What do you see when you take a step back and look at your marketing?
Can you see the forest for the trees?
Today’s marketing is scattered and lazy. It jumps to tactics before strategy. It’s been done before or it’s clever in the wrong ways. It has hidden agendas and doesn’t really want to discuss the details. It’s ubiquitous. It’s invisible. It forgets the very roots that support it.
Look beyond misguided convention
In his book, SPIN Selling, sales researcher Neil Rackham discusses an ingrained mindset: “In sales, you must plan for and counter objections.” His numbers didn’t bear out the efficacy of this approach. He began to question his findings because objection handling was being taught in nearly every Fortune 500 company.
Rackham found that in large sales, where an ongoing partnership is necessary, objection avoidance led to higher success rates. It is better to listen, identify explicit problems, probe to draw out implications, let potential customers build the case for the sale—and at this moment—enter the conversation with solutions. He persisted and now his approach is taught.
Measure effectiveness
I am a researcher turned marketer. Numbers have always been my backdrop to understanding. Intuitively, I moved toward marketing that educates. I’ve found that nurture marketing yields 14-17 times more sales leads than traditional marketing.
When education collides with customer need, the effect can be dramatic. We promoted a white paper on rate-setting for a client in the financial services industry. At the time, the Federal Reserve was holding emergency meetings on interest-rate policies. I went to lunch. An email was sent. A half-hour later I came back to an inbox filled with five computer screens of voluntary sign-ups from potential customers who wanted to learn.
Make marketing meaningful
The sales process has changed. Most of us educate ourselves about products now, using the Internet. The most commonly asked question is, “Whom do you recommend?”
To be at the top of the list, business leaders must improve their educational content and share it with prospective buyers—where and when they need it. End Result Marketing came about as a strategic alliance between two like-minded professionals who believe that it’s time to adjust. Nurture marketing is more than a strategy, it’s a philosophy—one that blends perfectly into the rich landscape of social media.
Presentation: Is Nurture Marketing Right for Your Business?: 11 Questions
How do you make marketing meaningful?
