Smart Partner Marketing Workshops

Smart Partner Marketing Workshops
Trainer Guidance See the Presenter Guide for class / workshop setup Smart Partner Marketing Workshops

Foundational Marketing: Value Propositions & Elevator Pitches
Trainer Guidance Discuss goals for this workshop Ask students: What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? Also describe your goals for the students Our goals? Help partners increase their marketing skills to flourish in the cloud era Foundational Marketing: Value Propositions & Elevator Pitches This workshop will guide you through marketing in the cloud era by introducing modern marketing concepts and techniques that will be the foundation of your marketing efforts. We will focus on how to use marketing to grow your business. To do that you will define, revisit, and refresh who you are selling to, who you want to sell to, and why they will want to buy from you. This workshop is the first in this series of hands-on workshops. It and all the others are designed to be actionable. In our time together today, we will be using a combination of learning and practice to help you gain the skills and knowledge for you to take action and move forward with your own marketing campaigns.

Topics in this workshop
Trainer Guidance Omit any items not on the agenda for the workshop you’re presenting Describe each item. How to tell your story Content marketing Advocacy Build your marketing plan Cloud challenges & opportunities Buyer personas & best clients The buyer’s journey Competitive differentiators Value propositions & elevator pitches Cloud challenges and opportunities – The current environment and why marketing is so important Buyer personas & cloning your best clients – Who are you selling to and who do you want to sell to? The buyer’s journey – Understanding the client lifecycle – the steps to a sale and after the sale Competitive differentiators - What makes you different? What makes you stand out? Value propositions & elevator pitches – What do you have to offer prospect and clients? What is your Wow factor? How to tell your story – Getting your messages and content right for your audience Content marketing – Using content to nurture prospects and clients along the buyer’s journey Advocacy - Making clients the focus of your marketing Build your marketing plan - Putting this all together During this session we are going to focus on the strategic and tactic plans to deliver results. Bottom-line, if marketing is not delivering leads it’s not doing its job.

How to use this workshop
Trainer Guidance If using as individual modules omit this slide. Describe workshop event to students Draw their attention to the workbook Some worksheets will be used in class Some will be used on your own off-line Some will need input from your staff You will learn concepts and ideas today We will practice using some of them as well. Don’t stop there. Continue to use the workbook after class to take action Class learning & practice Workbook after class We will use some of the worksheets in the workbook together, while some you’ll use after the class to create your own comprehensive marketing plan. In some cases, you will want to get input from your staff to complete the worksheet activities. These worksheets build upon each other. The information you derive from each worksheet will help complete a piece of the information needed to develop plans and take action. The worksheets are not complex or difficult. But you will have to think about the items the worksheets call for, so you can create the marketing plans that work best for your business. By the time you are done with the worksheets in the workbook, it’s most likely you will have different responses to the questions on the next slide. Digital marketing skills

Write down your answers to these questions
Trainer Guidance Ask attendees to write down their answers to these questions. Then put them aside. We’ll use these later. Who do you sell to? Who are your best clients? What makes you different than your competitors? Why do your clients buy from you?

Trainer Guidance Value propositions Delivering messages that will resonate with your audience

What is a value proposition?
Trainer Guidance Describe Value Propositions and then ask if anyone would like to share theirs with the audience? There is a link in the speaker notes to a short optional video in English, describing Value Props What is a value proposition? The things that make your company's products and services special to your target marketplace These statements summarize why a prospect should buy your products and services A Value Proposition is what makes your company's products and services special to your target marketplace. They are business or marketing statements that a company uses to summarize why a prospect should buy a product or use a service. This statement convinces a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings. Optional Video for English speakers: Let's look at some examples from partners just like you.

Palmetto Technology Group tackles the question head on
Trainer Guidance This value proposition tells why you should work with them Palmetto Technology Group tackles the question head on Palmetto Technology Group tackles the question of Why Would You Work with us head on. Why Would You Work with Us? PTG helps clients reach a standard and then move forward beyond that. We want our customers to say, "How did I ever live without PTG?" Anyone can get you to the cloud, but once you are there, what are you going to do with it? PTG is there to make your team more secure, more productive, and help you leverage your investment. These statements do a nice job of presenting their value and differentiators at the same time.

Talk to your target audience
Trainer Guidance Ask the audience what they think about this value proposition: “Save 15 work days per year with our HR Management solutions for small & medium businesses” Does it communicate what is important and special about this solution? Talk to your target audience SMB’s value proposition, “Save 15 work days per year with our HR Management solutions for small & medium businesses” appeals directly to their target audience. It goes one step further in that it states their wow factor (Save 15 work days per year), their vertical specialization (HR Management), and their target market (Small and Medium Businesses). If you have developed more personal information about your personas, you might even state something about using that time with their family or on their favorite hobbies or some other personal references.

Communicate the advantage of your solution
Trainer Guidance This partner in France has developed a value proposition that creates interest in their solution Communicate the advantage of your solution 7 million external s sent each year = 7 million opportunities to value your brand. It’s more than an signature: It’s a new channel to bolster your marketing campaigns Letsignit has signature solutions for Exchange and Office They centralize the management of employee signatures and have interactive widgets to help boost marketing campaigns. They create interest in their solution by stating the advantages of using their unique solution.

Have more than one value proposition
Trainer Guidance Have more than one value proposition. Different audiences, different practice areas Have more than one value proposition Another example from Palmetto Technology If you don't want to think about IT... Consider our monthly subscriptions for managed services. With a managed services plan, PTG handles everything from help desk requests, mobile device setup, non-functioning equipment, and server updates. We can serve as your IT team or work with your IT team. Each persona has different needs. Consider creating unique value propositions for each product and service. This same partner, Palmetto Technology Group, has a strong value prop for their managed services practice. By starting with the opening of If you don't want to think about IT..., they immediately appeal to buyers who want to focus on their business and not on IT.

Communicate your expertise
Trainer Guidance Here is an example of a very specialized vertical market – healthcare cybersecurity Communicate your expertise Onsupport, provides cybersecurity risk assessments, remediation, and ongoing monitoring services to healthcare provider organizations. Their value proposition: “On support has worked with over 60 healthcare facilities to help assess their compliance with HIPPA and HITECH guidelines for the security and privacy of electronic protected healthcare information: immediately describes what they do and provides the validation of their expertise.

State the things you want prospects to know
Articulate your specialty Describe your “wow” factors Make it memorable Include vertical markets and segments Include geographic location if appropriate Value propositions should articulate your specialty and describe your solutions “wow” factors. They should be memorable and stated simply and clearly. Focus on the key things that you want prospects to know about you. Think about what are your Wow factors? What vertical markets and industries do you specialize in? Which market segments do you focus on? Which geographical locations? Know who your target audience is so you can create appropriate value propositions. Craft variations for each persona.

Chances are you already have value props
Trainer Guidance Ask audience: When was the last time they updated their value propositions Chances are you already have value props Do they need refreshing? Do they resonate with current prospects? Do they still help close sales opportunities? Do they still attract new prospective buyers? Do they generate sales leads? Use the four magic questions to create or update Value propositions, like many other things, need to be revisited and refreshed from time to time. Your business may have changed. Certainly the cloud, as we’ve said, changes things. Clients and their needs have changed. The market and competition have changed. So your value propositions may need to be changed. How do you know if they need to be updated? Do they resonate with current prospects? Do they still help close sales opportunities? Do they still attract new prospective buyers? Do they generate sales leads? If the answers are no or not as well as they have in the past, it’s time to update them. Fortunately we have this wonderful tool called the Four Magic Questions to help us craft new versions.

The four magic questions
Trainer Guidance These four open ended questions are to be asked of clients. The four magic questions What do your clients love about your company? What kept them awake at night that you solved? What would they change about your company? What are competitors doing that clients wish you did? Value is in the minds of your client so why not ask them what it is. How to determine what makes your company unique? Use these 4 Magic Questions. Setup a meeting with at least 3 clients. To get a real 360 degree perspective, you should include at least one each of your best client, a typical average client, and a problem client. The President, sales manager, CEO should not attend these meetings – they may not be told the true situation and might not hear the unvarnished truth. Send a member of your sales or marketing team and ask these open ended questions: What do you love about us? What keeps you awake at night, and how do we help you sleep? If you were CEO of our company what would you change? What is our competition doing that you wish we would do? These are open ended questions that invite elaboration. They should be asked and the client should be given the opportunity to answer without interruption. If the client answers with a 1 or with a two word answer, ask the client to provide examples and explain that you’d like them to explain in greater detail. Write down the responses. Once you complete your clients’ sessions do the same with your client support, sales, marketing, finance, and the executive team.

Individual activity Talk to your clients Trainer Guidance
This activity should be done by the students after the class. Show them the next few slides and worksheets to orient them as to how to use this activity Individual activity Talk to your clients Setup a meeting with 3 clients. Your best, middle of the road, and problem client. The President, sales manager, CEO should not attend these meetings – they may not be told the true situation and might not hear the unvarnished truth. Send a member of your sales or marketing team and ask these questions: What do you love about us? What keeps you awake at night, and how do we help you sleep? If you were CEO of our company what would you change? What is our competition doing that you wish we would do? These are open ended questions that invite elaboration. They should be asked and the client should be given the opportunity to answer without interruption. If the client answers with a 1 or with a two word answer, ask the client to provide examples and explain that you’d like them to explain in greater detail. Write down the responses.

Use a copy of this worksheet for each client being interviewed
Trainer Guidance Use a copy of this worksheet for each client being interviewed Client name: 1. What do you love about us? 2. What keeps you awake at night and how do we help you sleep? 3. If you were CEO of our company what would you change? 4. What is our competition doing that you wish we would do? Print this out (or use electronically) with each client being interviewed.

Individual activity Talk with your internal teams Trainer Guidance
This activity should be done by the students after the class. Use the next slide to describe what they should do and the associated worksheet they should use to complete this. Individual activity Talk with your internal teams Once you complete your client sessions do the same with your client support, sales, marketing, finance, and the executive team.

Trainer Guidance Have your internal team members fill in the same information as they see it Customer support, sales, marketing, finance, executive teams 1. What do you love about us? 2. What keeps you awake at night and how do we help you sleep? 3. If you were CEO of our company what would you change? 4. What is our competition doing that you wish we would do? Print this out (or use electronically) with for each team member participating.

Focus on the first two magic questions
Trainer Guidance Once the responses have been obtained, the team should meet to evaluate and rank the responses Focus on the first two magic questions What do clients love about your company? What kept them awake at night that you solved? Have your team vote on responses Analyze winning responses Once you get your feedback from both your clients and your internal teams, it’s time to grade and organize your information. Compare and contrast your client and internal feedback for each of the 4 questions. If any information is contrary between the clients and internal team, the clients’ comments should win. List all the reasons why clients love you. Have your team members vote on the responses using the following worksheet. Give your internal team members 5 votes each that they can use any way they see fit to vote for each item listed. Explain that a person can vote for 5 separate items or can allocate all 5 for a single item, or distribute their 5 however they want. Count up the votes and rank based on the number of votes. Do the same for how you help your clients sleep at night. Use the responses for the first two questions to create or refresh your current value propositions. Use the responses to the third and fourth questions for internal discussions regarding what you can be doing better and potential areas for future growth. These two items may be part of your future value proposition.

Individual activity List all the reasons why clients love you
Trainer Guidance This activity should be done by the students after the class. Use the next slide to describe what they should do and the associated worksheet they should use to complete this. Individual activity List all the reasons why clients love you

Trainer Guidance Each team member will get 5 votes to allocate to the responses for What clients love about us What do our clients love about us? Cust Supp Sales Mktg Fin Exec Total Response 1 Response 2 Response 3 Response 4 Response 5 Response 6 Totals 5 25 List the responses in the left column, and have your internal teams vote for the responses they like the most. Give each team member 5 votes that they can allocate any way they see fit to vote for the responses listed. Explain that they can allocate 1 vote for 5 separate items, allocate all 5 votes for a single item, or distribute their 5 however they want. Count up the votes and rank based on the number of votes.

Individual activity List the answers to What keeps our clients
Trainer Guidance This activity should be done by the students after the class. Use the next slide to describe what they should do and the associated worksheet they should use to complete this. Individual activity List the answers to What keeps our clients awake at night

Trainer Guidance Each team will get 5 votes to allocate to the responses for What kept them awake at night What kept them awake at night that you solved? Cust Supp Sales Mktg Fin Exec Total Response 1 Response 2 Response 3 Response 4 Response 5 Response 6 Totals 5 25 Again, give your internal teams 5 votes each that they can use any way they see fit to vote for each item listed. Explain that a person can vote for 5 separate items or can allocate all 5 for a single item, or distribute their 5 however they want. Count up the votes and rank based on the number of votes.

Example of crafting a value proposition
Trainer Guidance You can craft value propositions with the responses. This one is an example Example of crafting a value proposition What do clients love about your company? You seamlessly support your solutions with quick service and deep knowledge. What kept them awake at night that you solved? Your solutions provided them with confidence that their data is secure and systems are in place to ensure continuity of their business operations. Your value proposition might be: “Our company is always on the job to protect your business from the unexpected. Our solutions are supported by our deeply knowledgeable staff who work behind the scenes to ensure that your data is safe, secure, and available without disrupting your business.” Using the ranked responses, you will create statements that convey to prospects what makes you special and why they should buy from you. This is an example. You will create your own using the worksheet in the activity.

Another example Our clients love our responsiveness.
Trainer Guidance This is another example Another example Our clients love our responsiveness. What keeps them awake at night? Having key data backed up incrementally so if there is a problem no data is lost. Value proposition: For Joe CFO, who needs his questions answered immediately and is responsible for mission critical data, our 24x7 Tier 2 Help desk and use of Azure for backup and recovery gives Joe CFO the peace of mind he requires so he can focus his efforts on running his business. Here is another example of a value proposition. Note that you can use the names of the personas you created earlier in these value proposition statements.

Individual activity Craft your value proposition Trainer Guidance
This activity should be done by the students after the class. Use the next slide to describe what they should do and the associated worksheet they should use to complete this. Individual activity Craft your value proposition

Crafting your value propositions
Trainer Guidance Craft your value propositions using the ranked responses Crafting your value propositions What do clients love about your company? (top-rated answer) _____________________________________________________________________________ What kept them awake at night that you solved? (top-rated answer) ______________________________________________________________________________ Your value proposition: “____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________.” Using the ranked responses, create statements that convey to prospects what makes you special and why they should buy from you. You may have more than one value proposition for different personas, products and solutions. Once you have your value propositions, be sure to use it in your marketing materials, website, and elevator pitches. As you work on creating these you will come up with phrases and expressions that may work really well as your elevator pitches, so be sure to save your notes.

Where to use your value props
Website (homepage, about us page) Blogs Social media Your checkout or registration process

Elevator pitches When you only have seconds to get their attention

What is an elevator pitch?
Trainer Guidance After defining elevator pitches, ask students if some of them have a great elevator pitch they would like to share with the rest of the audience What is an elevator pitch? A short description of your company, product, solution, or its end result, that can be stated in the 15 to 60 seconds it takes to ride an elevator Ok. So you’re riding in elevator at a client company and you notice a person you’ve been trying to meet. You say “hello I was hoping to meet you.” They ask you who you are. What should you say? You only have seconds and you want to get that meeting with them. Now is the time to use your carefully crafted elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a short description of your company, products, solutions or end results. The reason it’s called an elevator pitch is that this should be no longer than the time of a typical elevator ride of seconds.

Example: Attendant Pro, Landis Technologies
Trainer Guidance This is an example from a partner vendor in the WPC Expo Example: Attendant Pro, Landis Technologies A Skype for Business front end for handling incoming calls and other call management features Their elevator pitch? We make receptionists happy This is an elevator pitch example from a partner that was displaying their product in the WPC 2016 expo. Their product is an attendant console product that works with Skype for Business that provides front end call management capabilities. Their elevator pitch is very clear and simple: We make receptionists happy. You can see that upon hearing this statement the listener would naturally respond with “How do you do that?”

Generic is ok, audience-specific is better
Trainer Guidance Having generic and audience specific versions is a good practice Generic is ok, audience-specific is better Generic version: Our data Visualization product transforms data into powerful charts Audience specific version: Financial professionals use Mekko Graphics to translate complex data into simple but powerful charts We need general or generic elevator pitches for the casual conversation, but for situations when we know the persona we are speaking with, audience-specific versions are better. In this example from Mekko Graphics, we see the general description “Our data Visualization product transforms data into powerful charts.” But they have variations for each of their targeted personas. In this case: “Financial professionals use Mekko Graphics to translate complex data into simple but powerful charts”. Although the two statements are fairly similar, the specific version speaks directly to their main targeted market - Financial professionals and touches on how it is being used by them. Subtle but effective. Create iterations for each of your targeted personas. Since they are similar it will be easy to remember but useful when you know who you are addressing.

Characteristics of good elevator pitches
Get their attention with a strong statement Include your wow factors to make it memorable Describe what you and your solutions do Not what they are, but the advantages they deliver Include your differentiator Why your product, service, solution is better than all the rest Tell but don’t sell Keep it short and simple, you won’t close a sale in an elevator Be prepared with an ask What you want them to do Here are the characteristics of good elevator pitches Get their attention with a strong statement: Elevator pitches should be compelling. You want them to want to know more. Use your wow factors to create a lasting impression: This is critical. You only have seconds to get their attention. Describe what you do, not who you are: You are not the manager of a Managed Service Provider business. You free up IT departments so they can focus on solving business problems. A friend who owned a training company used to say “We build great careers”. Same thing regarding your solutions: Don’t describe it as an HR management solution. Describe it as a solution that saves HR managers 15 days of work each year. Focus on the advantages and benefits, not the features. Include your differentiators: Why they should buy from you. Why your product, service, solution is superior compared to all the rest. Make it factual, not opinion. Tell but don’t sell: You won’t close a sale in the elevator. This is an opening – not a closing. Be prepared with an ask: What do you want them to do. For example, if you are a Managed Service Provider: May I call on you to share how our clients have been able to gain competitive advantages by outsourcing support and repurposing their IT departments?

How to create your elevator pitches
Collect great phrases from your value propositions Create variations for different audiences Create variations for different solutions Test variations with clients, prospects Make sure everyone can recite As you create value propositions, you will uncover wonderful expressions and phrases that you can use. Write these down. Create elevator pitches using these great phrases and use them in your sales and marketing activities. Create variations for different each of your targeted personas. Test, test, test. See which ones resonate and which ones don’t. Make sure everyone in the entire company can recite these. Everyone rides in elevators and everyone who works in your company should be able to help be a “seller” of your products, services, and solutions. Of course the entire idea of an elevator pitch is metaphorical, since you may not be speaking to an actual person. Your pitch is appropriate for any conversation you’re having even when you're writing for your website or creating a video.

Let's compare Look at what you wrote down to question of: Why clients buy from you? How does that compare to your new or refreshed value proposition?

Partner resources to use
Marketing helpdesk: your marketing questions to the workshop developers Smart Partner Marketing Microsoft value props partners can use Marketing planner tool Partner Marketing Center Ready To Go Marketing aka.ms/pmc readytogo.microsoft.com ModernBiz campaigns aka.ms/modernbiz Workshop feedback and questions

Review Value props are what make you important to clients
Trainer Guidance Review what was covered in this section. You can add other items to this list. Review Value props are what make you important to clients They state your “wow” factors Use four magic questions with clients and staff Rank the best responses, craft them into statements They should be strong and memorable Create variations for different personas Shorter phrases make great elevator pitches

Smart Partner Marketing Workshops

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Smart Partner Marketing Workshops"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback

Log in

Auth with social network:

Smart Partner Marketing Workshops

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "Smart Partner Marketing Workshops"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback