Timothy Riesterer's Blog, page 5

The Science of Unforgettable Marketing Content

People act on what they remember, not what they forget. So, if you want your marketing content to inspire action, it must be memorable. This article dives into new scientific research that shows you how to make your content impossible to ignore.

The post The Science of Unforgettable Marketing Content appeared first on Corporate Visions.

How to Create a Consistently Effective Marketing Message

An effective marketing message should do more than make a good first impression. To influence buying decisions, your message needs to make a lasting impression. The most effective marketing message connects to your buyer’s situation and their motivations within that situation.

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How to Create a Consistent and Effective Marketing Message

An effective marketing message should do more than make a good first impression. To influence buying decisions, your message needs to make a lasting impression. The most effective marketing message connects to your buyer’s situation and their motivations within that situation. So, how do you know what motivates your buyer?

The post How to Create a Consistent and Effective Marketing Message appeared first on Corporate Visions.

Why is Most B2B Marketing So Forgettable?

The post Why is Most B2B Marketing So Forgettable? by Leslie Talbot appeared first on Corporate Visions.

Every marketer wants to make an impact. Today, with 80 percent of the sales cycle happening in digital or remote settings, you’ve never had a greater opportunity to directly influence buying decisions.

And the number one factor driving those buying decisions? Memory.

Your buyers interact with your marketing in one moment, but they make the decision to buy in the future. That means the messages and assets you create must stick in your buyer’s mind long enough to influence their purchase decision.

Unfortunately, most marketers don’t believe their content is memorable or actionable.

In our recent industry survey, 87 percent of B2B marketers admitted they’re unsure or don’t believe that their audience acts on their content.

And even though the vast majority of marketers (91 percent) agree that it’s important for their audience to remember their content, only 26 percent feel confident that the marketing materials they produce are, in fact, memorable.

Why? What makes most marketing content so woefully forgettable? And what can you do to make sure your buyers remember your marketing?

How Much Do People Forget?

Our studies show that people remember, on average, only 10 percent of the information they consume after 48 hours. This percentage varies—sometimes, they may remember three percent, sometimes 12 percent, but on average, it’s a tiny portion.

Now, imagine your content reaches five prospects at the same company. Our research also suggests that the small amount of information they remember from your content will be completely random. If you don’t control which part of your message they remember, each of those five prospects will walk away with a different interpretation.

That kind of random memory is exactly the wrong outcome if your goal is to drive consensus around a specific buying decision. You don’t want your buyer just to remember something—you want them to remember the right thing.

Why Most B2B Marketing is Forgettable

Our research has identified four common problems that make B2B marketing forgettable.

Messages lack situational context – If your marketing message doesn’t apply to your buyer’s specific situation—for instance, whether they are a prospect or an existing customer—your audience won’t care to remember it.

Content is unfocused – If the resulting content lacks a clear focus and a crisp, well-articulated idea, your audience won’t remember what you want them to remember.

Visuals are uninspiring – If you don’t present your offers using appealing, well-designed visuals, your audience will forget to act on them.

Stories get lost in the crowd – Without a compelling narrative that speaks to the decision-making part of the brain, your story (and your brand) get lost in the crowd.

You may be competing against people’s natural tendency to forget most of the information they view. Still, you can improve your messages, content, visuals, and stories to ensure your audience remembers you better.

How to Make Marketing More Memorable

If marketing is influencing more buying decisions, and the primary factor driving decisions is memory, it naturally follows that the way to ensure buyers act on your marketing is to make it more memorable.

So, how do you do this?

By developing situationally specific messages based on buyer psychology. Creating unforgettable content assets that get audiences to focus on the most important parts of those messages. Designing compelling visuals that persuade buyers to act versus just looking pretty on the page. And building stories that intentionally drive memory, decision, and action.

In this article series, you’ll discover new research and marketing skills in those four areas that will guide your buyers’ decisions in your direction.

Watch Dr. Carmen Simon’s on-demand webinar, How to Make Marketing Memorable, to learn more about our new research.

Read the other articles in the series:

Marketing is Moving Further Down the Sales Funnel

Next up: How to Create a Memorable Marketing Message

Thank you for reading this post from Corporate Visions - Differentiate Your Marketing Messages and Sales Conversations.

Marketing is Moving Further Down the Sales Funnel

The post Marketing is Moving Further Down the Sales Funnel by Leslie Talbot appeared first on Corporate Visions.

If you’re a marketer, you’re responsible for more of the buying journey than ever before.

This is a big shift from your traditional role, which was creating awareness and running campaigns at the top of the funnel. Those campaigns generated interest, but at some point, there was always that handoff to Sales, who would ultimately guide the buyer toward a decision.

Then, several years ago, it all started to change. Buyers began doing research, forming opinions, and narrowing their options all on their own. In 2012, CEB noted that B2B buyers weren’t contacting suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process was complete.

In other words, nearly two-thirds of your buyers’ decision-making process was happening without any input from your sellers.

As buyers turned to digital content to learn and shop at their own pace, Sales lost some influence, and marketers found themselves responsible for guiding buyers’ decisions with useful and persuasive content.

The problem? As one Think with Google article put it at the time, “Most content is low value; it may be interesting or get a lot of ‘engagement,’ but it doesn’t help buyers make commercial decisions… Marketing’s content creation machine is not designed to create consistent, focused messages.”

Today, it’s a similar story but with higher stakes.

The Evolving Role of Marketing

Prominent industry analysts now say that 80 percent of the sales cycle happens in digital or remote settings. And Gartner reports that when B2B buyers are considering a purchase, they spend only 17 percent of their time meeting with potential suppliers. That means that if a buyer is considering, say, three vendors, they spend only five percent of the buying cycle with any one seller.

Digital content and changing buyer preferences continue to push the role of marketing even further down the sales funnel. And that means owning an even bigger chunk of the sales process.

Business development functions are shifting to the marketing organization. In fact, some industry leaders believe that more than 50 percent of sales enablement organizations will eventually report to Marketing.

In addition to doing more on the acquisition side, marketers are also more involved in customer engagement marketing—keeping and growing business with existing customers. It’s Marketing that runs renewal and upsell cadences, creates quarterly business review decks, and educates customers on additional purchase options.

As the marketing role evolves, one thing is clear: It’s no longer enough to drive awareness or interest—you are now in the business of influencing buying decisions.

But how do you influence those decisions with your marketing?

How Can Marketers Adapt?

Corporate Visions research shows that the primary factor that drives decisions is memory. Your buyer interacts with your marketing content in one moment, but they decide to act later on.

So, if you want to drive buying decisions, your marketing must be memorable enough to not only stick in your buyer’s mind as they move through their decision-making process but influence their action at the point of decision.

But is it possible to influence your buyers so they remember you in the future, when they make their decisions?

Yes, you can, according to our new research. And over the next several weeks, you’ll see that research and learn how to directly influence buying decisions with your marketing.

Watch Dr. Carmen Simon’s on-demand webinar, How to Make Marketing Memorable, to learn more about our new research.

In this article series, you’ll find out how to make your messages, content, visuals, and stories engaging, different, and persuasive enough to stick with your audience and guide their buying decisions in your direction.

Next up: Why is B2B Marketing So Forgettable?

Thank you for reading this post from Corporate Visions - Differentiate Your Marketing Messages and Sales Conversations.

Proving the Power of Situational Enablement

The post Proving the Power of Situational Enablement by Tim Riesterer appeared first on Corporate Visions.

Situational Enablement has tremendous benefits for your organization. Imagine being able to ready your sales force to respond to urgent threats or opportunities in weeks, instead of waiting months.

But realizing the power of Situational Sales Enablement requires a new approach to training and coaching your salespeople on new skills. And it hinges on what we call Inline Training—a flexible, on-demand training model that works in line with your sales team’s day-to-day workflow.

Inline Training Versus Live Classroom Training

In a controlled field test with a Fortune 250 software client, we compared the effectiveness of Inline training versus live classroom training and “stand and deliver” practice.

The field test used comparable sales teams, in the same market segment, over the same period of time, and exposed them to the same training concepts. The only difference was whether the training was delivered live or using our Inline training model.

The results? Sales teams who completed Inline training had greater pipeline increases, similar Annual Contract Value, and twice the boost in confidence levels when engaging executive decision-makers, compared with those who attended live classroom training.

Another client surveyed their participating sales force and discovered that reps preferred the Inline training approach over classroom training nearly four-to-one for being more effective and providing more personalized coaching.

Fluency Coaching: Deliberate Practice, Better Coaching, Greater Proficiency

Inline training is statistically more effective than the live classroom, and participants prefer the experience four-to-one. So, what’s the secret?

In a classroom environment, sales reps don’t get the personalized 1:1 coaching they need to master their new skills. A few participants get the opportunity to present in front of the room. But due to time constraints, no one receives the kind of detailed feedback they need to practice, improve, or become fluent in their delivery.

By combining Fluency Coaching and online training modules, the Inline training model ensures your reps submit practice assignments that are reviewed and graded by an expert coach using a rubric. Every participant receives tailored feedback on their practice recordings, so they know precisely how they can individually improve.

Plus, when reps know they’re about to be judged on their delivery, they’re more motivated to get it right. In fact, the average learner completes about six practice runs before hitting the submit button.

All of this is reinforced by top-tier examples of great delivery from their peers, so they know exactly what good looks like, and what qualities make those performances stand out.

The Power of Situational Sales Enablement

Scheduling sales training and enablement to follow a yearly plan won’t help you address your most critical business challenges when they arise. And the speed at which you’re able to develop and deploy new messages, content, and skills can mean the difference between gaining the edge or falling behind.

Market changes, competitive moves, and business strategy shifts don’t fall neatly on a calendar. Responding to these urgent needs requires flexible, responsive Situational Enablement that you can deploy in weeks—not months or years.

Inline training and Fluency Coaching make it possible. And, as you see from these field test results, it’s proven to be as effective, if not more effective, than live classroom training.

Learn More About Situational Enablement

In this blog series, I showed you what it looks like to execute Situational Sales Enablement at your company.

Watch our on-demand webinar, The Power of Situational Enablement, to learn more about this new model for training and enabling your team.

Read the other articles in the series:

Winning the Moment with Just-In-Time Situational Sales EnablementThe Three Waves of Sales EnablementThree Examples of Situational Enablement in ActionDeficit Learning and the Rise of the Just-in-Time, Situational SalespersonThe Necessity of Fluency Coaching

Thank you for reading this post from Corporate Visions - Differentiate Your Marketing Messages and Sales Conversations.

The Necessity of Fluency Coaching

The post The Necessity of Fluency Coaching by Tim Riesterer appeared first on Corporate Visions.

One of the claimed strengths of the traditional classroom training and enablement events was the power of roleplay, or “stand and deliver” activities. But there’s another, more effective way for your reps to gain proficiency in newly learned skills: Fluency Coaching.

In Situational Enablement programs, practice activities must be captured in video submissions that require practice and a level of demonstrated proficiency. Not unlike classroom roleplays, it’s still not salespeople’s favorite part of learning. But, incorporating a “fit for duty” exercise is essential to ensure proper adoption and utilization.

We call this online “mission” activity Fluency Coaching—ensuring your reps demonstrate an acceptable level of fluency on the topic. The opportunity is to make this experience even more effective than typical classroom practice assignments.

Traditional “Stand and Deliver” Constraints

Look at the constraints that typically take place during in-person enablement events, which all stem from limitations around time and class size:

Partial Assignments – You’re put onto a team of three or four people (triads or quads), which means you only perform a quarter of the assignment, not the whole assignment.

Insufficient Practice – You might get 30-45 minutes in a hallway to practice. With several people in a group and only a small window of time available, each participant doesn’t get much time to practice their portion of the assignment.

Fuzzy Coaching – When groups come back to present, the facilitator has to try to give each person actionable feedback and coaching. But it’s sort of fast and fuzzy. It’s not written down anywhere, so there’s no avenue for follow-up. And, the participants are just relieved it’s over.

Untested Proficiency – Since most learning stops at the end of the day, there’s really no way to demonstrate or certify levels of desired proficiency. You might receive a certificate of “completion” just for showing up, but that doesn’t mean you’ve truly mastered anything.

Limited Attendance – It takes an awful lot of classroom workshops to train a globally-dispersed group of sellers, often just 20 people at a time. That’s assuming their manager didn’t decide to pull them and “keep them in the field” when training day finally arrived.

The Fluency Coaching Alternative

Now, contrast this traditional classroom experience with Situational Enablement containing a Fluency Coaching component, where the rep must create and deliver an online challenge assignment:

Complete Assignments – Every individual completes the training assignments on their own. So, you’re responsible for the entire presentation—not just bits and pieces split across multiple people.

Repetitive Practice – You need to record a video challenge, so you’re going to practice a lot. Each salesperson is different, but the average rep records their assignment more than six times before hitting the submit button. That’s a lot more practice than in the classroom.

Documented Coaching – After you submit your assignment, you receive detailed, documented feedback and specific recommendations for follow-up. That review is time-stamped, memorialized, and available to you and your manager for review and coaching.

Demonstrated Proficiency – In the end, you know exactly how you did and how you scored. You might even need to repeat the process if you didn’t score well enough. Some companies use pass/fail grades because they want to know their learners are “fit for duty” when it comes to critical skills and important messages.

Unlimited Scale – Because it’s all individual and online, this approach can scale as fast and as far as you need it to. You don’t have to wait to schedule roadshows or classroom workshops across the country or globe to roll out situation-critical messages and skills.

Situational Sales Enablement with Fluency Coaching

In this blog series, I’m giving you more details on what it looks like to execute Situational Sales Enablement at your company.

Watch our on-demand webinar, The Power of Situational Enablement, to learn more about this new model for training and enabling your team.

Read the other articles in the series:

Winning the Moment with Just-In-Time Situational Sales EnablementThe Three Waves of Sales EnablementThree Examples of Situational Enablement in ActionDeficit Learning and the Rise of the Just-in-Time, Situational Salesperson

Next up: Field Tests Prove the Power of Situational Enablement

Thank you for reading this post from Corporate Visions - Differentiate Your Marketing Messages and Sales Conversations.

Deficit Learning and the Rise of the Just-in-Time Situational Salesperson

People are more willing to learn and will learn best when they’re in a deficit—a moment of need. This kind of learning is what we call, “Deficit Learning.” For example, do you remember the last time you had to change a flat tire? Chances are, it’s been a while. And when it happens, you’ll probably […]

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Deficit Learning and the Rise of the Just-in-Time Situational Salesperson

The post Deficit Learning and the Rise of the Just-in-Time Situational Salesperson by Tim Riesterer appeared first on Corporate Visions.

People are more willing to learn and will learn best when they’re in a deficit—a moment of need. This kind of learning is what we call, “Deficit Learning.”

For example, do you remember the last time you had to change a flat tire? Chances are, it’s been a while. And when it happens, you’ll probably need to refresh your knowledge by dusting off the old owner’s manual or looking it up online.

And that’s okay. Why? Because you learn best when you’re in a deficit. You learn best when you need to learn something—not when knowing something might help you, but when it absolutely will.

Salespeople are no exception. Your sales reps need the Deficit Learning approach when they have a skills gap or an acute performance need that they need to address now—not six months from now.

Enabling the Deficit Learner

Training and enablement that’s inflexible and event-based won’t be of much help when you need to respond to an urgent situation right away. Examples of those situations might include:

A troubled sales territory that’s up against a newly aggressive competitorAn emergent threat to a dominant product or service that makes defending, retaining, and protecting your position paramountA new product or go-to-market strategy launchA major economic event, like a global pandemic

Research shows these different situations call for dramatically different messaging, content, and skills training. One-size-fits-all messaging won’t cut it today. After all, it’s the situation and circumstances your buyers and their companies are facing—not their role or responsibility—that dictates their buying decisions. And that’s why a planned calendar of “just-in-case” training, which reps may or may not need, will have limited impact.

What they really need is Situational Enablement—just-in-time messages, training, and sales enablement that’s flexible, responsive, and tailored to the buying situations your prospects and customers are up against.

The technology to make just-in-time, Situational Enablement a reality has been ready for a while. It’s the messaging, content, and skills—and the research to validate them—that were lagging… until now.

Making Deficit Learning a Reality

In urgent, back-against-the-wall moments, you have no option but to learn, adapt, and either get yourself out of a tight spot or maximize and emergent opportunity. That’s why Situational Enablement is best suited for increased adoption and impact.

Salespeople face varying degrees of deficit every day. It’s a KPI that indicates a deficit somewhere in the sales process. Or it’s the company asking them to learn a new product or skill. Or it’s a significant market change, like a global pandemic, that requires them to pivot their dialogue and approach instantly with customers.

Each of the three waves of sales enablement (discussed in a previous article) solves a greater and greater degree of deficit, while the immediacy and urgency of the deficit increase with each wave.

At the highest level of strategic and executive altitude, sellers face more urgent deficits, which means they need to learn and execute quickly. This naturally increases their motivation to proactively seek out learning.

The more acute and pressure-filled the deficit is, the more ready, willing, and able your reps are to invest energy into learning new skills.

In this blog series, I’m giving you more details on what it looks like to execute Situational Enablement at your company.

Watch our on-demand webinar, The Power of Situational Enablement, to learn more about this new model for training and enabling your team.

Read the other articles in the series:

Winning the Moment with Just-In-Time Situational Sales EnablementThe Three Waves of Sales EnablementThree Examples of Situational Enablement in Action

Next up: The Necessity of Fluency Coaching

Thank you for reading this post from Corporate Visions - Differentiate Your Marketing Messages and Sales Conversations.

Three Examples of Situational Enablement in Action

The post Three Examples of Situational Enablement in Action by Tim Riesterer appeared first on Corporate Visions.

This article describes three examples of Situational Enablement in action.

What is Situational Enablement?

Situational Enablement programs are flexible and responsible sales enablement initiatives you can roll out to quickly address must-win business challenges and market opportunities.

At the core of Situational Enablement is the integration of tailored messaging, content assets, and relevant skills training to respond in weeks (not months) and win at that moment. Consider these three examples.

1. Communicate a Price Increase

At the beginning of the year, one company decided to increase the price of their services—an initiative that would account for seven percent of their growth for the year. To make it happen, they needed to train about 6,000 sellers to deliver that price increase message to their customers.

The Solution

Message: A message specifically designed to persuade customers to pay more without disrupting the relationship so much that they start to shop around. The message was based on an exclusive, tested and proven framework for communicating price increases.

Content: A “Why Pay More” call guide was created to provide structure for the conversation. It also included sample email and voicemail messaging content, along with potential questions, objections and responses.

Training: Micro-training videos were embedded to reinforce key concepts from the company’s popular negotiation skills training. These one-minute knowledge refreshers were linked to the moments in the messaging they specifically supported.

Delivery Timeline: Four weeks from concept to rollout.

2. New Product Launch

A company was poised to release a highly innovative product to the market. The rollout time on the unique offering would typically take a year or more to reach all 10,000 sellers. But they identified a small, 90-day window before the competition would be able to replicate the same service, so it was imperative to launch as quickly as possible.

The Solution

Message: A disruptive and differentiated product launch story was designed to grab prospects’ attention, convince them to change to the new service, and create clear contrast from the competing alternative. The message was based on an exclusive, tested framework.

Content: A teaser video, sales presentation deck, and call guide were created to help generate demand for a meeting and enable the first call and follow-up.

Training: The message was incorporated into an online training experience focused on skills for disruption and differentiation. It also incorporated an online mission where salespeople had to record themselves delivering the new product message using the skills to demonstrate proficiency.

Delivery Timeline: Six weeks from concept to rollout.

3. Respond to a Competitive Move

One company discovered that top executives from their biggest competitor were aggressively targeting their best accounts. This competitor was hosting executive-level meetings with existing customers to actively derail the relationship. The company needed to immediately respond and ward off this urgent competitive threat.

The Solution

Message: An executive-level, retention-focused message was designed to protect and grow the business with senior decision-makers at key customers. The message was based on an exclusive, tested framework for elevating the conversation to the c-suite.

Content: A detailed “Defend and Expand” messaging document provided the essential talk tracks, including example messages to gain access, presentation and conversational content, as well as objection handling responses.

Training: Micro-training videos focused on key executive conversation techniques were embedded into the document to provide both the story and skills training. A virtual training session, including role-play rehearsal was conducted and recorded to prep the sales team for making the executive calls.

Delivery Timeline: Three weeks from concept to rollout.

Urgent Needs Require an Urgent Response

In this blog series, I’m giving you more details on what it looks like to execute Situational Sales Enablement at your company.

Watch our on-demand webinar, The Power of Situational Enablement, to learn more about this new model for training and enabling your team.

Read the other articles in the series:

Winning the Moment with Just-In-Time Situational Sales EnablementThe Three Waves of Sales Enablement

Next up: Enabling the Deficit Learner.

Thank you for reading this post from Corporate Visions - Differentiate Your Marketing Messages and Sales Conversations.