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LET'S GET PERSONAL: HOW TO DELIVER ONE TO ONE MARKETING ON A BUDGET

This ITAC roundtable was held on Thursday, March 8th, 2007.

Panelists:

Arturo Perez, Manager, Market Intelligence, Cisco Systems
Ron Mitchell, Executive Vice President of Marketing Communications, Fujitsu Consulting
Rob Johnson, Director, Marketing, Technology Solutions Group, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co.
Katie Cook, Enterprise Segment Marketing Manager, Communications Sector, Microsoft Canada Co.
John Mavriyannakis, Vice President, Marketing and Emerging Products, Symcor Inc.

The discussion was moderated by Bob Becker, Principal, SMA.

What is the definition of one to one marketing and how do you do it on a budget? What is Marketing's relationship with Sales?

The definition depends on who is involved. One to one is really one to many, and takes a team effort that involves Sales and Marketing. It could also include Product Development or other stakeholders.
It’s about one entity working towards one goal.
It’s a dynamic process requiring integration of all the constituents.
You need to bring the experience of many but speak as one organization, not as individuals.
The definition is really one company to one customer. You need to know to whom you are talking and what their concerns are and then make the message relevant.
The Sales process starts at a high level with the objectives and then becomes transactional with many fibres and links to the process.

You need to define Sales’ and Marketing’s roles and where the hand off happens. You need to take Sales’ input and see how it fits into the overall strategy.
Marketing is not just responsible for the first 20% of the funnel. They also help alleviate bottlenecks in the sales process.

Defining the target market is critical to personalizing the message. How important is targeting for one to one marketing, and what variables are fundamental to effective targeting?

You need a system in place to capture the information. We build propensity models that look for marketing variables and patterns to predict customer behaviour. We look for companies that behave the same way and target them.
The goal of one to one marketing is to improve your marketing effectiveness, so targeting is critical. With propensity models like Structure Process Modelling and segmentation techniques, you can plan and present unsolicited proposals by knowing when a customer will buy and approach them just as they are at that stage.
We look for new customers with similar needs and group them together.
Sales is a very good source of information about customers.
Customers are a great source of information so we ask them. They know what they want.

What are the most effective approaches to data repository/CRM?

CRM is an essential vehicle and is dependent upon input from Sales, which can be a challenge. It’s a constant battle because Sales has to maintain the CRM information but it is not their job. In order for it to be updated properly, you need to have top down support.
CRM allows for tracking of engagement.
CRM can be perceived as a threat to Sales because they feel a lack of control.
CRM is simply a tool. It’s the process around the CRM that is effective. Marketing’s role is to manage the process around that tool and be the owner of that tool. Marketing can help keep it as up to date as possible with things like data cleansing.
To make CRM effective, you need to be systematically inputting content to make it valuable. By making it a source of insight to Sales, they will be motivated to keep the information up to date. If CRM is seen as a way to control Sales, they will not be motivated to use it. You need to position it to Sales as a tool that will help them with their sales process.
RM must be integrated into other processes.

SMBs (defined as less than $250M in sales, 500-1000 employees), comprising lion's share of market in Canada, can be characterized as:

We have structured roundtable discussions with prospects. We use these to showcase our thought leadership in the market.
We use focus groups. We also use the channel’s resources to identify new customers.
There are two measures of success in the sales process: i) completeness of vision and ii) ability to execute. Customers need to hear about both of these areas. It’s all about building trust and confidence and being seen as having an ability to address their concerns.
The critical element for gathering information is to build trust. You need to demonstrate an expertise in their business and issues.

What are the most effective tactics to build trust and add value to the prospect relationship? What techniques can be used at events?

You need to make sure you are intellectually at the same level as your prospects. (e.g. knowledge of their industry).
You also need to understand your prospects’ roles and objectives so you can relate to them and be more relevant.
The C-level executive needs to see value in you. You have to communicate with them in a value-based context.
Bring an outside expert to an event to add value.
The goal is to get your prospects to a stage where they feel a stake in your success. The prospect becomes tied to your strategy. This creates a deep, lasting relationship.
We go to customers’ locations because of the large geographical distances and do full day education programs. We also run summits where we bring in keynote speakers and offer sponsorships to partners. This is easier to do in the enterprise segment.

What about electronic communications like blogs?

Blogging is just another marketing vehicle. IT people are very engaged in blogs but not everyone is. It needs to add value to be useful.
The blog is a “pull” model but since it is not structured it is more difficult to control. We use webinars to showcase our expertise.
The younger generation is already very comfortable with electronic media so it is a good way to reach them. Blogs have the ability to offer live communications with customers and can be used to quickly address rumours.

How effective is the phone today as a marketing tool?

I see it as a dangerous tool. Its structured use is intrusive to the receiving end and is not a good relationship builder. I think it is unsophisticated for outbound marketing. 85-90% of the calls end unsuccessfully. However, I think the phone is a useful tool for maintaining relationships.
We use the phone to establish trust. Our sales people already have background knowledge of a customer and know what to say to build trust. We need to enrich the phone interaction with other tools. The phone’s effectiveness depends on the information available to help build the relationship.
Our telesales group is constantly touching base with our customers and is seen by them as part of the team.
We use telesales to hand off to Sales. We will continue to add marketing channels and manage them all to ensure the messaging is consistent.
The younger generation is very online, not on the phone, so we need to manage for this.
We need to customize the marketing vehicle for the different audiences. For executives, business reply cards work best while for IT people, email is the most effective.

Questions from the Audience:

How do you by-pass the mid level when targeting the top 1000 CEOs?

You need to be extremely careful when doing this.
At our company, the Account Manager is the account lead and everyone else helps him achieve his goal. The Account Manager has to control the customer’s mid management.
The message we send to CEOs is different from the rest of the levels.
We match our C level with our customer’s so sometimes the Account Manager doesn’t attend an event.
It’s a long-term engagement and needs a number of different tactics. You need to have credibility to talk to the CEO level.

What are the hot topics with CEOs these days?

Government risk of compliance
For the mid market, it’s security
For the CEO, talking about opportunities for growth and technology and how we can help
For the lines of business executive, it’s information infrastructure

What has worked to get C level executives to focus groups?

Don’t call it a focus group. It needs to be positioned to them as having a value proposition to motivate them to attend. Call it an “exchange of ideas” or “networking opportunity”.
I feel social behaviour effects individual behaviour, so there may be other techniques more effective than focus groups.
The most powerful thing we did was run a focus group with our customers’ customers. We then shared the learning and developed a solution with them.

Wrap Up: What does the future look like in one to one marketing?

Tighter integration between the various constituents – Sales, Marketing, Teleboost, Product Development. One to one marketing helps to sustain their relationships.
A broader focus and more collaboration with Sales.
One to one helps justify the marketing function to Sales. It also links similar levels at both companies, e.g. CEO to CEO.
Mass marketing is not always relevant. Marketing is all about driving relevance to the audience, so you need to optimize the messaging, which one to one marketing enables.
One to one marketing is the glue and driving force to make a company cohesive and integrated, and ultimately makes it more customer centric.
To communicate effectively, you must develop your best practices throughout all of the levels

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