Gary Schmidt's Expertise in Mobile Marketing, Sales, and Business Development
1. BIO
Gary Schmidt
Professional Background: Gary is a senior business executive with over 15 years of experience in technology and mobile. He brings
experience in marketing, developing and selling complex global solutions. (This includes senior management executive with extensive
experience in developing new markets, P&L and revenue growth through all stages).
Areas of expertise include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mobile, Technology and Digital Media Marketing and Sales Programs
Customer Analytics, Market Segmentation
CRM, Customer Acquisition and Retention
Brand Architecture and Positioning Strategy
Leadership and Change Management
Digital/mobile/social business models for legacy companies and start-ups
Leveraging new technologies for product development, marketing and sales
Customer segmentation, customer insights + messaging strategy through quantitative/statistical and qualitative/ethnographic analysis
Real-time social content strategy and analytics
Alliance and new business development
Work Experience: Founder/Chief Executive Officer of AirCloud, Inc. where he created the company’s vision, products, financial and
operational functions. Before founding AirCloud™, Gary served as Managing Director of Wescom Capital where he was responsible for
managing and structuring strategic partnerships, joint venture and alliance relationships, funding, mergers and acquisitions and business
development efforts. He also managed all marketing, external communications worldwide and client services activities. Gary also took on
senior roles within his portfolio assisting with sales, marketing and business development in addition to his duties managing and growing his
perspective portfolio of investments.
Prior to Wescom Capital, Gary held several senior roles at Activate.net which later merged with Loudeye and sold to Nokia. He was responsible
for developing the sales group and aided in overall marketing efforts and business partnership. He was also responsible for managing the overall
sales/marketing objectives and worked with brands such as Sprint, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Google, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, Sony, Universal, BigFish
Games and Comcast .
Before Activate.net/Loudeye Corporation Mr. Schmidt held various roles in telecommunication sales and sales management at Sprint and Qwest
Communications.
p1
Gary has a BA in business from Washington State University. He is based in Seattle. Email: gary.schmidt@gmail.com
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
2. Background – Summary of My Experience
High growth companies have explosive growth early in the company’s life typically driven by common factors –
strong technology or differentiated offerings; strong technology and sales teams; and strong demand for their
offer from early adopters
Most companies believe that successful marketing warrants extensive spending models like Samsung and Apple
I disagree and have utilized a bootstrap model predicated on social and SEO as being the foundation for:
Search results, ad spend, brand awareness, social awareness and consumer education/adoption
Based upon highly curated and unique content directed at specific subsets of consumers
Highly targeted and measurable so you can utilize a/b testing – know your audience
The key question for most of these companies is how to build the capabilities to sustain their growth and not
stall that growth prematurely – e.g. how to extend the revenue growth “S curve”
As these companies grows beyond the early adopter customer base, the successful companies build sales,
marketing and channel capabilities that will allow them to scale their products into the mainstream
They connect their sales and marketing – and focus on verticalizing their offering – typically into whole solutions
They leverage their early adopter advocates – as evidence and advocacy communities– to drive successful new product launches, demand
generation and Voice of the Customers
They design, develop and build partner ecosystems that help them scale sales and/or deployment
They design, develop and execute a sales excellence capability that targets the right people, readies them to accelerate their onboarding
and provide targeted resources through the sales stage that increases the success rates and onboarding of new sales staff
p2
These are the fundamental issues that you must get your arms around in order to formulate and execute a
scalable and accountable sales/marketing platform. These are the strengths I bring to a sales team.
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
3. Examples: Device Strategy
Embedded Devices
Objective: Capture OS opportunity on
emerging specialized devices
Output: Segmentation, Opportunity
Definition, To/Through-Enterprise
Marketing Plan
Tablets / Phones
Objective: Deposition / stall competitor market gains
Output: Foundational Product and Marketing compete
content architecture
Appliances
Objective: Drive Appliance / Private Cloud Sales
Output: Direct and Channel Sales Motion
p3
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
4. Example Project for FUHU, ACER and Vizio
3Screen strategy including
&
Leveraging existing FUHU relationships in the wireless marketplace
Review of
handset collection & deployment plans
urFOOZ - Leveraging this existing technology in the personalized UI
Spinlets - Integrating & managing WIDGETS on f3s™ hardware devices
urSPIN - Content management consolidation strategy
FUHU UI expertise and development discussions
FUHU F3S™ BRANDING STRATEGY
5. Example Project for FUHU, ACER and Vizio - Solution
Worldwide wireless carrier development plan
Deal structures with wireless carriers
Wireless carrier delivery & billing platforms
Handset strategy for each targeted wireless carrier
Wireless carrier revenue models
Deck programming and management strategy
Wireless carrier strategy & deployment
FUHU CARRIER STRATEGY
8. Featured Artist
Program
Featured Artist Program
TOP-LEVEL promotion
Custom featured artist WAP site linking all content product lines
together (ringers, calltones, graphics, video and full-tracks), creating
a united marketing platform
Top-level link to featured artist personal site and social channels
Feature folder with link to featured content of user specification
Full feature folder with link to Product personal site
Marketing messages, text alerts, website banners and Social Media
The achieved goal - to create an environment that will allow
consumers access to all content types in a unique and compelling
buying experience that can be shared virally and through social
media. This attracted new users while driving increased data usage
and revenue for content-related products.
11. Sprint Case Study
Sprint offers a comprehensive range of wireless communications services including personalization
through music, games, apps and entertainment. Sprint/Nextel is widely recognized for developing,
engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving nearly 48.1
million customers; industry-leading mobile data services; and a global 3G/4G Internet backbone.
Challenges
Over 50+ content partners with multiple points of contact to manage on a daily basis
Zero social elements and viral sharing opportunities
Contract negotiation and ongoing management
Lack of standardized process for content ingestion & management
Limited resources to focus on deck placement and overall deck structure
Limited ability to promote existing and new content due to current deck structure
Reduced promotional opportunities due to lack of resources
Programming based on minimums commitments and obligations
Inconsistent, delayed and reduced reporting
12. Sprint Case Study
Solution
Content partner consolidation
Social media management
Contract negotiation and ongoing partner management
Streamlined content submission process
Deck analysis and restructure
TMarket research team identifying programming opportunities on a weekly basis
Enhanced promotional opportunities through key relationships in the games, apps, music & entertainment industry
Unbiased programming model based on analytics
Enhanced reporting through secure reporting site
Impact
Money saved by reducing staff dedicated to content submission, programming and partner management
Doubled sales and profit margin in month three
Allow existing staff to focus on higher priority functions
Streamlined submission process reducing time to market
Ability to promote more content on a weekly basis
Higher overall quality of content
Higher quality of service to content owners; overall higher satisfaction from content partners
Higher quality reporting resulting in less confusion and inquiries to Sprint’s accounting department
13. Revenue Marketing Defined
Drop sales-ready
quality leads into top
of the funnel
Accelerate sales
opportunities through
the sales pipeline
Measure marketing based
on repeatable, predictable,
and scalable contributions
to pipeline and revenue
Improve ROI – net
combined sales and
marketing engine is
more efficient
Revenue Marketing
Source: The Pedowitz Group
p 13
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
14. Revenue Marketing Brings Measurement and Accountability for Driving
Growth
Big driver post-recession
• Move away from awareness/branding with questionable measurement
• Accountability of Marketing to revenue
• Sales needs to grow without adding heads
• New tools and technologies available for tracking: SFA is now Marketing Automation + CRM
• Growth of social media and communities for information gathering (‘We are smarter than me’)
New metrics and KPI’s were born
• ROMI Return on Marketing Investment
• Measuring Marketing conversion to revenue – SiriusDecisions “Waterfall”
• New role: Demand Generation
p 14
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
15. The Buying Process Has Changed
Customers are
social buyers
Sales are self-initiated and
start online
90%
43%
p 15
of buyers initiate
the buying cycle
(not sales!)
of the C-suite have
selected a vendor by
the time they
engage sales
60%
88%
inform their decision
via support
forums/discussion
groups
claim social channels
influence their
decision making
process
Easily targeted and
mapped
11times
The number of
‘touches’ a customer
makes to a vendor
before making a
purchase
Source: Hubspot 2012; IDC 2012 EAG Buyer Experience Survey
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
16. The Evolution of B2C and B2B Buyer Profile
Information no longer disseminated by a company representative only
• “Tech buyers are using web and community resources to complete nearly 70% of their buying
journey before they ever engage with a sales resource.” Forrester Research Catching Up To Tech
Customer Communities 2011
Content drives demand
• “IT buyers consumer on average 8 pieces of content generated by the vendor or for the vendor .”
IDGE Customer Engagement Study 2012
The buyer moves back and forth between Marketing content and Sales content
• They don’t care where content comes from
A recent Gartner assessment states that the CMO will outspend the CIO on
technology by 2017
p 16
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
17. Network driven brand protection and demand generation
Design Programs
Drive Results
Maximize impact through digital and social media channels:
• Engage in most relevant digital
conversations
• Increase number of on-message
postings
• Maximize reach of positive /
minimize negative messages
•
•
•
•
Understand digital conversations
Amplify positive messages
Brand Protect against negative messages
Expand conversations to reach target audience and segments
A proven 5-step process:
Listen
Use social media
analytics
Triage
Where/how to
engage
Engage
Escalate
Reactively and
proactively
Define process
and target SMEs
Strategy and Targeting
Measure
Analyze and
track metrics
Comprehensive and Integrated Process
p 17
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
18. Drive brand awareness/protection and intent to purchase through social media
FY H2 Focus
ENGAGEMENT ENGINE
1
Content
Engine
Editorial Calendar
2
3
Broadcast Engine
Targeted Digital
Engagement
Thru – ISV Influencers
Springboard, SB&D, SBS, others
4
Community (Customers &
Partner)
5
Measurement
Engine
General
Blogger @ ISV
Corp SB Sites
(SB Summit site)
Customer and
Partner Evidence
(Ignite)
Field SB Social Media
sites
SB&D Community
@ Yammer
Digital Marketing
Alias
DLA
(Digital
Landscape
Analysis)
Height (Qty),
Width (Amply),
and Depth (Qlty)
TacticSpecific
Traffic
(e.g. visits to IT
Pro properties,
click-throughs to
Editorial
Calendar)
Thru – External Influencers and To SB Customer/Partners
IT Pro Marketing
Assets (Feature, BV
and Better together)
Monitors & Listen to SB online conversations
Mass social
media
Own
IT Pro
IT Pro Social Mediaspecific content (e.g.
Tweets, blog
articles)
Community Conversation
Engine
• Sponsored communities (AMEX
SB community)
• Influential communities (vertical
associations)
• Word-of-mouth( (Bloggers,
forums, wikis)
• Social Networks (OEM SB fan
page, ISV Lounge Facebook
page)
SB
Site
Show
Case
Channel
Elite Blogger
Network
Customer and Partner
Communities
• SB Expert Forum
• Idea Generation
• News Room
Blogs
Influencer’s Content
(Articles,
Blogging, PR)
ISV
Pro site
Landing
page
Community
site
Self-hosted
Others
Targeted
Influencer
Measurement
(TIM)
Surveys
(e.g. Pulse
survey)
Engagement
(e.g. # of
members in Elite
Blogger network,
webinars)
Sentiment
(e.g. # of
positive and
negative
comments)
Partnerships
(e.g. Acqua contest, joint Editorial Calendars)
Monthly Report
p 18
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
19. Key Questions to Address
Preliminary: To be refined
Category
Key Questions
Customer Profile
and Purchase
Process
• What are the unique “Needs Based” segment characteristics (e.g. unique requirements and specific ways
they want to consume a particular offer) of Customers?
• How large are each segment? Which segment have the best fit with Base CRM regards to the solutions
unique differentiation?
• What are their purchase process and steps? Are there key differences by company size, vertical or usage?
• Where do they get their information during their purchase process and who are their key influencers at
each step?
Connected
Marketing &
Sales Approach
• How do they “find” Base CRM, research Base CRM and make the decision to use the product?
• Any complimentary applications in place or being purchased that can influence/drive choice of Base CRM
over other solutions?
• What % of the total available customer(s) base gets access to Base CRM information at each step? From
what source? And how effective is this approach? What is the “White Space” that is no being
addressed?
• What other efforts are needed to systematically address this “white space” at each step?
• What should be the high level sales and marketing approach for Base CRM? Both for the inbound and
outbound flows?
Sales / Marketing
Exec Excellence
Profile and Target
for Recruiting
• What are the characteristics of a successful sales / marketing executive to drive Base CRM sales?
• What is the Executive’s Excellence Profile? What experience and characteristics are key to Base CRM
success? What are other key successes needed (e.g. SMB sales models, CRM space, applicable verticals)?
• What are some companies and roles in those companies who have similar characteristics?
• Which companies and role profiles would make the best environment for recruiting the Base CRM Sales
and Marketing Exec? Where can you get the greatest leverage for recruiting?
• What are some key interview questions that will help to identify the right candidate?
p 19
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
20. Framework for sales and marketing – all pulling in the same direction
Connect Marketing and Sales
•
•
•
•
Target Segment
Profile (Size,
Vertical, IT
Proficiency,
Geo)
Customer’s Purchase Process by segment (needs based, early adopter/mainstream,
vertical (E.g. early adopters represents only a small percent of market , to get to the
mainstream customers, Base CRM may need a vertical approach to access the
remaining customers)
By segment - where and who do they go to for information (physically, digitally,
socially)? Who are their influencers and mavens??
What percent get captured based on reach (exposure) and effectiveness (messaging,
value proposition, channel, etc.)?
What model provides the greatest leverage and close rate?
Track, Measure, Identify Opportunities, Test New
Concepts and Institutionalize (e.g. Rollout)
Connect Sale and Marketing
•
•
•
•
•
Where are the white space opportunities by purchase decision step?
Where and how do we get greater reach with “white space” ?
Where do we need greater focus to increase effectiveness of each step (e.g. close rate
due to competition, value prop, etc.)?
Are there easy ways to drive outbound sales to current marketing and maven digital
assets?
What is the best approach to get access to white space – e.g. depth “assisted” self
serve, direct inside telesales, telesales + SMB channel, inside + select outbound reps,
mix of outsourced telesales?
p 20
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
21. Sources of Information and Influencers / Mavens for Purchase Process
Aware
Research Decide
Purchase Use
Renew
Aware
Research Decide
Purchase Use
Renew
10% Aware
Research Decide
Purchase Use
Renew
Segments
(Vary by Needs
Based, Size,
Vertical)
Total Available
Market (TAM)
Size
TV/Print
TV/Print
10%
Network –
20%
TV/Print 30% 10%
Network –
30%
20%
Pro/Soc
Network –
30%
20%
Pro/Soc
Service
30% (depend 20%
Pro/Soc
Service
30%
on size) (depend 20%
Provider
Service
on 30% (depend 20%
size)
Provider
Industry
20% on size) 20%
Provider
Industry
20%
20%
Assoc
Industry
20%
20%
Assoc
Category
10%
10%
Assoc
Category
10%
10%
SME
Category
10%
10%
SME
Search
30%
SME
Search
30%
Company
Search
30%
Company
Company
30%
30%
30%
30%
30%
30%
20%
20%
20%
10%
10%
10%
40%
40%
40%
20%
20%
20%
30%
30%
30%
30%
40%
30%
40%
30%
40%
10%
20%
10%
20%
10%
20%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
40%
40%
40%
20%
40%
20%
40%
20%
40%
Total Available % minus % Reach x % Effectiveness = White Space
p 21
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
22. World class marketing capabilities framework
Marketing Capabilities
Strategy & Planning
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Offer/Portfolio Management
•
•
•
•
•
Environmental Scanning
Competitor Intelligence
User & Buyer Understanding
Market Opportunity Identification
Core Competency Identification
Brand and Positioning
Marketing Mix & Planning
Value Proposition Development
Offer Development
Pricing & SKU Management
Sales & Delivery Strategy
Offering Life-Cycle Management
Customer Centricity
Brand Stewardship
Operational
Excellence
Lifecycle Management
(Customer & Partner)
•
•
•
•
Market Influencing
Communication
Customer/Partner Insight
Customer/Partner Experience
Engagement, Adoption & Loyalty
Account/Audience Based Marketing
•
•
•
•
•
Brand Communications
Demand Generation
Lead Management
Partner Communications
Influencer Relations (e.g. PR, AR)
Business Orchestration & Enablement
Marketing Operations – Org Development, Communications, Metrics, Feedback, Governance
Sales Channel Enablement – Training, Process , Programs & Tools
Partner & Alliance Management – Identification, Recruitment, Retention, Policies & Programs
p 22
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
23. Market Influencing Communication : Target Capabilities
Brand Communication
• High brand awareness and recall
• Emotional attachment to brand
• Willingness to consider offer(s)
associated with the brand
• Product-level
communication;
somewhat
consistent over
time/product
generation
• Product-level
communications
consistent and distinct
from competition
• Some style and tone
consistency across
products
• Brand-level style and
tone established
• Customers can
identify company
ads/communication
when prompted
• Communication
framework creates and
maintains brand level
consistency…
• …while enabling
product-level
messaging and
differentiation
• …for existing and new
products
• Consumers can identify
company and product
ads unaided
• Unique, well-recognized
style, voice and
campaign
• Consumers communicate
brand and product
values unaided
• Provides benchmark for
Peers and Competitors
Demand Generation
• Awareness, Consideration,
and Preference
• Increased volume of customers
who have offering in consideration
set and have a preference for or
intent to purchase
• Demand-gen
activities occur
sporadically;
disconnected from
primary business
motion
• Leads are nor
tracked
• Marcom activities are
targeted to specific
points in the purchase
path
• Little understanding of
demand-gen
results/impact
• Most leads are actedon, but without
systematic outcome
tracking
• Campaigns are
created to reach
target users at each
step of purchase path
with an appropriate
message
• Leads are tracked
systematically and
consistently linked to
sales pipeline
• Lead creation tactics
are understood and
relative impact of each
is measured
• Specific programs
target increased
conversion at each
stage in the
decision/purchase path
• Campaigns get more
target users into the
funnel (i.e., grow the
category)
• High conversion rates
from Aware to Purchase
• Self-regenerating leadstream from existing
user referral
Lead Management
• Lead efficiency & effectiveness:
high volume and quality of leads
generated, and high speed through
the sales process
p 23
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
24. Current Issues
User & Buyer
Understanding
• Not customer centric - Internal orientation - Missing a “Culture of
Customer Insight”
• Infrastructure (data, connections, sharing) is fragmented and
unsophisticated
• Limited Market Intelligence resources,
• Research is BU focused vs. segment
• BU mind shift to get local insights
• Cultural Change – Reward listening
• Better infrastructure (Taxonomy, segmentation, data, toolset, Wiki,
web, partner research)
• More Marketing Analytics roles
• Area and local Market Intelligence funding
• Brand confusion – many brands, many messages
• Campaigns lack clarity/alignment with brand
• Brands focus on the product, not the customer promise, or
emotional connection
• Communicate clear brand architecture
• Build campaign messaging leveraging the brand promise and
customer segment plan
• Brand health scorecards for all brands
• Communicate value of brand to all employees
Value
Proposition
• Value props excessively functional - product, rather than usercentric
• Fail to drive beyond acceptance to loyalty
• Too attached to latest product release
• Value obscured by complex pricing/licensing
• Holistic focus on customer needs
• Emotional/identity connection
• Span product silos
• Leverage insights profile from planning to MarCom
• Stronger segment customization, fewer, larger offers
• Plans are product vs. Customer centric and siloed by product and
segments
• Plans follow (constrained by) budgeting
• 1 year horizon and reset lacks continuity
• Plans encourage invention vs. renewal
• Poor/fragmented data leads to poor insight
•
•
•
•
Brand
Communications
Capability
Marketing
Planning
Sample capabilities recommendation
Change Required
Customer clusters, pains, and future needs drive plan
Set Customer priorities before budgets
Refresh/grow/handoff plans - customer lifetime view
Integrate planning – Segments define need/trends then BUs design
holistic strategy to address
• On-going customer marketing vs. product campaigns
p 24
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
25. Helped growth stage companies and high growth business in large companies
sustain growth
GROWTH
STRATEGIES
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
New Competitive Arenas
(e.g. Social Networks)
New Industry Structure
(e.g. eCommerce, Cloud)
SAMPLE
GROWTH PROGRAM EXPERIENCE
Microsoft
T-Mobile
New Geographies
(e.g. Localization)
New Delivery Approaches
(e.g. Cloud)
New Products and Services
(…Existing Customers)
Dropbox
Fluke
F5
New Customers
(e.g. New Verticals)
Existing Products to Existing
Customers (Vertical Specific)
p 25
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
26. Four key service offerings to help drive sustainable sales growth
1 Advocacy Community Driven New
Product Launch and Demand Generation
•
•
Challenge: How do you take customers and get them to be advocates for
the company’s product live and digitally? What do I need to do to leverage
this group to drive demand?
Program: Design, launch and manage Advocacy community for product
launch and demand generation
2 Connected Marketing & Sales and Verticalization
•
•
Challenge: How do make sure that my marketing investment takes full advantage of
my sales force and drive revenue? What do I need to do to drive sale into the “early
mainstream customers”?
Program: Align sales and marketing objectives, messaging, verticalization and
landing campaigns with sales force
4 Sales Excellence and OnRamping
•
•
Challenge: How do I build and grow a highly productive sale org? What
do I need to do to quickly on ramp new sales staff and drive sales?
Program: Define excellence profile to drive recruitment and staff
development, identify and develop key readiness and resource needs by
sales steps, and design and execute sales training
3 Rapid Partner Ecosystems Design and Development
•
•
p 26
Challenge: How can I get leverage and extend our sales efforts? What do I need to do to
rapidly create a partner program that will drive results but is designed for the long run?
Program: Perform a quick strategy / plan assessment, design a rapid partner program,
develop “stake in the ground” resources, develop rollout plan and execute pilot
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
27. Case Study: New Product Launch and Demand Generation
1
Background & Situation
•
•
•
•
A software company was preparing to have a successful version launch of their product to the SMB and Consumer markets
world-wide after a weak version launch 2 years earlier
Given the weakness of the previous version launch, the focus of the current launch was to create early, viral advocacy with
customers and partners world-wide pre-launch – leading up to a strong launch and then to sustain the advocacy world-wide
to drive demand generation with SMB and Consumer customers world-wide
The launch needed to take into account the differences in countries e.g. development maturity, vertical characteristics,
channel characteristics and segment profile
The strategy was develop 12 months before the launch and the pre-launch advocacy and evidence program was started 9
months before the launch
Approach
•
•
•
•
•
p 27
Design program based on
business and project objectives
Develop and recruit target
portfolio of customers and
partners based on geo, segment,
vertical and usage scenario mix
Activate and nurture the
community with “give” and “gets”
and regular interactions
Map SMB and Consumer
Customer purchase process to
information needs and sources
Identify and feed evidence to
target “influencers of influencers”
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
•
•
120 Customer and Partner case
studies world-wide
Over 80 viral videos world-wide
Over 40 exclusive “stories”
placements with influential PR,
media and events world-wide
Evidence assets database with
thousands of quotes by feature,
vertical, geo and compete
Localized world-wide plan,
guidance, resources and
“evidence assets” database
Managed WW community of
Customer and Partner Advocates
Results
•
•
•
The most successful SMB and
Consumer product launch in the
history of the company
The advocacy community
remained active well into the life
of the product and was key to
driving demand generation by
“pointing” potential users to the
companies digital properties significantly increasing “Intent to
purchase” metrics WW
Program used by the companies
other software and cloud product
launches WW with great success
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
28. Case Study: Connected Marketing & Sales and Verticalization
2
Background & Situation
•
•
•
•
•
As a large and successful high growth technology company was targeting to grow beyond $100M in sales, the management
teams key focus was on how sustain their growth
For the sales team to sell larger opportunities, they need to sell at a higher level than the IT Director to Line of Business (LoB)
Exec
What they needed was marketing collateral and resources that was more focused on the specific needs of the customers
(e.g. vertical use cases) versus broad technology features
The marketing team was in full support of what the sales organization wanted, but needed help with the capabilities to
tightly align the marketing efforts with needs of the sales organization
Specifically , what was needed was to identify and define the vertical use cases and then to message and develop resources
for the sales organization
Approach
•
•
•
•
•
p 28
Assess the needs of each target
vertical and positioning the
companies offer relative the needs
and competitive environment
Develop a joint sales and
marketing business and project
objectives
Develop a joint messaging and
positioning framework
Define and develop the resources
for the sales organization
As needed, support the testing and
pilot of approach and resources
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
•
•
An assessment of the target
opportunity and priorities for the
company by vertical
Joint sales and marketing;
business and marketing objectives
Joint messaging and positioning
framework
Target sales resources
specification
Target sales resources developed
Target support for testing and
piloting
Results
•
•
•
The sales team receive the
guidance and resources to
effectively compete for the larger
LoB vertical deals – increasing the
sales team’s satisfaction of the
marketing team’s support levels
The company was able to rapidly
increase the close rate for larger
vertical LoB specific opportunities
The company uses the “connected
marketing and sales” and
verticalized approach as best
practices and uses it to identify
and drive new opportunities
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
29. Case Study: Sales Excellence and Onramping
3
Background & Situation
•
•
•
•
•
A software company was starting to shift their business model with cloud offers
However, their sales organization was organized and focused on selling software license directly and through partners
The executive team knew that to effectively sell cloud offers, they needed to sell to Line of Business Executives and CTOs
versus CIOs and IT Directors
What the company needed was a composite profile of what type of sales staff (looking at the marketplace as well as
internally) were the most effective at selling cloud “solutions” to these LoB Execs and CTOs – in essence a sales excellence
profile
Then they wanted to understand, design and develop the sales methodology, role guidance, resources and training to help
these senior account executives rapidly and successfully onramp in their role and start to drive sales
Approach
•
•
•
•
p 29
Target and benchmark best in
class competitors and market
organizations
Assess and profile the best
characteristics for the senior sales
role
Design and develop a sales
methodology – highlighting
objectives and activities at each
step as well as the key customer
and internal team interactions
Define and develop the role
guidance, key sales resources and
training
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
•
•
Benchmark of competitor’s sales
role and characteristics
Profile of excellence for the sales
role
Sales methodology leveraging
industry standards, but refined for
the company’s unique processes
Sales role guidance and playbook
Key sales resources e.g. pitch
deck, verticalized solution demo,
competitive positioning, customer
economics / ROI model, PoC, etc.
Online, desktop and field based
training
Results
•
•
•
Executive approval to implement
the new senior executive role
Successful launch of the new sales
role – including the targeting,
recruitment, readiness training,
resourcing and deployment of
these new senior sales executives
world-wide
Rapid sales of the new services
offer into key major accounts –
and a sales / biz dev platform to
sell other cloud “solutions”
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan
30. Case Study: Rapid Partner Ecosystems / Program Design and Development
4
Background & Situation
•
•
•
•
A high growth SaaS company with a large and rapidly growing Consumer base, recently launched an SMB offer that is
expected to drive a significant portion of their revenue growth
Sale management believes that a partner program is critical to extend the sales capabilities of the company – given the
strong unsolicited inbound interest from prospective partners
However, given the “consumer” and technology oriented culture of the company, the size of the opportunity, importance of
the SMB space and the appropriateness of a through-partner approach to SMB customers needed to be articulated and
bought in by senior management
What was needed was the ability to provide rapid proof points and results to get senior management to shift resources to
the through-partner SMB resell approach
Approach
•
•
•
•
•
p 30
Perform a quick assessment of the
company’s partner program or
plan relative to their business and
objectives
Roughly size the opportunity
based on various partner program
and capabilities options
Select an option and migration
path and design the partner
program pilot
Develop “stake in the ground” set
of resources
Target, recruit and manage the
partner program pilot
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
•
•
Quick assessment of the
company’s partner program or
plan
Rough sizing of the opportunity
A rapid design of the partner
program
A select set of “stake in the
ground” partner program
resources
Partner targeted and recruited
Pilot partner program launch and
managed
Results
•
•
•
A pilot partner program designed,
developed and launched in
months
Pro forma of partner ecosystem
and revenues exceeding initial
plans and expectations
Executive presentation
highlighting the importance of the
SMB space and the partner
program for driving the enterprise
value of the company
Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan