In the current turbulent global environment - having one forecast is just not enough. There are way too many variables and possible combinations of events to be reflected in a single set of numbers.
I have just been reading Chaoticsby Kotler and Caslione. Basic premise of Chaotics is that the traditional view of strategic planning is that companies tend to lock themselves into a forecast. This forecast will have come from a range of inputs based on internal and external factors. A company will have one or two future scenarios planned out - such as high growth and low growth.
But in the current climate of business this may is not be enough. Consider that you are an Australian mining company, today in May 2010:
* Will the federal Government apply the new 40% resources tax? Or will it be reduced? Or will the next election be won by the conservatives and no tax applies?
* Will China continue to grow and import resources, or will they reduce imports as they have stockpiles in place?
* Will Europe/Eurozone fix their issues, split into two zones or create another financial crisis?
There are seven or so possibilities in these three questions, before considering carbon taxes! So as an Australian miner there are a number of ways that this can play out be you BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fortescue or a junior.
Similar factors can apply to any business and the sound idea behind this book is that there are multiple possible futures. A company should put in place a strategic framework to map out these scenarios and then create ‘early warning systems’ that identify the changes and allow the company to rapidly respond. As the scenarios have been mapped out and a response defined, it allows a company to implement quickly their response. This provides a company improved robustness and resilience to an ever changing landscape.
So the question is, how many forecasts and plans does your business have? This book recommends a number of scenarios so that a company can manage their business in the ups and the downs.
What has happened since you developed your plan and ask a simple question:
“What sacred cow are holding your business back?”
Every buiness has some history or long held belief. Some are important and key for the culture of the company whilst others really should be jettisoned - which does your business have?
What has happened since you developed your plan and ask a simple question:
”What assumptions have you made that are NO LONGER VALID?”
Each plan is made up of assumptions, be they growth or economic climate or response rates to direct mail.
Don’t keep on going if you know that your assumptions are wrong - just re-frame and reset for for Plan B. In your new plan, create some scenarios and action plans for the future where an assumption might change. Consider it early and have a pre-prepared response ready to go - you’ll impress the boss too!
Strategic Marketing is about three time horizons:
- Here and now/this month/quarter
- The Year
- Over the horizon - the future market
1. These are the activities that need to be delivered this month, quarter to help deliver sales. If a business generates these activities based on current market feedback then it can fall into a trap where it becomes too TACTICAL.
2. If there is yearly plan then all your activities that you are doing above can follow a theme to create momentum.
3. One of marketing’s least prioritised areas is that of defining the future market - peering over the top of the horizon to understand where customers and consumers ( and therefore the market) will be in 18-36 months time.
The balance that marketing must have is to add resources, time and effort into the longer term activities, whilst continuing to build excellent short-term results. As always you need to be aware of market shifts and be able to respond to them, but not constantly knee-jerk react to every shiny object that passes before us.
Campaign Manager - a career dead end. The days of this popular job category are nearly over - a campaign manager designing a single large, integrated, multi-step, controlled, linear campaign are about to be replaced.
The future campaigns are:
- Small
- Integrated
- Multi-step
- Non-linear
- Uncontrolled
Small - we wont load a tens of thousands of contacts into a campaign and jam them through and get a 2% dribble out the other end. We’ll set up small campaigns that wont fire until maybe only one contact enters the campaign from a survey, but the response rate will be high >20%.
Integrated - we’ll still use DM, email, telemarketing, websites etc. But we’ll look to track and measure each step better
Multi-step - campaigns will more closely match the ‘buyers journey’ rather than the sellers process
Non -linear - campaigns will be flexible and build up a profile or footprint of the contacts in the campaign - its will adjust automatically to their pace and position on the buyers journey
Uncontrolled - as with much happening on the social media front at the moment - brand and product control is being replaced with collaboration with the brand users.
So if you are a campaign manager today, time to rethink and retrain. If you want to become one, start understanding now where the future lies. A good place is to start looking at Marketing Automation.
A B2B marketer has two customers, THE CUSTOMER who buys the product and also the sales team. The sales team is made up of a varied group of individuals with a range of talents - and you deliver them all the same quality leads? A little crazy?
In all sales teams there are those under-performers and the over-performers. An over performer can take a lead, work through it, qualify it and give you balanced feedback. It may take a few weeks but you get a good review.
An under performer will likely take your lead and either reject it very quickly or never quite get back to you. The quality and thoroughness of the feedback will leave you underwhelmed.
So what to do? Continue to work with the good sales guy as is. For the not so good, do some lead development, scoring or nurturing on the lead to give yourself a higher confidence level in the lead quality before handing over.
Has Lead Generation and its affect on sales become the only real metric of Marketing ROI?
Public companies are valued by a mix of tangible and intangible assets. Often the brand is the highest value part of the intangible assets(pat on the back for brand guys).
More and more companies are looking for:
- Continuous flow of leads
- Predictable Revenue
- Improved ROI on the marketing dollar
To achieve this I think marketers need to develop the following:
- Less ‘campaign’ based activities and more ‘trigger’ based activities
- Systematic waterfall reports eg leads, calls, presentations, proposals, sales
- Assigning costs to each activity and the final cost per lead
This activity is happening in B2B - the tools exist and the channels to market are controlled. Less so in B2C and an area where they will learn from their B2B cousins.
Pressure on B2B marketers for ROI proof is definitely based on lead generation today - and in the future for all marketers.
In the B2B space, everyone is chasing the Lead Gen thing - turning it into and ‘engine’ whereby untold wealth will come a marketers way ( or at least they keep their jobs).
In reality it not the real problem and we’re all chasing shiny hubcaps like the local dogs and not facing the real problem. The real problem is that coming out of a ‘campaign’/activity there are three types of responders:
- Type 1 - Those that meet our ‘lead’ criteria e.g. money, a problem, a project and they have some authority
- Type 2 - Those that don’t meet the ‘lead’ criteria - a bit is missing from the criteria e.g. they are an analyst rather than a general manager
- Type 3 - People who don’t respond
There’s great marketing processes for those that are Type 1- we give them to sales executives! However significant work needs to be done to improve and develop Type 2 leads - to better understand them and to move them forward on the marketing process. I’ll call this Lead Development ( or nurturing if you prefer) and it will be the majority of your responders.
Finally, if we have pulled together our targeting and have the right people, and believe that we have the right problem and solutions, then Type 3 are obviously not ready now - so we need to find ways of keeping in tough and providing them high value content - that will one day have them respond.
So by focussing on Lead Development you’ll put effort into the right part of the Lead Generation problem.
Take a look at your business processes - those that run 24/7/365. They will be those processes to do with how you spend money, build products, distribute products. A great deal of focus on the cost side.
Compare them with the other side of the ledger - the revenue side. The side that brings in the money is not 24/7/365 - even if the website is. The revenue generating processes can be disjointed, irregular, poorly measured and monitored. They may be managed well but it requires high levels of management attention.
So how good could it be if we had a 24/7/365 end to end revenue generating process?
Sales and marketing is sometimes deemed “Part Art, Part Science”. There seems to be little science - particulalry in the sales and marketing processes, and they have not kept up with processes in other parts of a business.
Imagine a car company - they make cars on a production line, same way each time. Or look at the way a jet engine is made - each step mapped out, checked, validated and measured. These environments have long and mature tool-sets like Six Sigma and Lean to help them monitor and improve processes.
Take a look at the sales and marketing processes of those same companies and you’ll find limited processes, limited measurement, little validation and a new way to do something for each campaign. Why?
Why is marketing’s lead generation, lead development and handover to sales not a better, more repeatable and predicatble process? I think we need to take a look at how we can create a steady stream of leads to sales, that takes advantage of modern automation and the 1:1 relationship skills of sales.
Comments most welcome.