Marketing: A House Divided

January 2010

Marcus R. Tewksbury

Director of Customer Intelligence

Bob Barker

VP of Corporate Communications

Field

ProductCorporate

On the same team…But moving in different directions

Dire

ctBrand

Analysts

Do your marketer’s work as an integrated team?

Or are they throwing it over

the wall...

Need a shared objective…Collective reason for being should be revenue generation

Each has a role in advancing a prospect through the stages of

their buying cycle

Field

Product

Corporate

Customer centricThe only successful marketing has a central focus on the customer

Questions marketing needs to solve to generate qualified leads

for sales:

• What is the customer looking for in these areas?• What do we have to engage them/solve their pains?• How do we engage them?• How do we move them down the funnel?

Product & Market Expertise•With the technology – features/functions/benefits•With the market and customers – what customers want•With the future – through analyst input and research

Product Plan•Significant releases•Competitive positioning•Value propositions•Pricing

Go-to-market Ideas•Exhibitions we could attend•Places to speak•Online communities•Places we could advertise

Trust your teammatesEach group has an important role to play

Product

Lessons from publishing worldStick to your lanes. Let each play its own role.

Product

Know the product and how it can solve pains

Field

Knows the process. Can facilitate content creation process.

Corporate

Feel for macro concerns and trends driving decision making

Approach is key. The best players in the world can’t execute

without a plan.

Content Generation MethodologyConsistently producing sticky, valuable content is a process – not inspiration

5-Steps to Quality Content Generation

1. Segment a micro-audienceYou can’t be all things to all people. Find a very specific audience and serve them well.

Target an audience of 300... ... and know them very well

2. Map the buying cycleInterview sales, customers, and whomever else needed to build an understanding of the buyers’ buying process

4. And then begin describing what that means to each role throughout the

buying cycle.

2. Identify the roles you commonly encounter

1. Start by laying out the simple stages3. Start by laying out the critical issues faced by the

customer…

3. Establish asset mapOverlay content over the buying cycles to target specific assets to specific pain points

Don’t worry about not being able to apply relevant content to each cell right out of the

gate. Over time as your asset library grows it will become easier.

4. Spawn formatsMaximize the return on your content investment by repurposing to as many formats as possible

Repurposing content opens new points of distribution and has a

compounding effect on reach

Start a discussion

Chop into episodic blog posts

Deploy as formal release

Repackage as presentation

Add voice for video

Tweet key takeaways

5. Weave your matrixThe cost of distribution is approaching free – spread your ideas far and wide

Layout asset types on horizontal

Identify which assets are deployed via which channel

Layout Channels on Vertical

Always keep accountability in the forefront

Identify what moves the needleClose the loop by tracking which assets can be directly related to a sale

Boiling it down…

What you need to be successfulReflection on things that have and haven’t worked

• Field marketing needs the key pains the product solution is trying to solve– By buying centre– By sales cycle – AIDA

• Working together, field and product (or corporate) then need to figure out:– Which content assets are moving the needle– What we need to create/already have we can repurpose

• Finally, field marketing will then:– Distribute/market those assets based on– Managing the buying/engagement cycle

Thank You!

Marcus R. Tewksbury

Director of Customer Intelligence

tewksbum@alterian.com

Bob Barker

VP of Corporate Communications

Bob.Barker@alterian.com