If you currently don’t have a plan and wish to create one here, is a good way to do it using a two-step process:
Step One is straightforward but critical, and it might even seem simple: document the actions you are taking now on each of the five levels. The best approach is to regard this step as a “quality improvement audit,” in which you’re trying to root out inefficiencies. Such audits carefully document every step in any process, including marketing.
A marketing example might be to make sure an email database is fully functional—that is, the emails actually exist and will receive whatever messages you might be sending. It would be impossible to test every address. In that case, statistically valid sample can be used. Also, “seeding” the database with email addresses that come back to you will reveal whether the email distribution “engine” is doing its job.
Step Two is to develop a list of marketing areas you need to take advantage of. Each offers an opportunity to differentiate your company from the competition. There won’t always be such an opportunity, but it’s important to check and then you’ll know where your process is similar or maybe even the same.
Target Market:
Geographic: Determine scope (national, regional, international, local)
Size: Are you targeting by number of employees, for example, or by sales?
Vertical Market: What business are these prospect in? Is it right for your product or service?
Micro Level: Which prospects in each of those areas have the problem or problems that we best address?
Lead Generation and Prospecting:
Will we rely on marketing to generate leads, or prospecting by the sales force? Or prospecting some other way: social media, for example, or distributors? What will the prospecting process look like in each case and as a whole?
Discovery:
Who will create the discovery questions that will enable the salesforce to efficiently identify the prospect issues and help all parties decide on what is best for market and then for each customer? The questions will likely be different. How will you discover both the need and the need behind the need?
Qualification:
What is the best process to use to qualify leads and then prioritize them?
Demonstration:
At which step in the process will your salespeople demonstrate your product or service? It’s critical it be done at the right time— not too early and not too late. What assets will be part of it including samples, plant tours, and case histories.
Presentation:
How will you ensure that presentation is prospect-centric, not seller-centric. Critical to that is using information learned in the discovery process effectively. How will you do that?
Closing:
What details will make up your closing process and ensure that it is customized for each prospect?
Follow-up:
Effective follow-up for leads and servicing existing accounts requires a staffing plan. Prioritization of both existing customers and prospective ones is fundamental to being sure the information you find is actionable—either correcting and improving or decreasing or increase the amount it’s used.
Analysis of Lost Opportunities:
How will you learn why you won and why you lost? Will the analysis be in person and who will do it—the salesforce or an unbiased third party?
