Sustained Lead Generation- keeping the funnel full

Business, differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management

Today is the financial year closing for all organisations in India. I had an extremely hectic day where we were trying to close a very large deal – which eventually slipped the deadline.

So again tomorrow morning we get back to figuring out how to get the deal in our favor.

As they say – There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip – so do large blockbuster deals have a way of going through multiple iterations before they fruitify.

That’s where having a sustained method of generating leads of average value orders makes a big difference to your pipeline. There’s better predictability in the system for your cash flows and you build the processes and infrastructure in your company to ensure that these orders can get revenued systematically without any chokes.

For most businesses however generating the sustained leads becomes a nightmare because we try to focus on too many things at the same time. If we were to focus on only a very few markets, by segmenting them and differentiating our offerings for each segment, there would not be too much of anxiety. The occasional blockbuster then can be managed within the existing system.

On the other hand if the growth is based on the back of the block buster while there’s no pipeline for sustained order booking then you are in for major challenges. Segmenting and niching the market is the only viable way for a Product Manager to ensure that they can get success in the market

Lets see what the new financial year has in store for us.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Become a vending machine for your customer & own the ecosystem

Marketing, Marketing Ecosystem, Positioning, Product Management

Today I was taking the Breakthrough DNA training for Profit Activator number 5&6. This is a training run by Dean Jackson. I have written about Dean multiple times earlier also and highly recommend his podcast “morecheeselesswhiskers “.

Dean has systematized the marketing process into a 8 step process called Breakthrough DNA.

While doing the training I had an epiphany on how a technology services company could utilize the concepts being taught in the training .

I have been talking about the”infrastructure” that needs to be available to make any technology useful. So if you don’t have telecom bandwidth then SaaS based solutions cannot be successful.

But if you look at it another way, if you could become a vending machine (another idea from Dean Jackson and Joe Polish) for your customer .

If you identify what comes before, what comes after and what comes during the usage of your service and you become the supplier of that service through your partners, then not only will you be able to grow your business more rapidly, you will also reduce the resistance points for the customer.

Even if your product or service is not the center of the universe in your ecosystem, by following this strategy you can move the ecosystem in your direction.

Let’s say you sell “backup” software. You could sell the tape drives and tape libraries. You could provide multi layer backup via cloud and sell the customer the cloud service and so on. This way your business grows rapidly and the customer has the comfort that since you are putting everything in place, it will work.

I will definitely think on this aspect more for my own areas, suggest you also think.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing Stamina

Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, Positioning, Product Management

I had heard this word for the first time about 2 years back in one of Dean Graziosi’s books or training seminars. I heard this again today while I was doing the Breakthrough DNA training, from Dean Jackson.

I have pre-dominantly come from the technology background where typical deal cycles are around 3-6 months. Being B2B, these are not impulsive purchases where people are not bothered about the risk with low value items.

In this scenario it takes months and months of messaging, following through, which results in leads getting generated.

Even after the leads come through its not going to result in an order.

Its your persistence to keep following up with the leads on a regular basis because sometimes it could take months for these customers to decide. This persistence is what both these gentlemen call as Marketing Stamina.

To ensure Marketing Stamina you need content to keep adding value to your prospect. But you also need to have cash flow to ensure you survive while this process is going on.

This is where the economics of lead generation and lead nurturing come in. You need to be clear how much money has to be spent to get a lead to come into your funnel and how much time the lead stays in the funnel before they buy (not necessarily from you). During this time you have to keep nurturing these leads.

This is different from the concept of Life Time Value. Life time value is about long term profits from a customer and the referrals. However the economics of lead gen and lead nurturing are more related to cash flow today.

So based on your economics and what you can afford to spend you choose the media for running the message to your prospects for both lead generation as well as for lead nurturing. You can’t run out of money or stamina because that is how you will build a long term business.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Competition is good – Part II

competition, differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation, value proposition

Yesterday I spoke about why competition is good for you.

Today we will look at what you need to be aware of in your competition.

In the technology space if you’re competing with a big player, you need to first of all be aware that they have a large customer base and they an ecosystem already in place. This could be the software developers, the reseller partners etc.

Due to this you get to know what is the surrounding “infrastructure ” that needs to fall in place, to make your product/service successful.

However going head-on into competition is never a good idea.

Each competitor would also have multiple areas of the market that they neglect because they’re not big enough for them to invest in.

Look at some of those and create segments and value proposition for dominating those before you decide to get into something else. Always get into the niche with an agenda to Dominate.

From a customer perspective also, since customers prefer to avoid taking risks, don’t try to initially target the same type of customers who have made your competitors successful because they will use you to get discounts from the leaders.

Competition is a very good learning experience and gets you prepared to Not do the same mistakes which the competitors have made.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!