With the recent hot discussion of ChatGPT, artificial intelligence technology has been pushed to the forefront. As a result, digital marketing based on digital technology has once again received a lot of attention, but the essence of marketing has never changed. Today we will talk about ChatGPT No matter how it evolves, no matter how advanced artificial intelligence becomes, there will always be irreplaceable marketing elements in order to create world-class marketing standards.
Part 1 Always maintain close cooperation with sales and management
This is actually a major pain point for marketers , which is mainly reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, they cannot maintain close cooperation with the sales team and become a marginal team in most departments. The marketing focus and sales goals are completely different. This is all about communication. Lack of closeness is caused by insufficient integration of resources.
At one of my events, a student asked this question: The marketing department is using the Salesforce system to follow up and record customer transaction information, but sales are also very busy every day. How can I convince him to cooperate with me and provide what I need? How about filling in the customer conversion information?
This is actually a problem that many B2B companies and industrial manufacturing companies will encounter when managing marketing and sales activities. Sales focus on generating performance, selling high-profit products, developing new customers, and at the same time maintaining old customer relationships. To process some trivial tasks such as orders, their daily time is occupied by fragmented sales activities. If they also need to meet the requirements of the marketing department to fill in information in the system, it can be done once or twice, but it will be difficult to sustain it in the long run. Instead of thinking about how to persuade sales, think about how to empower sales and create value for sales.
For example, it can bring high-value customer leads to sales and help sales select customers who are likely to make a deal and have a large transaction amount. Currently, this can be achieved through a set of scientific digital marketing methods, that is, by creating a data science algorithm model.
On the other hand, the marketing department is perceived by the sales department as a department that spends money and does not fully realize the value of the marketing department. I think we need to strengthen marketing training within the company to make both sales and management aware of it. What does marketing do, what value can it bring, and what are the specific methods to empower the sales team.
I don’t think that marketing work is to make sales work redundant. After all, marketing does not face customers so frequently. Instead, it should adhere to the attitude of close cooperation, integrating resources, and sincerely empower customers and customers. Market frontline sales team.
Part 2 Deeply understand customers and customer characteristics
An in-depth understanding of customers and their characteristics should become one of the important indicators for evaluating marketers. What is tested is insight ability , and insight ability is usually the ceiling of marketers. The stronger your insight ability, the greater the possibility of developing effective marketing activities in the future. A deep understanding of customers and customer characteristics should consist of the following aspects:
What customers care about : What problems do they hope to solve with your product?
What is their user profile like , such as location, age group, industry, education, corporate position, etc.
What kind of personality characteristics do customers have : extroversion, introversion, work-oriented or interpersonal-oriented? DISC is a good model that can classify the general characteristics of customers.
The above is generally the work that sales will conduct in-depth research before visiting customers. For points 1 and 2, the marketing department can conduct systematic analysis through labeling and other methods, and use digital marketing tools to systematically label these customer behaviors and characteristics. management, thereby providing assistance for sales to conduct door-to-door visits and further follow-up with customers.
Part 3 Focus on refining value propositions and effectively communicating marketing information
Refining product value propositions and conveying marketing information to target customers through appropriate channels is where the marketing department can generate core value. The refining work of value proposition can be divided into several steps:
1 Step One
Identify market segments and pain points of customer groups
2 Step Two
Conduct a SWOT of the market segment where the product is located , list what competing products there are, what value propositions each conveys, and what is the unique value point that your product can provide to customers.
3 Step Three
Conduct interviews with stakeholders, such as management, sales, and carefully selected potential customers. What information do they want to convey, what are the actual problems they face, and what channels do your customers use to learn about industry and product information? These can all be done through Obtain key information through on-site interviews
4 Step Four
Based on the results of market analysis, competitive product analysis and stakeholder interviews, refine more than 2 sets of value propositions and make them into market materials. Select some customers for A/B testing and evaluation, and finally select one set as go to market core materials, and then derive this set of core content on value proposition delivery in various forms and put it into all channels.
Product market validation
Product market validation (PMF) means that the product can meet user needs and market demand. PMF is the company's verification of the value of its products. It is the most important and the first thing that must be done after a product is launched. How to find and judge whether a product reaches PMF? Runwise innovative methods help you scientifically and quickly achieve product PMF!
Part4 Understand the size of vertical markets and customer groups
Before conducting marketing activities targeting a certain vertical market and customer group, it is necessary to estimate the capacity of the market and customer group, as well as the future sales potential, so that you can be confident and in control.
If the market is big enough, then even gaining 5% more market share is very considerable. On the contrary, if the market itself is not big enough, then even if you have no competitors in the market, the future growth potential will reach the ceiling sooner or later. There will be bottlenecks, so before mobilizing corporate resources and launching large-scale marketing activities, you must understand the size of the vertical market and customer groups. You can obtain this information through the following methods:
01 White paper on the industry in which the institute operates: including the overall existing market capacity, market competition and future development trends
02 Clarify which part of the life cycle the market and product are in , whether it is the introduction period, the growth period, the maturity period or the decline period. This will also determine the direction of marketing activities. For example, if the product and market are in the introduction period, then the early efforts will be required. There is more work on market education, and if you are already in the mature stage, then what you have to do is to defeat your competitors and capture more market share. If it is already in a decline period, then don’t spend any more resources on marketing in that vertical market.
03 Research whether the size of the customer group is large or small, whether the customer is large or small: whether the customer group is large or small, whether the customer is large or small, the marketing actions taken are different. If there are many customers, scattered, and the unit price is relatively small, then a multi-frequency large-scale reach and large-scale conversion strategy should be adopted, which is somewhat similar to the C-side strategy, with the marketing funnel moving downwards.
For those cases where the number of customers is small, but the demand for a single customer and the price per customer is high, it is necessary to be more targeted and adopt a customer-based marketing approach, which is the current popular account-based marketing approach. First, thoroughly analyze the individual customer and do in-depth analysis. , and then copy it up to other customers with similar user portraits.
Part 5 Measure, analyze and then generate insights and adjust behavior
Effective quantification and analysis of marketing activities, and then generating effective insights for the next marketing campaign, timely adjustment of the marketing department's behavior and co-construction methods with sales are the focus of the marketing department.
When a budget goes to the CFO for approval, the CFO is most concerned about the ROI that the activity can bring. The difficulty for the marketing department is how to quantify all visible marketing activities, such as how much retention an exhibition can bring. Funding, this is still simple, but how many of these leads are actually converted into business opportunities in the end? Because the conversion cycle is long, it cannot be realized in a short time. Therefore, the value of marketing activities needs to be viewed from a longer-term perspective. For the ROI For assessment, it is recommended to start from two points:
- New customer value : How many new sales leads are brought from a single marketing activity. Based on past historical conversion data, it is estimated how many of these leads can really be converted into business opportunities. What is the average value of a single business opportunity? This method estimates the value measurement at the actual sales revenue level brought by a single marketing activity to solve the problem of requiring longer conversion cycles and being unable to provide timely and effective ROI measurement.
- Existing customer value : For potential customers who are already in the lead pool, they have not yet been converted to the next step, nor are they closely tracked by sales. However, they are part of the company's data asset accumulation, so marketing activities can be regarded as Good marketing content can be used to activate existing customers and inform these potential customers about the brand’s actions, such as major events, new product launches, etc. Once these customers are successfully activated by a single activity, then according to the first method, through the conversion rate Historical data can easily calculate the value of this part of existing customers
The sum of the two parts of customer value equals the actual value of a single marketing campaign.
By estimating the ROI of marketing activities and taking stock of the details in the marketing activity management process, we can find out what needs to be done, what is helpful for improving ROI, and what should not be done, summarize and systematically sort it out, and form corporate asset accumulation. Come down and archive it to accumulate experience for future marketing activities and other similar marketing activities.
To summarize, the five core elements to create the world’s best marketing standards are:
- Always maintain close cooperation with sales and management
- Gain a deep understanding of customers and customer characteristics
- Focus on refining value propositions and effectively communicating marketing information
- Understand the size of vertical markets and customer segments
- Measure, analyze, then generate insights and adjust behaviors
No matter how big the company is, what industry it is in, how high the budget of the marketing department is, or how many people there are, marketing leaders can plan the department's marketing strategy according to the above criteria.
Original link:
Innovation Guide｜Five core elements to create world-class marketing standards
Extended article:
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