The symptoms of marketing under-achievement are fairly standard and there are tens of thousands of companies Worldwide with good to great products that are under-performing in marketing. Here are a few symptoms of a problem at B2B company, Acme Inc.:
Recent posts by Mark Gibson
3 min read
Get Clarity in Messaging or Get Trampled by the Competition
Topics: inbound marketing messaging value differentiation
5 min read
Tower Data Brand Messaging Update and Website Revamp Project
Email data solutions provider, TowerData went live with their redesigned Website last week, with a stunning new appearance and a message that grabs your attention after landing on any page on the Website.
TowerData Background
TowerData helps companies increase the performance of their email marketing by validating email addresses for improved deliverability, providing intelligence about email leads and subscribers, and increasing size of the email list. TowerData has been in business since 2001 and has helped thousands of customers improve their email marketing results and take their email list to the next level.
We created the new TowerData brand message in partnership with enterprise inbound marketing agency, Kuno Creative (Kuno), who created the redesign and new content and managed the website transformation project. Kuno is managing the content marketing, demand generation and marketing automation program for TowerData.
TowerData is a HubSpot customer and has already been successful with its demand generation activities, generating a predictable volume of inbound leads and doing well with keyword rankings. As a next step, TowerData wanted to attract and convert more qualified sales leads by improving its brand messaging and content.
Goal: Brand Update and Website Revamp
Tom Burke, CEO of TowerData stated, “the project was driven by a need to update and focus our brand and revamp our 6-year-old website.” Prior to the redesign the TowerData Website, although functional, looked dated and the message did not clearly identify how TowerData served its clients or what differentiated their services in a highly competitive market. TowerData sought to make its core service strengths readily apparent and easily understood by website visitors.
Complication: Prior History
TowerData had already identified a redesign and branding vendor who proposed a traditional approach of interviewing stakeholders, including TowerData customers, to understand the business, and pull out the themes and message from there. Our approach would involve more than a brand refresh.
Resolution: Create a Messaging Architecture
TowerData selected Admarco and Kuno for the messaging and Website transformation, and we began the project with the development of the TowerData Buyer-Persona, which details the roles and thought processes of representative buyers. The messaging process was done entirely over the Internet to save time and money and we used the MindManager tool from MindJet.com to capture the information in a brainstorming session attended by Kuno and top TowerData stakeholders.
With the Buyer Persona created, we moved to developing the Messaging Architecture and began brainstorming the Win Themes and Positioning Pillars.
The Messaging Architecture is developed by identifying product usage Win Themes, i.e. how the products are used to create value, solve problems and help buyers achieve their goals.
Win-Themes are self-describing information chunks that encapsulate feature, function and benefit in a meaningful sentence. In other words a Win-Theme describes what the product or service is, what does it does for the buyer when they use it and what that means in terms of value for the buyer. The brainstorming and review process required five Web Conferences to complete and took around about 10 hours to capture and edit over a period of 2 weeks.
Positioning Pillars are used to position the product in the market vs. competition. Some of our clients are unsure of their Pillars at the start of the process, but in TowerData’s case they knew they wanted to position around Email Append, Email Intelligence and Email Validation.
Topics: messaging architecture brand messaging content creation towerdata kuno creative
4 min read
Why Prospects Lie to Salespeople and how to change their minds
I saw this article from Seth Godin last week "Why Lie" on why prospects lie to salespeople in another forum and commented on it. I'm not sure if you saw it, so I have referenced it below and want to add a comment and a few links to resources as I have written on this subject before.
Why lie?
"We've decided to hire someone with totally different skills than yours..." and then they hire someone just like you, but more expensive and not as good.
"We're not going to buy a car this month, my husband wants to wait..." and then you see them driving a new car from that other dealer, the one with the lousy reputation.
"We're not going to buy a car this month, my husband wants to wait..." and then you see them driving a new car from that other dealer, the one with the lousy reputation.
Spot the Genuine Smile
"I'm just not interested..." and then you see the new RFP, one you could have helped them write to get a more profitable and productive outcome.
People lie to salespeople all the time. We do it because salespeople have trained us to, and because we're afraid.
Prospects (people like us) lie in many situations, because when we announce that we've made the decision to hire someone else, or when we tell the pitching entrepreneur we don't like her business model, or when we clearly articulate why we're not going to do business, the salesperson responds by questioning the judgment of the prospect.
In exchange for telling the truth, the prospect is disrespected. Of course we don't tell the truth--if we do, we're often bullied or berated or made to feel dumb.
Is it any surprise that it's easier to just avoid the conflict altogether? Of course, there's an alternative, but it requires confidence and patience on the part of the seller and marketer.
Someone who chooses not to buy from you isn't stupid. They're not unable to process ideas logically, nor are they unethical or manipulated by others.
No, it's simpler than that: Given what they know and what they believe, the prospect is making exactly the right decision.
We always make our decision based on what we know and believe. That's a tautology, based on the definition... a decision is the path you take based on what you know and believe, right?
The challenge, then, it seems to me, is to realize that perhaps the prospect knows something you don't, or, just as likely, doesn't believe what you believe.
Your job as a marketer is to figure out what your prospect's biases and worldview and fears and beliefs are, and as a salesperson, your job is to help them know what you know.
If you keep questioning our judgment, we're going to keep lying to you." Seth Godin, March 04, 2011.
Prospects (people like us) lie in many situations, because when we announce that we've made the decision to hire someone else, or when we tell the pitching entrepreneur we don't like her business model, or when we clearly articulate why we're not going to do business, the salesperson responds by questioning the judgment of the prospect.
In exchange for telling the truth, the prospect is disrespected. Of course we don't tell the truth--if we do, we're often bullied or berated or made to feel dumb.
Is it any surprise that it's easier to just avoid the conflict altogether? Of course, there's an alternative, but it requires confidence and patience on the part of the seller and marketer.
Someone who chooses not to buy from you isn't stupid. They're not unable to process ideas logically, nor are they unethical or manipulated by others.
No, it's simpler than that: Given what they know and what they believe, the prospect is making exactly the right decision.
We always make our decision based on what we know and believe. That's a tautology, based on the definition... a decision is the path you take based on what you know and believe, right?
The challenge, then, it seems to me, is to realize that perhaps the prospect knows something you don't, or, just as likely, doesn't believe what you believe.
Your job as a marketer is to figure out what your prospect's biases and worldview and fears and beliefs are, and as a salesperson, your job is to help them know what you know.
If you keep questioning our judgment, we're going to keep lying to you." Seth Godin, March 04, 2011.
Salespeople are paid well to Change Minds
Great insight on the reasons why most people including you, me and all of the readers of this blog think its OK to lie to sales people. (think back to the last time you bought a car...were you perfectly honest with every salesperson you met in the process?)Our job as salespeople is to change minds through having insightful conversations. One of the most valuable insights in the new book by Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson, " The Challenger Sale" (TCS), is that changing minds is exactly what the most successful salespeople (The Challengers), are doing to be successful. The really great news is that anyone with appropriate coaching, enablement tools and support can do this.
Topics: the challenger sale messaging methodology hero's journey
2 min read
Features and Benefits are Dead - What's your Value Proposition?
It's 2011 and still we are presented with B2B Websites, promotional materials, brochures and advertising copy that scream product features and so-called benefits.
Sales induction boot camp and annual sales training is built on a foundation of boring PowerPoint presentations that describe product in terms of features and benefits.
A product feature according to Wikipedia is a distinguishing characteristic of a software item, (e.g., performance, portability, or functionality).
A product benefit according to Wiktionary is an advantage, help or aid from something.
For a product feature to be of benefit to a user, the user must firstly have the problem or sub-optimal condition that the product feature addresses and have a pressing need to resolve it.
It is impossible to know if a product feature will be of benefit without first understandng the client condition.
I therefore propose that we declare features and benefits a deceased concept in B2B selling...they have served us for the past 60 years of marketing computer technology, but it's time to move on, because the majority of salespeople struggle in translating product features and benefits into meaningful conversations with buyers.
Furthermore B2B buyers are not interested in features...they are interested in capabilities.
Topics: positioning value proposition
2 min read
A Messaging Architecture to Convey Value, Position, Differentiate
A Messaging Architecture Captures your Value Proposition
In the dot.com boom and Outbound Marketing World of just a few years ago, marketing, advertising and branding agencies engaged well funded startups in positioning and branding exercises and at the same time relieved the investors and company of a lot of cash.This sort of top-down branding went hand in hand with lavish launch parties and first-mover takes all mentality that fueled the dot.com boom and subsequent bust.
Driving eyeballs was what mattered and often the brand message was disconnected from the underlying value of the products and the sales team's ability to articulate it in conversation with buyers.
It is difficult to imagine spending lavish sums on branding, positioning and advertising in today's Inbound Marketing, lean-startup World, where every dollar spent is closely scrutinized and analyzed for ROI, and where it is recognized that B2B brands are built over time, based on customer success.
To me it seems obvious that the branding should be based on the value the company creates for customers and we can capture this information through a careful analysis of how customers use the products/services.
Brand Positioning
What matters in messaging is connecting your brand and positioning message with the most visceral value-creation proposition for each interested group of buyers in your prospect universe. Al Reis in the book "Positioning" suggests rather than try and create something new and different in the mind of the buyer, we need to manipulate what is already there and re-tie the connections that already exist.Brand Messaging Process
A methodology for messaging value is built from the bottom-up, based on connecting value-creation to buyer-needs rather than a top-down "Mad-Men" view of the World into the reality of selling products/services...we have tried both approaches and bottom-up works best.- Start your journey to clarity in messaging value with a sales and marketing messaging alignment workshop. The output of this process is Messaging Architecture that will help marketers and salespeople position capabilities and engage buyers in conversations around their problems vs. the product features.
- Identify your buyer-persona's and their roles, goals, issues and problems that your products/services can address
- Next, map your relevant capabilities that can help buyer persona's solve their problems
- Group Win-themes into logical clumps and abstract the positioning pillars to create clarity in positioning vs competition.
- At this point we will have enough information to create visual confections and visual stories that salespeople can use to engage buyers in conversation around their issues.
- With the Value Proposition in place, the Brand Message including mission-statement, tagline, corporate positioning and corporate presentation (visual confection) can easily be derived.
- Content Creation Templates are used to develop consistent content across the company for both blogging and Website content by insiders as well as external writers, by extracting win themes and buyer persona issues and appropriate keywords.
- Create a "Mission Statement" that helps employees connect their daily toil with company vision, revenue, profit and customer satisfaction goals.
- Create a positioning statement that identifies the market segment you wish to occupy in the mind of the buyer and why your product/service is different and valuable.
Topics: messaging value marketing messaging differentiation branding
4 min read
Are You Ready For Inbound Marketing Yet?
Chances are you didn’t arrive here by accident; you followed a link from either a search engine or a Blog or links from a social network site…welcome to inbound marketing.
Topics: inbound marketing marketing messaging
2 min read
Cybercrime: Global Economic Crime Survey 2016: PwC
Originally published on Linkedin 2/25/16
Today PwC published their global 2016 economic crime survey.
This is a comprehensive 56 page survey and will be of interest to senior executives in every company.
Cybercrime is sophisticated, organized and it can bring down your company.
Nobody is immune to the threats posed by organized cybercriminals, activists, terrorists, nation states and a variety of miscreants including your own employees.
Excerpt from article introducing report, "This year’s global economic crime survey points to the disquieting fact that too many organisations are leaving first response to their IT teams without adequate intervention or support from senior management and other key players. What’s more, the composition of these response teams is often fundamentally flawed, which ultimately affects the handling of breaches.
From our firm-wide work on digital strategy and execution with thousands of companies globally, we’ve identified practices that distinguish leaders in the digital age. Chief among these is a proactive stance when it comes to cybersecurity and privacy. This necessitates that everyone in the organisation – from the board and C-suite to middle management and hourly workers – sees it as their responsibility."
We, at Centrify believe in creating least privilege, least access policy as an immediate first step in reducing risk. Policy coupled with MFA across cloud, mobile and data center can eliminate the cause of the majority of malicious #cybercrime and #databreaches.
Here is a link to the summary pagehttp://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/advisory/consulting/forensics/economic-crime-survey/cybercrime.html
To directly download the article
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/economic-crime-survey/pdf/GlobalEconomicCrimeSurvey2016.pdf
Topics: #databreach security #cybersecurity
4 min read
The art of making tea - a lot like making a good sales call
Making a great cup of tea has nothing to do with making a sales call, does it?
Drinking a great cup of tea has a lot to do with the daily enjoyment of life and like many things worth doing, it requires an appropriate set of tools, a process and it takes time to achieve the desired result. So does making a great sales call - doesn't it?
Topics: communication
8 min read
The Great Sales & Marketing Divide - CSO Insights 2015 Report
The CSO insights 2015 Sales Performance Optimization survey of more than 1000 Chief Sales Officers in companies Worldwide was published last month and the findings are alarming.
Salespeople are struggling to hit their numbers and marketing is not contributing enough value!
This article contains links to resources to answer some of the "How can I improve sales performance?" questions
Article Length: 1960 words
Reading Time: 10 Minutes
Topics: b2b sales and marketing
3 min read
Why Join.me is a smart choice for Inside Sales, SMB's and consultants
I'm not in inside sales, I'm a consultant, but 95% of my interaction with prospects and customers occurs over the phone and Internet, so I think I can bring some insight to inside sales pro's, consultants and particularly SMB salespeople working from home.
In the past 18 months I have used Glance, Fuze, Webex, GotoMeeting, Adobe QuickConnect and Join.me, either as a tool provided by the company, or as a personal subscriber. I have no financial affiliation with any of these providers. This assessment is application-specific based on my work profile and may not be relevant in your work environment.
If you require fast screen-sharing and hassle-free, download-free interaction with prospective clients and customers, then tools that require a downloadable client are sub-optimal. I don't use a Webcam in my conferences, so I don't need the higher-end video capabilities that come with Webex and Gotomeeting. If I want to do a face-face Web meeting I will use Skype, but the dynamic is usually social with a friend or acquaintance and the connection set up in advance.
