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The Televerde Blog

• The Bake-Off Pay-Off

  Larry Fleischman 2:51 pm on July 28, 2010 Permalink | Reply   with no comments

  By Larry Fleischman, Practice Director, Branding and Go-to-Market Strategies & Solutions, Televerde  

  Craig Burbidge, a VP Marketing with Hitachi Consulting, recently conducted a side-by-side comparison of Televerde’s sales opportunity generation capabilities with that of a rival for a 90-day stretch. Neither Televerde nor our competitor was aware of the “bake-off” scenario, which was deliberately intended by Craig. The objective was the same for both firms: Position Hitachi’s customer-relations software solution and supporting services to medium-size businesses and generate qualified sales leads. 

  By the end of the program Televerde delivered five times as many leads as our rival, and the leads were better quality according to Craig, who attributes this to Televerde’s persistence, a differentiator called out by journalist Victoria Barret in an article she wrote on Televerde that appeared in a recent issue of Forbes.  (More …)

   

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• Televerde Featured in Forbes!

  Donna Kent 10:15 am on July 9, 2010 Permalink | Reply   with no comments

  We are excited about the “Salvation at the Call Center” article on Televerde in the July 28 issue of Forbes. We’re not accustomed to publicity at Televerde. We’re just now starting to carefully and selectively toot our own horn and allowing others to say positive things about us after doing the due diligence (see SiriusDecisions’ profile on Televerde). While all of us and many of our clients are uber-passionate about our business model and the results we produce, we’re understandably a bit sensitive about what others may think about us. But since we have nothing to hide, perhaps we should be less cautious. After all, we’re transparent with our clients so why not the general public?  (More …)

   

• Kudos to the Community Builders: It’s Now Up to You to Keep It Vibrant

  Larry Fleischman 9:02 am on May 7, 2010 Permalink | Reply   with no comments

  Kudos to the Community Builders
  Neighbors: It’s Now Up to You to Keep It Vibrant

  By Larry Fleischman, Practice Director, Branding and Go-to-Market Strategies & Solutions

  Televerde joined SiriusDecisions last year after hearing references by multiple clients to the research firm. In the midst of so much incoming information from groups like MarketingSherpa, CMO Council, DMA, Gartner, Forrester and others, keeping up with all market chatter was, and frankly still is, a little overwhelming. Probably similar to how many of you keep up the pace, we tend to listen to the conversations that appear to rise above the rest. Sadly, sometimes that’s a function of volume – literally the companies generating the most amount of information. Because we all have email addresses, they’re just hard to avoid. 

  But what should reallygenerate the most attention are those conversations that appear to be the most sensible, relevant and timely. (More …)

   

• A Blend of Right Practices Makes the Biggest Impact

  Larry Fleischman 11:04 am on April 16, 2010 Permalink | Reply   with no comments

  A Blend of Right Practices Makes the Biggest Impact
  Six Ways to Optimize Demand Creation Program Performance 

  By Larry Fleischman, Practice Director, Branding and Go-to-Market Strategies & Solutions, Televerde 

  With a schedule of 50+ demand creation campaigns that Televerde implements for our clients on a monthly basis (650+ annually), undoubtedly we learn some things along the way about what works and what doesn’t. Clients rightfully expect us to share our knowledge with them and are never hesitant to ask us lots of questions about what we know that they should know. The question we’re probably asked most often is “What are the one or two practices we can engineer into our campaigns to improve the performance?” 

  The answer is never really as simple as “Just change this question or message in the discussion guide/script” or “Just add this data to the campaign.” Since each program is unique in some way, there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all set of solutions. However, across all these implementations, one theme is common, which is that it’s typically a mix of several right practices in multiple areas of the strategy that makes programs more successful.   (More …)

   

• Aligning Buyer Preferences with a Nurturing Strategy

  Dawn Coppens 2:44 pm on March 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply   Tags: Lead Nurture, marketing automation    with no comments

  

  Dawn Coppens

  B2B buying behaviors and preferences have changed dramatically. I know this first-hand since the gamer generation (including my son the video kid whiz) are now the CEOs in the organizations we want to buy from us. This is a generation that was raised on the web. Often, most of their research and evaluation is completed before any human interaction occurs.  

  Many of my clients have invested heavily in second-generation Web technology to support social networking and video sharing. There are many pages of content assets and brochureware that inform and educate the general population and web visitors. So today, when knowledge is “king,” how do you direct potential customers to the specific information they need to make buying decisions? 

  Enter marketing automation and nurturing strategy. 

  Savvy marketers are leveraging a digital + dialogue approach to drive individuals (like my son) to the information that is specific to their needs, interests and roles. I’m not talking about email blasts. Rather, this is about using very specific strategic thought leadership content and approaches designed to address your ability to solve business problems. 

  The purpose of nurture is to build relationships, enhance the customer experience, and create brand identification in your markets. Nurture is an ongoing dialogue via both digital and human contact that provides relevant and actionable messaging to the purchasing execs and other specific titles you’re seeking to engage with. The buyer wants to be in control of the buying process, but they’re willing to exchange information with you if the nature of the conversation is reciprocal (i.e., value given for value received). A well-planned nurturing strategy (if necessary deployed by a partner who has the expertise and bandwidth to execute it correctly) can accelerate pipeline conversion and eliminate the dreaded marketing lead leakage.   

  Well-managed data, marketing and nurture activities are most successful when they can be repeated and predictions can be drawn, so when I do speak with people (like my son), I know they are already well-informed and further along in the sales cycle, perhaps even at the much-desired “ready to buy” point. 

  I would love to hear about the nurturing strategies that you are using and how they are working for you.

   

• Sales & Marketing Alignment = More Highly Qualified Leads

  Joan Barnes 3:06 pm on March 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply   Tags: More highly qualified leads    with no comments

  I recently attended a SiriusDecisions seminar that provided insightful information on the topic of sales and marketing operational alignment.  From my perspective, the exchange of information validated that fully integrated marketing services are necessary to support growth strategies for both sales and marketing in all sizes of organizations.  I am in agreement with the dialogue that took place at the event around the fact that organizational growth will occur if the future operational changes for sales and marketing departments include alignment in the following areas:  1) Processes, 2) Technology, 3) Data & Analytics and 4) Sales Enablement.  

  Why is it important to me as a 30-year sales veteran to understand this movement to better align these departments? Four words:  “More highly qualified leads.”  I consult daily with all size organizations whose sales departments all want what I want.   The research delivered at this seminar clearly demonstrated that sales and marketing departments must achieve minimum standards of alignment in order to increase productivity, generate more revenue and improve processes. 

  Alignment with processes involves discipline, collaborative planning, data standards and governance to analyze, diagnose and improve.  Using Televerde as an example for best practices that we implement for ourselves and for clients, we support these processes from beginning to end – starting with lead management SLA’s to our scheduled campaign performance reviews discussing campaign metrics. 

  Technology alignment must occur through process automation, reporting integration and information access.  As an example of this, data integration with our clients’ CRM applications enables them access to real-time sales opportunity information and the ability to measure our performance to deliver high-value sales opportunities directly to their sales team. We also deploy this practice internally for our own sales team.  Another relevant example of technology alignment that we use ourselves for clients is lead nurturing which prevents opportunities outside of the “low hanging fruit” category from being left behind for the competition to pick off.  The time has come to take some of the nurturing responsibility away from sales through automation of relevant messaging. 

  How does your company predict, plan and measure?  Data & Analytics will reveal valuable information about your marketing and sales opportunities, accounts and sales cycle.  Where we have found success in this area is through ongoing research services which have proven to impact our clients’ pricing strategies, territory distribution, sales personnel assessments, and account relationship-mapping.  Accurate data is a critical element to support successful sales and marketing efforts, and it’s not just about the data used to implement a marketing campaign; this also must include embedding the business intelligence and other data that results from studying each and every sales opportunity, even those that aren’t ready to buy in the next 30-90 days.  We are strong believers that with data comes wisdom, with wisdom comes insight, and insight delivers new possibilities for optimized sales and marketing performance. 

  Lastly, does your sales team have the proper toolkit to improve their performance month after month, year after year?  What Sales Enablement marketing and measurement tools are available? Probably the most meaningful enablement tool is having a strong set of product and solution content that is relevant to a variety of buyers at all stages of the sales cycle – early, mid and late-stage. This is an area I’ve often found to be lacking at many organizations. It’s an opportunity for improvement that can have a tremendous positive impact on sales effectiveness. 

  I returned from the seminar with validation that sales and marketing alignment is as critical as ever. It’s incumbent  upon all sales and marketing professionals to collaborate well in order to close the gaps.  When we’re successful at this, we will all benefit from receiving more highly qualified leads.

   

• My Best Advice: Don’t Underestimate Data Integrity

  Dawn Coppens 8:58 am on March 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply   Tags: data    with no comments

  My Best Advice: Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Data Integrity

  

  As a Strategic Account Manager for 10 years, clients often rely on me for information and insight about how they are marketing compared to their competitors or peers in the high-tech industry. I’m always grateful for their confidence in my experience and always willing to provide my candid observations. So it’s in the spirit of “knowledge transfer” I’d like to share with you a common observation.

  I’ve found that that the most recurring flaw in effective marketing programs is a lack of attention given to the marketing data – the contact records that comprise the foundation of the marketing campaign. It’s quite common to receive a client’s data that is either missing key information or that contains inaccurate information. Examples include data we receive from responder campaigns where it’s typical to receive records populated with “John Doe” who attended an event, or the name “Mickey Mouse” in a record for someone who has downloaded content from the clients’ web site. And more often than not we find clients are marketing to non-purchasing locations or contacts who are not involved in the decision-making process.

  Best-in-class clients are often looking at the data in aggregate to identify buying patterns and opportunities to segment that information in order to create a more informed marketing strategy. My personal review of over 150 client marketing programs that were implemented in the last 90 days revealed a yield of a much greater ROI and overall results in cases where a data quality improvement or data enrichment program (including standardization and cleansing) were implemented before the marketing campaign began. This seems so sensible yet often campaigns are rushed to execution despite the lack of data quality.

  Many of our clients tell us that data quality improvement is a top investment priority for 2010, and my hope is that this priority is not ignored in-lieu of the rush for quick results. This is something I continue to advise my clients about. Accurate data is critical to making certain that a targeted program or message is actually reaching the right customers and prospects.

  Please share your thoughts on the importance of data integrity.

  Next discussion…”Buyer preferences and the importance of a nurturing strategy.”

   

• Participate in Exec Insight Series Interviews

  Larry Fleischman 11:30 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Reply   Tags: Sales Executive Insight    with no comments

  We invite you to participate in Televerde’s “Sales & Marketing Executive Insight Series.” Send me an email at larry.fleischman@televerde.com and let me know that you’d like to participate. I’ll email you the questionnaire. Respond to the questions and email it back to me and we’ll publish it. There are a variety of questions – feel free to answer all of them or provide your responses to only the questions you’re most comfortable with. None of the questions are mandatory. What is preferred though is an economy of words in your responses (blog brevity). Don’t hesitate to create some of your own unique questions if you’d like. If you have any questions, contact Larry at 480-517-6137. Thanks.

   

• Exec Interview: Stuart Long, Capsule

  Larry Fleischman 12:50 pm on February 19, 2010 Permalink | Reply   with no comments

  Featuring Stuart Long, Vice President of Sales, North America, Capsule Technologies 

  As part of our Sales & Marketing Executive Insight Series, Televerde is please to publish the following interview with Stuart Long, Vice President of Sales, North America, Capsule Technologies. Based in Paris, France and Andover, Massachusetts, Capsule is the leading, vendor-neutral medical device connectivity provider, and has been for over 12 years. Their proven solution is FDA 510(k) cleared and features the largest number of installed medical devices.  Over 500 hospitals worldwide have chosen Capsule for their device integration needs. 

  What company or companies do you admire most (besides your own) and why?

  REI because of how they are committed to the environment and their employees, their business model, and their passion for outdoors. 

  When customers and prospects consider the Capsule brand and the key value proposition of your products and services, what is that you want to come to their minds and resonate?

  Nursing efficiency and patient safety through bio-medical device connectivity.  (More …)

   

• Exec Interview: Kirk Reid, Chamberlin Edmonds

  Larry Fleischman 1:00 pm on February 9, 2010 Permalink | Reply   with no comments

  Featuring Kirk Reid, Executive Vice President, Chamberlin Edmonds

  As part of our Sales & Marketing Executive Insight Series, Televerde is please to publish the following interview with Kirk Reid, Executive Vice President, Chamberlin Edmonds. Based in Atlanta, Chamberlin Edmonds provides services to over 200 clients in 30 states and have 13 people in their sales and marketing organization. Kirk has been with the company for seven years. Chamberlin Edmonds provides eligibility and enrollment services to hospitals, governments, and managed health care organizations. On behalf of its clients, the company helps disabled, indigent and uninsured patients navigate the often-complex application processes necessary to receive Social Security disability benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, crime victims’ compensation, and charity care. Founded in 1986, the company operates through about 10 regional offices across the U.S.

  What company or companies do you admire most (besides your own) and why?
  Med Assets – they aggressively promote, execute flawlessly and their leaders operate with the highest levels of integrity.

  When customers and prospects consider your brand and the key value proposition of your products and services, what is that you want to come to their minds and resonate?
  High quality, customer-centric services delivered in the most efficient manner possible – provided by the industry leader with unquestioned integrity. (More …)