Finding ways to stand out from the crowd, propose fresh ideas to bring in pipeline and keep a hold of your resellers’ attention is a constant challenge for channel and field marketers alike.
So, Virginia Bray, sat down with Shaun Larvin from VMWare - EMEA Synergy Lead and channel expert, and Sandrijn Stead, Co-Founder and CEO of Capametrix, to talk about the challenges they see and how one solution is breaking the mould – and delivering staggering results:
We’ve pulled out some of the highlights from our webinar and follow up questions – so check these out or watch the on demand recording here.
SS: Attention spans are shrinking. That’s a trend that’s been happening for some time now, regardless of the pandemic which has only accelerated it. And it’s not just customers - getting attention and engagement from channel partners can be a real challenge too. We need to think of new and innovative ways to engage our channels – with sophisticated programmes that deliver high value and at the same time, are simple to execute.
SL: VMWare has introduced the assessment toolkit that we’re here to talk about - we call it the Digital Consultant. It effectively packages up a whole lot of expertise and insight into an easy-to-use assessment that marketers and sales people can share with their customers and prospects. It allows us to equip and enable sales teams and helps them to become instant experts, able to drive a conversation around complex issues, and steer towards the right outcomes without the need for extensive training.
So, its massively scalable for us across different geographies, channels and teams.
In essence what we’re doing from a marketing perspective, is making it easy for customers to buy from us, by guiding them through the buying process, interactively
SS: Consultative selling is about having the right kinds of conversations, whether digitally or in person, around goals and barriers, pain points and solutions, rather than features and functions.
Enabling channel and direct teams with the right tools to guide those types of conversations, and helping the buyer navigate through a complex decision process by sharing relevant and useful content, drives more business opportunity and an increased chance of winning business.
SS: In essence it is a managed service, based on a SaaS platform that is purpose-built and highly optimised for sales enablement. A template guides the buyer through a series of affirmative statements, aligned to best practice and captures response. Each completed response generates a personalised report for the prospect.
SL: Customers want to fill in these assessments because the output drives real strategic value to their business. The toolkit takes a very complex scenario and simplifies it, delivering responders with a personalised document that gives them a clear roadmap to success.
SL: Insight captured helps the sales person to identify pain areas and indicates the best solutions for that that seller into that individual organisation. Essentially it drives a talk track for a sales engagement that addresses the specific needs, based on real insight rather than guesswork.
This in turn which speeds up the sales cycle phenomenally and highlights cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.
SS: In account-based marketing and selling – you’re looking to engage at multiple points of contact within the organisation. And the assessment works in that way because it gives you something to take to them, that delivers huge intrinsic value to an organisation.
For example an assessment can be geared and branded towards a specific target organisation. And individual reports generated that can then be built into a consensus view across the whole organisation or individual teams within it. It’s powerful stuff.
SS: As well as accelerating opportunities in the here and now, insight captured from the assessment toolkit can also inform future marketing content themes, communications programmes, product strategy and direction. The data can be sliced and diced and used to identify trends and regional or industry differences.
SL: Success breeds success. So, it’s all about execution and how you deliver it. Ensuring that customers have access and sales people are motivated and incentivised to promote it is key.
VMWare identified champions to drive the pilot programme. The pilot was incredibly successful generating over 200 completed assessments that align to highly qualified leads.
And, of course, others see this and are curious to find out what’s driving that kind of success.
SL & SS: Execution is key – so getting the message out to marketing and sales channels via email, social media, webinars, website links, email signatures and attaching to assets. Webinars can be a really effective way to highlight the process and the value from assessment to a wider group.
And it also works well in face-to-face situations once we get back to that. One of the best ways to distribute the assessment is at events and large exhibitions where you can use it at your stand or booth. It can even be distributed on virtual events through the use of a QR code.
As part of the solution, as well as setting up and onboarding you with the assessment, Marketing Fusion provide the accelerator tools to promote it, and work with you to drive engagement across the sales and channel teams as well as your prospects and customers.
Watch the webinar on demand to find out how powerful this toolkit can be – and talk to us to see for yourself the impact it could have for your organisation.
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