What financial services can do to become more partner-led

Transcription

1 Page 1 What financial services can do to become more partner-led What s the situation? You know that producer-led programs can help financial firms tap into warm markets. But you haven t had to rely on these marketing channels as a source of revenue growth. But now, pure push or pull strategies (making products based on customer needs, or building a solution then telling them why they need it) no longer work. Many organizations now rely on producer-led marketing to grow demand and revenue. While the reasons behind this change are many and varied, the result is simple power in channel marketing has shifted from supplier to buyer, with producers now taking a critical role in the marketing process. Many financial producers don t know how to make use of this new power, however, and they struggle to succeed in their enhanced role. Why? Because producers excel in dealing with customers they are not specialized in marketing your solutions. As such, many lack the time, resources, staff and marketing skills to drive demand on their own. While inbound marketing solutions offer a proven way forward generating interest and growing thought leadership these stakeholders need dedicated assistance to manage these solutions effectively. In response, many firms have altered their strategies, aiming to grow their market reach by empowering their producers to drive demand.

2 Page 2 These channel partners need dedicated support. In their research brief, Financial Services: Producer Marketing Enablement SiriusDecisions recommend suppliers focus on augmenting the marketing capabilities of producers so they can become more effective in their efforts to find new customers, or upsell existing customers to new offerings. Clients across a range of industries use Elastic Digital s suite of digital marketing products to enable B-to-B channels, delivering automated, actionable marketing tools that enhance lead generation and the sales process. The same tools that are enabling companies like, Amazon, Brocade, Cisco, Symantec, VMware and others to grow their channel marketing revenue can be utilized by financial services firms to gain greater leverage from their partners, and effectively engage them in marketing programs. What does this have to do with my financial institution? The market restructure currently affecting your territory is similar to the one that saw IT organizations scrambling for better revenue drivers. Consumerization has empowered customers with unprecedented levels of choice and they are unafraid to shop around. While you may not have adopted what SiriusDecisions called a growth through recruitment strategy to engage with your target market and guide their purchase decisions, chances are that s where you re heading in the near future. This means the smart move would be to learn from a field that s already undergone a similar shift, and get ahead of the curve by enabling your producers from the start, rather than when revenue starts tapering off. Elastic Digital s solutions synchronize with the fundamentals identified by SiriusDecisions (see the article Six Steps to Driving Higher Adoption and Performance of Channel Programs ) and make it easy to empower, control and direct your marketing activities across a broad range of channels.

3 Page 3 That s a fair point. Where do I start? In their research brief Financial Services: Producer Marketing Enablement SiriusDecisions has identified three broad components that make up a comprehensive program for financial institutions to follow to effectively support their producers. 1Part Targeting Prospects Defining the customer draw up profiles of likely candidates based on your knowledge of the target markets. Make it easy to identify distinguishing demographics and key factors that make them more likely to buy. In their research brief, Financial Services: Producer Marketing Enablement SiriusDecisions has identified three broad components that make up a comprehensive program for financial institutions to follow to effectively support their producers: Prospect criticism develop training programs that show producers how to spot prospect signals that indicate criticality about your products. In cases where producers are required to communicate risk statements, show them how to deliver the contents without alienating the prospect. Show them how to identify whether prospects have either bought similar products from the same firm in the past, or hold current, competitive assets from other firms. Assessment training show your producers how to determine a prospect s suitability for a particular product or package. Develop talk-tracks or guided scripts that help producers identify whether a prospect has existing policies or products that can be transferred to new products while complying with local statutes. Competitive presence regardless of whether your firm regulates which products your producers can sell, or works with independent producers who handle products from multiple firms, you still need to offer obvious competitive differentiators for your products. Develop professional marketing materials such as FAQ responses that help producers easily communicate your advantages to prospects and handle objections from prospects familiar with competitive offerings.

4 Page 4 2Part Subject Matter Expertise Empowering producer responsibility for growing your revenue is one thing, but you still have to make sure they know what they re talking about. While there s no doubt that they are experts in their particular field, a little preparation before giving them a new product to launch, or new campaign to run, will pay off in the long-term. Thought leadership give producers the knowledge and authority that marks them an expert in their field. While marketing and advertising can capture prospect interest, word-of-mouth selling still has a powerful effect on how much confidence a prospect has in the product. Help establish producers as thought leaders by giving them quality content on topics important to your customers. Then, give producers the support they need to nurture these conversations as they develop through online media. Buying process pass your knowledge of the customer buying cycle on to your producers. Educate them on the stages of the cycle, as well as the common questions raised along the way. Give them access to this knowledge in the form of campaign playbooks and other reference materials. Doing this ensures that producers are capable of addressing prospect issues on the spot, removing obstacles from the prospect s path and streamlining the purchase decision.

5 Page 5 3Part Lead management To succeed, producers, new and old, must acquire or refine their ability to find new leads. And then, take them from cold to close. Online digital marketing offers highly effective approaches to augmenting your producers ability to generate and nurture insurance and financial services leads. But, your producers need training and supporting services around online approaches to lead generation and nurturing, e.g. through social media, marketing and other digital tactics. Start with these lead management components: Lead nurturing Most producers want to flood all prospects with the same brochures and other content, then attempt to arrange meetings and make sales pitches as soon as possible. Digital lead nurturing programs avoid this scattershot approach and instead apply a more effective multi-touch strategy (e.g. via a scheduled series) that offers unique content in each communication to approach the buyer s situation from multiple relevant viewpoints. Sales Enablement As prospects advance in the buying process, they are more likely to compare offerings to determine which product is best for their circumstances, or ask producers for proof points (e.g. performance data) to help them determine how much to invest or purchase, relative to their means and goals. Firms should help producers identify which tactics or resources (e.g. white papers, individual case studies, call centers) they should use to approach and address these queries. Instead of creating a portal loaded with assets (which producers are unlikely to use), engage producers in programs (e.g. customer referrals, financial illustration development) they can leverage to meet prospects needs as the selling process requires adaptive approaches which help them to specify and respond to the buyer s needs and circumstances.

6 Page The result? Together, these three parts cover every element in your new marketing channel. Followed correctly, financial firms like yours will be able to invest in marketing strategies that enhance and build on the marketing build on your producers existing marketing capabilities. The net result is a marketing channel where producers are educated, enabled and empowered to drive lead generation and grow revenue, closing bigger deals, more often. Elastic Digital can help! Every market and channel is different. So you need an agile, responsive suite of marketing enablement, empowerment and education tools that can drive engagement, grow demand and enhance revenue. Elastic Digital offers proven strategic tools that deliver measurable benefits across your marketing channel. Our approach actively enhances the capabilities of producers, and matches the points identified by SiriusDecisions as being essential to sustainable growth of financial service industries. Let s take a second to see how these assets meet the needs of your growing financial organization: Target Prospect = SETs When you re educating producers on how to identify potential customers and new selling opportunities, or how to handle critical thinking and competitive offerings, you need a framework that ties it all together. Producers will get better results when they have a simplified, structured point of educational reference that guides them to a point where they are confident in their marketing know-how. At Elastic Digital, we worked hard to develop a platform that delivers all the assets and resources needed to identify and act on new opportunities as they arise. We call them Solution Enablement Toolkits. This proven platform is then tailored to suit the products or services you sell, and give producers everything they need to close bigger deals more often.

7 Page 7 Lead Management = The Grid Lead nurturing and sales enablement are two areas where sales and marketing tend to get blurred. So it s good to know that there s a proven platform that helps producers develop their contacts into validated leads and then into customers. Subject Matter Expertise = STOs Educating producers on the specific use cases for products can be a difficult task. On one hand you need to deliver comprehensive material and measure their understanding, but on the other hand you need to make the material accessible and compelling. Elastic Digital s response to these challenges is called SolutionTracks Online, or STOs for short. An STO is made up of a number of simple whiteboard animations that reduce complex products, services and solutions into manageable modules, streamlining the education process. These STOs also feature deep-dive sections to cover important points in detail, as well as built-in assessment sections, so you can track and rate producers as they their develop an understanding of your products. The Grid is Elastic Digital s proprietary demand generation tool. It gives producers a secure, structured, and automated way to access professional collateral and co-brandable campaigns. The Grid gives organizations a dedicated way to deliver proven lead-generation modules to producers ranging from quick-start promotional sites that drive interest, through animations and webinars to grow thought leadership and market awareness, and on to full-blown multi-touch campaigns designed to run for months on end. The leads generated are forwarded straight to producers in real-time, along with actionable call-scripts and collateral designed to drive the sales conversation. Together, these integrated solutions make it easier for your producers to close bigger sales more often by taking the guesswork out of lead nurturing and sales enablement.

8 Page 8 Don t forget the creative! In addition to these powerful digital solutions, Elastic Digital offers its own digital creative services. Our dedicated team delivers decades of demand-generating experience, producing campaigns and collateral that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of leads. About Elastic Digital Elastic Digital delivers best-in-class demand generation platforms, along with dedicated Digital Creative Services, Advanced enablement and education solutions, and the global Partner Concierge Service. To date, we have helped leading global companies generate in excess of 200,000 leads for 3,000+ partners worldwide, with campaigns in 20+ languages running across 100+ countries, generating over $1 billion in estimated pipeline revenue. Contact Us If your organization would like to educate and empower its producers, to help them achieve better results, then please contact Elastic Digital. E: sales@elasticdigital.com W: Sydney, Australia T: San Jose, USA T: Salt Lake City, USA T: Bucharest, Romania T: