Marrying Sales & Marketing Technologies for Complete Customer Lifecycle Management

Transcription

1 Marrying Sales & Marketing Technologies for Complete Customer Lifecycle Why CRM and Marketing Technologies Belong Together Organizations that have successfully deployed CRM are reaping the benefits: improved visibility into the sales process; ready access to information on trends and performance, and increased accountability among sales team members. But even with all this going on, it s clear something s missing. CRM needs a soul mate. CRM, primarily a sales tool, isn t complete without the corresponding marketing technology that assures seamless benefit at each point in the customer lifecycle. This end-to-end approach to managing communications and progressing relationships is essential to driving more revenue more efficiently and to creating the abundance of happily ever-afters your business needs All rights reserved. Marrying Sales & Marketing 1

2 You Said I Do to CRM. Now It s Time to Embrace MRM, MCM and DAM. In all likelihood, the day your CRM went live was a good one. Memorable, defining, and worth a celebration. Since then your organization has benefited significantly from a solution that assures all your customer, prospect and partner data is current, complete, centralized and accurate. The before scenario contrasts in a big way with the after: Before CRM, companies operated in an environment where information lived in separate computers and was managed via disparate spreadsheets. Now that CRM solutions are the norm, fundamentally vital company information is readily accessible to management and the sales and marketing teams. Your company s ability to drive relationships and revenue is significantly enhanced by your customer relationship management solution. Just as life-altering as your CRM go-live is another initiative your organization should be considering: Implementation of the marketing solutions that complement CRM and make it work even harder for you. Marketing Resource, Multi- Channel Campaign and Digital Asset, coupled with CRM, are the building blocks to achieving Integrated Sales and Marketing. That s what this paper is all about. Read on for the information you need to help marketing achieve better results (more leads) and more effectively contribute to meeting your organization s financial goals. CRM MRM MCM DAM Customer Relationship Marketing Resource Multi-Channel Campaign Digital Asset Inside: I. Current State Perspective Solutions Definitions The Benefits of Expanding Functionality Into Marketing II. III. IV. The Power Shift from Sales to Marketing The Sales & Marketing Value Chain Understanding Operational Silos Connecting the Dots Functionality by Application Solution Interaction by Key Stakeholders Mapping Adjacencies Adjacencies by Role V. Integrated Sales and Marketing 11 2

3 I. Current State Perspective Historically, sales and marketing have not always worked in harmony. The two disciplines are often not coordinated in their efforts to drive revenue. They often act independently and fail to value the others contribution. For example, sales is in hot pursuit of leads and requests timely content from marketing. Marketing, on the other hand, sees its role not as a generator of proposals and data sheets, but as a provider of leads, focusing its resources on direct-to-consumer programming. Both can tend to be miffed at the other s response: Sales doesn t feel like it gets the support it needs, and marketing doesn t feel like it gets the respect it deserves. Technology alone has not helped to overcome the lack of shared intent across sales and marketing. Sales has been enabled by CRM, and marketing has deployed a confluence of customerfacing technologies (campaign management, social tools, offer management, etc), and in a few cases, marketing back-office technologies such as MRM. (See figure 1.) Few enterprises have taken on the challenge to define end-to-end sales and marketing processes and to deploy technology to seamlessly manage the full customer lifecycle. In response to this reality, in the last two to three years CRM vendors have acquired front- and back-office marketing technologies to complete the sales and marketing ecosystem; and only now are they figuring out how marketing s campaign lifecycles are related to sales leads lifecycles. With CRM s maturity, sales, IT and marketing managers in firms currently using CRM need to understand the benefits of expanding functionality into marketing. (See figure 2.) Figure 1: Sales & Marketing Solution Definitions CRM MRM MCM DAM ISM Customer Relationship Marketing Resource Multi-Channel Campaign Digital Asset Integrated Sales and Marketing A lead management and call center solution to manage current and future customer data, encompassing lead & contact management A back-office solution to support marketing, primarily involving resource planning, project management, design and production A front-office marketing solution that automates and tracks multi-channel interaction with prospects and customers A back-office solution that catalogues, stores, retrieves and disseminates marketing assets on a global scale The successful result of an enterprise s integrated, end-to-end approach to customer lifecycle management Accordingly, this paper aims to discern the organizational challenges complex and global sales and marketing organizations face, and crystallize how process and technology may be viewed to enable Integrated Sales and Marketing (ISM). Marrying Sales & Marketing 3

4 Figure 2: The Benefits of Expanding Functionality Into Marketing Profile of CRM Stakeholder Marketing Resource Digital Asset Marketing Solution Areas Multi-Channel Campaign Sales Manager Common marketing programs across all geographies, divisions, channels Ready access to finished marketing materials Control over circulation of outdated or unsanctioned content Visibility to upstream pipeline of new marketing content Alignment of collateral to program and campaign strategies Collaborative execution across customer channels Consistent and comprehensive marketing support Visibility to marketing s contacts Alignment of sales-generated communications to brand messaging and in-flight marketing activities Coordination of customer-facing events IT Manager Operational reporting (marketing performance) to inform planning of marketing assets Marketing financial reporting for campaign ROI calculation Marketing lead tracking Marketing campaign history Market segmentation Marketer Ability to prioritize sales requests Marketing resource management (people and financial) aligned to sales goals Visibility into purchased media, and/or allocation to sales and marketing programming Ability to manage lead nurturing programs as seamless multichannel campaigns Common customer lists from which sales and marketing can collaborate Valid contact history 4

5 II. The Power Shift Between Sales and Marketing A power shift is occurring between sales and marketing. While sales used to be the organization driving the bus, with marketing in a supporting role, the tables are now turning. As more data becomes available, marketing is increasingly applying it to precisely target prospects, to communicate with them in a more personalized, compelling way, and to analyze what it takes to move them through the buying funnel. It s been slow coming, as marketing technologies are only recently able to offer up the kinds of information that can elevate the strategic impact of the CMO, but the time has come: Marketing is in a position to drive revenue, in turn, enabling sales to focus on deals at hand. This shift is generally viewed as positive by both marketing and sales. Opportunities to take an end-to-end approach to customer lifecycle management are emerging rapidly, benefiting both organizations. The technology is there, and now the mindset is too. Combining CRM, which has been in place within organizations for years, with newer marketing applications that can further leverage customer data, works to the advantage of the whole. On that everyone can agree. Marketing automation has seen the fastest growth of any CRMrelated segment in the last five years (Q2 Insights). The CRM industry, of which marketing automation is a subset, is currently a $4 billion industry (Q2 Insights). By 2017, it is expected to surpass $36 billion (Gartner). 59% of CMOs expect to increase effectiveness and efficiency of marketing by implementing automated marketing solutions (Bulldog Solutions). The marketing automation penetration rate will grow to approximately 50% by 2015 (SiriusDecisions). Marrying Sales & Marketing 5

6 Technology s role in this transition is important. CRM ( sales technology) and DAM, MRM and MCM ( marketing technology) are becoming inter-dependent. (See figure 1.) As CRM vendors bundle marketing functionality within their offerings, the lines between one and the other are blurring. for all involved, especially buyers/customers. In fact, in some cases, the sales and marketing leadership positions are merging. The unified function, called Chief Revenue Officer or Chief Customer Officer, encompasses both revenue-generating strategy and customer lifecycle execution. Accordingly, so are the silos that have long prevented sales and marketing from most effectively working together. Sales and marketing leaders are now coming together to look at common technology, as well as the seamless processes that make it work The result of this high level organizational integration is termed Integrated Sales and Marketing. ISM is a state-of-theorganization well worth pursuing. The Power is Shifting from Sales to Marketing In B2B, marketing now defines the lead nurturing process, and sales is responsible for one or more steps in the process In B2C, sales is increasingly directed by multi-channel marketing analytics In B2B2C, manufacturers are more frequently going direct-to-consumer with marketing programming and owned retail outlets The Shift is Resulting in More Scalable Marketing Interactions Marketing s knowledge of the customer has grown exponentially in recent years enabling a more personalized, targeted approach to communications Sales is gaining understanding and appreciation of the value of marketing content driven by customer knowledge Customers /prospects needs are more consistently anticipated and acknowledged Marketing s Effectiveness Requires More Functionality, Automation CRM vendors are acquiring marketing technologies to complement their solutions, and marketing and sales functionality is starting to overlap Marketing is embracing technology as a means to efficiency and effectiveness Sales is recognizing the value of a coordinated approach to achieving common goals 6

7 III. The Sales and Marketing Value Chain Traditionally the sales and marketing value chain is narrowly focused within operational silos, without an end-to-end view of process and technology. Because of these silos, shared decisionmaking between the two organizations is a challenge. (See figure 3.) Figure 3: Operational Silos COO CMO CFO CIO CSO Accounting/Finance IT Product Marketing Sales Decision makers may be aware of one another, but often work on independent processes, resulting in redundancies, waste of resources, off strategy effort and frustration between the sales and marketing teams. Both sides feel like the other doesn t get them. Commonly the two factions report that it takes investing significant political capital, i.e. taking substantial professional risk, to drive decisions across operational lines. This seems like a solvable problem, since both organizations presumably have the same goals: To generate revenue. But without the technology, specifically MRM and MCM, to automate marketing processes, provide visibility into cost and budgets, and get comprehensive metrics needed to make sound decisions, the cycle continues. Communications with customers are inherently confused, poorly managed and ineffective, and sales and marketing don t get along as well as they should. On the flip side, with knowledge and use of marketing technologies, and the associated, enabled processes, the silo scenario changes significantly. Anywhere processes overlap become triggers for improvement, and wherever data is available becomes the impetus to optimization. Marrying Sales & Marketing 7

8 IV. Connecting the Dots To connect the dots, that is, to eliminate silos and bridge the gap between marketing and sales, requires the construction or refinement of the sales and marketing operating model. The sales and marketing operating model is both a decisionmaking tool and a communication tool. Leadership uses it to validate the scope of the marketing organization, then communicate the scope to all levels of marketing and to adjacent functions. The operating model answers big questions: what is marketing s role in the firm? Who is the voice of the customer? How does marketing interact with adjacent functions? What is insourced? What is outsourced? Who owns various capabilities? Following are ways to address these and other key concerns in creating a viable sales and marketing operating model: 1. Unbundle MRM, MCM, DAM and other relevant sales and marketing technologies and take a granular look at the application functionality. Use an intuitive system vernacular to describe off-the-shelf solutions to avoid confusion. (See figure 4.) Figure 4: Functionality by Application Awareness Mid-Range or Annual Plan (12 to 18 months) Plan Programs (9 months) Propose Initiatives (7 months) Design Program & Initiatives (6 months) Execute Program & Initiatives (90 days) Distribute Program & Initiatives (30 days) Consideration Purchase Marketing Financials Planning Post-Purchase Workflow/Project Procure to Pay (Plan, Estimate, Procure, Pay) Offer Media Multi-Channel Campaign CRM Event Digital Asset Document Asset Business Collaboration Product Information 8

9 2. Allow all who can benefit to leverage applications already deployed and to become stakeholders for those technologies yet to be implemented. Keep in mind, if starting from CRM, the bridging role is the Workflow & Collaboration Decision Maker. If starting from Financial, the Marketing Finance Decision Maker is the bridging role. (See figure 5.) Figure 5: Mapping CRM and Marketing Relationships Current Sales Stakeholders Document Info Tech Sales CRM Campaign Brand/Creative Business Digital Art Workflow Collaboration Lead Workflow Collaboration Event Corporate Services PM Offer Marketing Finance Spend ERP P2P Financial Media Enterprise BI Insights & Research 3. Prioritize functionality by mapping adjacencies. (See figure 6.) For CRM, follow customer data for immediate adjacencies. Figure 6: Mapping Adjacencies to Lead and Financial Optimally Efficient and Effective Digital Asset Performance Analysis Workflow Process Automation Multi-Channel Campaign Events Marketing Planning Media Lead Spend Single Solution Financial Adjacency 1 Adjacency 2 Adjacency 3 Integrated Sales and Marketing Marrying Sales & Marketing 9

10 4. Follow the adjacencies to expand Integrated Sales and Marketing. Note that as each adjacency is addressed, competency increases. Move the conversation from single products to processes and solutions. (See figure 7.) Figure 7: CRM Adjacencies by Role Function Role Integrated Sales and Marketing Solution Areas IT CRM Core CRM Product Offering Multi-Channel Campaign P2P ERP Offer PIM Document Multi-Channel Campaign Multi-Channel Campaign Multi-Channel Campaign Business (Sales & Marketing) CMO N/A (all) Sales Core CRM Product Offering Multi-Channel Campaign Brand/Creative Workflow Collaboration Insights & Research Media Campaign Event Digital Asset Multi-Channel Campaign Events Multi-Channel Campaign Events Multi-Channel Campaign Media Multi-Channel Campaign Events Media Media Media Procure to Pay Corporate Services Spend Core ERP Product Offering Enterprise BI Marketing Finance Multi-Channel Campaign Media 5. Finally, determine how the applications should work together to support an endto-end customer lifecycle management process, thereby building the technology strategy that makes this approach a reality. 10

11 V. Integrated Sales and Marketing What is the end-game of recognizing the power shift between marketing and sales, of tearing down the silos, and creating an operating model that enables an end-to-end approach to customer lifecycle management? The desired result is Integrated Sales and Marketing, defined as the degree to which a firm contextualizes an integrated sales and marketing process and technology ecosystem, encompassing all the planning and execution that makes sales and marketing operate together to meet the needs of the enterprise, and to meet the needs of the customer. (See figure 8.) Figure 8: Customer Interaction Sales Performance Market Insights Brand Positioning Seasonal Planning Customer Customer Insights Project Media Planning Segment Planning Long-term Planning Traditional Execution Print Buying Campaign Planning Media Execution Art Buying Financial Digital Execution Achieving what Coffee + Dunn refers to as Integrated Sales and Marketing means your sales and marketing processes, practices and in sync, and working well for the customer, and therefore the enterprise. This state of optimization isn t easy, and it hasn t always been possible. With the advent of marketing technology that augments and compliments CRM functionality, it s now an attainable goal. Marrying Sales & Marketing 11

12 About the Authors Eric Rotkow is a management and technology consultant for the marketing function, helping clients bridge the gap left by many agencies and traditional consultancies by connecting customers to marketing operations. Over the last decade, Eric has worked with US and global marketers to conceive and transform marketing organizations to meet the goals of their leaders with a deep understanding of marketing planning, process engineering, customer/buyer behavior, analytics, customer-facing and back-office technologies, and managerial sciences. Eric Rotkow Partner, Consulting Director Eric received an MBA in marketing from Georgia State University and a BS in advertising from the University of Florida, with additional graduate studies in project management and computer information systems management. Eric is an active member of the Atlanta business community. Thomas Manders brings more than 20 years of consulting, corporate and software experience to his role at Coffee + Dunn, delivering thoughtful and practical solutions to clients. Leadership and hands-on experience have given him a broad understanding of marketing and marketing operations, customer-facing and back-office technologies, finance and supply chain operations, and business strategy. Thomas Manders Partner, Managing Director Thomas received a BS in mechanical engineering, with a concentration in operations research from the University of Texas. Thomas s executive education includes coursework in strategic planning, financial modeling and marketing strategy. Thomas is a member of the Marketing Executives Networking Group, the American Marketing Association, and a frequent participant in CMO organizations. Thomas contributes his time to community organizations including Habitat for Humanity and YMCA. 12

13 About Coffee + Dunn Inc. Coffee + Dunn is about achieving marketing success through improved marketing operations. Our passion is to improve the quality and effectiveness of marketing, applying leading technologies to increase speed or scale, realigning processes and people to create competitive agility, and applying thoughtful strategies to measure performance. Our unique approach bridges the critical gap between agencies (creative focus) and traditional consultancies (supply chain or analytics focus) by connecting customers to marketing capabilities, blending contemporary marketing insight and proven management thinking. Our solutions are thoughtful and practical, initiating positive results immediately Losa Dr., Suite #102 Dallas, TX Marrying Sales & Marketing 13