When Clients Win, You Win: The Value in Building Relationships Over Client Lists

Though agencies loudly tout the importance of transparency, ongoing federal probes show that clients—and the public—still struggle to trust advertising agencies. The ongoing industry conversation about media transparency was shocked into life by the Association of National Advertisers‘ 58-page anonymously sourced 2016 report, detailing agencies’ widespread use of opaque business practices such as kickbacks.

The report sent shockwaves through the advertising community, and our continued conversation is a testament to the pervasiveness of the transparency issue. We continuously see calls for “radical transparency,” and while many agencies now leverage it as a competitive advantage, still many fall short.

So how can we move forward? The answer is simple but not easy. If you want to gain clients’ trust, you can’t view them as mere revenue streams. You have to build meaningful relationships grounded in transparency and invest in helping them succeed long-term.

Four ways to build winning relationships

I’m all too familiar with agencies that take churn-and-burn approaches to clients. They go through dozens—even hundreds—of clients a year, and if things don’t work out, they simply move on. This approach makes absolutely no sense to me.

Building meaningful client relationships means determining how you can add value to a client’s business. The reality is, you won’t be able to help everyone win: Advertising doesn’t come with a 100% success guarantee. But profiting from clients’ losses isn’t a winning formula, either. Your goals need to be aligned so that when clients win, you win.

Here are four key ways to help you build more meaningful relationships with your clients.

1. Deliver—and demand—ultra-transparency

Transparency is paramount to building trust. While you need to be fully transparent with your clients, it’s equally important that they’re fully transparent with you. There’s a direct correlation between the clients who are fully transparent with their numbers and goals and the ones we have the most success with, because the ideas and recommendations we provide are only as valuable as the information they’re based on. The more accurate the information we have, the better the decisions we make.

2. Prioritize face time

Technology has made it way too easy to communicate at a distance, but breaking bread in person with clients is far more valuable than you might think. Meeting them outside the day-to-day chaos of business not only helps you develop an actual friendship, but it can often lead to additional opportunities. Referrals have long been one of the most powerful ways to gain better clients and grow an agency: 65% of agencies cite referrals as their primary source of business. So communicate with technology when necessary, but sitting around a modern-day campfire with your clients will encourage the kind of trust and affinity that email, text, or Skype can’t.

3. Add value first

Advertising Hall of Famer Lester Wunderman’s advice to never walk into a client meeting without at least one new idea has always guided me. Whether you’re proposing a new idea, explaining a new opportunity, or providing some insightful research—adding value first (before you ask for anything in return) will continually reassure clients that you were the right choice. The more value you add, the more trust you earn, and the more clients will reward you with their loyalty and repeat business.

4. Reframe problems as opportunities

How you react in tricky situations can either add to or detract from the trust you’ve built with a client. Instead of becoming paralyzed or making snap judgment calls, approach every challenge as an opportunity to uncover a creative solution. Handling an obstacle with poise, ingenuity, and professionalism will enhance your relationship. The greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity for you to shine.

The ANA’s report brought to light a pervasive industry problem, and many agencies are still fighting to resolve it. It’s clear that those agencies that can build and nurture meaningful relationships will come out on top. By being transparent, getting out from behind your desk, looking for ways to deliver more value, and seeing problems as gifts, you’ll put yourself on the path to long-term growth and success.

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from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/when-clients-win-you-win-the-value-in-building-relationships-over-client-lists.html

5 Strategies to Address New Challenges in Asset Management Marketing

The asset management industry isn’t what it used to be. In the face of continued growth, the market has become increasingly crowded and fiercely competitive. But while competition has increased, differentiation among investment offerings has diminished.

What’s more, there’s been a fundamental shift in the relationship between clients and brands. In today’s customer-centric business climate, investors expect firms to provide them with modern, highly personalized experiences—wherever they are, and on any device they choose.

Consider these statistics:

• 64% of customers say customer experience is more important than price in buying decisions (Forrester).
• 70% of buying experiences are based on how customers feel they are being understood (McKinsey).
• 79% of customers only consider brands that show they understand and care about them (Wunderman).
• 80% of high-net-worth investors under 40 say they would leave their firm if it fails to provide an integrated channel experience (Frost & Sullivan).

Today’s evolving industry landscape has introduced unexpected challenges for asset management firms—and marketing leaders are under pressure to keep up.

Two Essential Elements of a Modern Marketing Strategy

An asset management marketing team has two central functions: to help recruit and retain advisors and to help acquire and retain clients.

In a crowded market where customer expectations have changed, that’s easier said than done. Indeed, as firms struggle to differentiate themselves, marketers are quickly learning that traditional acquisition and retention strategies are no longer effective.

Today, firms that can build deep, long-term relationships with their target audiences—and deliver truly meaningful experiences—will rise above the competition. The keys to building those relationships are aggregating your customer data and then acting on that information in a timely fashion.

Five Tactics for Creating Clear Differentiation

Here are five ways marketers can deliver superior value to clients—to improve acquisition and retention:

1) Get Personal

Today’s investors expect their communications with asset managers to be personalized and highly relevant to their needs. The challenge, of course, is achieving this level of service at scale; traditional batch and blast emails simply won’t work.

Through the use of demographic and behavioral data, segmentation, and lead scoring, firms can gain the rich, 360-degree customer view they need to deliver the personalized messaging clients expect.

2) Facilitate Communication

Modern clients—regardless of age—have become digitally savvy. They’ve grown accustomed to getting answers and access to information on the go, across multiple devices. The problem is, many asset management firms developed their various touch points in silos, thereby creating a disjointed and sometimes disorienting customer experience.

Delivering connected communications requires an omnichannel approach. The right automation solution should allow teams to deliver seamless conversations—as clients (and advisors) move from their phones to their laptops to their tablets, and beyond—all from a single platform. 

3) Build Trust

Asset management is a high-stakes service and building client trust is crucial. While providing a personal touch is central to creating meaningful relationships, steps must be taken to safeguard client privacy.

Asset management firms must adhere to strict regulations surrounding marketing investment management and the handling of client funds. Indeed, compliance is a fundamental concern. Marketing leaders must ensure that their systems—and their marketing teams—are always up to date on new rules and regulations.

A trusted engagement platform, with high-security standards, will enable marketers to deliver personalized experiences, across multiple touch points—with a keen eye on privacy and regulatory compliance.

4) Find Truth

Historically, the asset management industry has been cautious about new MarTech trends. As a result, many marketing teams are still operating on outdated, disparate systems, including their CRM solutions.

Building and nurturing meaningful client relationships requires a single source of data truth. By creating a centralized repository of data and insights, marketers can move from a reactive acquisition and retention strategy—to a proactive one. A single source of truth will also help brands deliver consistent messaging across sales and marketing.

An automated marketing solution that easily integrates with CRM platforms—as well as multiple solution partners and open APIs—is essential. By gathering multiple data points in one location, it will provide the single source of truth marketers need to create the personalized experiences clients demand.

5) Prove ROI

For many marketing leaders, creating a strong marketing strategy is only half the battle. The next step is to prove their efforts are yielding real results for their institutions.

Marketing teams must be able to effectively measure—and continuously improve—the impact of their programs.

A fully optimized marketing engagement platform—one that puts all marketing data into a single view—will enable more robust reporting. Indeed, it will empower teams to move way beyond click-through rates—to measure multi-touch attribution, pipeline, and true ROI.

The post 5 Strategies to Address New Challenges in Asset Management Marketing appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/5-strategies-to-address-new-challenges-in-asset-management-marketing.html

Event Marketers Are Ignoring the Power of Video—Here’s How to Catch Up

Video ads are one of the most potent tools in a marketing arsenal. So why do so many event marketers ignore it?

According to a 2018 Animoto report on social video trends, 93% of business score new customers from video marketing on social media. Eventbrite research shows that 94% of event creators who use video say it’s effective. While both reports highlight the power of video marketing, they also note that less than half of event marketers actually use this effective tool.

That’s a lot of business to leave sitting on the table.

Video clearly is engaging ticket buyers, but many event marketers are too intimidated to use the medium. After all, video is one of the most daunting types of content to produce. Your skills as an event organizer may not include filming and editing a promotional video—but it’s worthwhile to learn these few basics.

Create event videos that drive buzz

In an increasingly video-driven advertising space, focus your efforts on three essential videos—two before the event and one after:

• A ticket launch video that builds buzz, encourages registrations, and establishes your event as the place to be this year.
• A reminder video that answers attendees’ most frequently asked questions leading up to the event.
• A memorable recap video that offers nostalgia for attendees and serves as a strong marketing asset for your next event.

If you only have the bandwidth to create one video, prioritize based on your brand’s goals. If you want to drive ticket sales, create a launch video. If you want to improve your attendance rate and engage attendees, create an FAQ video. If your goal is creating clips you can use to promote your next event, create a recap video.

When you release these videos certainly matters, but you must also create something that effectively engages your audience. The following three strategies will help you make videos that are informative and compelling:

1. Make the CTA your MVP

Your CTA (call to action) is key because it shows viewers how to take the next step (buying tickets, for example). But how can a CTA call viewers to action if they don’t actually see it?

Although placing your CTA at the end of a video feels natural, many viewers won’t stick around for the entire video. To ensure audiences see your CTA, place it in the middle of your video.

Beyond perfecting the timing of your CTA, you also need to give viewers clear instructions in terms of what they should do. Instead of saying “Buy tickets,” use clear and specific language: “Swipe up to RSVP” or “Click the link in our Facebook event.” People aren’t going to take the next step if they don’t know how, so make your CTA as clear as possible.

2. Use size to strategize your Facebook spend

It’s counterintuitive, but smaller events mean you should put more funding toward Facebook video ads. At 2.27 billion users, according to NBC News, Facebook holds plenty of reach and is ripe for event marketing. Facebook also has more robust ad targeting, support for video, and searchability for events than any other social platform.

Prioritize Facebook in your budget, keeping your event’s size as the key decision maker when allocating funds. Gather any location, demographic, or other important information about your audience, and then tailor your Facebook campaign to that base. Once you’ve homed in on your target, deduce your exact spend and plan the rollout and execution of each piece. By figuring everything out beforehand, your campaign’s resources will stretch further and your ROI will be more concrete.

3. Promote across online channels

Facebook is incredibly powerful, but a powerful video strategy requires more layers. Not everyone in your audience will be active on Facebook—and even if they are, a multichannel approach keeps them thinking about your event as they’re browsing online.

Use video across these digital platforms:

• Your website: It’s easy to embed promotional videos on your homepage. The Animoto report I mentioned earlier suggests that 86% of businesses engage their audiences through this platform.
• YouTube: As the second-largest search engine, upload your videos here to build your audience without much additional effort.
• Email marketing: Animoto reports including the word “video” in an email subject line increases its open rate by 19%. This method offers low-hanging fruit for increased viewership, helps with viewer engagement, and simplifies connecting with attendees post-purchase and post-event.

There’s no better way for your audience to feel the buzz surrounding your event than video. Event organizers might lag behind other industries when it comes to video marketing, but that doesn’t mean it needs to remain the case. Use these marketing tips to take the mystery out of video—and drive sales.

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from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/event-marketers-are-ignoring-the-power-of-video-heres-how-to-catch-up.html

How SEO Can Drive Your Marketing Initiatives

Today’s modern marketing department encompasses a variety of roles that blend expertise in both traditional and digital mediums. Hiring for SEO related roles, in particular, has increased by over 40% in the last year.

Companies are injecting more dollars than ever into organic search and content marketing. This strategic shift calls on SEO and marketing teams to move in concert in order to achieve mutual campaign KPIs. Crossing the collaborative divide requires an equally mindful transition towards consistent communication, project management processes, and teambuilding.

Issues with integration

Making two cross-discipline teams work cohesively can be a challenge. About 75% of cross-functional teams fail. In order to mitigate the risk of a poorly-executed campaign, it’s vital to integrate the day-to-day functions of both marketing and SEO teams. To do that, it helps to take a look at some of the common barriers to success.

• Lack of communication, specifically pertaining to goals
• No clear method for measuring ROI
• Siloed mentality or lack of flexibility
• Gaps in technology adoption

It’s incredibly difficult to strive towards a goal that isn’t clearly defined. Expecting teams with different skill sets to work within ill-defined project parameters is even harder. Scope creep becomes a real issue, alongside a general lack of confidence in project deliverables and team cooperation.

Measuring the impact of a product can also be adversely affected by a lack of clarity. If a project doesn’t have a clear, standardized system for measuring ROI, it becomes difficult for each team to understand the impact of their work and fairly attribute responsibility. This is difficult in any cross-functional scenario, but in the marketing world, where ROI has been historically difficult to measure, it can prove disastrous.

Too often, separate teams become siloed, isolated from the larger department by their specialized skill set. Breaking down creative silos means that valuable information is shared more freely across teams, and the resulting output is more dynamic, which is an extraordinarily valuable thing in the world of marketing. Adapting to current trends in SEO and marketing, as well as being able to execute on them within a joint strategy means being receptive to change.

One barrier to entry for cross-discipline collaboration is a technology adoption gap. Although MarTech software applications accounted for nearly 30% of a CMO’s budget in 2018, certain aspects of technical SEO might be harder to conceptualize and fit under a unified marketing umbrella. Implementing standardized technology tools aimed at promoting collaboration and data analysis is a cornerstone of modern marketing strategy.

Impact on revenue

Successful inter-departmental collaboration can be tied to revenue and positive brand impact. Over 90% of Google traffic is observed on the first page, meaning if you are ranking on the second, third, or tenth page, your marketing efforts are unlikely to be seen.

Social media marketing and content strategy have long been the territory of traditional marketers. Hybridized digital marketers and SEO strategists can help drive marketing objectives centered around the most compelling and technical aspects, bringing to the table a unique understanding of how organic search helps drive brand visibility.

Cross-functional communication provides more visibility into emerging trends, ROI modeling, and organizational needs that can inform marketing spends and strategic focus. Nurturing a basic understanding of the relationship between a brand and its customers also helps marketers and SEO experts alike create smarter strategies and drive more profitable results.

Best practices for fostering collaboration

Fortunately, creating a culture of collaboration doesn’t have to be such a heavy lift. SEO strategists and marketers have similar core competencies. Given the right tools and processes, SEO efforts can help drive marketing objectives and vice versa:

• Collaboration tools
• Workflow processes
• Education and employee engagement

Collaborative tools and software platforms are hitting the market with increasing regularity. Implementing these tools can positively impact the way SEO and marketing teams work together as well as conduct day-to-day job functions. From project management platforms like Asana or Basecamp, to collaborative meeting tools like Slack and Google Hangouts, using a standardized set of tools helps empower organizations with distinct departments and enables remote workers to create compelling campaigns in real-time. This also helps teams establish workflow processes that break large-scale projects down into smaller tasks, allowing them to keep a close eye on potential bottlenecks at all stages of the project management life cycle.

Breaking down organizational silos can do a lot towards creating a shared sense of expertise and a shared vocabulary. Defining project objectives and metrics to track against helps improve the collaboration between SEO and marketing teams since all stakeholders will understand how their efforts and area of expertise play into a shared outcome. Not every marketing objective will be SEO focused, but it’s still important to get stakeholders in the room to talk about keyword targets and opportunities, as well as conduct training sessions.

Keeping employees engaged is one of the best ways to keep collaboration productive and consistent. Scheduling regular standing meetings to go over progress towards objectives, and providing avenues for professional development, certification, and mentoring help cement team building efforts that drive success.

SEO strategy for results

Marketing teams need to be thinking about SEO, and SEO teams need to be thinking about marketing. With more companies throwing their weight behind organic search and adjacent forms of marketing, both teams will be working towards common KPIs. The marketing strategies of the future incorporate a more holistic approach to brand strategy, and companies that are able to foster cross-functional collaboration are setting themselves up to be more able to respond to the changing market.

The post How SEO Can Drive Your Marketing Initiatives appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/how-seo-can-drive-your-marketing-initiatives.html

Don’t Call It a Comeback: Drip Campaigns Have Been Here for Years

I know what you’re thinking: Drip campaigns? They’re about as relevant as Michael Bolton.

But here’s the thing about Michael Bolton: He’s always relevant!

Truth is, the concepts behind drip campaigns—sending communications to customers and prospects on a regular basis—remain as relevant today as ever. The difference is that marketing automation has made this process much more sophisticated.

Now, instead of scheduling the same series of emails to go to the same people on the same day each week, you can send your audience valuable personalized communications based on actions they took, content they engaged with, or segments they fit.

So, while the idea of traditional drip marketing may sound out of date, there are still plenty of key areas where it can come in handy.

Who should be using them? And when?

Great questions!

Email drip campaigns are perfect for new companies with few prospects or businesses with small marketing departments. They’re also ideal for marketers just starting out their careers.

That’s because they’re generally cost-effective and easy to set up and run. They focus on what’s happening in the moment, so there’s limited long-term planning involved. And not many people are required to execute them.

Essentially, all you need to do is create communications, determine a cadence, and send out your messages. This gives you an opportunity to regularly connect with prospects and educate them enough to make a purchase.

Drip marketing can be particularly effective when you’re:

• Reengaging a cold sales lead: Did a once-promising prospect suddenly abandon you at the one-yard line? Using a series of drip emails, you can educate them on how your product can help solve their problems, reinforce their desire to buy, and nudge them toward the end zone.
• Providing thought leadership: Not quite sure what your prospects are interested in or where they are in the buying cycle? Staying in touch by providing always-on thought leadership content through an email drip campaign can help you get answers. Plus, it can make sure your brand stays top of mind for your prospects.
• Delivering customer newsletters: Looking for more cross-sell and upsell opportunities? Drip emails—in the form of customer newsletters—can do the trick. By delivering fresh insights on an ongoing basis, you can highlight customer pain points and introduce readers to new products that can help them overcome their issues.

If nothing else, drip marketing offers your business a great way to regularly remind people why they connected with your brand in the first place.

What drip campaigns are all about

Regardless of how you use them, the most important thing to remember is that drip campaigns are all about building relationships and nurturing leads. To do that, your communications must provide constant value.

Your audience should trust that you’re going to deliver what you promised. Your messages should be relevant to your readers’ needs. The experiences you deliver should be consistent across multiple channels. And your campaigns should be continually tested and optimized so they pack the most punch.

Fail to do all of that and you’ll have to deal with “Unsubscribe” getting the most clicks in your emails.

Download What Is Lead Nurturing? to learn more.

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from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/dont-call-it-a-comeback-drip-campaigns-have-been-here-for-years.html

3 Ways Marketers Can Avoid a Communication Breakdown With Designers

Not to point any fingers, but how many marketers are guilty of asking designers something along the lines of “Can you just make it prettier?”

For many marketers, working with a designer can be one of the most challenging tasks they face while building a brand. Communicating their wants, needs, and visions can lead marketers into a minefield of misunderstandings.

Despite working toward the same goals, designers and marketers speak different languages. Designers are specialists who have learned to translate concepts visually, but that method of communicating information requires plenty of education and training.

Marketers are no less specialized than designers, and increased digitalization has led us to use more technical jargon—marketers love their buzzwords—and complex processes. Most words we use to communicate meaning just don’t add up: The word “flat,” for instance, has a completely different meaning to designers than it does to marketers—and most other folks, for that matter.

On top of the inherent differences to each role, the way people communicate meaning and value changes constantly. The speed of modern communication has altered our expectations of turnaround times, and the introduction of 5G is about to change the speed of communication yet again.

When frustrations and miscommunications arise, this tension leads to diluted messaging and diminished relationships with their target audiences. If marketers and designers commit to speaking a common language, their relationship and reliance on each other will lead to superior marketing assets: Good design results in world-class branding, after all.

Bolster Your Brand by Learning to Speak ‘Designer’

Don’t let the fear of lousy communication stand in the way of an awesome partnership with your design team.

Here are three ways you can keep projects running smoothly:

1. Get together before the project begins

Designers aren’t mind readers. They cannot pluck an idea from your brain and turn it into something marvelous without plenty of direction, clear expectations, and guidance along the way.

At the start of the relationship—or any new project—set up a meeting to discuss your vision. Be clear and specific about your goals, and admit what you don’t know or still have to find out. Ask the designer what he or she needs from you.

Use this meeting to also forecast the timing of the project. According to our in-house data, basing timelines on previous projects causes teams to underestimate how long a project will take 67% of the time. To avoid this trap, outline any expectations about turnaround times and revisions before building a timeline together. When possible, allow designers to take the lead on project timelines or stages.

Give your designer everything he or she might need to understand your brand and target audience. Explain the demographics you’re trying to reach, how your audience interacts with your brand, and what promises or values you want to communicate.

That might seem like a lot of information, but it will empower your designer to make intuitive choices without micromanagement. Without clear expectations, it’s easy for a designer to follow a tangent that made sense in the drafting stages but doesn’t necessarily align with your end goal.

2. Commit to overcommunicating

When you’re establishing a new relationship or project with a designer, err on the side of overcommunicating. Ask plenty of questions, and don’t assume anything. Get clarification about the designer’s thought process, ideas, and—especially—suggestions.

Check in regularly to see whether the designer has everything he or she needs. Explore different methods of communicating to find an approach that works for both of you. Chat platforms like Slack are great for quick, on-the-go check-ins, but nothing beats a face-to-face meeting or video call for sorting out problems and expectations or stirring up excitement for ideas.

It’s equally important to provide written documentation of all expectations, budgets, timelines, and directions. Don’t let creative briefs linger in a folder on your desktop; get them to your designer right away. You can set your projects up for success by treating this early step as a collaborative and informational process.

Once you’ve established your preferred mediums and cadence of communication, you can settle into a more relaxed rhythm with the knowledge that everyone’s on the same page.

3. Give constructive feedback that’s design-specific

Clear and constructive feedback is essential to a productive relationship with a designer. Saying only “I love this” or “I don’t like that” doesn’t cut it, and vague comments such as “Make it cleaner” won’t help designers decide what to do next. High-quality feedback builds on good ideas and explains why “bad” ideas won’t work.

A designer’s job is to solve and create, and your goal is to present a challenge with a problem to overcome. Don’t impose solutions—ask designers for input and ideas. If discussions start to go in circles, steer the conversation back to your pain point. Try to explain precisely what bothers you about any problematic elements, but give your designer the freedom to own the work they are doing.

Trust your designers and embolden them to offer their own evaluations without having to fear that you’ll ignore them or take offense. Create this safe space in your meetings by introducing feedback from the beginning.

Designers might speak in colors and shapes rather than metrics and data, but you can work together to forge a shared language. Start this relationship off strong by bridging the gap and finding ways to communicate, and the results will speak for themselves.

The post 3 Ways Marketers Can Avoid a Communication Breakdown With Designers appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/3-ways-marketers-can-avoid-a-communication-breakdown-with-designers.html

Your Guide to Relationship Selling

The Power of Relationships

Your product’s features and benefits matter. Often, however, they are not enough on their own to win new business. That’s because most markets are crowded with competitors that offer similar products, services, or solutions.

So how do you compete in saturated markets with the competition nipping at your heels?

It’s all about relationships—good old-fashioned human interactions that build trust. In fact, LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2017 US Report notes that trust in a salesperson is the number one factor in a purchase decision. These sales relationships put the customer first, focusing on creating value for the buyer over the long term that will build brand loyalty.

The fact that companies have started to recognize the importance of relationships is evident by the increasing popularity of account-based sales development (ABSD) and account-based marketing (ABM), which 87% of B2B marketers are implementing.

These account-based strategies let the customer drive the marketing and sales approach. Marketers create content that’s customized to an account’s information needs, helping them to make the purchase that’s right for them. Meanwhile, salespeople build relationships with decision makers and buying influencers across an organization. Sales and marketing work in tandem before the sale and after it, continuing to develop and strengthen that relationship.

How to Build Sales Relationships and Sell More Without Selling

1. Replace Games with Value

When Dale Carnegie said, “The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want,” he honed in on the central tenet of relationship selling.

You have to deliver value, not just today or tomorrow but in the long term.

That means there’s no need for a strong sales pitch that dazzles prospects with lots of bells and whistles they may or may not need. Selling is about finding out what’s important to customers and delivering it. By showing value, a company builds trust.

2. Be Honest and Authentic

There is something empowering about focusing on the value you can provide. Traditional selling, which focuses on the short term, often involves game playing. Salespeople sometimes use pressure tactics to pave the way to a sale. Perhaps they talk about scarcity, saying supplies of a product are about to run out or a special deal is over in a couple of days.

On the other hand, relationship selling is honest. Salespeople are free to be authentic. Correction: They must be authentic. That’s good news because it’s easier for reps to be themselves than to try to be someone else.

3. Listen More than You Talk

If a rep is introverted, there’s no need for them to attempt to turn themselves into the stereotypical garrulous salesperson. In fact, it’s likely the introverted rep is a better listener than his extroverted colleague, and that’s an essential skill in building relationships and fostering a consultative sale.

A good listener makes the customer feel important (who doesn’t want to be listened to?) and is likely to ask the right questions. Listeners have a greater knack for finding out whether or not your company’s solution is a good fit for the prospect. That’s important because in relationship selling, you’re not after every sale. You only want the ones that lead to satisfied customers.

4. Communicate in a Human Way

While relationships can start with electronic communication, such as emails and interactions via social media platforms, they need to be more personal and more human. That means phone calls or face-to-face meetings. There’s just something about hearing someone else’s voice, having them listen to you and enjoying a two-way exchange. In fact, it’s difficult to understand an individual’s true needs without such a conversation.

During these dialogues, a salesperson hears the buyer’s words and their intonation. Thus, they gain a deeper understanding of an individual’s emotions and greater empathy for the problems they’re trying to solve.

That’s important because how can you give someone what they want if you don’t know what it is? Once a salesperson understands the customer’s needs, they can offer value by helping to solve the problem.

5. Treat Prospects’ and Customers’ Time with Respect

There’s no need to chase customers, calling them repeatedly without an appointment. Instead, at the end of each exchange, discuss next steps and schedule a follow-up interaction. When the rep shows they value their own time as well as the customer’s time, they are more likely to emerge as a trusted consultant. When they do, prospects are happy to block time on their calendars for conversations or product demonstrations.

If you focus on building relationships and value for customers, sales are likely to come your way more easily. Be honest and authentic in your approach, listen to customer needs, go beyond electronic communications to conversations, and always respect your customers’ time.

The post Your Guide to Relationship Selling appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/your-guide-to-relationship-selling.html

The 3 Essentials of a Successful Qualified Leads Program

In a way, sales reps are like nurses or doctors. They take people’s temperatures to determine how they’re feeling. A “hot” prospect is ready to buy. A “cold” prospect is merely browsing inventory.

Before the internet, this heat check was usually performed in person. Sales reps would get a good sense of how interested someone was in their company’s products or services by spending some time with them.

Qualified leads would ultimately receive more attention—the sales rep might play 18 holes with them to help close the deal. For people looking to buy later, an occasional phone call to nurture the relationship would suffice.

But with the way modern customers conduct online research prior to purchasing, the human interaction aspect of qualifying leads has all but disappeared.

Many companies today have turned to innovative marketing automation software to analyze a prospect’s digital engagement behavior and determine whether they’re qualified enough to move on to the next step in the sales cycle.

But successfully qualifying leads for sales means having three key fundamentals in place:

1. A solid definition of “lead”

First things first. What’s a lead? At Marketo, we define a lead as any “qualified prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior.” That could mean when somebody begins following a social media account, subscribes to an email newsletter, or browses a product page on a website.

Of course, every business should have its own definition for what a lead is. Why? Because differentiating a lead from a non-lead will help you determine who’s worth nurturing and who’s not.

If you haven’t yet defined what a lead is for your organization, here’s how to get started:

Schedule a sit-down between sales and marketing. Talk about what your target market looks like, who’s in your database already, and what kind of buyers are currently closing deals. You’ll also want to discuss things like when to start lead nurturing and what makes a bad lead.

Marketing operations usually has access to the tools, systems, and data that tell you everything you need to know.

Once you’ve developed a solid definition, write it down. You’ll what to share what you’ve come up with so everyone’s on the same page.

And don’t forget to meet regularly. Your definition of a lead will change as your business grows or your priorities shift.

2. An effective lead scoring system

With a lead scoring system, you can assign values to prospects based on actions they take, behaviors they exhibit, and more. This will help you rank leads to determine which prospects are ripe for nurturing and which are ready to engage with your sales team.

There are four attributes you must identify through your lead scoring system:

• Lead fit: Collecting information around your prospects’ demographics (title, role, location), firmographics (industry, company size, name of company) and BANT (budget, authority, need, time) will give you an idea of whether they fit your ideal buyer profile. You can capture a lot of demographic and firmographic information through a registration page form. Gathering BANT data may require getting to know your prospects a little bit better—perhaps through progressive profiling.

• Lead interest: Studying your prospects’ online body language by analyzing how they engage with your brand will give you insight into how interested they are in your product or service. The more interest they show, the more likely they are to buy—and the more heavily you should shower them with attention and valuable content. 

• Lead behavior: Certain prospect behavior shines a light on where they are in the customer journey. Visiting a website or attending a webinar are the signs of an early-stage prospect. Checking out a pricing page or watching a solution demo reveal buyer intent. You can take advantage of this information by offering early-stage prospects more educational content and passing off leads with high buyer intent to sales. 

• Buying stage/timing: Knowing when your lead intends to buy is extremely important. If a prospect is just beginning to research a product, it’s not the time to put the hard sell on them. Instead, send valuable information about how the product can help solve their problems. By closely evaluating a prospect’s behavior, you’ll get a firm sense of where they are in the buying journey.

Developing a lead scoring system is a core component of lead management—and no department is better suited to help your company bring this system into fruition than your marketing operations team.

That’s because marketing operations has access to the data required to establish a lead scoring program—so it doesn’t have to rely on guesswork.

3. A culture built on testing and optimization

Like most things in marketing, your lead nurturing program shouldn’t be a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. You’ll want to regularly test what’s working and what’s not so you can optimize your processes.

But what exactly should you be testing? In a word: Everything.

The goal of your lead nurturing program is to provide satisfying customer experiences that align with your audiences’ preferences and ultimately drive sales.

So, scrutinize every method you use to engage with your prospects. Measure how people respond to your social media posts, the offers on your websites, and the material in your videos.

Email nurture streams, in particular, provide a plethora of opportunities to test and optimize. You can:

• Assess how different variations of a subject line impact open rates
• See if click-through rates improve by swapping your content type
• Evaluate whether readers respond better to short or long emails
• Change the layout to learn what kind of design resonates most with readers
• Modify send frequency to get a better idea of how often audiences want to be contacted

By creating a culture of testing and optimization, sales and marketing can collaborate to turn qualified leads into surefire customers.

A new frontier of qualifying leads emerges with AI

The three fundamentals above will go a long way toward helping you successfully qualify leads for sales. But like we’ve seen before with the emergence of the internet, there’s always something new around the corner ready to shake up the status quo.

Today, that’s AI.

Sales reps currently spend a lot of time and attention just determining if a prospect is a qualified lead. Sometimes, it’s all for naught, as a months-long engagement could develop into nothing.

Hiring more sales reps isn’t the answer. But leaning on innovative conversational AI and machine learning could be.

Instead of an employee interacting with a prospect, an AI-driven bot could communicate with them. When a person visits a website, the bot can converse with them, help them, and, most importantly, collect the valuable insight needed to decide if they’re a qualified lead.

This allows human sales reps to limit their focus to building relationships with prospects who are actually worth their time.

A chance to transform lead qualification

With a few key principles and an eye on the future, you can do wonders for your lead qualification program. And it won’t be long until your entire organization feels the effects—experiencing more closed deals and higher revenue.

Download The Definitive Guide to Sales Lead Qualification and Sales Development to learn more.

The post The 3 Essentials of a Successful Qualified Leads Program appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/the-3-essentials-of-a-successful-qualified-leads-program.html

How to Strike a Balance Between Relying on AI and Emphasizing a Human Touch

The emergence of AI technology is the result of evolved human thinking. And, in some ways, it’s become one of the biggest technology game changers of this generation. However, without being very cautious and aware of the dangers—and significance—of combining human interaction with artificial intelligence, we could head down the wrong path.

Personally, a substantial barrier I’ve faced in my life is properly managing my time. At first, I was obsessed with learning the ins and outs of Google Calendar. As brilliant as Google is, the brand has to keep things relatively simple: Everybody who uses a Google product expects, and needs, to be completely comfortable with it. There can’t be a steep learning curve.

When we were building Calendar, one of our goals was to help people become more thoughtful. To do that, the app has to use AI to collect existing data to create reminders of important events, moments, or tasks. This can significantly help enhance the relationships between the user and the important people in his life.

At the same time, AI won’t automatically know the difference between meaningful and meaningless details people share with the user. You might have had a conversation with someone who mentioned a big event coming up, but you still have to manually input that information. In a less obvious scenario, someone could have just earned a promotion or lost a loved one. The typical calendar application isn’t going to create a reminder to send a congratulatory note or condolences in these unexpected circumstances.

AI to Scale

If we relied solely on AI, we’d miss out on chances to build and maintain meaningful connections. However, without AI, it would be difficult to scale and optimize relationships—there’s a reason we have a standard social circle of 150 people.

This example is both a key and a hint as to how marketers should approach AI in different ways. AI needs to be used as a catalyst to connect us with more people on a human level, scaling personalization or helping us identify ways to interact with others that we may not have previously seen.

In marketing, it’s vital to gain trust and engage people, so they want to buy from and advocate for you. Therefore, scaling through AI can be an asset. But when there’s a chance to add a human connection, we have to leap at the opportunity.

Creating a Balance Between AI and Humans

How can you balance AI technology with human interaction? Here are just three ways to achieve that goal.

Create a mix of technology and humanity.

We’re already experiencing this transformation in our daily lives — if you have a question about a return policy or the weather, you interact with AI technology to get this information easily and quickly. But what if your question is more specific or requires smarter suggestions? AI can only go so far.

We still strive for human interaction. After all, we’re social creatures. AI can’t connect with us emotionally. And, as amazing as the technology is, AI doesn’t have all the answers. For example, let’s say you received a package with a damaged product. A chatbot may be able to provide the basics regarding the company’s return policy. Understandably frustrated, you want to interact with an actual person who can empathize with you and correct the situation. A more “human” AI shares your information with the customer service rep, so you don’t have to repeat yourself.

We’ll continue to see this evolve. You can record your meetings, enabling AI to use the information discussed to make smart suggestions for your next meeting. It may suggest when, where, and whom to schedule. AI could also help you develop an agenda and book the meeting. You, however, are still responsible for making sure the meeting is productive and isn’t a waste of time. AI and humans must work together in harmony, not simply focusing on replacing roles and responsibilities.

Important decisions still require a human touch.

Self-driving cars are a great example of humans still needing to, well, take the wheel. Each vehicle still has a driver just in case the machine has reached its limits or gets confused. Similarly, if you’ve ever called a call center, you’ve likely had your question transferred to a human operator because the machine couldn’t understand you.

With your calendar, AI technology may notice that you work on a specific task at an exact time on certain days. As a result, it will automatically generate a recurring block for you, making you unavailable and issuing a reminder. But what if an emergency pulled you away from that task, and everything else on your calendar had to get pushed back? The intelligent calendar doesn’t know that, proceeding as normal. You’re going to have to manually update your calendar, so conflicts don’t arise throughout the rest of the day.

Chatbots, for example, can help guide us in making financial decisions or planning our schedules. But would you trust a machine to plan your retirement or automatically fill in your entire year? Of course not.

AI technology should be an asset that helps us make smarter, more informed decisions. In the end, it can’t have the final say — the tech simply isn’t trained to handle new situations. For important decisions, a human touch is still needed.

Trust in the power of intuition.

I recently watched a movie called “Upgrade.” In a key scene, the lead realized the automated car was taking a different route home. His gut immediately told him something was wrong. To avoid spoilers, I’ll just say his gut was picking up on clues his mind might have ignored.

As useful as AI technology is and will continue to be, it can’t replace our inner voice. Whether it’s knowing you’re in a dangerous situation or sensing someone isn’t trustworthy, there’s no amount of technology that can replace our gut instincts. Why have your calendar set up a meeting with someone you believe isn’t legit? AI can be used to make suggestions and enhance our lives, but it’s ultimately on us to use our past experiences to respond to certain situations.

We’ve learned, as we continue to develop our product, that we need guidelines that permit a human connection at any moment. People want that human-to-human connection, and the more you exclusively use AI, the more that’s taken away. AI technology has its limits, and that’s where the human touch has to take over.

The post How to Strike a Balance Between Relying on AI and Emphasizing a Human Touch appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/how-to-strike-a-balance-between-relying-on-ai-and-emphasizing-a-human-touch.html

4 Ways to Reach More Qualified Leads by Uniting Your Sales and Marketing Teams

For the past 20 years, I have journeyed into the lairs of countless marketers. From small startups to national corporations, what has shocked me the most is the lack of unity and communication between the sales and marketing departments.

When I first visit a marketing department, I ask its team members to describe their buyer profile as well as their customer’s interests, demographics, and pain points. More often than not, the picture feels incomplete and impersonal—the marketing team seems to have a limited understanding of its target audience.

To get to the bottom of the issue, I check in with the sales team. I frequently discover that the sales department’s target buyer is a completely different creature from the one I heard about in marketing. The two teams are speaking different languages and wasting huge opportunities. I can only imagine the amount of money and resources that companies have wasted by marketing to the wrong people.

Salespeople and marketers aren’t blind to this disconnect. According to LinkedIn, 58% of sales and marketing professionals report that collaboration delivers improved customer retention. What’s more, 54% stated that aligning had a positive contribution to financial performance.

I don’t blame either department for this problem. The two entities traditionally have spent years working in their respective silos. With such a drastic change in consumer behavior, however, it is more important than ever to take a personalized approach to marketing.

4 Ways to Reunite Sales and Marketing for Good

In a united company, true teamwork is baked into systems, processes, and goals. The sales department has an intimate knowledge of customers, and the marketing department can turn that data into stories. When these two teams share goals and work in communion, companies are able to attract more—and better—opportunities.

Here are four steps to better use both departments’ talents and optimize the resources that feed into both:

1. Make sure both departments collaborate on buyer profiles

I’m betting that each department has the information the other is missing. Marketers might have more research on anticipated buyer behavior, but salespeople are on the ground, talking with prospects and hearing their concerns.

A buyer profile should be a detailed, in-depth representation of your target customers’ preferences and behavior as they research and interact with your business. To get the best picture of who you need to target, have sales and marketing work together to build buyer personas. You might have your marketing team come up with a list of the traits, information, and values they wish they knew about their customers. Meanwhile, have your salespeople call your top customers and interview them to learn more about their motivations, pain points, and researching behaviors. If sales and marketing can combine their skills and insights in answering these questions, they’ll be able to create content based on the needs of their target audiences. This approach will help marketing know where to spend time, money, and attention for prospective clients, and it will allow the sales team to know prospects better throughout the sales cycle.

2. Schedule regular joint meetings

Sales and marketing teams are busy. If they never take the time to talk, though, they will always suffer from a disconnect. Solve this problem by arranging regular meetups with a shared agenda to help everyone get on the same page.

I suggest having your department heads prioritize this as a monthly meeting. The goal is for both teams to leave the meeting with renewed collective energy. Use this time to motivate both teams while boosting cohesion and team morale.

This meeting provides a chance to determine how sales and marketing teams can continue to work together. Ask plenty of questions: “What kind of information should be shared?” “Which channels should we use to share that information?” “What does a ‘qualified lead’ mean for Project A? For Project B?” This meeting also provides an opportunity to walk through ongoing sales or to brainstorm content ideas that would ease the process.

3. Give teams the tools to talk to each other

Sales and marketing should have shared tools to track the success of campaigns, follow up with automation, identify lead scoring, and keep each other updated on various progress.

Once both teams are effectively using these tools, they naturally will start to speak the same language of data. With your teams on the same page, you can share these insights through weekly updates sent through your email marketing platform and track how everyone is interacting with the email impressions.

There are multiple tools you can choose, but here are two must-haves:

• Analytics tools—Make sure your websites are hooked up and generating insights that are valuable to your sales and marketing teams.
• A good CRM system—Connect both departments through a common CRM that enables both teams to see the progress of leads, common objections, and profiles of successful sales.

4. After every sale, review the process as a team

The post-sale buzz is a crucial time for sales and marketing teams to stay connected; it’s the perfect moment to learn about the successes and pain points of the process and to figure out how to repeat or alleviate them.

Make sure you have a defined, shared process that allows both departments to analyze the information they need to refine their strategies better. One post-sale process that can benefit both departments involves sending out surveys for customers to review.

Work together to communicate with customers about their experience with the sales process. Are they happy with the purchase? Was the buying process enjoyable? If it makes more sense for your sales team to call the customer to debrief about the sales cycle, that also works fine. When these customer insights come in, sales and marketing can both benefit by reviewing the information together.

It’s time to encourage sales and marketing to incorporate a modern sales enablement strategy to make their jobs easier and more enjoyable. When both teams work together, they can reach more qualified leads and stop wasting money on prospects that won’t follow through. Start speaking the same language, and your customers will begin to hear a unified story that they can believe in.

The post 4 Ways to Reach More Qualified Leads by Uniting Your Sales and Marketing Teams appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/4-ways-to-reach-more-qualified-leads-by-uniting-your-sales-and-marketing-teams.html

It’s Not About ‘What’s Trending,’ Find Out What Your Audience Actually Cares About

As a marketing professional, your biggest concern is reaching your audience. The dream is for millions of people to like, share, and comment on a post you cooked up for your organization. In theory, the best way to make this fantasy a reality is to tap into some “trending” topics and capture everyone’s attention. Unfortunately, too many marketers make this rookie mistake, and they end up spending more time recovering from the fallout than engaging with consumers.

Attaching your brand to a pop culture topic leads to short-term results at best, as your message gets lost in the thousands of other tweets on the subject. And when the public shifts its focus to something else, your campaign becomes old news. At worst, customers will think the brand is trying to capitalize on an important social movement, and you’ll be left trying to convince them you’re not part of a heartless corporate machine.

The goal, then, is to narrow your focus to your most loyal supporters. More specifically, you should use social media to consider what those supporters care about rather than just who they are. There’s always some emotional thread running through your audience, and if you connect your brand to that thread instead of a fleeting fad, you can establish a long, lucrative relationship with your base.

Inhabiting a Culture Through Social Media

Discovering your audience’s passions is easier said than done. It’s difficult to zero in on what motivates your customers to get out of bed every day, and, frankly, they might not know either. And to make things more complicated, your ideal audience might not even be the consumer.

Just look at Minecraft. This game about building a virtual world is typically played by children, but they’re not the ones with the credit cards. Because the parents are the intended audience, the social conversation that draws them to the game is the promise that it will build their children’s logic and problem-solving skills. Therefore, the marketing of the game is not necessarily just entertainment; it’s about how Minecraft can strengthen children’s interest in science and architecture in a safe environment.

In cases such as these, you’re not just marketing to the person; you’re appealing to an idea that, unlike “trendy” topics, will exist for the long haul. When you examine your audience, you’ll likely find a similar passion that unites your consumers regardless of individual, demographic differences. See whether the following strategies can help you use social media to determine what makes those audience members tick and develop an effective marketing strategy.

1. Pay attention to psychology on social

Because there are probably several emotional interests across your audience, consider using those interests to divide up your consumers. Everyone knows audience segmentation is key, but grouping that audience based on psychological factors gives you a richer understanding of who you’re marketing toward.

Instead of creating a persona based on gender, age group, and other demographic information, pay closer attention to social media interactions. This is where consumers reveal their core passions you didn’t already know about. You might even find different layers of their personalities on different platforms. For example, women who fit the devoted mother persona might express their parenting goals by participating in multiple parenting groups on Facebook. However, Instagram could reveal a clustering of interests and motivators outside of parenting that Facebook would not.

Using multiple social media channels lets you understand consumers not as followers of trending topics but as multidimensional characters who interact with their own environments.

2. Avoid appearing salesy

Consumers know brands need to sell something. The trick, though, is to disguise that fact while remaining honest in your social media posts. Trying too hard to please customers can have them running to competitors.

Communicating your brand’s story is more important than saying what people want to hear. Churning out posts that just list your product’s benefits will appear forced. Instead, just like you’re trying to determine your customers’ passions, don’t be afraid to show them yours. Be upfront about your background, goals, and how your brand is more of a reflection of your organization than an efficient way to make money.

3. Embrace risk

Unfortunately, none of these steps are surefire successes. A plan that’s brilliant on paper can still fail miserably and force you to rethink your entire strategy. The real challenge, though, is to continue taking risks.

Gatorade, for instance, released a 2016 ad implying the sports drink is primarily for athletes who can afford the excess sugar. Non-athletic viewers who drink Gatorade for the taste alone might have found it offensive, as if the company was reserving its product solely for sports superstars. However, Gatorade’s risky strategy appealed to a specific passion from a specific subset of its audience. With this ad, the company proved that even when it’s not perfect, a daring message can keep your brand alive.

Social media can be your lab to test new material and see what connects to your audience. Consider trying out your new idea with a simple tweet or Facebook post. It might alienate parts of the audience, but as long as it’s accurate and you believe in it, chances are you’ll forge a stronger connection with a core audience.

These strategies might sound a bit more difficult than they’re worth. After all, it’d be easier to hijack the latest pop culture trend to gain the most traction from the most people. But that method does little to establish long-term brand loyalty among consumers. And if you use social media to better understand your audience’s interests, the trendiest topic on the internet will soon be your brand.

The post It’s Not About ‘What’s Trending,’ Find Out What Your Audience Actually Cares About appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/04/its-not-about-whats-trending-find-out-what-your-audience-actually-cares-about.html

3 Strategies to Kick-Start your ABM Efforts

Account-based marketing (ABM) is neither a product nor a point solution. Rather, it’s a strategy, a mindset, and ultimately a cultural movement. Done correctly, this culture shift leads to better sales and marketing partnership, and eventually the ability to maximize revenue potential together with sales. On the marketing side, ABM forces them to think like salespeople, which means going from a lead-based to an account-based mentality. Instead of reacting to leads that are interested in products, marketing needs to catch up and align with sales by proactively selling into accounts that are a great fit for the brand. Additionally, they are catering messaging and personalization towards buying groups and personas, instead of individuals. Sales must also undergo a mentality shift because ABM forces them to trust technology and software to help scale their traditional strategic selling efforts. It requires them to trust marketing and really work together across the aisle.

While the idea of strategic selling has been around for a while, the technology has not. As the world of marketing and selling gets more complicated, ABM becomes more of a need than a want. Indeed, Sirius Decisions finds that 93% of B2B companies consider ABM to be extremely important for their success in driving more revenue.

Common Challenges

For the past few years, I’ve been reminded by customers and prospects about how difficult ABM execution is, especially getting started and obtaining early buy-in from sales. On average, it takes six to nine months to get ABM up and running, a lengthy process in part because of the challenge of aligning mentalities to create a shared strategy between marketing and sales. Alignment is required throughout the entire workflow in order to maximize the potential of ABM and maximize revenue together for the brand. Without this step, it’s impossible to define target account lists and prioritize accounts.

Another roadblock is building the right target account list to support the strategy. This is difficult because sales and marketing are forced to work with limited account level data, and don’t have the manpower or tech to scale their processes, especially the brands that have thousands of accounts in their database already. Often, the best fit accounts your looking for are buried deep in the databases or across different marketing and sales tools and data sources. As a result, sales and marketing are forced to spend months building target account lists that nobody agrees on and are often based on opinion, intuition, and gut feel instead of data.

Recommended Solution

The combination of clean data and artificial intelligence helps solve the challenges above. Successful ABM’ers use the combination of both to remove the guesswork out of creating a shared strategy and building the right predictive target account list.  Data refers to clean first-party customer data that contains firmographic, technographic, and behavioral activity data. AI refers to algorithms and machine learning to create an ideal customer profile (ICP) based on your first party customer data and then using the ICP to quickly scan and predict which accounts in your database should be considered target accounts. The AI prediction and recommendation is based on the first party data that you trained the ICP model with. As a result, successful ABM’ers can ensure they have a list justified by data, instead of opinions. Remember, your AI is only as accurate as the first-party data you train it with.

Kickstarter Strategies & Predictive Target Account Lists

1.     Land & Expand: Predictive Up-sell/Cross-sell List

The first key strategy is getting more from your existing customers. This is about landing and expanding across your customer base, selling them additional products, or up-selling the current products you have. For this scenario, you would train your AI-based ICP model with customers that just recently purchases up-sell/cross-sell products. You would then tell the model to scan your existing customer base that has not yet purchased certain up-sell/cross-sell products. The result would be considered a predictive up-sell/cross-sell list.

2.     More New Business: Predictive Best-fit List

The second strategy is to win more new business. This is about net new business coming into your ABM funnel and increasing the number of quality opportunities. This scenario REALLY requires collaboration and coordination with the sales team. No longer can you have a lead hand-off with clear marketing and sales demarcations. It’s about having one team executing together in a coordinated fashion. In this case, you would train your AI-based ICP model on your recent closed-won customers in the past 3-6 months. You would then tell the model to scan your known account database to see which accounts are best-fit accounts. The result would be considered a predictive best-fit list.

3.     Get Back on Track: Predictive Quick-win List

The third strategy requires focusing in on what accounts you can close fastest. This is a great strategy to have when you feel you are not on track to hit your quarterly ABM goals.  This involves looking at your average sales cycle and velocity for previous closed-won deals. In this case, you would train your AI-based ICP model on your previous high-velocity closed-won opportunities. You would then tell the model to scan your know account database to see which accounts are more likely to close the fastest.  This is a great tactic for marketing if they need to get back on track to hit their quarterly goals.

For more on how to kick start your ABM efforts, check out our webinar on the same topic.

The post 3 Strategies to Kick-Start your ABM Efforts appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2019/03/3-strategies-to-kick-start-your-abm-efforts.html