MarketBridge Insider #3
We’re Not Out to Make Friends
Issue #3, September 4th, 2018
Do you think you’re the world’s greatest strategist? Are you convinced that your “gut instincts” are right 99% of the time? Admit it — you are as scared of making the wrong strategic and operational decisions as the rest of us!
In this week’s MarketBridge Insider we are NOT out to make any friends. As you come back from the 2018 summer slowdown, we want to challenge your 2019 strategy. Are your sales channels truly up for selling digital products? Are you letting opinions get in the way of data? Is your social listening program “interesting, but not very”–or is it driving action?
First, in “Should You Fire Your Sales Force?,” we address the often ignored issue of product/channel fit. Second, we stand up to the boss (maybe that’s you) and ask if the HiPPO in the room (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) is trumping data and insight. Third, we challenge your marketing team to see where they deliver in the Marketing Analytics Family Tree. And lastly, we ask if you are failing to capture hidden digital and social signal that could be informing strategies in the next quarter.
We are actually nice people, but it’s time to get off the beach and get back to work. Enjoy!
Tim Furey,
MarketBridge CEO
Should You Fire Your Sales Force?
Probably not, but you might have to if you don’t plan carefully when introducing new products. On-demand / SaaS models put customers closer to their desired products than ever before, and these customers can see legacy channels as a hindrance rather than a benefit. Executives need to equip all channels—field, tele, digital, and partners—with the right people, content, and processes to teach instead of push. And, in some cases, brand new channels might be in order.
Let’s Talk About the HIPPOs in the Room
HiPPOs are the “highest paid person’s opinions”, and they can still dominate the discussion, even at data-driven companies. It takes both hard work and common sense to translate disparate data into clear-head decision making. We detail five steps to take to banish the HiPPOs, and instead make scientifically-based sales and marketing decisions.
Marketing Analytics Family Tree
Marketing analytics wasn’t even really a thing 20 years ago, but today it’s possible to get a Master’s Degree in it. Our Chief Analytics Officer was curious about the scope of this multidisciplinary field, and put a stake in the ground attempting to organize tasks as diverse as ethnography and machine learning. Print this out and hang it on your wall as a quick reference to map out what you’re doing, and what you might be missing, when it comes to data-driven marketing decision-making.
Bringing the Social Insights Story to Life
Too often, social listening becomes an unstructured “nice-to-have” exercise, where facts and insights never seem to make an impact on the business. To make social listening actionable, it’s critical to structure the analysis more like a traditional research endeavor, with clear objectives, a beginning, a middle, and an end. We detail a six-chapter outline to make your social insights truly actionable and drive incremental sales.
