Driving Consumption and Increasing Stickiness with Revenue Marketing

Topics in this module Marketing’s role in revenue generation Aligning marketing and sales teams Optimizing each stage of buyer’s journey Driving consumption and increasing stickiness Marketing to up-sell and cross-sell  

Marketing’s new role in revenue generation Sales and marketing must collaborate [Marketing person icon] Target prospects earlier in the sales process Articulate benefits and differentiators through content Nurture prospects along their buying journey [Sales person icon] Typically invited into the sales process later Challenged to establish control of the sales process Difficult to convey the value of working with your business

The buyer’s journey

The buyer’s journey: the first 3 stages Explore, Evaluate, and Purchase are about prospect and client acquisition

The buyer’s journey: the later 3 stages Expand, Renew, and Advocate are client growth, consumption and retention

Goal: Optimize every stage of journey 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Goal: Optimize every stage of journey Stage Goals Explore Make sure prospects can find you and your solutions in web searches and all other channels available, such as social media Evaluate Make sure that prospects can easily evaluate you, your products, and services Purchase Make sure prospects have everything they need to make a buying decision and to choose to do business with you Expand Enable adoption, drive consumption, and increase stickiness of you and your solutions Renew Make sure the client is satisfied with you and the solutions so they are ready, willing, and able to renew the subscription and relationship Advocacy Make sure happy clients are spreading the word and help you get more clients © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Explore: Make sure prospects can find you to solve their pain points 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Explore: Make sure prospects can find you to solve their pain points Website with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Pay per Click (PPC) Advertising Value propositions and digital content Social media, community, and influencer groups Exhibiting and speaking at conferences or trade shows Referral programs and referral incentives Prospects are looking for help to solve their pain points. Can they find you? You need a lead generation engine that bubbles up high quality leads for sales and for nurturing along the journey. There are a number of techniques that help accomplish this. Let’s begin with your website. Does it communicate the ways your products, services solve clients’ pains and does it communicate value propositions that will resonate with prospects? Does it communicate your vertical market expertise? A mixture of inbound and outbound marketing techniques come into play here. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to make sure your website and blog are found in web searches by your target market. You may also use Pay Per Click (PPC) techniques to jumpstart that effort. If prospects you don’t already know can’t find you, how can you sell to them? You should have a lead referral program that encourages happy clients to provide you with referrals. This should be formalized and communicated to clients. Don’t rely on it happening all by itself. Consider giving coupons to clients for them to give to others as referrals. Incentives to clients for referrals such as small gifts are more fun and more palatable than cash. For people you already know and those you don’t, you need strong value propositions and thought leadership content that communicates your vertical market and technical expertise. You can use email campaigns, social media, webinars, speaking and exhibiting at industry events and trade shows to get the word out. © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Evaluate: Make it easy for prospects to evaluate 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Evaluate: Make it easy for prospects to evaluate Trainer Guidance During the Evaluate stage we want them to evaluate our solutions and us as a partner in a positive manner that leads to them choosing us Trying your products and solutions Free trials or demos Evaluation guides Webinars and events Why they should choose you? Explain how you can unique solve their business problem Articulate your unique competitive differentiators Communicate your on-boarding services Provide high quality references and customer success stories Leverage thought leadership articles, videos, and case studies For the Evaluate phase you want prospects to try your products & solutions. Having demos and free trials are the key here, but you also want to guide their evaluation with a guide that points out your solutions competitive advantages. They are also evaluating you as a potential partner so you also want to leverage your competitive differentiators as a partner. What other services do you provide that your competitor does not? Things such as support services and how you onboard new users are good examples. To learn more about how to identify and articulate these, see the module in this workshop series called Foundational Marketing: Competitive Differentiators. Other elements that you should use are references and case studies from happy clients, thought leadership content, articles, and whitepapers, that highlight your expertise and ability to deliver an excellent client experience. Prospects are influenced by client success stories. To learn more about these see the module in this workshop series called Foundational Marketing: Advocacy. © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Purchase: What do prospects need to buy? 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Purchase: What do prospects need to buy? Use return on investment (ROI) tools Client success stories Illustrate how other clients have achieved success with similar solutions Make it easy for sales to quote and close Create pre-bundled solution packages Have pre-written product descriptions Have pre-written sales contracts and RFP/RFI templates To help nurture prospects through the Purchase stage, you want to address the potential barriers for them to complete the purchase. You may think that once a prospect is ready to buy, the effort can stop. Nothing is further from the truth. It’s estimated that at least 10-20% of all “commitments to buy” don’t in fact complete the purchase. There are many reasons why this happens. Sometimes the prospect doesn’t have the authority to make the purchase. Sometimes they get “cold feet” and sometimes a competitor may swoop in with an offer they can’t refuse. Sometimes a higher up may decline to approve the purchase because they don’t understand the value. It’s up to your sales contact to understand the purchase approval process of the prospect’s organization, but there are a number of techniques that can – and should be used to help avoid these disappointing events. Having tools such as a return on investment (ROI) calculator can help the prospect – and others in the purchase approval chain - have the confidence that your solution will deliver the value they seek. You can help your sales team’s effectiveness and efficiency with pre-bundled solution packages, especially for smaller cloud solutions that don’t justify a lot of time creating custom configurations. We will dive into this a little deeper in a few minutes. Having pre-written product descriptions makes it easy for your sales team to create price quotes. Request For Information (RFI) and Request For Proposal (RFP) templates are very helpful. If you provide these to the prospect, you can influence the specifications of what the prospect will buy. You are also helping them do their job. Pre-written sales contracts are useful in that they can be shown to the prospect before the formal proposal, thus avoiding surprises when it comes to the actual time to sign the contract. These may be beyond the scope of marketing per se, but they are very useful practices to nurture prospects along the journey to becoming clients. © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Expand: Drive consumption and increase stickiness 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Expand: Drive consumption and increase stickiness Drive successful adoptions Help the client on-board users with training Drive consumption Assign a client success manager to every engagement Marketing can identify other potential users within the client organization Marketing can use up-selling, cross-selling to sell pre-bundled solutions Increase stickiness Inform client users about new features and capabilities via email and newsletters Send “Did You Know?” email series to get them using more features and capabilities Leverage your support services to get feedback and to increase client satisfaction © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Renew: Focus on client experience and satisfaction 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Renew: Focus on client experience and satisfaction Begin working on renewals 90 days in advance Best practice: frequently with ongoing feedback loops Resolve any outstanding issues Use consistent communications Renew your services agreements Use cross selling and upselling to increase client lifetime value As you approach the Renewal stage, the client is deciding if they should renew the subscription and if they should continue the relationship with the Partner of Record. Your profitability is impacted by renewals in that it is always less expensive and easier to continue with an existing client compared to having to replace a customer. A key insight from successful cloud partners is to reach out and check in with your customers 90 days in advance of the renewal date to make sure all outstanding issues are resolved. This time frame is an excellent opportunity to use cross-selling and up-selling techniques to increase the customer lifetime value. When the client is renewing the subscription, you can also renew your services agreements. An even better practice than waiting until 90 days before renewal is to create ongoing feedback loops and ongoing communications strategies so that client engagement becomes a constant – not a periodic event. This is a role marketing can play and another reason why you should have a Client Success Manager function attached to every engagement. Client renewal rates are under 80%, meaning that in over 20% of cases they choose to not renew their licenses or subscriptions. Many clients renew their products but not the relationship with the partner! Don’t leave renewal to billing or auto-renewal. Engage with the client early and often. © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Advocacy: Having happy clients spread the word 9/21/2018 8:51 AM Advocacy: Having happy clients spread the word Focus on the client experience throughout the lifecycle Ask for and use Referrals Recommendations Testimonials Case studies Joint speaking engagements The Advocacy stage is when the client’s satisfaction with you, the solution and the experience you’ve delivered are so good that they are willing to be an advocate for you and to help you get more clients. This takes the form of referrals, recommendations, testimonials, case studies, joint speaking engagements at their industry conferences and trade shows. See the Foundational Marketing: Advocacy module to learn about this phase. Make sure they are satisfied through every stage of the lifecycle. This can be done by creating a client success function. This is part of the ongoing communication and feedback loops mentioned previously. Make them the heroes of your marketing. Remember we said earlier that having client success stories are very helpful in the evaluation and purchase stage? You should always be looking to your happy clients to see if they are willing to help you. © 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Review Marketing has many roles to play Marketing should align with sales Optimize and manage every stage of the buyer’s journey Drive consumption and increase stickiness Use up-selling, cross-selling, pre-packaged bundles to increase client lifetime revenues and satisfaction