ISA Marketing & Sales Summit

Summit Webinar:  Survey Results Revealed! The Anatomy of a Solutions Marketer

Date: May 23, 2012
Time:  1:00 pm
Registration: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/147050262
By: Steve Hurley and Matt Leary, Solutions Insights

The move to a customer-centric, solutions business model continues to grow in scope and importance. What started out as a key strategy for the high technology sector has spread across a number of B2B sectors, including manufacturing automation.  But what do we mean when we talk about solutions marketing? And what makes a successful solutions marketer?

ISA and Solutions Insights, Inc., a leading consulting and research company that specializes in solutions marketing,  recently conducted an online survey of  solutions marketers representing over 125 companies to understand a range of issues relevant to solutions marketers, including their top challenges, roles and responsibilities, and future trends of solutions marketing,  The survey turned up some very surprising and useful findings.

In this ISA briefing, Solutions Insights Partners Matt Leary and Steve Hurley will highlight the findings from the recent survey, The Anatomy of a Solutions Marketer.

Please join us for this presentation and discussion of the first-of-its-kind research into Solutions Marketers.

About the Presenters

About Steve Hurley
A leading expert on solutions and solutions marketing, Steve has worked over the past decade developing and implementing innovative methodologies and tools that have enabled companies to transform their business models to be more solutions-focused.

In 2009, Steve established Solutions Insights, Inc. (SI), a consulting and training company that works with companies in a diverse set of industries on solutions sales and marketing issues. Most of SI’s work in helping large technology-based companies with the key account strategies.

Prior to establishing Solutions Insights, Steve was Vice President at ITSMA, the premier association for technology-based companies focused on marketing and selling services and solutions. Steve was a major contributor to ITSMA’s solutions publications and tools, including its Solutions Roadmap, and its Account-Based Marketing methodology.

Prior to joining ITSMA, Steve spent more than 15 years with Arthur D. Little, Inc. (ADL), formerly one of the world’s leading management consulting companies. At ADL, he worked as a senior consultant in the International Economics and Development practice.

About Matt Leary
An expert in solutions development, management, and sales, Matt has spent the last 15 years helping leading technology companies improve performance in market strategy and planning, services and solutions development, sales enablement and impact.

Prior to Solutions Insight, Matt was Vice President of Business Development for commercial partnership activities at a Boston-area technology start-up. Previously, he was Director of Member Engagement at ITSMA, where he managed several of ITSMA’s industry segments and developed custom research, consulting, and training programs for a wide variety of leading technology firms.

Before joining ITSMA in 2000, Matt helped create and manage the custom marketing programs group for Horizon House Publications, publisher of Telecommunications Magazine. He began his technology marketing and sales management career directing the activities of a niche outbound call center. Matt holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. He is currently a Senior Associate at ITSMA.

Companies in the industrial and factory automation market are missing out on opportunities to generate leads. It’s shocking how few companies in the industrial B-to-B segment are using blogging and other content marketing techniques as lead generation tools. Products and services that are highly technical or complicated in nature are ideal things to blog about, YouTube about, and to discuss on LinkedIn.

Content has SEO value. Good content helps create high-ranking search results. Good content is how your website, your products, and your services get found on the web. Show and tell your customers how your products and services can help them with their problems and they will find you. They will also respond. They will ask for more information. They will fill out a form on a landing page! Amazing – content marketing just created a lead.

Good content is a force multiplier for your marketing and sales efforts.

Blogs are no different than magazine ads or sales calls though. If you aren’t talking to the right people you are just wasting time and money. Keep your target audience in mind. Brainstorm what topics your customers want to discuss and hear about. Generate content that answers the questions your customers ask the most.

It’s a “chicken or egg first conundrum”. You have to talk about what your target audience wants to hear about before your target audience will find you. So educate them. Tell them the tricks to using your products and entertain them with news and topics specific to their interests. Tell them both about the beneficial features of your products as well as the shortcomings and the things you are working to improve.

Give specific examples of how your customers enjoy or prosper because they use your services. Better yet. Let your customers help tell stories demonstrating how excited they are to work with you.

Calls to Action

The overlooked secret to blogging success is quite possibly what you ask readers to do after they’ve read your post though. Maybe you are making the mistake of not even asking them to do anything. Including a call-to-action after every post is a requirement if lead generation is what you are seeking.

Content is a powerful tool to help your marketing and sales efforts. Good content can provide qualified leads to your sales force or can educate suspect contacts and help your marketers move them to the next stage of the buying cycle.

Register for the 7^th Annual ISA Marketing and Sales Summit to learn how you can use content marketing as a component of your marketing plan.

Doug Brock is a business development manager with Kendall Electric in Chattanooga. Doug blogs about Factory Automation, Marketing, and Sales topics at http://www.dougbrock.com.

It only takes one.

One prospective customer, one point of contact, one sales person, one negative impression – and that would-be customer could be lost to you forever… along with countless numbers of others.

A co-worker joked to me the other week that they were tired of hearing people complain that they were ‘too busy’. Here’s the thing…

We all are.

We are, our customers are, and the people we’d love to be our customers are. There are not enough hours in the day, days in the week, or weeks in the year to accomplish everything we set out to do. The stress of multi-tasking and trying to meet deadlines makes us irritable and stressed. A vacation proves to be just the ticket – except the next thing you know, you’re back in the office with double the workload and umpteen emails to plough through. I hear you; it’s not easy.

Yet just knowing we’re all in the same boat should encourage us to lose the attitude; to breathe. Because that one person we take things out on might just be one person to us, but that same person will walk away with an armful of negativity they’ll be dying to vent to someone else.

We all like to be treated as someone with legitimate questions or concerns. It’s embarrassing and humiliating to be spoken to as though you should know better, or as if you’re of no importance, simply because your inquiry has been heard ten times over by the same pair of ears already today.

In their book Rules to Break and Laws to Follow, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. note that “customers have memories. They will remember you, whether you remember them or not.”

There’s power in these memories. In today’s social media age, it’s the easiest thing in the world to draw the attention of those companies who have forgotten the Power of One. After one telephone call with a dismissive sales employee, you can simply hop online and log your experience via Twitter, a blog post, or a community forum. (Top tip: read Mashable’s HOW TO: Avoid a Social Media Disaster.)

Listen out for these mentions: they are a fantastic opportunity to make things right. Plug your company and brand names into Google Alerts and Social Mention alerts. These services will e-mail you regular updates on where you are being talked about online. Use transparency (never hide your relationship with the company) and diplomacy to ask for or suggest a solution when needed.

All complaints – however they are received – are a chance to show you understand and to do everything you need to in order to make amends. Use them to inform your customer service strategy going forward so that you don’t make the same mistakes.

Sadly, the majority of dissatisfied customer will walk away from us and never tell us why they no longer wish to do business with us or what we could have done better.

That’s why it’s imperative we show empathy in our customer relationships. This is the only way to build strong relationships that will stand the test of time.

Never forget the Power of One.

We are happy to announce that Jane Lansing, VP of Marketing at Emerson Process Management will be our keynote speaker for the 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit.

Jane has been leading Emerson Process Management’s Marketing efforts for several years, and we are happy to have her back as a keynote for the Summit. Jane keynoted our very first ISA Marketing & Sales Summit back in 2005. She was so personable and had some great insights about the industry and common challenges around marketing technical products.  We look forward to having her back.

About Jane Lansing

30 years in the process automation business: 9 years as a software engineer and project manager, designing and executing process automation projects; 21 years with Emerson in various technical and commercial marketing positions.  Prior to current position spent 4 years overseas as Systems Marketing Director, Europe.  Currently responsible for Emerson Process Management marketing, including brand management, cross-divisional marketing coordination, and PlantWeb Marketing of products and solutions across all Emerson divisions globally. BSCE, University of Minnesota, 1976.

Other interests:  Cross-cultural business consultant, Window on the World/FCI; Produced #1 selling musical comedy in 2003 Minnesota Theatre Festival; Mentor, Mentium 100; Volunteer ESL tutor (English as a second language); Languages: Spanish and Dutch.