PUT MESSAGING DIFFERENCES ASIDE.
Sales: “I couldn’t use the PowerPoint deck that marketing gave me. It just wasn’t relevant to the conversation I wanted to have with my customer, so I just created my own.”
Marketing: “How can we deliver a clear, compelling and consistent message when sales professionals and executives just change the story for every customer conversation?”
Does this sound familiar? It should. It happens in some shape or form … every day.
COMBINING MESSAGING AND TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE COMPELLING CUSTOMER CONVERSATIONS.
In a recent survey from SiriusDecisions, sales managers indicated that one of the most significant barriers to achieving sales quotas was the salesperson's ability — or inability — to communicate value-based messages.
What if there was a technology solution that provided sales professionals with the messaging they need to engage in more relevant and compelling customer conversations? After all, there’s an app for everything, right?
In Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, CMOs rated multichannel messaging as the most effective tactic for increasing engagement. The authors of the study go on to say that “when your targets receive the same message from you via multiple channels, you create a consistent and engaging experience.”
What does an engaged audience mean to your business? It’s an audience that is saying, “Tell me more.” It means that your message is initiating conversations with potential customers.
IS THAT SOMETHING YOUR CUSTOMER WOULD SAY?
In business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, the buyer is typically also the end user. However, in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, the buyer is usually not the end user. The purchasing process is much more complex, involving more departments, more audiences, more decision-makers. Is this why B2B messaging often sounds more elaborate, like in this example from this recent Inc. magazine article?
Messaging consistency can take on many forms, all of which can play a role in greater marketing success.
A survey of 200 marketing and sales leaders showed that 0% saw complete consistency in their company’s messaging across the customer conversation continuum. In another study, only 3% percent of respondents said that their company used a repeatable process when creating content, messages and tools across the enterprise.
