Four Ways You Are Marketing Backwards. Do you jump when Sales asks for something?

You know the story. It repeats like clockwork every thirteen weeks. It’s the end of the quarter, half or year and Sales needs to close more deals to make “the number.” Consequences are dire, and Sales has let you know that the end of life as we know it depends on your ability to deliver X number of hot new leads within the next 12.5 minutes! It is truly time to panic. Or not.

True Story
One year, I was preparing for the annual, week-long company shutdown for the week of Christmas – New Years when, at 3:00 in the afternoon on December 23^rd, I received a frantic email from a Sales Manager in one of our regions. “I need to get an electronic Holiday card out to my team’s prospects right now!” I was not amused, and probably push the boundaries of propriety with my response. It went like this.

So, let me understand this. You’re saying Christmas snuck up on you this year, the sneaky way they move it around every year? And you want to send an electronic holiday card for which you have no campaign brief, no content, no message and the SLA for email sends is seven working days.

Based on these facts, we could deliver your “Holiday” card approximately January 13^th. Your lack of preparation and disregard for the 3 emails we sent you in early November asking for Holiday card requests has left you in a situation where you can either a) look really stupid for sending a Holiday Card two weeks after the Holiday ends, or b) look slightly stupid for not sending one at all.

Which brand of stupid would you like to be?

I never heard back from him. Ever. I might have made him mad. But that ended the conversation immediately, because who wants to escalate their own incompetence, ignorance or lack of situational awareness to their superiors?

Frankly, I do not recommend this level of snarkiness in your internal communications. I had history and had built a great reputation for delivering under tight deadlines and difficult situations, so my professional currency bank was overflowing after a banner year. Had it escalated I would have received an official slap on the wrist and a hundred unofficial “attaboys,” but again, I don’t recommend it.

The Point?

The point is that – despite my extreme level of snark – my response was:

1.     Based on facts. Guess what, Christmas and New Year’s Day don’t move. Not noticing that until it’s too late is kinda your own fault.

2.     Based on preparation. We had created a process to accommodate these foreseeable requests. Christmas did not sneak up on us.

3.     Based on communications. We created an internal, three-touch campaign to communicate this process to the audience who needed to know this information.

You can do this, too. There is no reason for lack of a plan or a process with which to execute it.

Change the conversation.

Back to our original, predictable, thirteen-week cycle of lead acceleration requests. Like Christmas and New Year’s Day, the end of quarter is a fixed date that doesn’t move. It is tied to your organization’s fiscal calendar. If you can predict it, prepare for it! Let’s look at the facts you already know about the end of next quarter.

1.     Sales will ask for more Leads.

2.     Those “Leads” are really MQLs that need to be qualified, mid-funnel Contacts who have displayed some level of buying behavior. Some portion of that funnel would be ready to buy given the proper incentives. Some of those know those incentives come at the end of the quarter and are just waiting to hear about them.

3.     You have the capability to pre-fabricate campaigns designed to deliver that message to that audience.

Why would you wait until Sales asks for this inevitable campaign when you already know it’s coming? Start building today, so you are prepared to execute before Sales even asks. You will begin building up currency in your professional reputation bank for that (also predictable) day you will need to cash it in for some snark!

Notes:

Prepare for the predictable instead of reacting to it.

Build repeatable and scalable processes you can utilize over and over.

Communicate your plan to your constituents.

When communicating you plans, it is critical that a clear and consistent message is always delivered. Does your entire team have good clarity on what you are expected to deliver next quarter? Next year? In next week’s edition of {Demand Gen Brief} we will look at internal communications and how it is critical to your interdepartmental communications in: Four Ways you are Marketing Backwards, Part 3.