The hallmarks of an aligned sales and marketing plan

***This is a live article being updated throughout 26 February 2020.***

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1. Clarity.

It’s a word that means the quality of being coherent and intelligible.

I work with manufacturing and professional services clients to align their positioning, sales targets and marketing activity to attract customers in selected niches. 

I help them really figure out who they do their best work for, present their credentials and position their expertise in a way to attract them. 

We look for trends in sales history, analyse the companies and individuals involved and look at the sector as a whole to identify the best people to target.

Because when you know WHO to approach and what they NEED, marketing becomes a lot easier. 

2. Creativity. 

It’s a noun that means the use of imagination or original ideas to create something

Most of the manufacturing and professional services businesses I’ve worked with over 25 years really struggle to bring creativity to their promotional efforts. 

Often because they operate in a silo and think they need to be conservative because their customers are. So they can lag behind in adopting new approaches and technologies. 

The truth is, in 2020, you need to standout more than ever. And being creative in how you align and implement sales and marketing activities can have a crazy impact on your people, processes and business.

We’re talking about giving some of your expertise away, talking about who you work with and the impact you have, profiling your key people and their best ideas. 

The easiest way to do this is by chronicling business activities in real time. Formats and technologies change over time but the storytelling remains. It helps you attract, engage, nurture and convert all in one. 

3. Consistency.

Turning up frequently, talking about the things that matter to your target customers helps manufacturers and professional services get remembered. For when the time comes.

But with 99% of the social web ‘lurking’ and not engaging because its either not the right time or they don’t know how or feel compelled to, it’s not enough to post once a day or once a week.

You need a strategy that puts company content and key ambassadors in front of people regularly.

By having the clarity of purpose and targeting, and creativity in thinking and deployment, your marketing becomes intrinsically more consistent.

4. Confidence.

The feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something.

How confident are you in your marketing?

If you’re a marketer, you might be pretty confident. If you’re responsible for hitting sales targets, maybe less so.

Does your website talk to your target audience or is it

1/ too generic or

2/ too fixated on what you offer (not customers)?

How exciting, entertaining or informative is your content?

Would you hire you based on what you see on your social media channels?

Time to be brutally honest and more intentional with your marketing.

Marketers, tasked with lead generation, have got lazy focusing on metrics that look good and show progress but don’t deliver value into the business.

Probably because the strategic clarity, creativity and consistency isn’t in place.

Confidence comes from knowing what you’re doing has an impact.

5. Strengths.

Do you play to strengths or try to improve your weaknesses?

I think it’s better to build a business plan, sales pipeline and marketing machine that plays on your strengths.

The other option is exhausting and is probably not going to attract the calibre of customer you want either.

Thinking about your strengths, take a piece of paper and make three columns.

• The first column is about what you’re good at – the products and services people buy.
• The second column is the benefit these things bring to customers – make them as practical to the human users and buyers as possible.
• The third column is how getting these benefits makes customers feel – this is the magic sauce you work into your marketing content.

You might have to dig deep to find it. You might have to go asking. But once you find it, that’s the thing you campaign on.

The benefits and features become the back up story.

The thing is though, most companies are confused about what they are actually good at and the impact it has.

Are you?

6. Funnels

Highly aligned sales and marketing plans in manufacturing and professional services are not focused on fluffy marketing metrics. It's about sales.

I usually reverse engineer funnels based on historical sales data and map it to the company’s own sales process to arrive at key numbers to set and achieve growth.

Here’s how it works and the data you’ll need.

1. Your sales figure for a defined period.
2. Your average sales price (order value)
3. This gives you a number of orders needed
4. And a number of customers (you need to make the call if all are unique or repeat)
5. Reverse engineer your sales process – the outline process you follow from receiving a call or web lead through to conversion.
6. Look at your conversion data to give it a ratio at each stage so you can start to add some numbers.
7. You’ll arrive at the required number of leads needed to work through the process and convert
8. And a total number of people who you should be engaging with across all marketing platforms.

7. Objectives

In a manufacturing or professional service environment, the spectre of the shiny new thing is ever present. 

It’s imperative to set long term and short-term SMART objectives for the business. These are important as they keep everyone and everything on track.

SMART objectives can be set in four areas to ensure strategic and tactical implementation is optimal.

SMART business objectives should be built around growth, market share, brand perception and improving the understanding of the mission. 

Examples

• Brand / Perception = For (business name) to be seen as the (leader/go to) in (sector/market) by (date)
• Expertise positioning = To be recognised by (target audience) as the (leader/go to) in (sector/market) for (specialism) by (date)
• Growth (measures of success) = To (grow / increase reach / customers / staff / penetration) in (sector/market) by (date) through (specialism)
• Market Share (customer base) = To achieve (number / %) of market in (location / sector) through (specialism) by (date). Include direct customers / referral partners / associates as necessary.

SMART sales objectives in this area should focus on total sales (revenue) by product, service or customer. They should be aspirational, taking into account your previous sales, your current order book but also have some stretch and SUPPORT the achievement of your business level objectives.

Examples

• Annual sales target = To deliver top line turnover sales of ___ for (business name) by (date)
• Quarterly sales target = To deliver quarterly sales of ___ for (business name) by (date)
• Monthly sales target = To deliver quarterly sales of ___ for (business name) by (date)
• Sales target by product / service = To deliver (number) of unit sales of (product/service) worth (￡ unit value) meaning total sales of (￡total) to (target customers) by (date)

SMART market objectives act in support of your over riding business and sales objectives, providing the strategy to drive achievement. Market objectives should be focused around qualifying penetration and growth in key markets and audiences with specific product and services).

Examples

• Break into a new market / audience = To win/convert (number) new (specialism) customers in (sector/geography) by (date)
• Grow a market / audience = To add/convert (number) new (specialism) customers in (sector/geography) by (date)
• Become known for specific product / service = To connect with (number) influencers / attend events in (target market / sector) by (date)
• To work on a third party basis with (number) of targeted partners by (date)

SMART Marketing Communications objectives act in support of your over riding business, sales and market objectives, providing the tactical project action plan, where you need to be focused daily. Marketing communications objectives should be focused around step improvements and focus at a tactical level. Setting these goals will drive daily activity that will help meet all your objectives.

Examples

Create content =

• Write (number) article’s a week for my website/blog and distribute to all social media channels and email
• Create one download about (topic) every two months and campaign across social media and email

Build social media followings  =

• To increase number of Linkedin connections (weekly/monthly) by (number) by inviting targeted new connections and posting (frequency) about (topics). 
• To increase Facebook page likes and follows (weekly/monthly) by posting (frequency) about (topics) on the page and contributing to relevant groups.

Grow an email list / podcast subscription / group membership

• To increase subscription/membership of (thing) by (number) by (date – or per month)
• To produce / distribute (number) of (thing) per (week/month) by (date)

Online / offline networking =

• To attend at least (number) offline event per (week/month) and follow up with new connections within (time span)

Web traffic / engagement =

• To increase web traffic from (number) to (number) a (week/month) by (add content objective).
• To increase web conversion (leads) by adding (number) download links to every page/blog by (date)

8. Assets 

What are the assets that the modern manufacturing and professional service business needs to market effectively and make sales?

First off, you need a strong single, highly valuable lead magnet to attract customers. I favour buyers guides which package answers to all the problems your target customers face in choosing products and services like yours… or a partner like you. 

So few are embracing this in these sectors, there is still a massive early adopters advantage.

Then you need to build a strong ‘call to action / next step’ when they’ve downloaded.

This will be handled by a pre-developed email funnel that email addresses are added to. A typical sequence might be laid out as possible:

+ 1 hour email = Thanks for downloading. Just checking receipt

+ 1 day = What did you think? We’d love feedback

+ 3 days = Invitation to a webinar / live demo / discovery call

+ 5 days = Second invitation / offer email

+ 8 days = Second offer email

+ 10 days = drop them onto main email list if no further action taken.

For pitching, proposing and winning work, it’s important to have a core set of case studies, testimonials and credentials ready.

These could be abridged for social media use, in slide format for presentation or as single page downloads from a website or hub.

Case studies cause many manufacturers huge problems because it isn’t always contractually possible to name the customer (or end user) or indicate there was a problem that needed solving. 

Where possible though, talking about work is critical as it leads to more work.

And don’t forget to create blog posts and Linkedin posts for key ambassadors that answer frequently asked questions that come up in the sales cycle. 

9. Campaign 

Whilst there needs to be an ongoing narrative in the marketing of modern manufacturers and professional services business, campaigns are critical too. 

The point of all the thinking and work in this post is to arrive at a position where you can confidently position your expertise and market with intent. 

I’m a big fan of targeted, integrated campaigns for a sustained period of time. 

All the best coaches talk in terms of 90 days, 3 months, or a quarter to making sustainable change and progress. 

I talk 12 weeks, coining The Incredible 12 Week Marketing Plan in 2017.  

In just 12 weeks, by being clear on your target audience and creatively and consistently building weekly communications around your core assets, you could position as the go to expert with 

-       A high value lead magnet 

-       Building an opted in email list with content 

-       An interested highly segmented audience

-       A minimum of 12 (once a week) articles giving your website higher SEO visibility

-       Multiple press opportunities 

-       Huge social media machine across many platforms

-       100s of Linkedin connections

-       New speaking and contribution opportunities.

This part of the model is where the requirements of the organisation and how its audience wants to be communicated with can change. 

But that’s what a robust planning process is all about!

If you liked this, please give it a like and leave a comment about the best bit of advice in the article.

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Get in touch to discuss your tailored Marketing Plan in a Day session today. It hits brand positioning, outlines a targeted sales pipeline and creates a marketing strategy with content.

With a 25-year time served and qualified marketing sector professional who has worked on three continents right across B2B.

Details here: https://visionb2b.lpages.co/vision-b2b-marketing-plan-in-a-day/