{"id":7649,"date":"2014-02-28T12:55:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T12:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3forward.com\/?p=7649"},"modified":"2019-01-28T02:03:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T02:03:26","slug":"heres-twelve-more-reasons-your-company-is-not-getting-market-traction-3forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7649","title":{"rendered":"Here Are Twelve (More) Reasons Your Company is NOT Getting Market Traction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had the following conversation with three different CEOs over the past month.\u00a0 Each one started like this, \u201cWe have a great set of products but absolutely no marketing strategy to support them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Sound familiar?\u00a0 Is this something you or your Sales Leader say about your company\u2019s lack of marketing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

B2B Chief Marketing Officers and marketing organizations alike have been whipped into a frenzy over the past couple years with demands to transform their outdated operations and get with the times.\u00a0 What sort of demands you ask?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a short list of the topics on the top half of every CMOs to-do list<\/strong>, right now!<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Social media<\/li>\n
  2. Lead generation<\/li>\n
  3. Sales 2.0<\/li>\n
  4. Marketing automation<\/li>\n
  5. Mobile<\/li>\n
  6. Search engine optimization<\/li>\n
  7. Micro-sites<\/li>\n
  8. Big data<\/li>\n
  9. Multi-channel communications<\/li>\n
  10. Content<\/li>\n
  11. Lead scoring<\/li>\n
  12. Initiative-level ROI\u2019s<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Get the point?!\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Not wanting to get caught flat footed by their boss, Chief Marketing Officers<\/strong> dutifully spin as many plates as possible at once, dilute the effectiveness of their best internal resources, outsource and contract where they feel it makes sense and crank out the volume.\u00a0 At the end of each month these same CMOs present their departmental dashboards to the executive team, demonstrating an overwhelming array of seemingly impressive charts, graphs, tables, trend lines and other PowerPoint candy (they are marketing you know) that proves their doing all the right things.\u00a0 Most of it is mumbo jumbo to the rest of the executive team so they all keep quiet when question time rolls around.\u00a0 Off the hook for another month, the CMO takes their seat.<\/p>\n

    Despite all this marketing activity<\/strong> it\u2019s not unusual for the CEOs and Sales Leaders at these same companies to lament their company’s lack of traction with real prospects.\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u2019s something we are finding in many of these situations: Marketing is skipping the foundation work necessary BEFORE<\/strong> implementing ANY<\/strong> of these tactical activities.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Meaning, the CMO has specifically defined with their CEO and Sales Leader the following:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Market(s) Where They Wish to Compete<\/li>\n
    • Drivers and Issues Impacting Those Markets Which Their Company\u2019s Products Address<\/li>\n
    • Competition and Alternative Solutions They Must Overcome<\/li>\n
    • Decision Makers, Influencers and Researchers Within their Prospect Companies<\/li>\n
    • Trigger Events That Will Suggest Their Prospects Are Experiencing a Priority Shift<\/li>\n
    • Content and Information Their Contacts Search For, At and Following, a Priority Shift (Buying Process Stages)<\/li>\n
    • Tactical Plan for Engaging Those Contacts Prior To and Throughout The Buy Cycle<\/li>\n
    • Definitions of a Qualified Lead and Agreement with Sales on a Handoff Process<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Our experience is that only UNTIL this foundational marketing work<\/strong>\u00a0has been completed and documented can a CMO build an effective marketing plan, budget and KPIs to measure the marketing activities they decide are optimal for their company.<\/p>\n

      Until then, they are just making noise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Had the following conversation with three different CEOs over the past month.\u00a0 Each one started like this, \u201cWe have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7827,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions\/7827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}