How To Prosper As a Product Manager - Redefining and Strengthening the Product Manager’s Role

How To Prosper As a Product Manager - Redefining and Strengthening the Product Manager’s Role

DIY Finds: Fabric and Paper Flowers | Inspirations & Creations - Elizabeth Anne Designs: The Wedding Blog

DIY Finds: Fabric and Paper Flowers | Inspirations & Creations - Elizabeth Anne Designs: The Wedding Blog

Marketing and Sales

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31716#

SUMMARY: The relationship between sales and marketing is one of give and take. But how is an ideal partnership achieved? To help you prepare for the MarketingSherpa B2B Summits in San Francisco and Boston this October, we searched our library and found in-depth information to address one of the biggest challenges facing B2B marketers – alignment with sales.
In Part 1 of an extensive two-part excerpt from our B2B Lead Generation Handbook, we begin to explore five objectives to help you research, build and nurture strong relationships with your sales team.
Your relationship with the sales team will make or break you. We cannot possibly overstate its importance. From the day you start, you must make it clear they are your top priority. If you take someone to lunch, let it be sales. If you need an opinion about campaign creative, ask sales. If you want support during budgeting meetings, get sales to cover your back.
We realize this is the antithesis of most marketer-sales relationships. We also realize that sales will not make it easy for you. In sales-driven organizations, sales is often slow to see or acknowledge the value of marketing. You’re the redheaded stepchild. And, as academic studies of professional personalities have attested, the sales and marketing mindsets are polar opposites. You’re not built the same way -- nature did not intend for sales and marketing to get along.
That said, it’s going to be your job to make it work no matter how difficult they are to communicate and deal with. Grit your teeth and make it happen. A happy sales force ultimately means a stronger marketing organization.
To begin to turn grimaces into grins, keep these five objectives in mind:
Objective I: Sales Team as Marketing Prospects
Your biggest marketing goal may be to the sales team. Internal politics can be more work than external ad campaigns. Research the sales team as carefully and fully as you would any other critical prospect base. Understand what makes them tick, what their pain points are, and what would thrill them beyond measure. This includes the head of sales, the top performers, the old guard, the new recruits, and everyone in between.
BEST PRACTICES
o Take sales training. Attend your organization’s sales training as if you were a new sales hire instead of in marketing. If the time commitment is too overwhelming, at least attend a few sessions in person and grab the workbook, handouts or other materials to study on your own time. Ask your staff to attend sales training as well.
o Monitor meetings. Wrangle an invitation to attend regular sales meetings as a mostly silent monitor. Your goal is not to interject marketing commentary or requirements, but rather to sit, listen, and learn.
o Go on sales calls with field reps. Promise to be a silent companion and keep that promise. Do nothing with the information you gain in the field that the field reps might view as a betrayal.
o Talk to them in their language. Sales and marketing often use the same words with different meanings; this annoys both sides to no end. Marketing must give in. In the world of office politics, sales is top dog so you have to use their language. If they use the term "hot prospect" and you use the term "lead" to mean the same thing, you’d better switch.
Nothing destroys marketing’s credibility faster than using sales terminology incorrectly. If sales terminology is not formally written down anywhere, set up a meeting to get it written down, take notes, and then distribute the resulting "sales dictionary" to all involved.
o Discover their work rhythms. Sales rep’s days, weeks, months and quarters are made up of activity rhythms. You need to know what their big due dates are, when they tend to make prospect phone calls, when they are stuck and bored in airports, when they check email, when they call in, when they begin relaxing before the weekend, and when they should never be disturbed. Sales reps are "coin operated" and, for them, time is money. Demonstrate that you respect that time.
If you know when their down, relaxed and bored-now times are, you can schedule in your calls, emails, internal webinars, and information requests around these. Don’t forget to account for time zone differences.
o Determine their (true) pipeline requirements. Many reps will tell you, "Give me all the leads you’ve got!" Ignore this request. In reality, if a rep had a choice between ten incredibly qualified leads and 100 undifferentiated leads, he or she would ask for the ten anytime.
"We’d offer whitepapers and get 1,000-2,000 leads, but sales didn’t want to call them because a lot never developed into true leads," explained Marty Brandwin, Marketing Director, Jinfonet Software. "Sales told us they would rather have one solid qualified lead -- someone with a project in mind to start in the next six months -- as opposed to 40 whitepaper leads."
Everyone has a limit to the number of accounts they can work each day, each week, each month. If you give them too many, they’ll simply cherry-pick and ignore the rest. You don’t want to ever keep a good lead from a rep -- they must have a feeling of control over and access to the pipeline. However, you also don’t want to overwhelm a rep with too many leads.
Best case -- give them the best possible leads (as defined by them) to fill their available time, and push the rest to a database and various cultivation activities into which sales has a peephole at all times. If they want to yank a lead from the cultivation pool to add to their pile, that’s all right.
Every rep also has his or her own private pipeline -- they don’t rely 100% on marketing for leads because they don’t trust you as much as they trust themselves. There’s also a certain thrill in hunting down one’s own prey. Assume that as many as 40% of leads will come from the reps themselves. So, marketing will need to provide the 60% of possible leads while somehow accessing private rep pipeline contacts to keep everything in a central database. This can be even harder than it sounds.
o Discover their media use and contact research patterns. Sales reps are not known as big readers. But they do have a hunter instinct, always keeping an eye out for prospective customers. And, many have a great deal of time sucked up in airports and on planes. Reps tend to use media in four ways, all of which marketing may be able to automate and assist them with so their time is spent as valuably as possible -- interpreting information rather than digging it up:
- Lead qualification: Reps are always looking to see whether a prospect got funding, is involved in an M&A, released quarterly financials, or is launching a new division. They may set themselves up to get press releases and news alerts about particular prospect companies, any of which might indicate an account in flux. You can offer to help with this via a Google Alerts service or Factiva account.
- Prospecting: Reps scan Hoovers, new hire announcements and industry execs quoted in articles looking for names to call on. They also use online communities, such as message boards, email discussion groups, Facebook groups, LinkedIn and Jigsaw accounts to uncover new names and contacts.
- Prospect nurturing: Nurturing is generally not a rep’s strong point. (In fact, if it is, the VP Sales may consider switching that person’s position to a relationship building and lead qualification job instead of closing deals.) However, reps like the idea of being able to ping key prospects with items of interest, such as studies, columns, blog postings. If they can find something in the paper or a trade magazine, they may use it that way. If you can find something and give them the tool to ping the right contact about it, more power to you.
- Competitor PR: Reps are always looking at the competition with narrowed eyes. Was the competition mentioned in the press? Is a competitor’s exec speaking at an event? Did the competition win a key account? You need to track these things and be able to speak about how marketing plans to combat them. You never want a rep to know consistently more about the competition’s moves than you do.
- Your own PR: Aside from a fat commission check, nothing warms the cockles of a rep’s heart more than a big fat golden PR mention about your company in the press. Strangely, we’ve noticed that sales reps are often more interested in and supportive of marketing investments in PR than marketing departments tend to be these days. PR is now easier to measure than at any time in history, and reps adore the results. They feel like they’re working for the winning brand, and the PR gives them an excuse to ping prospects.
You also need to know what sorts of media reps prefer to devour themselves. If you decided to start an internal media channel for sales rep news and education, should it be an email newsletter, a podcast, a printed magazine, a bulleted list of factoids sent to everyone’s handhelds? You’ll probably find a variety of preferences, some loving webinars, others wanting a printed summary, etc. You’ll need to serve all important preferences with your internal messaging and communications. Never rely on a single channel of communication.
Objective II: Lead Definition and Scoring
IDENTIFYING EACH OF THESE TYPES OF LEADS
Sales-ready, AKA "HOT": This is a lead that’s ready, willing, and able to purchase or submit a formal RFP for your product or service in a fairly short time period. For some, this may mean now, next week, later this month, or within the next quarter. They have identified a need, are ready to act, and their budget is enough to warrant your sales team’s time and attention. At this stage, they should also be aware of your brand and possibly be ready to short-list it.
Your sales team should own this lead but is prepared to hand it back to marketing with a scoring downgrade if it’s not up to snuff. Marketing should also provide support on sales’ command with items, such as presentation materials, customer references, one-to-one microsites, leave-behind materials, videos, and even possible single-prospect-focused promotions to assist sales in landing the account.
Qualified Prospect, AKA "WARM": This is a lead that has been qualified by their activities (whitepaper downloads, webinar attendance, catalog requests, site surfing, etc.) as well as by a list of required data on your part. You may have telemarketed them to get more information, or asked them to complete a survey. They fit the profile of the sort of customer you’re seeking -- company size, industry, region, etc. They are considering a purchase, but their timeframe is still a bit extended. They may require more education as well.
Marketing owns this lead, but it should be visible to sales on demand. For example, if a sales rep is flying into Des Moines, IA, for the day to spend the morning with a hot lead, he or she may have several hours to kill afterward and want to meet with a few warm ones in the area. It’s marketing’s responsibility to nurture and cultivate this lead, with continued measurements until it may be deemed hot, or sales-worthy. That hand-off may take as long as a year or as short as a week or two.
[Note: Not every "warm" will graduate up the ranks to "hot". Some will fall off your list for negative reasons -- a competitor won the account, the project lost its funding, etc. Others will stay on your list for good reasons -- these are committee members, consultants, evangelists, business users and others who are not final decision makers, but whose education and nurturing may make all the difference. The sales rep may never spend a heartbeat meeting with these people; instead, marketing should excel at keeping the relationship ongoing and sweet.]
Prospect, AKA "RESPONDER": This is the type of lead that marketers are infamous for calling "leads" when sales doesn’t consider them anything of the sort. This is an individual who has responded to a marketing offer. The offer could be anything from filling out a contact form on your website to getting one’s badge zapped at a trade show. You may have little or no information about this lead beyond an email address and the offer he or she responded to.
Marketing owns this lead, and it’s marketing’s responsibility to take the next step, re-approaching the lead to get more information about their situation. Responder names should be triaged as quickly as possible, moving into the "warm" or "dud" category.
Keep track of your ongoing investment and the age of the lead carefully -- you don’t want to spend too much on this less-than-qualified name trying to get it up to snuff. And, the contact information may go out of date in just a few months. (Remember, people’s job responsibilities change, and they switch jobs.)
Suspect, AKA "COLD CALL": These are names that less-experienced sales reps sometimes mistake for hot leads. The name seems perfect in every respect -- right job title, right company, right industry, maybe even right business indicators showing a possible need for your products or services. The thing is that they haven’t approached you.
They have not accepted a single offer. You can’t even see their IP address on the list of anonymous surfers on your site. They should be interested, but you have no proof that they are.
Marketing should own these names and be responsible for any investment in reaching out to them. In reality, some sales reps will waste time head butting and spamming those "perfect names" and never tell you. Unfortunately, their activities can do more harm than good. Work with your head of sales to refocus rep time on only acknowledged hot and warm leads.
Not a Chance, AKA "DUD": These are responders on whom you don’t want to spend another marketing cent. They may be too far outside your target marketplace, students, competitors, or Mickey Mouse. This doesn’t mean you can’t still profit from the names, so don’t dump them from your database completely.
If your company is considering expanding to other marketplaces, such as the small business world or Asia, these names could be the start of your new warm list. Also, some firms hand off their "too-small-to-fry" fish to smaller partners in exchange for a revenue share or some other kickback.

Philippine tourism posters - a set on Flickr

Philippine tourism posters - a set on Flickr

Hyperbole and a Half: How a Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood

Hyperbole and a Half: How a Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood

Threadless.com Website Breakdown | Unmatched Style

Threadless.com Website Breakdown | Unmatched Style

In many ways Threadless.com is very similar to unmatchedstyle, they are both galleries one kind or another, the major difference is Threadless is an e-commerce website. Looking through Threadless with some eye on the details reveals that the managers of this site are doing a superb job of guiding users through the browsing process and integrating some rather rich community based functionality at the same time (more on that later). Largely for the purposes of this post I want to focus on the buying/browsing aspect of the website design, where it really nails it and where in some corners falls short. Like most large scale websites/web apps I get the strong sense that the Threadless site is a living breathing creation that changes with the needs of it’s customers, so what works today may not work tomorrow. That said, there are several parts of this website that are inspiring to me.

The Home Page

1. Boldly Featured Products

There’s probably nothing stronger that can be shown on the home page other than Threadless shirt designs. I love how they do these in “editions”. Since the designs are timely - as in they can run out and you can miss out - it’s clever to show them off that way. Also it’s got to be great to help sales. Gotta get that cool shirt while it’s hot, sort of thing.

2. Toolset

Very clever placement of all the “tools”, the cart, login, join up & search box are all within the same small area in the top left corner. Together they make a nice noticeable area on the page and are also kind of up and out of the way.

3. The Sidebar is a Bear

While I love the Threadless site design a great deal, that sidebar is just out of control. Some editing is in order I think. As a visitor i’m not sure what to click and/or what’s appropriate for me personally. I also get a serious case of banner blindness after the first one or two “badges” I come across on that sidebar.

4. Main Navigation

The main navigation design is very elegant. The drop down elements are subtle and really feel like part of the page when you use them. Also the main nav and the secondary level of content is listed in the footer area, that’s pretty smart for SEO as well as the rest of us humans who make it down to the bottom of the page and can see the full scope of the website there.

The Main Gallery Page

1. Product Sorting Criteria & Tools

The arrangement of these sorting tools is pretty much dead on. You can slice and sort the products list in any way you desire with this toolset and at the same time it’s not overwhelming. It’s almost fun because of the way they look visually too. The element’s aren’t simply boring form elements, the whole little section has been designed to be uniform and to have a nice fun feel.

2. Product Images & Links

The pictures are well done, they also always alternate between a boy and girl across the listing of products. The titles are made up of the words on the shirts or are clever descriptions of the shirt graphics, that works really well for this website I think. I also like the little blue box that helps to put context on availability or price.

3. Join Button

Thinking about that top right corner again, the Join button really stands out up there. It’s a color that is not present anywhere else on the page and the shape is just about right enough to be really noticeable.

Empty Cart

It’s at this point I started to notice the empty cart imagery, if you click on it and have not put anything in your cart yet, you get a really sad looking shopping car that says to you “I’m so hungry, have mercy and fill my belly with T-shirts”. Aarron Walter often talks in-depth about “emotional design”, if you haven’t yet discovered this concept, go take a look at the Mailchimp product and see how they (Aarron is the lead designer there) have integrated emotion and namely fun into their product’s interface. This empty cart illustration is perfect for setting a nice friendly tone on the Threadless website. I love this kind of stuff!

The Product Detail Page

1. Main Product Imagery

Right off the bat here the main product image area design is very well done. You get a nice blow up of the shirt graphic then a series of pictures of models wearing the shirt. There are some simple controls like zoom and back and next for further images/views if you still need more info to make a decision on getting the shirt.

2. Product Selection Criteria & Tools

These product details/sizing items are much like the ones on the main gallery page and like those they are stylized and also highly useful. They are easily scannable, you can tell what’s available very quickly without really reading.

3. About The Artist

This about the artist or “about my slogan” area is brilliant. It’s bringing in a level of connection between me and the artist that really helps convince me of the sale if i’m on the fence. It also allows me to really get behind specific artists if I like the shirt design’s style. Bringing more humanization into the e-commerce is just plain smart…

4. Useful But Jumbled

There are sections like this around the site, where there’s just so much going on with the company and website the design just can’t hold it all in. The things in this small(ish) area are important, but generally secondary to the main gallery & product detail content on the page. As it is now, they come off just a bit jumbled and confusing to me right now.

The Sign Up Page “Join”

1. Form/Page Title

I love the page title on the sign up page here. It’s prompting you to sign up as well as informing you. Really good microcopy IMHO.

2. Form Elements

The form elements are really very simply executed. I love that they still look like text inputs, it’s hard to leave them alone design wise but I just think the form elements should largely be left to render on their own by the browser and not be overly styled.

3. Birthdate?

The birthdate drop downs are interesting here. I understand why it’s needed, legally. But I think they could really put a little more effort into explaining it. The page will link you off to here as an explanation but that’s just ridiculous and no one is going to read it. Now I don’t have a suggestion as to how to make it more acceptable, but someone like Threadless seems like they could make it humorous in some way… ?

4. Country

I understand this one too, but does it really need to be on the sign up form? Couldn’t this be requested at the time of check out. Unless there’s something that treats you differently once you’ve logged into the site as a member I don’t see how it can be justified. But I’ve been wrong before, if anyone has any ideas let me hear it.

5. Submit

Love the submit button copy! It’s active and actually tells me what’s about to happen upon submission.

6. Log in

Having this on the page is nice placement, the visitor may remember they already have an account and it’s right there.

There is a lot more to the Threadless.com website, I encourage you to spend time on the site studying the design, sign up for an account and check out the member’s only pages. It’s really superb design, but it’s not flashy at the same time. Simple, clean and engaging design for a really strong brand such as Threadless goes a long way.

Network Advertising Initiative

Network Advertising Initiative
Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising

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The NAI Opt-out Tool was developed in conjunction with our members for the express purpose of allowing consumers to "opt out" of the behavioral advertising delivered by our member companies.

Using the Tool below, you can examine your computer to identify those member companies that have placed an advertising cookie file on your computer.

To opt out of an NAI member's behavioral advertising program, simply check the box that corresponds to the company from which you wish to opt out. Alternatively, you can check the box labeled "Select All" and each member's opt-out box will be checked for you. Next click the "Submit" button. The Tool will automatically replace the specified advertising cookie(s) and verify your opt-out status.

Opting out of a network does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the network from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your Web preferences and usage patterns.

If you have any questions, please visit our FAQ section.

Discuss & Debate : Is social media overrated as a marketing tool?

Discuss & Debate : Is social media overrated as a marketing tool?

Download the cards - Design with Intent Toolkit

Download the cards - Design with Intent Toolkit

Design with Intent:

101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design

by Dan Lockton with David Harrison & Neville A. Stanton

MarketingSherpa: Creating Better Online Ad Campaigns: 5 Tactics

MarketingSherpa: Creating Better Online Ad Campaigns: 5 Tactics
SUMMARY: When times are good, marketing might run on autopilot. But when the budget axe starts swinging, it's time to look at every channel and ask, "How can we do better?"

See the tactics a display advertising expert suggests to help your team get more value for its advertising dollar. Find out why ad networks might not be the silver bullet you're looking for.


by Adam T. Sutton, Reporter

Online display advertising is one of the most inefficient marketing channels, says Martin Betoni, Creative Director, Centro. Betoni has worked with display ads for about twelve years, and for most of that time, he saw many marketers putting their ads on "autopilot."

"I think when things were good, people were floating along and happy to send their media anywhere as long as it got up and running as soon as possible," he says.

That attitude quickly changed as the economy turned and marketing budgets dropped. Marketers looked for more efficient ways to get their ads onto websites and to get more value from them.

Below, we highlight five tactics Betoni has seen work for creating better performing and more efficient display advertising campaigns.

Tactic #1. Look into networks

Online display advertising networks are booming. Betoni estimates that more than 400 are now operating online, sending marketers' ads across a variety of publishers' websites.

Part of this rapid growth is due to marketers' need to drive more efficiency in their budgets, reaching more websites with fewer dollars. Ad networks can be a good way to achieve that goal, but there are trade-offs, Betoni says.

Networks cannot always offer detailed data on the audiences an ad has reached. Individual publishers are more likely to offer deep data on who visits specific areas of their websites, and how ads perform there.

"On a network level, the data gets a lot murkier."

Tactic #2. Find the right audience

Marketing teams need to dig into campaign data to ensure ads are reaching potential customers. Serving ads to the wrong audiences is a waste of money.

Too often, Betoni says, he sees ads that have little relevance to the sites that publish them, such as a movie review website hosting an ad for a consumer health information site.

"That is a bad buy. First and foremost, you have to make sure your ads are getting in front of the right people."

For marketing teams to be able to dig into the data, the data needs to be reported. Publishers or ad networks that deliver thin or unreliable reports should be judged with a wary eye. You'll need strong data to improve efficiency.

Tactic #3. Design ads to achieve specific goals

The inefficiency is partly due to the display industry's rapid rise, Betoni says. Marketing teams pressed for time haphazardly created ads and looked for bargain inventory. The bad habits stuck.

These ads often were not carefully designed with a specific goal in mind. If it wasn't done initially, going back and taking time to design an ad for a specific purpose is likely to boost performance.

Display advertising typically has one of two goals, Betoni says:
o Raise awareness
o Drive conversions

Ads designed to drive conversions typically benefit from simplicity. They quickly communicate a call-to-action and encourage people to do it. A good example is Google AdWords' paid search ads, which are text-based.

"The direct response model doesn't translate well into the premium ad space," Betoni says.

- Premium ads raise awareness

Premium ads are much better at capturing attention and raising awareness. However, Betoni notes, many marketing teams can do a better job in this area.

"If your goal is to build awareness for a feature film, a 720x90 ad that asks you to click probably isn't going to do [the job]," he says.

Instead, for the example of a feature film, Betoni suggests using different formats, such as larger ads that take up approximately 30% of the above-the-fold page area, and integrating them into the site's design. The ad should not annoyingly expand or shift content. It should capture attention and can contain features directly in the ad such as:
o Movie trailer
o Photo gallery
o Story synopsis

Tactic #4. Increase relevance to the visitor

Display advertising is becoming very clever. Some systems are capable of analyzing visitor information to deliver a customized ad, which is more likely to capture their attention.

For example, Betoni recently saw an ad on the social network Facebook for a video game. The ad automatically captured a member's image and profile attributes and incorporated them into the creative design in real-time.

Other ad systems are behaviorally targeted. They leverage information such as visitors' recent Internet browsing history to deliver ads for products or websites similar to those recently viewed.

Behaviorally targeted ads have shown to improve performance. However, be aware of two key issues:

1. The lift in performance depends largely on the targeting system's sophistication. Make sure you understand how the targeting works and whether it's relevant.

2. Targeted ads typically cost more than untargeted ads. Make sure the ads are driving better results compared investing the additional cost in more general inventory.

Tactic #5. Test new concepts and designs

Achieving better performance requires rethinking past designs and overhauling older strategies. The traditional online display advertising standards that designers have "been shoe-horned into for the last few years" should be reworked if your team wants to achieve better results, Betoni says.

He suggests testing ads that:
o Use more page real estate
o Are not confined to standard industry sizes
o Have more bandwidth, such as the capacity to contain video
o Look well integrated into a site's design, not tacked on as an afterthought

"The principles of how to create good advertising, regardless of the medium, have never really changed," he says.