Total Marketing Solutions

We’ve recently come across an interesting report published by Marketing Week in conjunction with SAS UK. The report follows in-depth surveys amongst over 500 marketing decision-makers last October so identify their current plans regarding marketing spend and their take on future trends. It makes for very interesting reading indeed. Whilst seven out of 10 of the marketers surveyed stated that they expect this year to represent a significant opportunity to capture market share and to grow, only 45% of those surveyed are convinced that their company can adapt to some of the changes it will face, but not be in a position to adapt to all of them. The report highlights that danger that, having managed to survive an uncertain past, marketing has still not learned how to plan for an uncertain future.

The report goes on to show that whilst many marketing professionals and those responsible for marketing within their organisation have come to terms with some of the major changes in marketing conditions during the last year or so, many have yet to grasp the significant changes in how marketing itself has changed. Multichannel routes to market are now embedded in the marketing mix and like it or not - they’re here to stay, or rather to continuously develop and mutate and change the marketing landscape. Worrying, however, is the fact that marketers themselves are continuing to struggle with their capabilities across such a wide range of potential marketing channels. The report also claims that marketers’ skills are developing more slowly than the role these diverse channels are increasingly playing. The report concludes that as changes to the market are a constant, then marketing itself needs to be able to keep up and change too.

We’ve highlighted in previous blogs the importance for many small to medium-sized companies of using a CRM system to streamline and maximise their sales effectiveness. But for some companies, having taken the plunge and bought a new system, their sales remain sluggish and the CRM system is regarded as more of a hindrance than a dynamic potential help to improving sales performance. So where could it be going wrong?

1. Clear definition of each stage of the sales process. It might sound obvious but if each stage of the sales process isn’t clearly defined, then how can an opportunity move through the next phase of the sales process? Check with your sales team that each phase - and it might be different depending on the product, service or sector - is identified and clearly integrated into the CRM system. Otherwise your CRM is nothing more than a rather elaborate diary.

2.  If you already have a clearly defined sales process but the CRM still isn’t working for you, check that the current sales process actually reflects your prospect’s buying decision process. If it doesn’t then chances are the CRM system is simply driving activity rather than achieving results. Your CRM system will prove far more effective if it captures, tracks and reflects your customer’s buying decision process.

3. Most CRM systems track the volume, number and value of opportunities in the sales pipeline. But few are currently set up to measure and report on the velocity or speed of deals as they move from stage to stage. Yet experience shows that “deal velocity” is one of the most important and reliable predictors of whether an opportunity will close - and when. By ensuring that your CRM system captures the dates at which opportunities enter and leave each stage of the process - theregy measuring and monitoring deal velocity - the system can then highlight any opportunities that become stuck, helping to minimise the number of deals that start to wither and eventually die.

4. Unless your sales people believe that what they will get out of the CRM system is of more benefit to them than the effort required to enter the necessary data, it’ll be an uphill struggle all the way. Take the time to look at your CRM system from your sales person’s perspective. Help them to see it as a positive sales enablement system and not as a negative activity recording system - an invaluable tool to win more business and earn more commission.

To find our more about our approach to helping small to medium sized businesses improve the effectiveness of their sales teams, take a look at our new sales section here.

A recent article by direct marketing guru Martin Wright has shed some much needed light on the shortcomings of short-term and tactical approaches to communicating with customers, which appear to be increasing in the current uncertain climate. His recent article “How contact strategies outperform tactical campaigns” is based on his considerable expertise in direct marketing and his appreciation of what approach really brings the best results. He argues that a co-ordinated sequence of integrated communications will be far more effective than a series of tactical and repeated messages. So what at first seems like a low-risk, low-cost approach to generating some new leads actually is nothing more than a waste of valuable marketing spend.

Martin continues to explain the importance of a “Customer contact strategy” - in other words, what to say to who and when to say it. As marketing consultants working with all sizes of organisation, it’s still surprising that so many companies spend money on one-off campaigns without having a clear idea about what they want to say, which existing or potential customers they want to say it to and when the best time would be. But a little time spent on pre-planning a sequence of integrated, targetted communications with some clearly defined goals should ensure that every penny spent on communicating with your customers is generating a return on investment.

Martin then goes on to compare simple and more complex contact strategies, looking at how they work and analysing responses from single contact, repeated and then fully co-ordinated  communications. There are even some case histories from companies which present a compelling argument for spending some time thinking about your Customer Contact Strategy before embarking on your next communication with your customers.

It’s fair to say that we’re passionate about the value of sound strategic thinking when it comes to building a business. No amount of expensive marketing communications will really achieve the results you want without heading in the right strategic direction first of all (see previous blog!). A well-constructed strategy, which integrates sales and marketing to clearly communicate your company’s position - who you are, what you do and why customers should choose you - will go much further to achieving your objectives every time.
But with uncertainty the name of the game in today’s ever-changing market, it’s still mind-boggling just how many companies still have no clear strategy at all. But what’s even more disconcerting is the increasing number of companies who, having spent time and sometimes money on defining their future strategic direction, are now changing direction almost overnight. It’s this growing trend to confuse their own inability to execute with a bad strategy that seems to become more and more commonplace. Failure to execute a strategy is very different from the failure of a strategy itself.
If you take a close look at your sales and marketing to find that your message varies from sales person to sales person and from once piece of marketing communications to another, it’s time to look at your overall strategy. If your marketing plan keeps changing every time a new customer is identified, it’s time to revisit your strategic thinking. And if your marketing plan only gets an airing when sales take a downturn…. you get the drift. Strategic drift that is.
Thankfully strategic drifting, whilst highly contagious, can be contained and treated. The starting point is to redefine a marketing strategy which is unique to your business, which integrates sales and marketing, fully understands the target markets, relevant product positioning and just who your competitors are. The next step is then to construct a unique marketing mix which accurately communicates your company’s value across channels relevant to your customers.  Sounds quite daunting? Take a look at our marketing planning section and white paper for some guidelines.
Crucial to the success of any redefined, more relevant strategy is the support of your team. Including sales and marketing in the whole process is an absolute necessity for strategy development to be meaningful and to stand a fighting chance of success within the company.
Once the strategy is clear, it’s time to develop and then implement the marketing plan. So many companies have very detailed strategies with an even more detailed - and expensive - marketing plan. Any successful implementation has to be realistic - scale back if necessary, but make sure you implement!
Once you have started to implement your marketing plans, it should go without saying that every activity should be monitored, tweaked if necessary/possible and then measured for overall effectiveness. Measurements should be relevant to each activity and ongoing - webpage hits, online orders, number of successful proposals and of course sales. Only be keeping track of what is working for you and what isn’t will you be able to better utilise future marketing spend to greater effectiveness. And by constantly checking where you are now and how you are doing, you’ll avoid drifting off course.

A bit of a rant this week I’m afraid. We were recently approached by a well financed start up company looking for some help in putting together their go-to-market plan. Not an unusual event in that we get many such approaches. The company in question was being launched by a number of highly professional and intelligent Directors all of whom had a strong professional services background. The Directors had ambitious growth plans for their business and recognised that they needed some help with their marketing and business development plans - particularly in relation to digital marketing. SO FAR SO GOOD. Sounds like potentially a perfect customer where TMS can add lots of value by helping them put together and implement a truly market-led strategy together!

Then it all starts to go horribly wrong….

We explained what we do & how we add value and how we have delivered significant results for our clients and we started to explore their needs in real depth. At this point it becomes apparent that there is a disconnection between what we would define as a market-led strategy and what they believe the term means. It is immediately apparent that they are talking about a marketing communications strategy - website, SEO, PPC, advertising etc whereas what we are talking about is obviously far more fundamental than that. We explained that without having a market-led strategy in place first, there is a huge risk that any marcomms strategy will probably end up targeting the wrong people with the wrong messages using the wrong communications channels ie. A potentially huge waste of time & money!

Try as we might, we failed to convince them of the value of putting together a market-led strategy BEFORE diving into what are essentially tactical deliver plans (it is a misuse of the word strategy to apply it in the context of marcomms in our opinion  - marcomms are tactical activities) Upon exploring this further it became apparent that the reason that they didn’t see the need to look at developing a market-led strategy was because they felt that they had already done this for themselves. At this point my blood started to boil a bit & I felt like asking them “what experience & expertise have you got in the field of developing marketing strategy - what qualifies you to do this?” I stopped myself because it is clear that despite being very clever people in their field, they had no real comprehension of the concepts of marketing strategy and they were not prepared to listen and learn. They thought it was simple and that they could do it for themselves equally as well as people with years of experience and practice.

Upon reflection I think the point that dismayed me most about this was the fact that even educated, intelligent people completely underestimate and undervalue the  expertise & experience that we have in developing marketing strategy. I wouldn’t presume to think that I could argue a legal case (even though I watched every episode of LA Law!) nor would I think that I could prepare someone’s accounts. I recognise that to do these things you need expertise & experience that comes from years of training & practical application - so why don’t people think the same way about Marketing Strategy? After all it is an equally essential professional discipline. I’m feeling a bit like Don Quixote tilting at windmills because it is just another example of how my profession has failed to convince people of our worth and the commercial value that marketing can deliver when done properly by professionals.

Sorry for the rant!

Whilst most companies now have some form of digital marketing activity either planned or underway - from a Pay Per Click campaign to SEO and regular blogging, how many of these campaigns can be evaluated as truly effective? Whilst a lot of time and effort is certainly (hopefully?) spent on segmenting audiences and then selecting the most appropriate digital channel to communicate with each segment, how many companies - particularly smaller SME’s with limited resources and budgets - then spend the required time to properly analyse all the data created by their digital marketing activities? And crucially, to then adjust online marketing activities to react to all this new-found customer information?
Whilst online marketing offers so much more information - much of it instant - on what our customers are up to than offline line mediums, this information is only of any real value if it then helps us to become more effective in our communications with our customers. But this all takes time - hence the large amount of blanket emails with the same old, untargetted message that we all receive every day. So what’s the best way to ensure that digital marketing really works harder?
A good place to start is a thorough data audit - time-consuming but vital if you want to ensure that your future digital spend is working as hard as it can for you. A full data audit should not only look at your own customer database, but any website and banner advertising tracking information, google adwords data if available and email marketing data.
Once you’ve done the legwork, making sense of this information is the next step. By carefully looking at all the data you have available, teasing out any trends, you might find some startling revelations: perhaps only 5% of all your website visitors return, or 60% of them bounce (leave without visiting any other pages), perhaps 75% of your customers for a particular product are female. These trends can be highlight potential new revenue streams to be further developed or even shed a light on why a particular service or products isn’t performing well.
Having gained a more profound insight into how your digital marketing is working, you can then think about redefining your digital marketing strategy for the future: how to reduce a high bounce rate from your home page, how to communicate features and benefits more clearly. It might mean a complete overhaul of all your online communications - but as long as you analyse it and then act on those findings you should be heading in the right direction.

The mind still boggles at some of the company slogans floating around at the moment: The Power of Now, No Longer Just an Idea, Innovation Delivered, The Future Changes Everyday…..but what do they actually mean? Seth Godin has been musing on the relevance of some of these seemingly irrelevant and, quite frankly, silly, slogans. Is it still worth spending time and money searching for just the right slogan, especially if you’re a cash-strapped SME looking to cut costs?
For many large corporations it seems that it’s just a way to show how big they are, that they have the time and the money to come up with these slogans, which seem to become increasingly difficult to decipher and understand. But Seth would argue that, even for a small SME, they can represent another small brick in the wall of perception - a glimmer of recognition somewhere down the line which will help you to stand out from the crowd. And the ability to do that is surely worth a few hours of head-scratching?

Whilst we have been busy putting together our new range of sales and sales management services, we’ve been mindful of the much reported fact that in business to business selling, most companies experience a win ratio of just one in four - that is one opportunity coming to fruition, the other three resulting in failure. That’s 75% of the sales budget wasted. So how can companies reduce this waste level?
Depending on the complexity of your industry, the whole process of writing competitive bids or tenders can be extremely time-consuming. It might seem obvious, but many companies still clutch at straws, submitting tenders they are unable to fully satisfy. In such a competitive landscape, this is a fruitless exercise. What’s more, by trying to process a larger number of opportunities, the more quality can and will suffer. To avoid this vicious circle, companies can take the time to focus on the business that they know they can win, will in turn will help them focus on what’s achievable.
There will still of course be a percentage of failures, but it is important learn from these as well as basking in the glory of the successes. Losing on price is probably the most common issue if all the tender requirements have initially been met. What this in fact means is that a company has failed to correctly understand or sufficiently influence their customers’ requirements and associated budget. It could also mean that the unique business value of their solution just wasn’t communicated strongly enough. Our experience in sales and sales management can really help companies of all sizes address the issue of wasted sales effort to become more targtetted and ultimately more successful. To find out more about how we can help you call TMS on 0845 201 1618.

Following on from our earlier post, I recently spoke at national accountancy conference on the subject of marketing-led CRM and its’ role in professional services businesses. Whilst only a small number of those present did already have a CRM system up and running, a much larger number were aware of the importance of implementing a suitable system for their company in the near future. But what exactly is the relationship between a CRM system and marketing, and why does it matter?

It’s fair to say that both Marketing and CRM remain misunderstood by many companies, regardless of size and business sector. In its simplest terms marketing is all about your customers - getting to know then, segmenting and then targetting them, whilst matching your proposition to their needs. Companies obviously then need to communicate effectively with their customers, ensuring their expectations are met - if not exceed. All this of course needs to be measured along the way to ensure the right strategic direction is taken or tweaked as appropriate.

The level of knowledge required by businesses to be able to compete effectively across the many platforms available today now requires this level of understanding not as the exception but as the rule. Unfortunately, many companies who have purchased a CRM system have regarded this a just a “software” purchase, but a CRM system is not just an external programme to be bolted-on to your business. It can and should permeate every facet or your business, enabling you to get closer to your existing and potential customers, to more effectively manage your existing customers and to maximise each opportunity represented by your customers.

A truly effective, marketing-led CRM system will help you grow your brand and your business effectively and profitably in a more targetted and measured way. Whilst it’s not easy to do well, it’s certainly worth investing in a good CRM system to enable your business to compete more effectively.

Could Customer Relationship Management - CRM - be the new marketing? Without doubt it’s an increasingly important tool to help you grow your business by getting you closer to your existing and prospective customers. It also helps you better manage your existing client relationships and can help you to maximise the opportunity represented by each client. With the right CRM system in place, companies can grow their brand and their business in a more cost-effective and targetted manner than ever before. This all sounds too good to be true, and in many cases it is - simply because a CRM system is seen purely as a software purchase. The wider implications of having accurate, shared and relevant information available across your entire business are often missed and the approach to a new CRM system gets bogged down in the technicalities.

Whilst it is of course important to ensure the correct technical specification is in place, it is crucial to the success of any CRM system that you first decide on what you want the system to do for you.  Ideally a good CRM system should provide information  across your whole customer engagement cycle - including marketing, sales and customer support, together with the relevant analytics and reporting which will enable you to better understand the effectiveness of your business and to closely analyse your customers’ behaviour.

But a good CRM system still won’t create relationships with your customers and add value all on its own. With a new emphasis on customer service, it’s still marketing which drives businesses forward, creates relationships and adds value. For a truly successful CRM system a good starting point is to develop a new approach to communicating with and managing your customers - and then making the software part of this overall approach.