The way I like to think of it is your website and your sales and marketing engagement model needs to ensure your prospects receive the right content at the right time based on their persona and their stage in the buying process.  Together all of this will create a frictionless process where the prospect has what they need when they need it to make a decision as seamlessly and as rapidly as possible.

Many companies struggle with the bandwidth to create quality content and the few pieces they do create get used for everything and given to everyone. A more successful content strategy will segment the content into three categories: Top-of-Funnel (ToF), Middle-Funnel-Marketing (MFM) and Bottom-of-Funnel (BoF).

ToF: Top of Funnel

At the very top of your sales funnel you should be attempting to attract the largest possible audience of leads who have an interest in solving problems that can be addressed by your product or service. They may or may not be aware of your company or product at this point. You should deliberately try NOT to filter out traffic at this point and instead generate curiosity and interest that will make your prospects want to learn more. It is also important that you DO NOT attempt to do any selling of your product or service during the ToF stage and instead try to educate your prospects in a way that earns you the right to communicate with them further. Common ToF content are things like blog posts, top 10 lists and infographics. The Call-to-Action (CTA) should intend to move prospects to the next stage of the funnel. The top of the sales funnel is filled with prospects who are looking for information. They want to be educated. The main thing you want to establish for your organization is credibility. Become a trusted source of information.

MFM: Mid Funnel Marketing

Once a lead converts on one or more CTAs from the ToF content, they will progress into the MFM stage. This is a crucial stage where you are evolving from education and relationship building to a more fully qualified lead. That is not to say that education stops completely, but the focus of the education starts to be more about positioning your product or service as a potential solution for their pain based on their persona. The best content you can deliver at this stage helps to position your product or service as solving the pain of a similar customer that targets the point of view of the reader’s persona. Examples include case studies, white papers and customer testimonials that convey a pain point and how your company solved that customer problem with your solution. You continue to build credibility in this stage, but it is now in the context of your solution in addition to broader thought leadership within an industry. If all goes according to plan in this stage your prospect is getting ready to choose a product to solve their pain. This is where the next stage of content marketing comes into play.

BoF: Bottom of Funnel

You started by building a large collection of people interested in your product or service and you continued to engage with them as they learn more specifics about your solution to their pain. Now it is time to support the decision process and help close the sale by instilling confidence in the prospect that your company has the solution that will work best for them. BoF marketing can again leverage case studies, but these examples should be less focused on the solution and more on the long term ROI and benefit to the business. The goal in this stage should be to move the prospect to a free trial or a Proof of Concept (PoC) where they can see your product or service working in their environment. In both cases your prospect is making a significant investment in time and resources to learn how your product or service works for THEM in THEIR environment. Most companies won’t agree to engage in a free trial unless they are fully qualified and very serious about buying your solution.

It is important that you segment your content into the three buckets of ToF, MFM and BoF and then further define personas so that you can use your marketing engine to deliver the appropriate content at the right time and with messaging specific to the persona for each project. This is where a marketing automation solution can help you build targeted nurture streams that operate based on rules you define to deliver content. This may sound simple, but it is actually quite complicated. You should step back and consider your overall content and lead nurturing strategy so that you can proactively develop an optimal engagement process for your prospects. I can tell you that this process will definitely be worth the time that you invest. Contact us for more information on content marketing and how to optimize your lead nurturing.

For more on creating high value MQLs see our previous blog post: https://www.demandbydesign.com/building-the-extraordinary-mql-designed-to-convert/

The answer is an effectively recruited, well trained and expertly managed team of Sales Development Representatives (SDRs). I look at SDRs as the bridge over the gap between sales and marketing. In fact, a high functioning SDR team actually allows each group to optimize its efforts. Marketing can rest assured that every lead will receive the diligent attention it deserves and sales can focus its efforts on fully qualified opportunities and closing revenue.

The other huge benefit the SDR team provides is a feedback loop on the quality of marketing engagement. They will tell you which campaigns generate the best quality leads, when customers are getting upset about over-communication, etc. By listening to the feedback from the SDRs, the marketing team can optimize its spend and further increase conversion rates.

The SDR group can report to sales, marketing or be split out as a stand-alone group. There are pros and cons to each approach, but I like to see the SDR group report to the sales organization with a dotted line to the demand generation group in marketing. This allows a variable compensation model familiar to sales people and still have marketing oversight regarding the veracity of the lead follow-up.

The SDR role is most often the entry-point to the sales organization so it is important to recruit individuals with the right skills to be successful. In many companies the gateway to higher paying sales roles is achieved with success as an SDR. From the company perspective, it significantly reduces the risk of hiring sales people because you can promote all-star SDRs who have already proven they have the key traits to be successful. When hiring SDRs, look for individuals who are driven, competitive, smart, persistent and organized.

• Driven – This is a numbers game and SDRs need to be relentless with the calls, emails and social media outreach. The SDR who wants to pound out 10 more calls or emails before heading out for the night has the right mindset. Part of being driven is wanting to move ahead in your career and the SDR role is a goldmine for recruiting effective sales people. You can see which SDRs develop the skills to fully qualify leads to the point where they could close them with no additional assistance.
• Competitive – I will talk more about how to motivate the SDR team in a future post, but having SDRs who are competitive and want to win is crucial to success. They should realize that all sales-related teams are ranked and they should not want to be on the bottom of any list tied to performance. It is critical to hire SDRs that can thrive in this environment.
• Smart – I often rank intelligence over experience because I can teach a smart person what they need to know. Good SDRs will have an innate curiosity that will drive them to learn more about the product, target market, buying signals and the competition. Learning these things will make them more effective on the phone and while communicating to the prospect. I like to say, smart will get you further faster.
• Persistent – There is a fine line between persistence and being labeled an annoying stalker, but far too many SDRs give up too soon. Most marketing experts agree that it takes between 8 and 10 touches (emails, phone calls, social media) to convert a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) into a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). Finding individuals who are comfortable making continued effort on an MQL until they make contact and extract the necessary information is fundamental to success.
• Organized – The SDR role is one about cadence, follow up and persistence. An individual who is well-organized will use the CRM tool to help them focus their efforts in the most optimal way. The best candidates should document everything they do so that they can tell you the exact status on any lead, campaign or initiative.

For more details on how to build an effective lead qualification process check out our podcasts.

I’d like to hear how your SDR organization is functioning and if you don’t have one, why not?

Before we get too deep on how to create predictable SQLs, let me revisit a definition from an earlier post:

• Sales-Qualified Lead (SQL): Leads that have evolved to the point where the sales organization can engage with the prospect with a high probability of converting them to an opportunity with a good chance to close a deal

I want to make a key distinction, an SQL is not equivalent to an opportunity. This is really important because SQLs are often generated outside the sales organization or not directly by the sales rep that receives them and who is responsible for closing them. My preference is to allow the sales rep to decide if the SQL is qualified and worthy of being converted to an opportunity. Ultimately each sales rep is responsible for their pipeline and forecast, so I am not an advocate of allowing other people to create opportunities for them without their stamp of approval.

In many organizations, the MQL is automatically generated with the help of Marketing Automation Software that scores each lead and ultimately converts it based on a pre-defined mix of demographic and behavioral considerations. Many companies have a team focused on the conversion of MQLs (and/or other leads) to SQLs. This role is often called a Sales Development Rep (SDR) or Business Development Rep (BDR). The SDR is where the rubber meets the road in terms of qualifying and deciding the conversion of MQL to SQL. For more on MQLs, see our post Creating the Extraordinary MQL.

The primary job of the SDR is to make contact with the person who has been designated as an MQL and qualify them. In addition to MQLs, SDRs may also be instructed to develop their own leads by targeting other marketing leads and even individuals working in target companies that haven’t demonstrated the necessary activity to be designated MQL automatically. There are many acronyms used for labeling the qualification process, but probably one of the most common is BANT. Here is what a good SDR does to ensure they are handing over a fully qualified sales lead to sales:

Budget: They find out if the company has the necessary funds to purchase your product or service. If there is no budget you will have no deal. Many times a lower level employee won’t know definitively if there is budget and budget approval may vary greatly depending on the company, product or service price, etc. The SDR has to do their best to uncover how much the company is willing/able to pay for your product/service.

Authority: The primary contact may not have the authority to make the decision, but the SDR quickly needs to figure out who does along with the process to get the decision made. Failing to determine who has the power to make the purchase decision is a recipe for disaster and for missing your forecast.

Need: This is arguably the first thing the SDR needs to understand because if there isn’t a significant pain or challenge that needs to be solved there is no point putting in all the time to figure everything else out.

Timing:  I further like to define a Compelling Event for each SQL. A compelling event is something that is forcing a decision maker to act. You can ask, “what happens if nothing changes or there is no decision?” Most forecasts are plagued by opportunities that do not close at the forecasted time and the date gets pushed out again and again. This usually happens because there is no compelling event. A good SDR will determine whether or not there is a compelling event and document it.

If a lead is BANT qualified and the SDR feels it is worthy of effort and focus by the sales team, they should convert it to an SQL. There may be situations where sales reps do not convert SQLs that ARE qualified because they think the dollar value is too low, they don’t like the industry, they don’t want to add additional opportunities to their pipeline, etc. This is why sales management needs to stay closely involved in the collaboration between SDRs and sales reps. If an SQL is rejected by the sales rep, the SDR manager, SDR and sales rep should discuss why the sales rep felt the qualification process and the designation of SQL is not justified. This critical moment when/if an SQL converts to an opportunity can be a complicated scenario that will be the subject of a future blog post.

One final thought about optimizing SQL quality is about compensation. SDRs should only get compensated for SQLs that are accepted by the sales team. If sales engages with the prospect and discovers that the lead is NOT qualified they should work with the SDR to communicate what additional information is required. Or, worse yet, the sales rep believes lead not a fit. In addition to SDRs being compensated for the number of accepted SQLs they generate, they should receive additional compensation for SQLs that convert to sales opportunities and ultimately become a closed deal. This keeps SDRs invested in the process and keeps them motivated and rewarded for creating the best kind of SQLs.

Before we get too far into what makes a great marketing lead, let’s get a couple definitions out of the way:

• Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): The prospect has valuable demographic and/or demonstrated behavioral activity that make him more desirable for sales follow up relative to other leads
• Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): Leads that have evolved to the point where the sales organization can engage with the prospect with a high probability of converting them to an opportunity

Lead quality components:

1)    Demographic — The demographic component is focused on things like company, the industry served, their title, etc. To best make use of this information, marketing should create buyer personas based on real sales experience. These personas should include a detailed profile of the intended buyers, including their pain points, behavior patterns, motivations, purchase involvement, information sources, potential objections and receptive messaging.

2)    Behavioral — This component is a record of activity demonstrated by the lead. This should include: assets downloaded, emails opened, CTAs clicked, registered events, attended events, etc. The behavior component is a good tool to further inform the demographic component. By gating some content, additional information can be acquired to fill-in missing or enhance demographic elements.

Making Extraordinary MQLs

Now you understand how all your leads fit into your buyer personas and you have tracked their activity and even enhanced the demographic information. The next step is to convert some leads to MQLs. The Extraordinary MQL comes from careful blending of the demographic and behavioral components to form a truly predictive overall quality assessment of the lead. Remember, this is a process of refinement and optimization over time and there is no quick answer. That said, here are a few considerations to help you in the process:

• Data is king. Measure everything from opens on emails to click through rates and conversions to MQL/SQL. Make decisions and adjustments based on this data and not gut feel. Calculate the cost to generate a lead, MQL, SQL and closed deal by lead source. Allocate budget based on this measurement, but leave some budget to experiment with new ideas.
• Feedback is critical. Talk to the SDR and sales team. Understand which MQLs progress to opportunities and then on to closed deals. Compare this data to your inbound flow of leads and adjust your messaging to attract more desirable leads and filter out the less desirable. Do a similar analysis with your lead sources by determining the sources delivering best leads and shift resources to those sources.
• Nail the personas. Because the demographic component is more predictive to lead quality than behavior, get as much information about the individuals that influence your company’s success within customers as possible. Incorporate this data into your buyer personas on a continual basis
• Using a marketing automation system. Be sure it is well integrated with your CRM. Implement lead scoring to automatically designate leads as an MQL. The demographic component should be weighed to determine if the lead is the right person. Once the demographic score clears its hurdle, then the activity component should be applied to estimate the timing of the conversion to MQL. Additionally, progressive profiling can be implemented to improve the demographics or better identify timing for the MQL conversion. Remember that you can greatly affect the number of leads that convert to MQL by how high or low you set the bar for MQL conversion. If you want more MQLs, relax the criteria and if you want fewer or more qualified leads, tighten the criteria.
• Don’t stop at the MQL. Once converted, the MQL should be automatically inserted into a lead queue within CRM for further qualification by the SDR. This creates a systematic and consistent way of prioritizing leads and moving them to the next step. Be sure to capture results from this stage and use this information for further refinement.

If you follow these ideas you will definitely move toward creating Extraordinary MQLs, but most importantly you will build a system with a number of parameters that you can adjust as you optimize your conversion process.

One last thought to help improve the overall relationship between sales and marketing. It is critical to engage the sales team throughout this process. The best indication of a high quality marketing lead is if it converts to an opportunity and ultimately results in a sale. By working with your sales team closely and asking for their opinion you will help to break down the barriers between sales and marketing and you will incorporate real world feedback into your assessment process. Well integrated CRM and marketing automation systems can go a long way to building a consistent feedback loop, but nothing beats a conversation with sales to bridge these gaps. To learn more about the marketing / sales gap and how to bridge it, check out our podcast.

So with all that as a backdrop, is it best for marketing to be totally absent to all contacts in active B2B sales opportunities or can they play a positive role to actually HELP sales accelerate or cement a deal? The answer is YES! The decision to buy is often about understanding and limiting risk. Some marketing communications can have the effect of reducing the perceived risk of your product or service as well as the risk of doing business with your company. There are many types of marketing communications that can add confidence in the product and the company. Examples include:

1. Announcements of recent customer wins – this will have the effect of letting all the contacts within your sales opportunities know that many other companies are buying your solution and having a great experience.
2. Endorsements from analyst firms – If Gartner publishes a magic quadrant that puts your company as a leader in your market, marketing should send an announcement to all sales opportunities to generate further confidence in the company and the product and make your prospect more comfortable signing a deal.
3. Funding Announcements – If your company recently closed a round of funding, marketing should announce this too. Sales opportunities will see this as an indication that the investment community believes in your vision, products and ability to deliver. That type of announcement will definitely help the decision maker feel more comfortable choosing your company/solution.
4. Awards – Imagine your company’s product was just voted “product of the year” or your support team just won an award for “outstanding customer service” or your company was just voted one of the “top 100 companies to work for” these are endorsements that acknowledge your excellence in some part of your business. Marketing should share these with sales opportunities.

So when it comes to marketing communications and your active sales opportunities, just be careful that your marketing team isn’t sending out messages that could disrupt or delay deals expected to close. That doesn’t mean marketing cannot send the right communication. Build a specific nurture stream for those contacts that are associated with active sales opportunities. Fill it with information about your company that will inspire confidence, accelerate the process and help get deals closed.

International companies typically underfund their U.S. marketing and sales programs. The most common reasons are:

• Executive management is reluctant to spend money in their home market, let alone a new territory. With limited or no funding for PR, basic marketing, trade show participation and direct marketing programs, international companies rarely generate the “buzz” and brand awareness necessary for a successful launch. As a result, their U.S. operations struggle – or even fail – to drive revenue and build market share.
• Execution management believes sales can be generated by commission-only U.S. sales rep firms and agents, so they’re unwilling to invest in any real sales efforts. Management also believes that because they’ve been successful internationally, there’s no need for U.S. specific branding, PR, and marketing.
• Executive management underestimates the amount of time, effort and funds needed to generate leads for their company and its sales channels, or they believe that a lead-generation plan is unnecessary. Direct and indirect sales teams require a constant feed of warm prospect leads, and those aren’t possible when the company lacks a focused and funded marketing plan.

2.THE WRONG SALES TEAM LEADERSHIP

One of the most crucial decisions an international company needs to make when it decides to enter the U.S. market is, who will drive new business development and lead the sales team? Several options are usually considered:

• Relocate an existing executive to the U.S. and start the visa process. This strategy seems ideal because that person knows the company, the products, the people back at headquarters and the challenges in front of them. But that person often doesn’t know the U.S. market’s nuances, such as the competitive environment and the available sales channels. He or she also usually does not have existing enterprise, channel or distribution relationships that are critical to success.
• Use a manufacturer rep firm or independent agent, such as one that reached out to the company via email or stopped by its trade show booth and provided a program outline. Going this route means the company is betting its U.S. brand recognition, market share and revenue on a firm or agent it’s never worked with before. Sometimes the company selects a capable firm or agent but still, suffers from a botched launch for reasons such as miscommunication or simply overpromising and under delivering. That can lead to additional delays and revenue losses if hard feelings and finger pointing stand in the way of quickly resolving the problems.
• Hire someone who’s already based in the U.S. This strategy can pay off if the person knows the industry’s competitive landscape, can quickly master the company’s portfolio and has the relationships necessary to line up sales channels and close sales. Such people often are hard to find and expensive to lure out of their current position. Even then, the perfect hire doesn’t guarantee success. For example, he or she could be undermined by headquarters’ delays in making decisions or difficulty explaining why strategies that worked in other countries won’t work in the U.S. In these situations, the new hire usually spends more time on communication issues with headquarters rather than focusing on finding new customers.

3. DIFFICULT NAVIGATING THE LEGAL AND REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT

The Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) are just a few examples of the government agencies and other organizations that technology companies typically interact with once they expand to the U.S. All companies have to follow the state and municipal laws and potentially pay state and local sales taxes in more than 9,000 jurisdictions. It takes a significant amount of time and resources to identify all of the relevant government entities and their applicable requirements, such as: • Patents, copyrights and other product protections. • Establishing the U.S. business entity in one or more states. The location also affects whether and how much tax needs to be levied on Internet sales. • Labor laws, including how those laws determine whether a person is an employee rather than an independent contractor. That’s particularly important for tech companies, which frequently use contractors to avoid the cost and lead time of hiring staff with highly specialized skills such as radio frequency (RF) engineering. • Restrictions on the types of digital content that can be sold to minors and protections against children running up big bills using their parents’ app store accounts. International companies new to the U.S. are frequently bewildered by the legal and regulatory environment. That can lead to problems such as a launch delayed at the last moment because the necessary business licenses weren’t obtained or steep fines because products aren’t in compliance. One example is the FCC’s Part 15 rules, which govern RF emissions from electronic devices.

4.STRATEGIES AND COLLATERAL THAT IGNORE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Sales, marketing and other strategies that were successful in Asia, Europe or Latin America often don’t work when they’re applied to the U.S. without revisions to reflect U.S. market nuances. When international technology companies successfully expand to the U.S., it’s typically because they took the time to understand the market’s attributes and then developed their strategies accordingly. This is no different than when U.S. companies expanding into Europe, Asia or the Middle East. They typically hire an experienced guide to help them navigate the market nuances. For example, technology companies worldwide frequently rely on social media to build awareness of new products and promotions. The type and amount of social media usage varies significantly not only between European countries but also among demographic groups within those countries. Savvy European technology companies understand and leverage those differences as they expand across the content. Yet when they’re ready to expand across the Atlantic, those companies often stumble because they try to force-fit a European strategy to the U.S. instead of analyzing its diversity for market opportunities. Often this mistake is accompanied by another: re-using sales and marketing collateral from Asia, Europe or Latin America. The result is that not only is the messaging wrong for the target audience; it’s also baffling because the translation process didn’t include identifying and removing colloquialisms and sayings that only make sense to the original audience. Spelling and grammatical errors also often undermine potential customers’ confidence and make them less willing to try a company they’ve never heard from. When an international company makes a poor first impression, it’s even more difficult and expensive to build mind share and market share.

5. FAILURE TO LAUNCH PRODUCT QUICKLY

Innovative and disruptive technologies have a limited period of time to establish a market before competitors can respond. U.S. companies fully understand and exploit this window of opportunity, which means new entrants from abroad must be equally savvy. Innovation is a messy process simply because breaking new ground means companies can’t fall back on what’s worked before. As a result, innovative products often have a long gestation and difficult birth. That’s true in any country, but this challenge is even greater when an international company wants to use a disruptive product to highlight its entry into the U.S. market. As a result, the company often tinkers with that product longer than necessary because its goal is utter perfection. Tinkering often means more time for competitors to develop and launch products that are good enough in the eyes of customers. If those products are in a category where contracts are the norm then the one that captivates the U.S. market’s attention first will lock in those customers for a year, two years or longer.

6. THE WRONG LOCATION

Ask a company’s management why its global headquarters is in a particular city and they’ll list reasons such as infrastructure, access to talent and the cost of doing business. Yet, international companies often don’t apply the same thorough analysis when selecting the location(s) of their first U.S. office(s). Locations that initially appear ideal don’t always turn out to be that way. For example, international tech companies often flock to Silicon Valley because they believe that’s where all of the top talent is or that the address gives them more credibility with potential partners and customers. Sometimes that turns out to be the right choice. But Dallas could be a better fit if the company is developing telecom products or Boston if it’s targeting telemedicine. Even time zones are a factor: It’s easier for the staff at the Tokyo headquarters to collaborate in real time with the U.S. team if they’re based in San Diego rather than Boston.

7.UNREALISTIC FINANCIAL EXPECTATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS

This problem often is twofold. The company sets out with overly optimistic revenue expectations, typically due to the high cost of launching a venture in a new country. These expectations then wind up dictating prices so high that they shrink the product’s addressable market. These problems inevitably lead to other problems. When initial sales are so low that revenue is nowhere near the target, the company’s global headquarters often has a knee-jerk reaction, such as replacing U.S. management, scaling back operations to save money, pumping in more money or abandoning the market. To develop realistic revenue targets and pricing, international companies must understand the U.S. market’s nuances, from taxes and other costs of doing business to what the target demographics are willing and able to pay. The aforementioned quest for the perfect product sometimes deludes companies into believing that people or businesses will be so impressed that they’ll pay anything to have it. Another common pitfall is underestimating start-up costs, such as establishing sales channels and building brand recognition.

The Core Four

Specialized Services

After you establish success with The Core Four, you will likely want to add a few specialized services. Examples of these services include: VoIP, hosted SharePoint, email archiving and many others. In future posts we will discuss how to best select your specialized services and pricing strategies for your services.

Be sure to let us know your thoughts or what you would like to see us discuss.