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.  

Along with some of my colleagues, we recently evaluated one recent client experience that particularly stands out in terms of initial performance improvement. All the program results aren’t in yet, but the early diagnostics indicate more favorable results are expected. MQL to SAL conversion metrics have increased from 10% to 24% and SAL to SQL conversions have increased from 20% to 58%. It’s important to note that this evaluation wasn’t of just one specific campaign for this client, but rather was an assessment of a series of collaborative changes implemented over time by the client and the Televerde team during the duration of an ongoing program. Which leads us to over-arching strategic learning experiences numbers one and two… 

1.     No One-Off Quick-Fixes
Improving demand creation program performance isn’t a one-time event contingent upon doing just a single thing better or implementing a change in just one strategic area of the program. Instead, the improvements are gained by embedding a set of refinements in several areas. These modifications are learned by trending and analyzing practices and results, then experimenting with new approaches. 

I realize that this suggestion probably appears to be against the grain amongst those who feel it’s important to isolate variables one at a time to truly measure the impact of one vs. another. But in reality several variables can be isolated and measured concurrently when each is executed in a different area of the program. This is why it’s important to pick apart marketing programs, segment them in stages that are most relevant to your organization, and evaluate each segment. For example, examine what could be improved in the marketing stages of campaigns vs. what can be modified in the lead hand-off stage. Or look at what can be refined in early nurture stages vs. nurture approaches later in the cycle. Or examine sales rep practices in mid-stage vs. late stage selling to see if a practice is weaker/off the mark in a particular area. 

If you can identify the stages and segments in the lifecycle of a new sales opportunity, then you can make adjustments where they are most appropriate. Yes, it requires precious time to do this analysis, but if the end-result is measurable performance improvement then it’s worth the effort for a long-term, annuity payoff. One more point on this topic: You don’t need to take on the daunting task of evaluating all sales opportunities; rather, pick off a few recent ones that have been closed/won in your favor and a few that haven’t, then put them in your marketing lab and conduct the assessment. Chances are that you’ll quickly find some commonalities among them that can serve as proxies for many others. 

2.     Alter Mindsets
Another important learning from this experience is the need for a paradigm shift. We all know the discussion about the Sales-Marketing gap isn’t new. But it doesn’t seem to be going away either. Our assessment of this recent client experience revealed that an objective participant in the Sales-Marketing gap evaluation and resolution process is valuable, even essential. 

Obviously, the objective participant needs to have proven expertise in both the Sales and Marketing areas as well as a practical methodology for bridging the gap. Televerde has the ability to provide this objective consultation and we often do for our clients within the campaign planning stages and throughout its implementation. But in some situations the client may determine (as in the case we evaluated) that they want to have someone completely outside their own organization and ours to conduct the assessment and facilitate its resolution – this can work too. 

There are really three important points here… First, be willing to step back and give someone permission to open the hood of your Sales and Marketing engine and examine all the parts that make it work (or that aren’t allowing it to work like it should). Second, be willing to accept criticism of your process and experiment with new ways of doing things. And third, bring all key stakeholders into the assessment and make them part of resolving the issues, even if this means they have to admit responsibility for being a part of the problem to begin with. The stakeholders include not just your Sales and Marketing teams, but also any third-party players in the process; for instance, your outsourced demand creation partners (in this case it was Televerde). 

So if you’re able to make progress on understanding that typically several issues need to be resolved over a longer period of time and throughout several programs (vs. just looking for the simple fix in an isolated area), and if you’re able to see the value of commitment to a change in the Sales and Marketing mindsets, then you should be ready to implement the more tactical aspects of improving the performance of your demand creation programs. 

Our evaluation of the client experience and our active participation in helping to resolve the issues helped us to validate our own thinking about several more key improvement opportunities… 

3.     Create Warmer Opportunities by Acquiring and Sharing More Insight
This is accomplished in an ongoing exchange of knowledge that takes place between the inside sales person or marketer who may have generated, qualified or nurtured the lead (in this case it was Televerde as the outsourced demand creation partner); the sales rep who is managing and forecasting the opportunity; the inside sales support person who is helping the sales rep to work the opportunity; and the sales executive who is responsible for ensuring that the forecast is achieved. What is the insight? In addition to the usual criteria (budget, authority, need, timeframe), insight sharing should also include other critical elements related to ongoing qualification of the opportunity and assessment of sales momentum. In this particular client scenario, we worked with the client and the consultant to take a “BANT on steroids” approach. Some examples: 

• Relationship-mapping and determination of all the decision-making/influencing contacts and multiple access points across the organization, including IT and other lines of business. (Establishing relationships with the other lines of business represented a Sales and Marketing paradigm and learning shift in our client’s experience.)
• Reality-checking that your company’s solutions really do fit the needs of the prospect as originally thought.
• Knowing if there are competitors positioned within the opportunity and how they are positioned compared to you.
• Ensuring that the company’s current technology install base can support and/or complement the need for your solution.
• Having a clear understanding of the prospect’s budget to make sure it’s realistic to fund the cost of your solution. Also know if the budget will/could/has changed. 

This isn’t a one-time exchange of information among these stakeholders intended to simply move a lead from an MQL to SAL or SQL stage, but rather should be dynamic and ongoing since sales opportunities are never static. Checkpoints should occur on a regular cadence in all of these areas and others. The intentional objective should be to know when to migrate a sales opportunity into a different stage of nurture. 

4.     Assign More Accountability
The sales rep and other stakeholders need to be held accountable for ensuring that the momentum for key sales opportunities is not allowed to lapse. Regularly scheduled checkpoints on all key activities should occur. If a critical piece of information is missing or a step in the process has been missed then the sales rep needs to be held accountable for getting things on track quickly. There’s no time for displacing blame or pointing fingers. Accountability is key, and in this particular client experience when accountability was stepped up, the results noticeably improved. 

5.     Don’t Treat All Deals the Same
Creating and discovering demand for some products is tougher than others. Complex sales require more collaboration and nurturing. In this particular client experience, prospects don’t generally have an existing budget for our client’s solution; the funding needs to be created based on effective positioning of the need for the product. As a result, the sales cycle is extended. And the product is not inexpensive. These complex sales need more energy and focus, so more robust collaboration and nurturing techniques are needed. More collaboration is needed between all stakeholders, especially with Marketing and/or an outsourced demand agency if an account-based marketing approach is being deployed. The lines of communication between Sales, Marketing, Product Engineers and outsourced partners must be kept open throughout the sales cycle. In terms of nurturing complex sales, ensure that all the tools and content assets are available for all key stages of the sales cycle, including demos, client references, case studies, fact sheets, research, testimonials, etc. When working with an outsourced marketing or sales support partner, make sure they are enabled with all of these tools too. All boats rise when there’s more water in the ocean! If collaboration and nurture are overlooked and underestimated, deals will inevitably suffer. 

6.     Train, Train, Train!
Of all the many high-value learnings we’ve acquired over the past 15 years, the importance of ongoing, in-depth training is among the most critical – especially when an outsourced demand generation partnership is place. Our calling agents are incredibly good at what they do. Their dialogue-based marketing skills are very well-honed. And they’re terrific at leveraging their experiences from previous campaigns and clients with whatever program they’re currently working on. But their experience and skills cannot be optimized without proper training from our clients on their brands, their products, their value propositions, and their markets. And just like every other piece of advice in this article, the key to success is to make it collaborative and ongoing. When the client and Televerde collaborated to enrich the training initiative, we saw improvements in the confidence level of the callers and the speed in which they were creating more productive relationships with prospects that in turn results in producing more qualified leads. A one-time training session at the start of a campaign isn’t nearly as effective as regularly scheduled reviews of calls with prospects, role playing scenarios, reading materials galore, Q&A, and other types of training. So the key here is not to skimp on training – it makes a big difference. 

Let’s recap… 

No One-Off Quick-Fixes – Approach your demand creation challenges holistically and strategically.
Alter Mindsets – Take a step back, let an outsider look in, and be willing to accept change.
Create Warmer Opportunities – Acquire and share more insight.
Assign More Accountability – Don’t let any stone in the sales process go unturned.
Don’t Treat All Deals the Same – Give complex sales opportunities the resources they need to be nurtured.
Train, Train, Train – Optimize your internal and outsourced marketing resources by giving them the tools – and time – they need to be informed and confident. 

Stop looking for the silver bullet -it’s a blend of several right practices that make the biggest impact!