Personal Business Analytics. The Top 5 Reasons You Need to Understand Your Customer s Customer

Transcription

1 The Top 5 Reasons You Need to Understand Your Customer s Customer Personal Business Analytics 1

2 Table of Contents Introduction Renew Your Focus Get Out in Front Create More Targeted Marketing Campaigns Lift All Your Boats No More Excuses Enterprise Customer Intelligence Vendor Selection Criteria Checklist

3 The Changing Market Now that the economy is emerging from the Great Recession, companies around the globe are increasing investment and hiring once more. However, for business-to-business companies looking for opportunities to restore growth to once-prosperous enterprises, it s more critical than ever for sales teams to understand the one group that can make or break your sales. The secret? You need to look beyond your customer to your customer s customer. If you really want to grow your sales, you need to understand this group. Your products have an impact that goes beyond your client relationship. If your sales team doesn t find a way to understand the issues facing your customer s customer, you ll soon lose out to competitors who do. How do you find a solution that gives you an understanding of the market s entire ecosystem? In short, how do you solve the end-customer s problems? To do this, you have to focus on their customer s market using customized intelligence. Once you do that, you can start to paint a picture of what their world is like. You ll have a better idea of what your customer needs to be able to reach this market. Seeing the big picture is just the first step in meeting your goals. Here are the top five reasons why understanding your customer s customer is a key part of helping your company meet its sales and marketing goals: 3

4 1Renew Your Focus 4

5 Don t just sell your product; focus on your customer s business problem. Your customers don t buy products they buy solutions. It may be a cliché, but it s true. Why is your client considering your product in the first place? It s because they have a problem they need to solve. When salespeople pitch their products without considering the potential client s need, they aren t likely to get very far. However, with a greater understanding of the end-customer, they can be more in tune to the needs of the client. Don t just make a pitch have a conversation that starts from real knowledge about your client s market. Salespeople make pitches; trusted colleagues give advice. Once you focus on addressing how your product is specifically beneficial for the prospect, you not only become more successful at making sales, you become a strategic business partner. For example, are you customer s customers driving them down on price? If so, your primary focus should be helping them lower their overhead costs to create a more affordable product. Are they primarily focused on end-user growth? Perhaps you can help them bring their products to market more quickly. Don t just make a pitch have a conversation that starts from real knowledge about your client s market. 5

6 2Get Out in Front 6

7 Aligning Sales to the Buyer s Journey Just as you should avoid pitching a product your potential client doesn t need, you should avoid trying to sell them a product at the wrong moment. A 2012 study by the Corporate Executive Board found that most buyers don t contact vendors until they are, on average, more than halfway through the buying process. This means, by the time they contact you, it may be too late to help them identify the optimal solution package to meet their needs. Understanding your customer s customer can provide vital insight into the buyer s journey, which will help you know the appropriate time to approach them. But when is that, exactly? Depending on what s going on in their market, the sales funnel could look different than it usually does. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to sales, which is why understanding your customer s customer is so important. You need to be able to tailor your sales strategies to each individual buyer s market. There is no one-sizefits-all solution to sales, which is why understanding your customer s customer is so important. 7

8 To solve this conundrum, salespeople have to be proactive. Dig deep in the market of your customer s customer to determine what kind of industry events could be driving clients to move through the buying process more quickly or slowly. Will a bankruptcy or merger put customers under budget pressure, or put a halt to their buying procedures altogether? Knowledge is power. To understand your customer s customer, you will need to keep an eye on their market. Keep your finger on the pulse of their industry and see these events before they happen. When you have the information you need to predict buyer behaviors, you ll be able to tailor a solution specific to them, long before your competitors even get involved. In short, understanding the customer s customer allows businesses to be flexible and proactive. When you cultivate a familiarity with your customer s customer, you will be able to recognize key market signals and turn them into new business opportunities. With the right tools, your team can access this data on their own time, through their CRM system, ipad, or phone wherever they re working. When the delivery platform fits comfortably into daily workflow, and provides a consistent stream of intelligence, your sales people will catch more of these signals and create more leads. The flexibility provided by such a program will increase the chances they will use the solution more frequently and increase sales productivity over time. Keep your finger on the pulse of their industry and see these events before they happen. 8

9 3Create More Targeted Marketing Campaigns

10 Configure your marketing to the buyer s need. The same tools that allow you to discover new sales opportunities can help you hone the marketing strategies that bring in new business. Customer intelligence allows B2B marketers to visualize the bigger picture. Not only are events occurring that shake up your market, but this constant data stream can provide invaluable insight for your marketing team. Without the proper industry knowledge, promotional campaigns can be off-base. Make sure your promotions aren t falling on deaf ears. With the resources available today, it s easier than ever to understand what buyers care about. Harnessing the power of the Web and social media, marketers can tap into industry intelligence to find out what s top-of-mind for B2B end-customers. However, in order to capture information that is specific to your market, you need the right technology to cut through the noise. From blog and social media posts to news articles, every few seconds content is being published that may have an impact on your end-customers. The internet contains an incredible amount of information and gleaning insight is like finding a needle in a haystack. Make sure your promotions aren t falling on deaf ears. 10

11 Focus on industry trends. Understanding your customer s customer is all about focusing on what matters in their industry. Once you understand where to concentrate, you can start designing marketing campaigns to gauge interest from people who can actually benefit from your services. Marketers who show real prowess demonstrate market intelligence in three key views of the customer s business: 1. Target vertical market 2. Business line 3. Buyer persona When you understand how all of these elements align in the buying process, your marketing solutions will be much clearer. Make sure your marketing campaigns are hitting the mark every time. Make sure your marketing campaigns are hitting the mark every time. 11

12 4Lift All Your Boats 12

13 Make your people more efficient. What makes a rock star sales rep? The most successful salespeople are the ones who do research about their customer and their customer s industry. They know how to close sales because they understand what their prospects need. Through the power of understanding your customer s customer, you can make your whole sales team as productive as your top 5 percent. With market intelligence, you can get all your salespeople plugged into to the customer s world. When you integrate customer research into each day, you no longer have to cram before the pitch. You ll have an overall better understanding of the individual you re talking to. Suddenly, the dreaded sales pitch becomes more like an actual conversation between two professionals. Imagine what could happen when your whole team is doing their homework on a consistent basis. With access to the right tools, all of your sales reps could immerse themselves in the markets that matter to their customers. They would see industry events on the horizon, cultivate a deep understanding of individual verticals and become experts in the things that matter to their clients. Using a reliable platform that delivers personalized analytics, your whole sales team can enjoy a boost in productivity. With access to the right tools, all of your sales reps could immerse themselves in the markets that matter to their customers. 13

14 5No More Excuses 14

15 When your organization places more emphasis on your customer s customer, you can get the entire sales team to focus their energy on what really matters. While your client s customers may seem far away, they are the ones truly driving your revenue. B2B companies that recognize this are investing in personal business analytics systems for their sales teams and pulling ahead of the competition. However, finding the right solution for your business is another challenge. Here are the specific solutions that worked for two major companies. Company Profile: Global Telecommunications Company A global, Fortune 500 telecommunications company has a centralized market intelligence team responsible for providing insight to their entire organization, including their sales and marketing departments. 15

16 THE CHALLENGE: Finding Intelligence To Meet an Entire Organization s Needs The company uses its own social enterprise software to help its teams collaborate and access needed intelligence. This portal is organized into three primary sections, each requiring personalized intelligence for a range of different user groups: 1. Accounts Featuring individual pages for each major customer account and serving mainly enterprise sales teams 2. Competitors Containing pages for each significant competitor, serving both sales and marketing teams 3. Markets Delivering industry and market intelligence for a range of marketing and product development teams The challenge? How to integrate fresh, relevant, high-quality intelligence on every customer, competitor and market that needs to be covered. THE RESULTS: Precise Intelligence, More Informed Decisions FirstRain enriches the company s social collaboration platform with data that s more relevant to the business of each sales and marketing professional. This means: 1. Increased use of the Quad Portal market intelligence pages, driving increased collaboration and more shared insight 2. Better detection of emerging customer and market risks and opportunities, allowing management teams to react more quickly and maintain competitive advantage 3. Improved knowledge of critical events impacting enterprise accounts, helping sales teams find more reasons to contact prospects and strengthening customer relationships 16

17 Company Profile: Leading Medical Devices Company A global supplier of analytical and laboratory equipment has a sales enablement team, under the VP of Sales, in charge of providing useful customer intelligence to sales reps. This team supports the major accounts sales team by servicing customers in managed care, pharmacies, state and national government and other large customers. THE CHALLENGE: 360-degree Customer Intelligence On-the-Go The company s major accounts sales team relies on the ability to form strong relationships with prospects and clients to achieve business objectives. Being highly knowledgeable about their customer s businesses is a crucial element to establishing credibility and winning opportunities. Since customer face-time is also important, account managers spend most of their time on the road, visiting clients nationwide. FirstRain s challenge? To provide highly-specific customer intelligence that keeps each account manager informed of the latest events impacting their account while on the go. 17

18 THE SOLUTION: Mobile and ipad-based Customer Intelligence The company s sales enablement team invested in FirstRain s system for delivering centrally-configured, individual customer monitors for each account manager, who can then receive account-specific intelligence in realtime using FirstRain s ipad, iphone and Android apps or via daily brief. Now, the company s account managers are always aware of: 1. The latest industry events impacting their account 2. Emerging regulatory developments 3. Critical events signaling sales opportunity or risk The intuitive interface of FirstRain s ipad and mobile apps also allows for on-demand business searches so account managers are able to walk into every customer meeting armed with up-to-the-second Web- and Twitterbased intelligence. THE RESULTS: Better Customer Knowledge, Stronger Relationships Having a seamless, mobile customer intelligence solution keeps account managers closer to their most important customers anywhere, anytime. This means: 1. Sales reps get the intelligence they need without searching multiple sources or relying on noisy consumer news alerts 2. An increased use of ipads for customer intelligence, significantly improving ROI on enterprise ipad investment 3. Increased knowledge of the events impacting their most important accounts, helping their reps find more reasons to engage and strengthen customer relationships 18

19 Enterprise Customer Intelligence Vendor Selection Criteria Checklist

20 Enterprise Customer Intelligence Vendor Selection Criteria Checklist Relevance: Is the intelligence specific to the precise business lines or end-markets of your customer s customer? Is the solution able to filter out the noise and direct you straight to the relevant topics for your customer businesses, or does it rely on keyword searching? Does the intelligence provide your team with the selling triggers and big-picture intelligence which will make them experts in the eyes of customers? Market Freshness: Can the vendor provide timely insights and context on your customer s end-markets from a wide range of relevant Web and social media business sources? Can you get this information delivered on platforms that will allow your team to get up-to-theminute intelligence when they need it most? Workflow and Control: Does the platform support a variety of user workflows and needs, managed by either a central admin or individual users themselves? Will the intelligence efficiently integrate within a CRM system (like Salesforce.com), or social enterprise portals (such as SharePoint, Chatter, Jive, Yammer, etc.), and support a range of mobile delivery options including ipad, iphone, Android or ? 20

21 Enterprise Customer Intelligence Vendor Selection Criteria Checklist Set-up and Configuration: How complex is the initial user account setup? Does the solution include functionality for users or admins to personalize their intelligence or to configure the content they want to see? Can your personalized intelligence stream by easily updated as your market changes or as new customers are added? Total Cost: What s the commercial model (usage based? Per-user subscription?) and the ongoing total cost of ownership? What are the costs to customize the solution for your company s needs? Does the solution reduce the time your teams spend doing research using non-business tools or other alternative solutions? FirstRain Headquarters 1510 Fashion Island Blvd. Suite 120 San Mateo, CA