Taking notes in a conference can be so boring - I did it anyway!

Some interesting quotes from a conference I attended ... excerpts from my LinkedIn post ...

“Customer Experience (CX) leaders outperform industry”

“Problems will be there … how customer-centric organizations can predict the ones with the most impact … will determine business success”

“Change management is about people.”  

“People are hesitant to change anything that they think they have built.” 

“Re-targeting with same or similar products tends to create an unpleasant experience”  

“Try and match campaign intent with customer intent”  

“You are not always your cookie”  

“Matching demographic data to cookie data can be much more useful, timely and relevant.”

 

More in the article here ...

Marketing and Sales - 4 Steps to Collaborate & Grow

Marketing and sales, while aligned at the corporate level, need to also be aligned at operational level to optimize delivery of products and services. 

As a marketer, I wanted sales to succeed because that had a direct impact on my portfolio’s growth projections. However, that could only be achieved when sales teams were enabled with the right level of operational support, and we would collaborate towards delivering those growth targets. If you are a GM, marketer, etc., who is measured on “Year-over-Year growth,” here are some insights on how we (marketing) supported sales team to achieve 5x portfolio growth. 

1. Create processes for sharing customer and market data – communicate with your sales teams on what does the target market look like, to educate them about how to sell the “right” product(s) to the “right” prospect(s). Sales team needs to know how our customers use our products, so they can better understand customer need and prepare to answer specific questions. The process also helps sales teams prepare for upcoming product changes, considering lead times needed to update training manuals, refine sales pitch, train the agents, etc. 
2. Create easy product bundles and sales hierarchy – as a service provider, you probably have more than 1 product in your portfolio. Bundling some of these products is a great strategy to get greater adoption from the customers and communicate the “value for money.” However, it is even more enticing to sales teams, since they can now meet wider customer needs, easily explain the value proposition (think sales call talk times), and possibly make more money (greater sales incentive). Don’t forget to guide the sales teams in how to pitch and what order to explain various product features in, based on your customer surveys and market research.
3. Create fair incentive and charge-back policies – sales incentive are a great way to motivate sales teams, but ensure that “quality” of sale is never compromised. If left unchecked, “slamming” will get you volume, but after-sale churn will eat into the overall growth and acquisition costs. Having a solid charge-back program will greatly help with better quality sale and subsequent lower churn – make sure that the program is transparent and well understood by sales teams.
4. Create reporting and feedback mechanism – one of the biggest pain-points that I had to address was that of inadequate reporting on sales orders, customer activations, charge-back policies, etc. Institute reporting that clearly shows the funnel and is transparent enough for the sales team to understand how they are making money. Most importantly, make sure marketing and sales teams are looking at the same set of numbers! Create adequate feedback mechanisms (weekly, monthly meetings) to gather field data and share any product updates.

Bear in mind that most of this information resides within marketing organizations, as part of their LTV, ROI, etc., analyses. However, actively communicating with sales will empower them and make them see the results with more context.

When engaged, sales teams have great potential in shaping, positioning and marketing our products and services. Integrate this channel into your market intelligence network to boost your market intelligence and growth strategies.

Be a leader, sans the title!

Leadership is not defined by the title; instead it is personified by each and every selfless act of ours, as we go about our daily routine.

In my first job in corporate world, we were a group of analysts who had started around the same time in a rapidly expanding division. There was a person in the group, who appeared to be more engaged with everyone. He was the one to inquire about your previous job, your fist day at the new work place, your office space and how you were adjusting to it, etc. He was also the one who organized our first offsite lunch and introduced us to each other, even before we could do it ourselves. In essence, he appeared to be most interested in us, the people on the team and appeared to be trusted by all. Needless to say, that he was the unheralded leader of the group and we would all unwittingly look to him to plan our next outing or carry on the conversation, when there was an extended silence at the table. I remember being in awe of his people skills.

More recently, while leading a new product launch, I had pulled together a team of operations, marketing and IT analysts to help build the business case. When I had to shift focus to the marketing plan, I had operations analyst run scenarios on the business case model. In a few days, during the management presentation, I called out the help from the operations analyst and credited him with the good job he did at building the business model. Although impromptu, my gesture was greatly appreciated by this person and he acknowledged how empowered he felt in his role. I remember the episode, not because it was an impromptu call-out, but how good it made me feel somewhere deep inside. It clearly made my associate's day. We get plenty of similar opportunities daily to recognize someone new or junior on the team and help them grow. Sometimes, we just need to shift our focus away from ourselves!

We know good leaders are people oriented and selfless, but there is no rule that "non leaders" can't do it - that is, make a difference! Here's what I have stored away from these musings:

1. Show genuine interest in your associates and listen to "who they are"
2. Help your colleagues make new friends and encourage them to participate
3. Hand out recognition and praise to highlight smallest of contributions

Good leaders start early, and nurture themselves and their surroundings equally. Titles are meant for business cards anyway!

Marketers - Re-assess Your Marketing Plan Now!

With a quarter gone, marketers ought to be digging into business performance and results. The lessons learnt and course-correction (if needed) should be clearly outlined for the remainder of the year. While the lessons are one for the books, the insights about course-correction dictate how we end the year. And, irrespective of how deep we are into our marketing commitments for Q2, I have found that this is a crucial time to revisit the marketing plan. Slow down after the frenetic pace of Q1 (as it often is in many industries), and spend some time to analyze and level-set the expectations for the rest of the year. Yes, I am suggesting slow down – just think of the benefits:

1. You will most certainly have a better sense of any corporate-level tactical shifts, and their likely impact on revenue projections and upcoming marketing campaigns
2. You will likely learn something new about your product performance and customer-buying propensities
3. You will be able to devise tactics to ensure revenue commitments stay on-course, based on 1 & 2 above
4. You will end the year with a bang – guaranteed!

So, what are we to consider now? 

• Analytics – make sure Q1 results are in and being analyzed for ROI by product, customer segment and marketing channel, not only for attribution, but also for tactical moves in Q2 and Q3. What is going to be the marketing goal based on these results? Is it better engagement with customers, or drive more sales, or brand promotion, or product updates? The answers to these will greatly impact your acquisition and retention models for 2016!
• Seasonality – you probably have a good grasp of the seasonality in your industry, sales, etc. But, make sure that there are no extraneous factors that may warrant changes to your campaign strategy. For example, consumer-spending tends go into a lull in Q2, before picking up again in Back-to-School and Holiday seasons. How is it being projected to be this year for your line of business?
• Customer Targeting – with slower months, it is also imperative that, to maintain a healthy ROIs and CPAs, more valuable leads are targeted with relevant offers. Sharpen your mailing list and tailor the products to the segments that are more likely to buy now. Predictive acquisition and retention models ought to be able with better campaign design and retention efforts!
• Communication Channel by Product – In my multi-product environment, I always look at what products are more likely to appeal to a buyer, through which channel. It could be based on demographics, geography, interest, etc., but that email, or content marketing, or newsletter that is in the works, better be "more" relevant. For example, online Travel used to take precedence over online Shopping during these months. What makes sense to sell to your target customers during the lean months?
• Budgets – understand the budget spends and make adjustments based on any new corporate imperatives. Usually, any over- or under-spending in Q1 could be corrected quickly during this phase. The ROIs and attribution by channel will shed more light on how is each channel performing for the brand.

A little postmortem of marketing performance from Q1 is probably one of the more important projects that are often inadequately addressed or staffed. If done right, it instills discipline and focus, which in turn, promotes efficiency and effectiveness of marketing operations. As I said above, we want to end the year with a bang!

5 Considerations for a Subscription Model

In my previous post on modeling a subscription business, I had mentioned acquisition and retention modeling of subscriber business. Here are a few factors to investigate and consider, as we go about creating a sustainable subscription based product/service portfolio. 

1. Focus on quality acquisition – do your research on what will be a good take rate for the product among your target base. Do not over-sell it – sales channels are prone to doing that.
2. Reinforce Price to value – this falls in the same league as product life. We need to make sure that the price per month is relevant and the product value is continuously emphasized in customer’s mind. Pricing may need adjustments, as markets change and technologies evolve. Keep the customer apprised of such changes and emphasize the value - always! 
3. Continuously measure product engagement – how frequently is the product used? The more a customer engages with the product, the better – this is to reinforce the value your product offers that is relevant to customer need. Further, how easy is it to switch? If there are switching costs, customer decides for you, but if these are manageable (for customer), it becomes imperative that we keep the customer engaged and away from the competitor offers.
4. Tackle the 0-90 day churn head-on. Buyer’s remorse is most pronounced within the first 90 days of the purchase. Keep the product relevant and incentivize the customer to stay on. Listen to your sales channels, customer support and customer surveys for continuous feedback. However, the churn curve will be always at its peak during this period, so make sure to take the higher churn into account, when modeling for subscribers or revenue projections.
5. Strive to be an engaging brand – don’t forget the acquired customer and let them drift towards the retention category. Engage with them through updates, enhancements, thank you notes, newsletters, etc. Whatever works and is relevant, for developing a culture of subtle brand reinforcement in customer minds. These engaged and happy customers are your currency.

Subscriber growth modeling can be refined if due attention is paid to the above parameters and the teams are aligned to engage the customers as outlined above. Forecasting growth and performance, in turn, becomes lot more rewarding, literally!

3 E's of Effective Leadership

The greatest responsibility of a leader is to make their employees successful. This is, more often than not, the one trait that does not garner enough attention from those measuring leadership success. It is about how well the employees are flourishing under one's leadership!

Use the 3 E's to answer this question; perhaps a better measure than (or in addition to) the usual promotions, team size, numbers, etc.

• Empower your employees (go do it!) – set clear goals and expectations, but don’t stymie free thinking. Establish the culture where managers can think freely and are “empowered” to make decisions that move the project forward.

• Enable your employees (provide the required resources!) – get down from the “I know all” pedestal and learn about the daily struggles of a manager in balancing deliverables and getting projects prioritized for delivery. Then make sure to provide the required resources and/or remove the organizational hurdles to “enable” employee success.

• Engage your employees (give a pat on the back more often!). Employees are more engaged when they are recognized. But, do it on a regular basis, not just once a year. Even the small achievements should be called out at weekly reviews or other team gatherings. It will go a long way in keeping them motivated and “engaged” towards the company’s success.

Just like the other assets within the company, employees also need nurturing, albeit with a human touch!