Accelerating Marketing & Sales Transformation
Sydney - 16 March 2017
Practical strategies for advancing customer & business outcomes in the digital age.
www.theblackdot.com.au
We’ve spoken a lot at past events around how we are in the midst of significant shifts in how our customers buy brought about by digital. As a result of this we’re all transforming and that’s why we’re all here this morning, the big question we talk about a lot with clients is the pace of transformation vs our customers (and competitors), and whether we are moving at the right pace.
Broadly speaking there are 5 main stages that we observe customers maturing through:
Animate through customer maturity line
Physical channel dependence – this is the buyer of 5 years ago, heavily reliant on salespeople for solution understanding and fit, strong focus on solution features and benefits
Digital experimentation - beginning to branch out into digital channels, could be starting to buy
Disruption/preference shift – this is the point where buyers begin to develop a preference for digital channels and see less value and have less time for salespeople
Informed, self-directed buyer – highly search literate, savvy and highly informed, online and social media comparisons, expect far broader business value and depth of expertise from sales interactions
Omni-channel expectations – the end to end experience is a significant element in the purchasing decision, the ability to move between channels seamlessly and with high levels of personalisation are expected as given
Animate through enterprise maturity
What we observe with particularly a lot of the B2B sector that we work with is that typically a lot of headway has been made with service transformation – examples would be introducing a self-serve digital platform, or a range of other initiatives aimed at dedicated measurement and improvement of the customer experience
Marketing and sales transformation however has been far more difficult to progress, with varied progress across sectors
For a lot of us we are likely dealing with customers who are stages 4 and 5 – so a big part of today’s session is about helping you with ideas for how to accelerate and catch up with them.
Animate sector examples
So given that most of us aren’t moving as fast as we’d like to – what are the obstacles holding us back?
Animate through the marketing challenges
Executive buy-in – with a lot of leaders coming from relationship selling backgrounds, often building executive understanding and support for digital marketing initiatives can be difficult
Outcomes mindset – many marketers haven’t had to be accountable for revenue and lead generation outcomes in the past, so this is a significant mindset shift and often requires net-new talent additions
Data/tech/content – our marketers need to work with more data and technology tools, and build more compelling content more quickly, than they have had to in the past – so this is a big capability leap
Personalisation at scale – and marketers face the challenge of increasing relevance across all touchpoints and engaging a customer who is far more discerning and educated
Animate through the sales challenges
Bottom-up buy-in – salespeople are often accustomed to be CEO of the customer relationship and can be threatened by digital and marketing initiatives
Channel and role mix – the universal soldier field force is unlikely to be the most cost effective and customer appropriate channel anymore, new sales channels such as inside sales and increasing levels of sales role specialisation are required
Digital literacy – CRM, social media, data skills all need to lift
Acumen and insight lift- a higher level of commercial acumen and unique expertise is required to engage buyers and deliver contextual thought leadership and insights
Animate through the integration challenges
Customer imperative – we need to awaken the business to the criticality of reorganising around the customer
Data integrity – so dealing with our legacy databases and data entry issues – without good data relevance is impossible
Legacy platforms – often we have existing platforms with significant sunk costs that restrict our ability to be nimble and evolve our tools
Organisational design – roles, KPIs, incentives all have to be adapted support new ways of working
Process integration – all the typical issues between marketing and sales pop up here, we have to work out how to hardwire lead qualification, hand-offs and follow up
Single customer view – and we need to deal with our disparate databases, without the right data at the right time our marketing and sales staff can’t be as relevant as they need to be
So in terms of the maturity process for how organisations typically develop, let’s look at what this actually looks like.
Animate through the marketing stages
Brand building – all above the line campaigns, no connection to sales
Campaign driven – starting to run campaigns but they are sporadic and sales engagement is variable
Lead generation – marketing is starting to take responsibility for early funnel and dedicated joint M&S initiatives are well underway, lead targets are being set
Demand generation – marketing is orientated around the buyer’s journey and channel selection, content and campaigns are geared around this for key buyer personas, automation well underway, clear accountability for revenue targets
Customer lifecycle – marketing play a significant role throughout the end to end customer journey from pre purchase through to repurchase. Account based initiatives are in place as marketing start to go beyond loyalty initiatives for existing customers to dedicated KAM support
Animate through the sales stages
Haphazard Selling - The operating model is ambiguous, sales processes are not well defined and CRM data quality is poor or non-existent. Salespeople are largely self-reliant and there is little in the way of formal development or support from the business.
Sales Disciplines - Professionalisation of the salesforce has begun, with more robust role clarity, targets and incentives driving more of the right behaviours. Capability development is improving and the importance of uplifting CRM hygiene has been recognised
Sales Effectiveness - The foundations supporting consistent sales performance are mature and a performance culture has emerged. Process and CRM compliance is strong however these are not yet seen as simple and enabling for salespeople.
Buyer Centric - More channels are being introduced and pilots and initiatives are being launched to adapt marketing and sales for the digital age. Integration and data sharing across functions has begun to enhance sales effectiveness and the customer experience.
Customer Driven - Customer-facing functions are fully integrated and are delivering a consistently high quality omni-channel experience. All customer interactions are supported by data and technology tools which deliver strong relevance across the buying journey.
Animate through the integration stages
Not Started – building business buy-in, educating frontline and leaders on the ‘why’
Isolated Experimentation – Some experiments around combined M&S campaigns, testing of new channels and tools
Aligned Campaigns & Accountabilities – good communication and understanding across M&S, regular joint M&S campaign initiatives, planning and rhythm
Integrated E2E Workflows – Complimentary and integrated M&S processes, integrated databases, execution platforms and metrics/dashboards
Optimised Cross-Channel Execution – scaled execution through automated workflows and alerts, full attribution and funnel visibility, single view of customer
VOICEOVER
With only headings on page:
Thanks Marty. Before I launch into our first example I was reflecting on my personal experience over the last 20 years in strategic roles within firms attempting to adopt “agile”, “test and learn” or “fail fast” approaches for new projects. Now don’t get me wrong, entrepreneurial organisations utilising agile methodologies as part of their DNA deliver great results in very short spaces of time. The issue for most of us is that at best only small parts of our firms are operating in this manner – we have siloed businesses and legacy systems and mature products to deal with. It’s a bit like the old cartoons of scooby doo when he sees a ghost – his legs run like mad but he’s just not moving anywhere.
Context box:
Being the Director of the Financial Service practice at Blackdot, the example I will draw on here is that of a major financial institution that was on the very early stages of a pathway to gradually transform its marketing & sales activity in one of its business units. Elsewhere in the firm they had relatively more developed capability in B2C marketing and wanted to translate some of that capability to the traditional B2B relationship selling environment.
To provide some further context to the scenario, the Marketing division had gained some degree of executive buy-in, with broad alignment on the desire to reduce the spend on above the line brand building campaigns and shift more to targeted below the line activity. This was a big change for the division, and as you’d expect they received mixed support from the executive team who were accustomed to an old world relationship selling model. The challenge they were given was to ‘prove it’. By the way I have seen variations of this scenario play out in many financial and non-financial institutions.
To “prove it” the marketing team decided to run an ‘agile’ pilot. They selected a scope and segment for the pilot. The focus was acquisition in middle market. They selected an unmanaged segment which was declining at double digit percentages year on year – which was less downside risk for the business. Sounds logical?
However the problem in this example was that this was far from a disciplined start. The well intentioned ‘agile’ pilot did not deliver on a number of critical fronts, including impactful levels of sales and operational and leadership buy-in and support. In other words, the pilot derailed.
Let’s consider some of the potential interventions that could have helped move the dial:
Acceleration Box:
Row 1
Whilst a project may be set up with a well written business case, and a set of clear objectives, this does not mean the objectives will be commercial enough to earn you the right to continue. If your business unit generates $80m in annual sales, then a revenue uplift of $1m is hardly likely to raise too many executive eyebrows. Moreover, if your outcomes are predicated purely on delivering leads, with no outcomes around acquisition, retention, up-sell then you are potentially moving the organisation further and further away from marketing-sales integration. In fact what you will end up with is a frontline sales team swamped with a sea of poor quality leads, little desire to pursue any of them, and a growing frustration with the marketing department.
Row 2
Being targeted in your content is directionally the way to go, but the cake is only part baked. Unfortunately experimenting with only parts of the marketing engine will not yield the results you need to prove the outcome.
Often firms start with a mature or legacy customer base, and build email newsletter type content with some tailoring based on wealth or age demographic parameters. This however doesn’t account for the stage of the buyer journey or the individual buyer channel preferences.
Slides 78-81 recommendations.
The aim for your pilot should be to prove the value of the integrated engine by demonstrating what can be achieved with M&S working together across the buyer’s journey e2e. Critical to this being successful will be good process, leveraging marketing automation to deliver scale, common definitions on what a good lead is, how it gets handed over and who owns it to ensure successful lead generation efforts on the marketing side receive the attention necessary for conversion on the sales side.
Row 3
The typical approach to engagement is to build interest and try to head off cynicism through sending out broad email communications to staff, which will often incorporate rules or implications for not “being on the bus”. However this doesn’t generate real engagement. Simply filling the sales pipeline with unqualified leads and trying to enforce or push sales to follow will result in a lack of commitment at best, and active rebellion at worst.
However if we actively involve the sales team in the pilot design and outcomes, and give them some accountability for the outcomes then this will support ownership. Also if the pilot process is designed to deliver better quality leads then Sales will be motivated to pull the leads into the sales funnel rather than having them pushed at them. Throughout we need to support this with an engaging change management program that is “fit for purpose” to support frontline ownership.
[Roadshows to unveil the process]
So what we have illustrated here are some ways to accelerate the success of the pilot through extending from common practice to best practice. The final point to land on is this – sometimes to win you need to challenge the conventional wisdom.
Unconventional wisdom
We are in corporate with shareholders and regulators and existing customers, we’re not start-ups - there’s no prizes here for failing fast, only heartache. Let’s set ourselves up for success, lets test and learn and win! And the way to do that is to structure the pilots correctly from the outset to deliver meaningful results, with an integrated M&S process delighting customers across their journeys, and exert some change management muscle to support the transformation, no matter the size. Earn the right to leverage the pilot from a “disciplined start” to greater operational maturity and build the business imperative.
CONVERSATION WITH GABBY
2015 done some work with sales team to help sales team – BPB way
2016 Brought in to help the marketing team – setting up lead generation pilots,
Looking at database, and coming up with a list of next viable product – analytics teams. No connection to sales. Very unqualified bunch of leads and flooding the pipeline with sales pipeline, and the sales guys ignored.
We recommended they stop immediately.
They were already running the pilots…just started. Newsletter going out every 2 weeks plus a monthly.
Marketing to invest a bit more time in qualifying the leads on the phone (allocated resource to qualify).
Build a call to action on each newsletter.
Business case:
They saw success as delivery of leads to sales teams – but success is getting a conversion out of the marketing generated leads. Winning is closing the lead, not # leads in the pipeline.
Channel Experimentation:
Pilots were purely newsletters, with some tailoring. Content eg. cricket themed, tailored to the size. Different newsletters to different segments.
Slides 78-81 recommendations.
Recommended targeting based on channel and based on stage of buyer journey, utilising marketing automation.
Frontline Engagement:
Difference between putting leads into sales pipeline and trying to enforce or push sales to follow up.
Need to swap to better qualified leads and get sales to pull rather than push
Roadshows to unveil the process. Stakeholder engagement plan by groups of sales people with tailored engagement plan.
Agile and fail fast:
Pilot was “test and learn” but results were pretty poor, just farming out newsletters. However if they stepped back and put resources behind in the first place, they would have much better results from the start.
Set yourself up to win, not fail and tweak.
VOICEOVER Acceleration
Row 1
Clear vision - what its going to deliver in terms of customer, frontline, shareholder value
Many of us operate in environments where there has been a myriad of change initiatives throughout the years and a lot of scar tissue built up at the frontline > getting the dependencies and sequencing right and sharing what the roll-out will look like is critical
Row 2
Platform implementation: often focus is on platform implementation and systems integration. A lot of the complexity is technology related e.g. What’s the right platform, how does that align with our technology roadmap, what should the underlying architecture look like etc.
A new technology tool alone cannot deliver new ways of working
New op model - focus on new op model, how do the strategy, people, process and technology fit together? What does this enable from a customer experience perspective, role and goal clarity
Technology platform implementation > New op model, op model, process, mindset and capabilities, technology
Row 3
Big bang transformation program > continuous value - deliver ongoing improvements in the customer experience and employee experience to fuel interest and ongoing momentum
Unconventional
When trying to achieve rapid op reinvention
It’s really less about the big bang top down transformation program that leaders are thumping the table on
You need all that
But to actually deliver the change you need to successfully deliver packages of new DNA into the org, the org has to mutate
So that means user friendly packages of ppl, process and tech that enable people to evolve with the change
Acceleration
Row 1
From resistance management approach to> responsive frontline problem solving – focus on value and adoption, responsively address frontline pain points – always appreciated by frontline. Champion the features of the solution, create champion groups/coalition of the willing, collect bottom up feedback and get teams working together, put focal points on what is working and what’s in it for me
Row 2
We’re all aware in a big corporate you can’t underestimate the challenge of getting different parts of the business behind your project, particularly when spread across locations. Need to shift from fighting the tide to going with this, looking at how to get the enterprise working for you.
Row 3
New capabilities > new mindset and behaviours – DWD head, heart, guts stuff
Unconventional
Good change comms and capability, this is good
But
It’s actually about solve pain and delivering real value
It needs to be about frontline belief – make it faster, better, easier
Last session notes – this was Ben’s share around the AZ story
Realisation that the tech alone isn’t the answer, got to look at the people, process stuff
Only got the tech, then did the process and the people
Got Ferrari, custom wheels in top right loving it and using it fully energised, global standardized all the modules lost functionality custom to that market, global operating model, went backwards, ended up with teams that are using excel, team lost motivation and belief, alignment with the journey, tool no longer fit for purpose, lot of noise in the org and broader change going on, some poor results around a product happening at same time, restructures global standardization causing loss of hearts and minds
Starting doing good things to fix issues – working with sales teams, bottom up feedback, loosened some business rules, sales champion groups, pain points roadshow - find pain points and jump on them quickly, frontline value this, if couldn’t fix find bandaid solution
, looked at what pain points can fix quickly – fixing pain points drove back up, Chmapion the features of the solution, put focal points on what is working, what’s in it for me
sitting in the middle at the top as still don’t really have the functionality used to have still some reversion to excel and still work to be done, but love the tool marketing working closely with sales teams, some additional modules launched, got some
Classic derailment story –
This archetype is really about really excelling on the transformation and then carrying the momentum into BAU
The example we have in mind isas a telco that started with 10 different systems and complex operations supporting the frontline
Their operations were not fit for purpose and Customer and employee experience was well below par
They implemented a technology backbone end to end and also rebuilt the whole sales and marketing operating model end to end
At that point they started getting results in terms of effectiveness and efficiency for the front line
Rather than resting on their laurels, they then looked to leverage all the capabilities of the new system and processes to continue to improve the customer and employee experience
The features of technology and agiltiy of the operating model allowed them to take customer feedback and construct and implement the solution in real time
In terms of what we can learn from that, when you think about how a traditional transformation would run, we have bursts of effort and energy around the implementation points. People get excited about customer centricity and often you create a strong customer function and we invest a lot in inside out innovation
To move to best practice you are looking to sustain the moementum into BAU and get the organisation to continue to learn and improve
Custoemr becomes the responsibilty of everyone in the organisation and we look to optimise and reinvent based on customer feedback
Common practice would be to rest on our laurels and bed down the transformation unconventional wisdom is this concept of restless excellence – using insight to rev the machine harder.
When you are in zone 1, there are issues but also opportunity to shape the transformation in the ideal way. Our view is to always start with people. Get conviction from management and the frontline on the need for change and mobilise on a credible well planned end to end pilot
zone 2 is liberating because the organisation is already convinced so we can be led from the frontline. A quick build on the technology, process and operating can unleash the energy that is already within our people
zone 3 requires a careful reset as there is a danger of pushback or regression to old ways of working. The key here is to demonstrate value by using the potential of the technology and processes to solve real world pain points for the customer and employees.
Zone 4 is the zone of delivery but we need to maintain the momentum from the transformation and make sure we continue to build and improve. Remediating existing problems or getting to new organisational best is not enough, we need to drive to best practice based on outside in feedback.