiveness
And the growth in the sophistication and cost effectiveness of online advertising:-
- Better targeting ( Using profiles on social networks and relevance by search or by product)
- Performance based pricing (Pay on Click through – accounts for 65% of all search advertising)
Use Value to drive Marketing Investment
Use Value to drive Marketing investment
Value = Total Benefits-Total Investment.
The description of Value delivered by the marketing department will be much more powerful if linked to Value delivered to CEO and company objectives.
For instance the CEO may have a company objective
” increasing the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) from £22 per month to £26 per month”
So a Value chain may be created that shows the Value that each department adds to the creation of this overall Value.
1. The Technical & Buying Departments must deliver a new data product for a specific investment
2. The Sales Department must generate a specific number of new sales by converting a certain percentage of qualified leads.
3. The Marketing Department must generate a specific number of qualified leads.
If you are selling equipment for a data product or a means of generating qualified leads then a conversation with the CEO based on the Value delivered in achieving his objectives will be better received and understood.
Equally, the marketing department will secure its budget easier if qualified in terms of delivering Value towards the company objectives.
Creating a High Performance Sales Team: – Sales Model
Use Sales Model with Leadership to create high performance culture
A High Performance Sales team is created by combining good hiring of sales people with Leadership with a scalable sales model.
The sales model will improve efficiency and effectiveness by implementing:-
- A Sales Process (Increases efficiency and effectiveness)
- A Sales Management System (Increases effectiveness with some efficiency)
- A Sales Automation System (Increases efficiency with some effectiveness)
- Integrate Marketing (Increases efficiency and effectiveness)
High performing sales people (stars) have a unique combination of skills and knowledge. They excel at building customer relationships, developing successful strategies, managing internal resources and beating their targets every year. A sales model will take the best of these skills and experience and turn an average sales person into stars.
Read more at Sales Model.
