Corporate marketing is becoming more about SEO and Adwords than strategic development. As Glen Gow points out in his recent post about marketing challenges during a recession, companies often become extreme short-term thinkers about marketing. To me it seems like marketing starts thinking like sales, focusing on lead generation versus helping drive the companies vision.
Corporate sales is as much to blame. Sales thinks in quarterly blocks, and deals in the present. Sales also is the pre-eminent squeaky wheel, forcing marketing to turn away from strategy and focus on getting more ready-to-buy prospects.
The Straight Line: lead generation and prospecting live at the intersection of sales and marketing. But executives need to realize, even during down economic times, that cutting strategic marketing endangers the future.
Another related misfire is that corporate product marketing is sitting at the strategy table instead of strategic marketing. Difference? Product marketing is supposed to drive product development around identified market needs, finding differentiators that will align with buyers identified by the strategic marketing function.
In a recession you may see the one of the top executives take over strategic marketing. I once witnessed this happen and quite soon, strategy became all about short term product launches, not strategy.
Result? Products launched during this timeframe had no differentiators and could not align with potential buyers. Sales reported back from the trenches that buyers wanted to know how they were supposed to use the products. They got the messaging, but couldn’t figure out how to implement.
I’d like to see corporate marketing back at the executive table, helping to drive strategy rather than focus on short term lead generation. This will enable smart companies to continue to find areas of differentiation and the buyers that will notice. And sales will be the beneficiary, as it should be. Sales should not drive strategy, but should be a key influencer.
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Possibly overlooked last month was a product launch announcement of enterprise video solutions from web content management kingpin Vignette (NASDAQ: VIGN). Vignette Video Services and the latest release of Vignette’s Rich Media Services is obviously aimed at companies who are already producing business video communications and want more strategic control over web viewership. Vignette says the new services are designed to help drive revenues using video to keep visitors glued to the site and increasing revenue opportunities.
The Straight Line: This announcement barely caused a ripple in the streaming media industry, but should cause rich media solution providers to take notice. Truly internet video is growing significantly and management of this content is the critical success factor.
Were you there when they passed around the “Long Tail” Kool-Aid? I was. And I’ll admit that while the premise was compelling, I can usually cipher when a Silicon Valley Wag is talking down to me about the next big thing. Expertise, like celebrity, is fleeting.
I read the book “The Long Tail”, but I tried to keep my distance. I mean, would Ebert & Roeper remain popular if the show discoursed on obscure DVD’s? It’s obvious that people gravitate to what others also like, hence the “blockbuster” paradigm which was roundly pounded in LT.
The Straight Line: “The Long Tail” gives niche marketers hope, but does the data support it? You can read the counter argument “Should You Invest in the Long Tail?”, a report by Anita Elberse, a marketing professor at the Harvard Business School.
In the following weeks, I’ll go into more detail on the report and provide my (always) unique insights.
Okay, I apologize it’s a bad pun. But I couldn’t resist. Starbucks notified the world they are shutting down 500 stores, bowing to tough times, but more accurately to decreased demand. But when it comes to talking about coffee and sales, I never miss the connection that really started in the semi-grim sales movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” when the character played by Alec Baldwin (Blake) calls out Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon) when the aforementioned tries to help himself to the boiler room sludge.
Coffee has always played a pivotal role in sales culture. I remember running a sales unit that was so in to their coffee that they brewed double-bag pots, producing output so strong that, in the words of one, it could “eat the enamel off your teeth”. Or at least darken them.
So I’m now wondering if the pullback by Starbucks isn’t some leading indicator that sales people are drinking less coffee, or (gasp) worse, trying out the McDonald’s brand. I think people will continue to gulp the dark stuff, and Starbuck’s issue is really operational, not personal.
The Straight Line: As long as there are sales people, there will always be coffee.
Employee turnover is costly, and now it appears there’s a trend among companies to tie compensation to employee retention.
Cari Tuna writes in the Wall Street Journal (June 30, 2008) that recruiting and training a replacement employee can cost the same as six to 18 months’ pay. Framed in a more positive light, grading managers on keeping their individual contributors recognizes that people are a business driver.
Turnover in the tech industry is well known, especially in the sales department. Some experts peg the average tenure of sales VP’s at 12 months versus 18 months a few years ago. Front line managers come and go, wreaking havoc with continuity and momentum.
The article highlights some companies that are focusing on middle managers due to the direct supervisory impact they have on their staff. Tying their compensation to retention makes sense, kind of.
A blog post by Dave Kurlan of Objective Management Group highlights a challenge in the sales profession today that has serious implications for both individual sales contributors and their supervisors. He found that 25% of sales managers spend less than 25% of their time coaching salespeople and 10% spend more than 40% of their time selling.
A recent job posting for a sales manager position indicates that the candidate should expect to spend 15% of the time in the field with sales representatives to “establish proficiency” and “address areas of deficiency”.
A whitepaper by Knowlagent’s Debbie Qaqish points out that 75% of front line managers feel they don’t have enough time to coach their reps, while 80% admitted to spending only 2 hours on “all coaching activity”.
The Straight Line: if you’re spotting a trend here, you’re not alone. Sales people are getting less development time from their bosses, and their bosses are getting less time to mentor. The consequences are serious.
From the friendly folks who brought you ice hockey, Labatt’s and mounted police.
Nortel Networks, the Canadian networking runner-up to Cisco, is executing a strategy analogous to a hockey hail mary. Co-opting global concern about energy consumption, Nortel is flanking Cisco by creating the perception that Cisco’s data center gear consumes way more juice than its own similar products. The company has created a creative campaign around this strategy, offering an energy calculator to back up their claims.
The Straight Line: data center energy consumption is a real issue. By making Cisco the culprit behind a politically-charged topic, Nortel is buying time for its sales team and giving enterprise IT buyers a business case that could resonate with top executive decision-makers. More on Can Nortel Flank Cisco with Green Strategy?
In this podcast presentation, Brian Berlin, President of Straightline Strategies, Inc. challenges a few well-known myths and builds the business case for outsourced teleprospecting.
The Straight Line: There are five key justifications and cost isn’t one of them.