Changes in marketing organizations today are accelerating at a greater pace than ever before. This is the time of year when Marketing leaders start mapping out 2014 changes. Making the Number in 2014 starts now. Are your marketing campaigns generating the desired return on marketing spend? How are you supporting the new “A” players in sales? How are you supporting social selling? Have you updated your buyer process maps (BPMs)?
Sign up for SBI’s 7th annual research tour: “How to Make Your Number in 2014: A Sales Strategy You Can Execute.” Participate and learn what top companies are doing to make the number in 2014. Here’s an example of what’s happening:
Eduardo Conrado, SVP of Marketing and IT at Motorola Solutions shared some of his best practices here.
Background
Eduardo currently leads Motorola Solutions B2B Global Marketing, Communications and Information Technology organizations. He is one of the first CMOs to take responsibility for a company’s IT organization. The added IT responsibility highlights the increasing importance of technology in successful marketing execution. He recently shared 10 insights about the driving forces in his business. Here are five.
5 Key Areas
- Your internal customers are as important as your external customers. Collaboration and alignment with sales is critical. The last mile of a marketing campaign depends on sales ability to execute.
- Get out in the field more. Nothing replaces field research. Conduct win/loss analysis, interview customers, adjust Buyer Process Maps (BPMs). Highlight the importance of social proximity; the connection distance in social media between prospects/customers and company contacts.
- Establish an ongoing dialog with your audience. The complexities of new product launches increases marketing’s role in sales enablement. Achieving the new product launch first year quota is always difficult. Marketing serves to bridge the gap between product development and sales.
- Be local. Companies grapple with regional and global uniqueness every day. The balance between standardization and customization is a constant balancing act.
- Create a data-driven organization and measure everything. Your internal customers’ demands have never been higher. The volume, quality and speed of data access can be insurmountable.
Compare your best practices with Eduardo’s. Use the Comments section below to share what you discovered. Here are comments from Eduardo about his top five:
1. Your internal customers are as important as external ones
Being a part of sales engagement and aligned with sales stakeholders is paramount for success. Consider sales associates as key customers. Treat them as you would key accounts. Include regular communication, sharing challenges and sharing successes. Focus on how you’re enabling your sales team. Review your collateral and ensure you are arming the sales team with the right tools.
2. Get out into the field more often
Marketers need to “feel the pain” of the sales team. Encourage your marketing team to go out into the field more often. Increasing the percentage of internal versus external meetings of field marketers will ensure better alignment with sales. This includes better engagement with customers, partners, and partnerships with the go-to-market team
3. Establish an ongoing dialog with your audience
The pace is accelerating on new product introductions. The ensuing complexities in product portfolios are not surprising. This leads to exceedingly complex value propositions for customers. It’s vital to demonstrate how new product introductions anchor to a bigger story. Connecting tightly to customers’ needs is crucial. Offer clear messaging on how distinctive value is delivered with a specific customer context. You can do this by shifting your approach from focusing solely on product-centric messages. Your ongoing dialog must align your segment vision and the solution orientation.
4. Be local
This is particularly important for multi-national companies with regions that are highly diverse. Driving efficiency would imply the creation of models that work worldwide. Understand the differences between cultures, languages, economic dynamics, technologies penetration and religion. Understanding your customer’s buying process maps/behaviors is the difference between winning and losing. Being close to the customer means being on their “wavelength” and understanding their unique needs.
5. Create a data-driven organization and measure everything…always
To make the number, marketing teams must know where to invest. Rapid return on resources has never been more important. To gain this insight, a focus on data and analytics must be embedded in the organization’s culture. Data analytics must be tied to the business strategy, easy to understand and integrated into marketing processes. Set clear, aligned, quantifiable goals in order to measure your results. Benchmark yourself against your peer group and world class organizations. What gets measured gets done. It’s about continuous improvement and never settling. Measurement brings focus to the key areas that can maximize marketing’s impact on making the number. Even if it starts as a manual process, even if it is hard…measure.
The rest of Eduardo’s Top 10 best practices are available, too. Simply sign up for SBI’s 7th annual research tour: “How to Make Your Number in 2014: A Sales Strategy You Can Execute.” You’ll receive a copy of the “Top 10 Best Practices of a Fortune 500 CMO“.
Take the opportunity to learn more from Eduardo and your peers. If you have any questions or concerns contact me at [email protected]. I’ll walk through the best practice guidance and spend 30 minutes helping you create your own list.
