Hello. Its great to be able to make this presenta5on via webinar for - PDF document

Hello. It’s great to be able to make this presenta5on via webinar for all those who were not able to a9end the recent Triangle Marke5ng Club meetup where I made the same presenta5on. 1

My name is Douglas Burde9 and I’m the founder and principal of a marke5ng agency in Norfolk, Virginia called Ar5llery. A bit about my background: I went to VMI. I then served as U.S. Army field ar5llery officer overseas for three years, came back and got an MBA and then went to work in adver5sing on New York City’s Madison Avenue at some of the biggest ad agencies in the world. My firm started out as a tradi5onal adver5sing agency but a few years ago when I started to no5ce the rapidly declining power and effec5veness of paid adver5sing, I pivoted the firm away from that and toward inbound and content marke5ng to help clients generate leads for their sales forces. And I men5on that because I had to learn new things and update my skills in order to survive. There is a lesson there for all marketers (and salespeople). Charles Darwin said it’s not the strongest who survive - it’s the most adaptable. I’m also the host of The Marke5ng Book Podcast where each week I publish an interview with the author of a new marke5ng or sales book. The podcast has published over 125 interviews and it has been named by LinkedIn as “One of 10 Podcasts That Will Make You A Be9er Marketer” So I’ve read lots and lots of sales and marke5ng books, which I enjoy doing, and today I’d like to share with you a few key insights to help everyone be9er understand what’s going on in sales and marke5ng so that you and your organiza5on can be more successful. 2

Not too long ago there was a study by the Fournaise Group about percep5ons of marketers by CEOs. Who can guess what percent of CEOs trust marketers. (20%) And why do you think they don’t trust marketers? Because CEOs believe marketers are too disconnected from the financial reali5es of companies. 3

In “The 12 Powers of a Marke5ng Leader” the authors fielded one of the largest studies of marketers and the people who work with them and revealed some juicy insights like this... Early in our study, we spoke with Interna5onal CMOS about their work, asking “what do you do?” It was interes5ng how different people answered. Some said things like, “I manage the brand” or “I run our marke5ng.” Words like these don't go down well with company leaders. In the words of marke5ng professor and columnist Mark Ritson, “Too many marketers go into a room full of execu5ves from their company and warble on about the need to build brand awareness and brand equity. No one gives a f***, except you – and presumably you are already on board. Good marketers work out how to link what they do with what other stakeholders within the organiza5on want – employee reten5on, improved profits, clearer leadership.” OK, so what percent of marketers do CEOs trust? (20%) And what percent of marketers do CEOs NOT trust? (80%) Tonight I’m going to talk to you about how to get into that 20% of marketers who 4

What kind of things go in a marke5ng plan? 5

According to Malcolm McDonald in his recently published 2nd edi5on of “Malcolm McDonald on Marke5ng Planning,” (his 46th book) there are only two ques5ons that need to be answered in a marke5ng plan. And if you as a marketer start with the answers to these two ques5ons in a marke5ng plan, you will find yourself in that 20% of marketers trusted by your CEO, management and colleagues. 6

Here are the two ques5ons that your marke5ng plan should answer. 2 ques5ons from Malcolm McDonald: What are your key target markets in order of priority? In your key target markets, what is your company’s sources of differen5al advantage? With a nod to marketers’ obsession with all things digital and the word “digital,” Malcolm McDonald explains that, Almost every course/seminar/workshop today has the word ‘digital’ in its 5tle. The problem, however, is that unless a company has a robust strategy for what it sells and to whom, it is impossible to have a digital strategy. ... without proper, needs-based segmenta5on ..., any digital strategy will be ineffec5ve. There is a well-known cartoon showing the Chief Marke5ng Officer addressing the board and in answer to the ques5on about why net profits are down by 30%, says: “Yes, that is a pity, but the good news is that our likes or Facebook have doubled!” “Without a winning strategy for products and markets, it is impossible to have an effec5ve digital strategy.” 7

What is the most powerful marke5ng available? And how do you get good word of mouth? Go in the chat pane and tell me if you’ve ever had a really bad customer experience. (Airlines and cable companies don’t count). Who here has ever taken to social media or posted an online review about that bad experience? You’re not alone. 8

You’re not alone. As Daniel Lemin says in his book “Manipurated” “Before the rise of online ra5ngs and reviews (ah, the good old days), customer feedback – good and bad – was a mostly one-on-one affair. Customers communicated complaints or praise to you directly, giving you the chance to respond appropriately. With the rise of online ra5ngs and reviews, businesses now face a plaborm that allows virtually anyone to say anything about your business to everyone on the internet, regardless of truth or fairness.” 9

This has lead to a heightened interest in engineering a be9er customer experience. I have interviewed several authors of books about how to engineer a more profitable customer experience. So why do companies really want to engineer a be9er customer experience? Is it because they don’t like being yelled at? Why? Does the name Willy Su9on ring a bell? Does anyone know who Will Su9on was? (a bank robber). A reporter once asked him why he robbed banks, and who knows what his answer was? (It’s where the money is). The reason for this interest in customer experience is that’s where the money is. 10

In Nicholas Webb’s book “What Customers Crave” he explains that… 70% of Americans are willing to spend more with companies they believe provide an excellent customer experience. Plus, keeping your customers is where the really big money is: The probability of selling to a new prospect is less than 20%, while the probability of selling to an exis5ng customer is 60 to 70 percent. On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 5mes as much as their first purchase. 11

The experience you give your customers is your most powerful marke5ng. 12

In the business-to-business marke5ng and sales world, that is probably the most talked about percentage. Who can tell me what that 57% is referring to. (It’s how far B2B buyers are in their buyers journey before first contac5ng a seller.) 13

Previously when a buyer was doing their research they had to go to the seller fairly early in their buying journey in order to get informa5on. At that point the seller could guide (or strong arm) the buyer along their journey in return for informa5on. Think about the old days of buying a car. Buyers always hated having a pound of flesh extracted by the seller in return for informa5on. Now buyers can do a lot of their research online before they finally have to talk to the seller. I men5oned 57% - that is based on CEB’s study. Forrester and others have es5mated that the percent may be as high as 90%. (It varies by industry of course). So buyers don’t want to talk to your salespeople and you omen don’t know they are researching un5l they pounce out of the darkness like a ninja, fully-informed and ready to kill you on price. What can you do? Get on the lem side of that 57%. Get found online by publishing helpful insights to aid in your buyer’s research. You fish where the fish are. That’s what a lot of the content that I’m going to speak about in a few minutes is all about. 14

Let’s talk about the great divide. In many companies the rela5onship between sales and marke5ng are like warring or former spouses. Many sales people perceive marketers as arts and crams party planners who work in the “make it pre9y department.” Marke5ng may perceive sales as a bunch of lazy, undisciplined, short-sighted cowboys who shoot from the hip and don’t use any of the content that marke5ng has produced for them and don’t follow up on the leads marke5ng has helped generate. BUT because the buyer prefers to consume more of your company’s content in the course of a purchase before talking to sales, that is why marke5ng is playing a bigger role in the sales process. It’s as if there’s a gravita5onal force that is pulling sales and marke5ng together to work more closely as a result of the changing way your customers buy now. There are no downsides of marke5ng and sales working more closely together. 15

Here’s why. According to research from analyst firm SiriusDecision, companies with sales and marke5ng aligned achieved 19% faster growth, and 15% higher profits. 16

The key to sales and marke5ng alignment? Put marke5ng and sales under one department and call it “Team Revenue.” In “Aligned to Achieve: How To Unite Your Sales and Marke5ng Teams into a Single Force for Growth,” the authors Tracy Eiler and Andrea Aus5n explain “sales can't do it alone and marke5ng exists to make it easier.” So all you need to do is publish remarkable, helpful, educa5onal content on your website, right? WRONG! 17