“Chris, why would invest in marketing when instead I could just hire another rep carrying a quota?”
There’s a simple, attractive logic there, right?
And it is exactly what I would do if I had my commercial org well-positioned and humming — strong win rates, low turnover, ample market opportunity available.
But let’s remember what B2B marketing does. In B2B, we have an expensive, highly trained retained sales force as our main channel for generating opportunities. These are complex, capital equipment industrial sales, not impulse purchases. Which means marketing exists primarily to help the sales force win.
My reply?
“Rather than hire and ramp a new rep, lets instead make all the reps we already have 10% more effective.”
This is the domain of B2B marketing. I recently interviewed a National Sales Manager about how many Opportunities he expected his marketing efforts to produce relative to his Sales Reps. His answer? 10-15% of Opportunities would come direct from marketing.
Which fits my experience considering website leads, trade shows and other ‘demand gen’ activities that Marketing undertakes. So, the better play, the real play for marketing, is in Seller effectiveness.
How does Marketing drive Sales Win Rates?
Content: here I mean arguments and data and evidence that lends credence to the message the Seller is delivering. If the Prospect is focused on total cost of ownership, then data drawn from other owners of the same product over time is very compelling. Marketing needs to develop a table of the most common benefits sought by a Customer and then develop supporting content for each of those. Could be video evidence, could be a photo illustration, could be Customer testimonials, could be a case study or white paper.
Memorability: the great force multiplier is a simple, memorable message. The 4 out of 5 dentists. The absolutely positively. Distilling your differentiation, your ‘only us’ message into a commercial expression of your value takes work. But it stands out, and it echoes in the minds of your prospects even when your rep isn’t there. For one of my clients, we compressed it into a verbatim message and had reps practice their delivery. Its that powerful and that important.
Experiences: the more you get away from PDF, website and collateral, the better you will do. Create ways to have Prospects go hands-on with your product. That involvement, that tactile experience advances sales and certainly differentiates you in a B2B market that tends to take the lazy way out and emails PDFs to people. Build a demo van program, create a ‘show site’ program, create miniature versions of your product or bring samples of part of the product to your Prospect.
These are complex, capital equipment industrial sales, not impulse purchases. Which means marketing exists primarily to help the sales force win.