Sales Cycle Marketing. Not sure if this is an actual marketing term, but I've used it for several years. If sales and marketing aren't working together, you're not nearly as effective as you could be. Marketing needs to understand the selling cycle, and sales needs to understand that marketing provides them with tools, awareness and lead generation.
But in terms of Sales Cycle Marketing, marketers must first understand this selling cycle. Once understood, then an analysis must happen to develop an integrated marketing program that satisfys the needs of each phase of the sales cycle. Leading potential customers through the exploration and discovery stages through sale and post-sale.
Keep these things in mind and you'll more effectively reach your potential customers with the right marketing mix.
I was in a meeting yesterday and rambling on about the usual stuff, but you know what? The usual stuff is really important.
- Creating compelling messaging that hits home to the audience AND is in their language.
- Identifying the sales cycle and communicating the appropriate message at each stage.
- Brand - who are you, what do you stand for and where are you going?
- Integrated marketing - utilizing web, electronic, direct marketing, PR, etc - all a concise, cohesive message.
- ROI and metrics - you getting the most out of your marketing dollar? If not, why? A plan is an organic thing, keep adjusting to find that magic combination, then once you got it, replicate it.
- Funnel all customer touchpoints into your CRM system and warm up any return calls from sales by giving them as much information as you can about the customers interest, history with the company (downloads, website visits, etc.).
- Work with an expert.
- One that understands and can think outside of your corporate walls.
- One that brings new ideas and innovative thinking to the table.
- One that offers excellent customer service and the attention the client and project deserves.
- One that is fun. Simply fun. Do you enjoy working with them?
Some things to think about.
TWELVE THINGS PEOPLE SAY TO KILL GOOD IDEAS
It’s too risky/unpredictable. (In the Gold Rush of 1849, people made money through the creative production of commodity shovels, not from
stab-in-the-dust exploration.)
Best to be a fast follower, not a first mover.
It will cannibalise sales of our existing products and services, in which we’ve made a large investment. You can’t just write that off.
We haven’t got a budget for that/we’ll have to cut money from other departments in order to find the funds.
Engineering/Human Resources/Legal/Ethics/shareholder activists say it can’t or shouldn’t be done.
We’re too big and cumbersome to make the most of this and other ideas. We need to form partnerships with SMEs, government labs and universities, or set up an autonomous unit.
We/somebody else did that before and it failed.
Our suppliers will never rise to the challenge.
The punters are so dumb they will never buy it/will snap up every one we’ve got.
Punters and sales staff will be too slow to grasp how it works. Anyway, they don’t need to know that and, apart from a few geeks, aren’t usually interested.
We need to protect our intellectual property and our brand at all costs: diverting resources into this innovation doesn’t help in that.
It’s impossible to forecast the market for this innovation.
Have you avoided killing ideas today?