A Comprehensive Set of Services that Delivers the Outcomes of Marketing-Automation and Sales-Enablement Programs A key focus of the Avitage iNgage program is to help customers create, manage and deliver compelling, relevant content aligned to and in support of the customer buying process. This content also enables sales to quickly and easily access and consume subject-expert knowledge to better prepare for customer conversations. It provides support to sales for multiple methods of customer engagement—touch points—that impact sales productivity and efficiency.
Avitage Vision Our vision is to enable every business professional to assemble and deliver a custom video or webinar, tailored to any constituent, anytime they desire, quickly, easily, with acceptable professional quality and desired business results. This does not mean they must produce the source content. On the contrary, to realize this vision, organizations must accommodate the realities that business professionals lack the time, desire, creative or technical skills to do this with traditional methods. But consider the potential impact this could have on your customers, prospects, partners, internal communications and marketing and sales professionals if this could be achieved. More than a vision, we have developed methods that are part of our iNgage program that make this a reality.
Marketing Automation Companies involved in a complex, business-to-business sales process are experiencing a dramatic change in customer buying. The Internet has enabled buyers to operate in stealth mode far deeper into their buying process by providing convenient access to a broad range of information that reduces their perceived need to call on vendors for help—especially in early stages when problems are being diagnosed, perceptions are being formed and buying criteria are being established. Marketing automation provides vendors the ability to identify and track buyers as they progress through their process. Through a combination of buyer-oriented content, web-delivery methods and automated delivery and tracking, companies are looking to make it easier for buyers to find them. The end objective is to establish relationships—and earn permission—to continually communicate with and educate buyers to the point they are ready to formally engage with a vendor. As a result, vendors actually "get in the game." Ideally, they gain an advantage and accelerate the buying process. This reduces competitive risk and raises revenue and profits.
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
Sales Enablement Sales faces similar challenges, as the buying process has shifted from individual, expert purchasing agents to line-ofbusiness buying groups. This creates numerous communication challenges for sales professionals:
Capture customer attention
Diagnose problems and their underlying issues
Map the many people who may be part of the buying process
Influence key buying criteria
Position relative to competitive alternatives, including remain with the status quo
Create relevant "touch points" through a protracted buying process
Demonstrate differentiated value
Provide appropriate proof points
Create urgency to act
Use scarce, but critical, subject-expert resources and their knowledge at appropriate times
No longer are sales professionals the "walking encyclopedias" they perhaps once were. There are too many offerings in the sales bag, too many stakeholders with different needs and perspectives, too many competitive alternatives for buyers. Often, buyers are more knowledgeable than the people selling to them. How, then, does a sales professional earn the status of "trusted advisor"? How can organizations minimize the "intercontinental ballistic missile" (ICBM) method of launching content to buyers over the heads of sellers, rather than passing it through sellers to optimize relevance and timing for customers and personalization and branding for sales professionals? How can organizations optimize access to scarce, but critical, subject experts and their knowledge to bring them into customer conversations at the appropriate times? How can sales people easily access and deliver content that helps their customers continue to carry messages after they have left the premises?
The goal of a sales-enablement program is to provide sales professionals with the information their customers need, in the form each customer prefers, delivered at a convenient time to ensure it will actually be consumed. It also involves providing the situational knowledge that enables sales professionals to conduct quality, valueadding conversations about the problems each stakeholder is facing and substantive ideas about how to resolve those problems.
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
And it involves convenient, cost-effective ways to bring the appropriate "experts"—technical, process, customer, third party, company executive—into conversations at the right time to address buyer needs at each stage of their process.
Avitage iNgage Program To resolve these communication challenges, companies require marketing and sales communication strategies, knowledgeable resources to execute those strategies, high volumes of appropriately configured content, an efficient and effective process supported by best-practice methodologies and automation systems that enable and support these processes.
For 15 years, Avitage has served a wide variety of business customers with communication services that have evolved into the iNgage program that supports the creation, management and delivery of communications aligned to and in support of the buying and selling processes. Our program management and expertise helps customers establish strategies, plans and processes that accelerate implementation and results, while reducing trial-and-error risks. Our unique and integrated systems provide the necessary automation. Our “publishing” process for creating high volumes of modular content, quickly and cost effectively provides the flexibility to address the many variations of final deliverables to satisfy the specific interests of different stakeholders with relevant information at each stage of their buying process.
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
Process and Methods Our processes have been refined over 15 years of
Strategy and Point of View
servicing b-to-b marketing and sales customers,
Any strategy is based upon a set of core beliefs.
especially for lead generation, content creation and front-line communication support. Avitage provides resources to partner with and
Ours include:
Buyers are in control of their buying process
Buyers—especially of complex products or solutions—need education and help beyond what they expect, if they are to optimize their results
Sales processes must align with customer buying processes and be supported with appropriate automation just to be in the game
Marketing and sales are content-driven processes today because of the Internet and the way customers use it to buy
For b-to-b selling organizations, sales will impact over 80% of brand and buying decisions, therefore, we must enable sales to be viewed as "trusted advisors" in the eyes of buyers
Marketing can provide services to sales throughout the entire customer-engagement cycle—far beyond lead handoff—to make sales more productive, efficient and reduce selling hassles
Companies need to shift from periodic, "random acts of marketing and sales enablement," to continuous and coordinated programs to create, manage and deliver customer-relevant, salesready content
Organizations need new methods to create content to meet advanced requirements for highly relevant, tailored content. This has implications, including volume, cost, development times, quality flexibility or configurability, maintainability, multimodal delivery and personalization
Organizations should build content to a welldefined "message map" that identifies common variables for final deliverables, such as buyer role, issues and interest options, stage of the buying process, industry considerations, competitive issues, communication purposes, etc.
Organizations need to produce more content as rich-media programs, similar to the television and audio methods buyers prefer: audio podcasts, streaming media, PDA-deliverable video
complement the internal resources of customer organizations.
Content-Creation Process and Resources Marketing and sales professionals need customerrelevant content available the instant their customers are ready. This means it must be pre-produced and ready for instant customization and delivery. Organizations need the equivalent of a publisher’s editorial plan. This should be based upon a clear, concise understanding of the customer's needs and key underlying issues. The capabilities that address those needs should be organized to reflect competitive parity and real, differentiated value. We call this a "value map." Formal messaging, from both the buyer’s perspective and the sales professional’s perspective should be developed, documented, tested and validated. A process for continuous checking and enhancement should be established. This provides marketing the input they need to develop "message maps," which are the foundation of a contentcreation strategy and process. Next, we evaluate the customer's buying process and ask:
What information do our different buyers require at each stage of the buying process?
What content should be developed?
How should it be delivered, so it is conveniently available and consumed by buyers?
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
In a similar way, we evaluate the sales process and ask:
What information do sales professionals need in order to have better conversations with different stakeholders at each stage, given different competitive realities?
What visual support would improve the quality of those conversations?
What key messages will be delivered by third parties—referral sources, customer sponsors, etc.—that could benefit from dynamic, multimedia communication programs?
We have discovered the advantages of first considering PowerPoint® as a content-creation tool. PowerPoint has evolved beyond its early, bullet-style, presentation purposes to become a simple, but powerful, business graphicdevelopment tool. PowerPoint is naturally modular—the slide—and greatly simplifies the process of creating many variations of tailored, finished programs. Graphics and images are easily inserted and arranged. This medium lends itself to highly visual and succinct text, which reduces creation time. Narrating slides is simple and the combined media are automatically converted into modular Flash® files.
PowerPoint and Multimedia Management and Delivery Avitage Collections provides a database approach to managing "collections" of programs and support materials, tailored for common marketing and selling scenarios. This is accomplished without duplicating master slides, audio or Flash assets, as is the case with physical file structures and complications. This greatly simplifies maintenance of original source content. The drag-and-drop process of organizing modules makes the process of creating new programs and collections fast and easy. Finally, Avitage Collections enables content to be delivered in many different modes: audio only (MP3), subscription podcasts, streaming media audio-graphic "vignettes," YouTube® videos, in Web meetings, on PDAs—even as custom PowerPoint shows. If some editing or tailoring is required before final assembly and delivery, it is easy and intuitive enough for any business user to accomplish.
Program Management and Production Resources Avitage program management works with customers to define the program, process, standards and methods that will be used to create, manage, deploy and deliver content. We provide documentation that helps keep everyone on the same process. We support integration with existing systems. Avitage production resources supplement internal resources, especially in producing and cleaning PowerPoint slides, capturing and editing audio and
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
software demos, repurposing training programs, videos, whitepapers and other materials into source content and rich-media assets that are used to create final programs and collections.
Marketing Automation and Communication Systems Marketing-automation systems automate the delivery of content through a variety of web mechanisms: email, newsletters, webinar invitations, content embedded in websites, landing pages, microsites and more. Coupled with Avitage Collections, drip marketing for lead nurturing is an automated process. "Rules" help determine what content should be delivered to each constituent at predefined times and methods. A marketing database continually compiles the results of numerous buyer interactions that, over time, establish a profile indicating the person's role, interests, stage of the buying process, content viewing and engagement history.
At predefined times, sales-ready leads are handed off—to a telesales, direct sales or even channel-sales organizations—along with the history of buyer engagement up to that point. Based upon the buyer profile, a suitable Avitage Collection is also provided to sales as a recommendation of the next stage of customerengagement content that is ready for use with customers. Avitage program management and support resources work with customers to define the program, process and rules that drive this effort. We provide the resources to set up the marketing-automation systems, templates, website integration and campaigns. We assist in defining workflow processes, standards, methodologies and best practices. We can assume responsibility for executing the full program.
Lead-Generation Support For more than 10 years, Avitage has provided lead-generation support services to companies of all sizes. Leadgeneration activities include:
Webinars and Webcasts
Virtual Shows
Email Campaigns, Landing Pages, Surveys
Multimedia Vignettes and Viral Videos
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
eNewsletters
These activities are naturally and properly outsourced to minimize the adverse impact on overworked staff from interruptions that often occur during busy periods. Avitage lead-generation support services improve the quality and reduce risk during event execution. The best practices we've developed over 10 years result in higher outcomes, whether measured by campaign consumption or event registration and attendance.
Lead Nurturing Today's marketing challenge is to cultivate leads sourced from lead-generation efforts to the point they are ready to hand off for sales engagement. Lead nurturing raises return on lead-generation investments, even as it raises the quality of leads for sales and the productivity and efficiency of sales efforts.
Avitage partners with customers to deliver the optimal results with the least cost and effort. We manage website pages to optimize lead tracking and nurturing results, execute campaigns and build content delivered through these programs. Sales requires assistance from marketing to conduct ongoing drip communications during prolonged buying cycles. Marketing-automation technology, coupled with Avitage process, systems and resources, provides this service to sales. The result is better delivery of relevant content and better tracking of prospect activity and higher return on content investments.
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
Knowledge Acquisition and Sharing The iNgage process, services and systems are a fast, low-cost way to acquire, organize and deliver organizational knowledge and best practices. Audio is a simple and costeffective way to acquire and transmit subject-expert knowledge. Audio can be produced in foreign languages far faster and less expensive than document processes. Avitage Collections organizes and embeds knowledge right in the sales-workflow process. As sales finds topical Collections of information that align to their customer communication objectives, coaching audio and links to learning modules are embedded as related "knowledge objects." This provides both just-in-time coaching, as well as sales-performance support aides—especially to help deliver complex and important messages.
Customer Engagement The communication options available online today have dramatically raised the opportunity and challenges for customer engagement and communications:
Instant, live engagement off websites by inside sales or marketing
Live web meetings for customer meetings and sales support
"Second Voice" multimedia "vignettes" and videos
Personal URLs
These technologies make it possible to shift delivery of experts in both space and time. Applications and scenarios include:
Technical expert explanations delivered as pre-recorded vignettes or live web meetings and video conferences
Important messages delivered through third parties as recorded vignettes
Short, modular and relevant educational programs
Sales proof points and customer-relevant stories
Collaborative online meetings with visual support that reduce lag time and travel costs
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
Impact and Value The Avitage iNgage program delivers significant impact and value to your organization. For Marketing
A coordinated method for lead management and scoring that improves efficiency and efficacy
Automated communication touch points that work to accelerate the customer buy cycle
Improved return on content investments through better content creation, management and deployment
Reduced organizational expense through minimization of dependencies on valuable subject-matter experts and other key sales-support resources
For Sales
Improved ability to engage customers with relevant, targeted streaming media
Better understanding and internalization of complex messages through just-in-time sales-support mechanisms
Increased sales efficiencies by reducing search and configuration time through automatic delivery of optimized collections of sales-support content
Getting Started on the Journey While it appears daunting, creating, managing and delivering content this way doesn't have to be overwhelming and costly, if you have the right strategy, process, methods and make it an evolutionary process. We've developed and implemented proven processes that can be tailored to your objectives and current workflows. Systems, policies and methods can be integrated with those that currently exist and work well for you now. These ideas are easy to pilot and to expand incrementally.
Contact Us for More Information If you’d like to learn more about the Avitage iNgage program, please call us or visit our website. Phone: 781.522.8000 Email: info@avitage.com Web: www.avitage.com
® Flash, YouTube and PowerPoint are registered trademarks of their respective owners. © Copyright 2009 Avitage, Inc. All rights reserved.
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com
Appendix: Implementation Steps Define
Create Key stakeholders: program and process owners,
approvers, customers, support
Define the buying process
What information do buyers need at each stage —
issues, map capabilities to issues, identify key value points
define campaign and drip-marketing lists for primary offerings
What do you want to learn about buyers at each
programs, identify versions
Scripts and storyboards for topic pieces
Tags and metadata taxonomy: database,
Introduction, conclusion and personalization
Define the sales process — what content does
options
Review, edit and approve scripts and storyboards
Build landing pages, surveys, templates (email,
Scripts — email, telesales
third-party delivery
Knowledge content, coaching points, sales aides
What messages/content meets these needs — list Identify roles, needs/issues, industries and any other important variables for buyers and sales
Define "rules" and buyer flow process through content
newsletter, webinar invitation, campaigns)
conversation support, proof points and to enable
and outline details
Group topically to prepare for creation/production process
Produce Content
Graphics, images, animations
Narrate script
Produce any necessary video
Produce message modules with variations
Set Up
Topic outlines of specific content pieces or
stage
sales need at each stage of the sales process—
Message maps: develop messaging for key value points by stakeholder
content, lists
Value maps: key business needs with underlying
Marketing-automation system and database — enter variables, coded contact database
Processes: create, submit, organize, manage and update, deploy and deliver, support, feedback,
Avitage Collections — collection schemas
iterate improvements
Document portal — upload docs, obtain doc links
Standards
Upload and organize content and links to content
Methods
Systems, tools and technologies
Resource requirements, providers
Roles and responsibilities
Entire program
into Collections
Website pages and appropriate links, landing pages, forms, etc.
Lists, campaigns, newsletters, invitations
Implement
Document, train, practice, test
Start initial execution
Collect feedback, review, improve and continue
1432 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 | 781.522.8000 | info@avitage.com | www.avitage.com