union of sales & marketing
DESCRIPTION
Corporate Visions hosted a Marketing & Sales Alignment at Lake Tahoe in October 2010. I delivered this presentation to spur the conversation on how marketing & sales can come together to focus on demand generation.TRANSCRIPT
True Togetherness:The Secret to a Successful Marriage
Between Sales and Marketing
Lee LevittVice President, Strategic Accounts
Sales and marketing can work together in peace and harmony.
Here’s the challenge…
Market Segmentation
Lead Generation
Discovery
Solution Creation
Account Management
Negotiation & Close
Cross-Sell/Up-SellClient
Opportunity
Prospect
Suspect
It starts with lead generation
Marketing wants to know which vertical, geography, or segment to target.
Sales wants to know if the guy in this office
has budget and pain to
buy his solution this
quarter.
How do you
bridge the gap?
The truth is…
You don’t have to.You can and should do both.
Gartner tells you software spending is up 4.8% in 2010.
30,000 feet:
CIO Insight tells you virtualization is the largest spending category for large enterprises.
30,000 feet:
This is good, important information.
But if you want to close deals today, you need to
know more.
You also need to know what’s happening at the street level.
Here’s an example:Targeting a large market
Situation: Company wanted to target a large market, but 30,000- and 15,000-feet views were too broad; they weren’t sure where to focus
Action: BAO surveyed 10,000 companies regarding IT initiatives in the next 6 months:
• 91% of the initiatives uncovered existed in 49% of companies
• 51% had fewer than three initiatives
• 31% had ZERO initiatives
Why is this important?
• They needed to know their market – who was buying their solutions, who wasn’t
• They could point sales at accounts that have the highest probability of buying
• They learned that the right market roadmap equals an effective lead-gen strategy
Let’s get more specific: Targeting virtualization
At street level, you can see the segments that should drive revenue
Segment #1
Already virtualized their desktops
Segment #2
Going to virtualize desktops
Segment #3
No plans to virtualize desktops
Let’s put it in street-level terms:
BAO surveyed 500 companies…
• 230 of them have desktop virtualization
initiatives in the next 12 months, including:
– BB&T
– Bausch & Lomb
– Ball Corp.
– Banner Health
• 230 will not be doing desktop virtualization at all
• 40 of them have already “completely completed”
desktop virtualization
Why is this important?
• Sales knew exactly which companies to target
• Marketing knew exactly which companies to nurture
• Both sales and marketing knew which companies to avoid wasting time and money on
How do we know this…Let’s step through the process
• Look at the total addressable market
– For virtualization example, we used enterprises with revenues >$750 million
• Develop business rules to identify a Buying Spectrum – ask:
– What are we trying to get to?
– Whom do we want to go after, and what do we need to know to go after them?
– Which companies have budget / initiatives in place to virtualize their desktops?
– Which companies haven’t virtualized their desktops but plan to?
– Who has already completed desktop virtualization?
– Which companies have no plans for desktop virtualization?
Survey your targets
Create a survey based on micro-markets and start calling targets.
CAUTION: It is critical that this is done by a vendor-agnostic third party.
Create an action plan…
Segment #2
Already virtualized their desktops
ACTION: Active lead generation and nurturing through appointment-setting.
Segment #1
Going to virtualize their desktops
ACTION: ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK! Hot opportunities immediately flagged — high priority on appointment-setting.
Segment #3
No plans to virtualize desktops
ACTION: Low-cost nurturing campaigns
BAO typically sets appointments with 70% of the green market and
50% of the yellow market within weeks.
You can’t find buyers from 30,000 feet alone.
To know who’s buying now, you also gotta hit the street.
A happy sales and marketing marriage…
• Means taking both perspectives – 30,000 feet and street level – into account
• Requires that you map your market the right way
• Gets you to exactly the companies you want to target
• Drives pipeline – and revenue – faster than you ever thought possible
Contact me.
781-323-7018| [email protected]