The topic for discussion was actually “Effective Sales & Marketing Strategies in the Cloud” at the 69^th edition of Friday’s 2.0. We had the Managing Director of GlobalLogic, Mr Sunil Singh as the distinguished speaker and you’ll realise, why I’ve taken the liberty to tweak the topic name. He spoke briefly about GlobalLogic and its global operations. Buying behaviour in India is rather price sensitive, he said. He started his presentation by calling it Enterprise Sales : A Consultative Approach.

The Traditional Enterprise Sales vs Sales & Marketing 2.0 Approach:

• The focus is now on ROI and not only on the product. For instance, you communicate how much difference the product will impact on your ROI and not just its features.
• There is something called a ROI Calculator which helps you do that. It’s called Strategic Opportunity Assessment (SOA) which measures the impact on Cycle time, Product variability, service levels and such other parameters. ZoomInfo, Hoovers and such other companies have what they call a Value Calculator which lets you do all that.
• Earlier the target audience would be mostly C-level execs and nothing less than a VP. Only companies, revenue in excess of 1 Bn US$ would be sought after. Post SaaS all that has changed. Deal size have become considerably smaller. Earlier a 6 Mn US$ revenue by the Product company would constitute of deals where the deal –size was never less than 700000 US$.
• In a SaaS world, Long Sales Cycle and High Touch are Kiss of Death. Traditional 18-month enterprise models don’t work anymore.

He then talked about the difference between SaaS as a procurement model and SaaS as a deployment model. True SaaS as it should be, is both, Mr Singh said. From a Sales perspective, a Procurement Model is relevant – try before you buy.

Sales & Marketing – 2.0 Approach:

• Alignment between Sales & Marketing. This has to be maintained throughout the Sales Cycle. The job of Marketing is to generate leads and of sales is to close leads. The leads to opportunity gap must be monitored at all times, because that is what will determine the success of SaaS.
• Traditional Matrices – number of leads generated, pipeline value by sales stage, sales rep’s commission calculated based on quota achievement, sales cycle time, win rates and forecast attainment.
• Additional Matrices now being measured – Leads converted to opportunity; pipeline velocity by sales stage; Sales Rep scorecard; Sales stage cycle time.

Changing culture:

• Size of deals are getting smaller. Now it is about volume.
• Marketing tools – emails, campaigns, search engine marketing, banner advertisement have to be all measurement oriented.
• The measurement matrices –  Reach, Acquisition, Conversions and Qualified Leads. Sales & Marketing teams would have to go item by item and agree on what really are Qualified Leads.
• Internet Marketing Metrics measured by – Impression, Clicks, Click through and cost per impression – Mr Singh briefly touched upon these. E-mails have one of the poorest form of conversion.
• Lead Flow Access Organisation. Campaign (Banner, paid search, text newsletter) —Landing Page — CRM and Marketing Automation — Lead Scorecard — Sales Opportunity closed. This will also keep tabs on sales productivity.

Lead Management & Nurturing:

1. Reach
2. Interest – major leakages occur here between reach and interest.
3. Desire
4. Convert
5. Enrich
6. Retain

Any mature marketing process closes the B2B lead Management Gap. The need is for lead developers and not just generators.

What is a lead?

Someone who has – 1 Budgets 2 Authority 3 Need 4 Purchasing time frame. This helps to define suspects, prospects and leads.

Lead Scoring – explicit data:

Quantification (point-based) is done based on Budgets (Yes, Partial & No); Job Title ( C-level, President, SVP) and Demographics

Lead scoring – implicit data:

Based on how recent is the lead and the frequency of it. Buying behaviour shows that as they get ready to buy, customers would call back more frequently.

Using these Lead scoring maps, commissions of sales people can be computed as also agreed upon action plans.

Routing:

Ensure follow up within 48 hours because interest level diminishes after 48 hours. Deals are closed based on how quickly you are able to touch base. One & Done – never. What it means is that just don’t send 1 email / make 1 phone call / 1 newsletter and sit tight if no response comes in. It never will. Emails / newsletters have to be followed up with phone calls.

Lead nurturing through content creation:

The content creation team is responsible for identifying the Buyer person and devising the content tactics accordingly.

• If it is the influencer in the organisation that you are reaching out to, then the content needs to be info oriented. E.g. newsletters and user generated emails.
• For Executives, one needs to communicate the idea of thought leadership. Case studies & best practises.
• For technical people it is about webinars and
• Economic – ROI, CTO needs to be communicated effectively.

Gated content (monitor who gets to use) vs Open Content:

Gated content – Analyst paper, Thought Leadership, Webinars & Installation Guides

Open content – Videos, Data sheets, Solution Briefs and Product Specifications

As an analyst you convey “I feel your pain.”

When there is consideration of sale, you talk about ROI, case study.

At decision making stage you talk about Data Sheet, Success Stories and Free Trials.

Lessons learnt:

• Ineffective / poor content
• Too many calls-to-action in email
• Doing too much too fast
• Not paying attention to the hand-off
• Believing that there is one nurture for all
• Internal politics within the organisation

2 types of Marketing People that you require:

1)      Marketing Managers who will always fill up the pipeline – lead generators basically. They are the ones who will look after content, market segmentation, prepare lists and talk about corporate strategy. Their job is to fill the top of the funnel.

2)      Field Marketer. To plug the funnel. Their job is to maximise the return on leads. Liaise; Lead Scoring; Lead Distribution and Lead Follow up. These are the guys who in future will drive your business.

The enterprise licensing model will disappear with time as this is the reality.

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