Solutions Insights - Solutions Marketing Blog

Key Account Marketing - 4 Lessons from the Field

2012-05-10T21:26:11Z

Guest Blog post: Mike Peters, Managing Director - Whitespace Consulting Group and an Associate of Solutions Insights

I recently participated in the Solutions Insights research on Key Account Marketing Programs. The research project made me think of my own experiences designing and implementing a Key Account Marketing Program for a Big 4 global consulting firm. Our research showed that we were not being considered for large sales opportunities -- that we were qualified for -- within our key accounts. Many times, we became aware of large projects only after they were awarded. This finding was particularly troubling since our success rate, when invited to compete, was extremely high. In baseball terms, we had a great batting average once we were allowed to swing the bat; we just needed to get into the batters box more often.

Solutions Marketing Success Story: Leveraging Your Clients to Learn how to Develop and Sell Solutions

2012-04-25T15:15:35Z

Is your company facing the following problem?

You’re struggling to get your sales force to identify the real challenges and business problems that your clients are facing, which usually results in a conversation around the products and services in the portfolio that your salespeople are most comfortable selling….which, of course, is usually not what the client is looking for.

Understanding the Roles, Responsibilities and Future Opportunities for a Solutions Marketer

2012-04-23T14:30:22Z

For nearly a decade, we've seen IT and other high-technology companies struggle to make the transition from selling primarily products to creating and selling real customer-centric solutions.

As companies have moved to a more solutions-based business model, there has been a need for a new type of marketing position – Solutions Marketing. This title first surfaced about 5-8 years ago, and is rapidly gaining momentum as a critical position within the Marketing department of many companies.

Solutions Marketing: A 4-Step Model to Building an Effective Customer Advocacy Program

2012-03-30T01:16:34Z

“Our solutions providers can’t assume that we’ll stay loyal to them. From our point of view, they need to earn our business every day. If they provide us the value that they promise, we’ll be great customers for them. We’ll even help them get other customers.”

Does this sound like any of your customers? We’ve heard this opinion about satisfaction and loyalty from a lot of different solutions buyers. In our experience, they tend to be fair but demanding. Many of them appreciate the value that you bring them, but have the “but that was yesterday…what are you doing for me today?” attitude.

Solutions Marketing: 6 Keys to Creating a Playbook that Solutions Salespeople Will Use

2012-03-15T18:05:17Z

Sales Playbooks have been around a long time, but there seems to be a new resurgence of interest in using Playbooks to support solutions sales.

In our work with companies who have invested in solutions-based Playbooks, we believe paying attention to the following elements will significantly increase your chances of getting your sales force to adopt and use the Playbook, resulting in shorter sales cycles and new revenue opportunities:

Solutions Marketing Success Story: Leveraging Marketing Technology to Generate More Qualified Leads - IBM

2012-02-23T14:13:01Z

A number of recent B2B studies have indicated that marketing’s primary role is to generate qualified leads for the sales force. Given the importance of this activity, do you think your company would be interested in applying new marketing technology that would increase your funnel of qualified leads six-fold within a one-year period?

Key Account Management: Marketing’s Impact. An interview with Bev Burgess

2012-02-01T22:16:26Z

Recently, SI interviewed Bev Burgess, a B2B services growth specialist, on the topic of marketing’s role in Key Account Management (KAM) programs. Bev is Director of UK-based consultancy The Capsicum Group, and a recognized expert in the process of applying strategic marketing insight to grow key accounts. She has assisted many technology-based corporations across Europe successfully implement an account-based marketing (ABM) model.

Solutions Marketing: How an MBA Course Changed my Perception of Marketing

2012-01-16T13:43:50Z

Marketing for most MBA students who don’t have a business background is a mystery. To me, Marketing conjured up the following concepts -- creatively promoting existing products, new products being launched, brands, and advertising. Our International Marketing course at the Hult International Business School (HIBS) in fact covered these facets of marketing – and quite a bit more. I found Marketing to be much more strategic and critical to a company’s success than I had expected.

Solutions Marketing: How Avnet Applied Change Management Principles to Make the Transition from a Products-Based Company to a Solutions Company

2012-01-05T16:54:55Z

We recently conducted a poll and asked what the biggest challenge in moving from a product-oriented business focus to a more customer-centric, solutions oriented approach was. I was surprised that an overwhelming percentage of the respondents selected “managing the cultural and behavioral change” as the thorniest change that they had to make.

“I’m not surprised at all”, said Steve Church, Chief Business Development Officer at Avnet, Inc.

Key Account Management: What the Best Companies Have Done to Improve Their Programs

2011-12-16T14:38:22Z

The Focus of our Research

In a previous blog post, we introduced 8 Critical Success Factors for Protecting and Growing your Best Accounts based on a recent study completed by Solutions Insights and Hult International Business School. In that study, we conducted primary and secondary research on over 20 of the best Key Account Management (KAM) programs in many global industries. In addition to what we consider “baseline” critical success factors reported in our earlier post, we also identified what leading companies have done in the past year to improve their programs. Our goal was to determine what the best programs were doing to maintain their leadership position – and two big trends stand out.