Using Integrated Database-Driven Marketing Services to Increase the Effectiveness of a Field Sales Force

Overview of Contents

- The New Database Marketing "Rule of Thumb" - Sharrow's Theorem

- Sales & Marketing Desires, Needs & Expectations

- Elements of Integrated Marketing

- Integrated Sales & Marketing Support Services

- Sales & Marketing Database Structure

- Database Analysis, Modeling & Testing

- The Data Driven Sales Management System

“Database marketing is not a technique. It is a strategic point-of-view that drives a company’s marketing agenda.” - (Craig Sharrow)

A. Sharrow’s 35/20/15/10/10/10 Theorem

  • Ed Mayer was one of direct marketing's leading practitioners in the 20th century. His 40/40/20 rule states that 40% of direct marketing’s success is based on the list, 40% on the offer, and 20% on the creative. The 40/40/20 rule no longer applies.
  • Good marketing and especially good direct marketing is driven by two key factors: analysis and relationships. And it all begins with the former:
  • 35% of a marketing program’s success will come from good up-front analysis
  • 20% on then coming up with an appropriate strategy
  • 15% on a compelling offer
  • 10% on selecting the right list
  • 10% on the right sequence of customer contacts and timing
  • 10% on exceptional, on-target creative communication with customers and prospects

B. Sales & Marketing Desires, Needs & Expectations

  1. Increase efficiency and effectiveness of marketing expenditures
  2. Increase efficiency and effectiveness of sales force
  3. Increase efficiency and effectiveness of marketing communications
  4. Increase customers’ purchase of products and services
  5. Identify new sales opportunities
  6. Evaluate and rank the value of customers and prospects and leads (i.e. “suspects”)
  7. Identify new product and service opportunities
  8. Maintain and grow existing customer base
  9. Measure and rank the success of various sales and marketing strategies, programs, functions, staff, etc.
  10. Simplify sales and marketing management’s lives

C. The Elements of Integrated Marketing

  1. Sales & marketing management decision support system using relational database
  2. Strategic and tactical planning, integration and implementation processes for product development, pricing, distribution, customer/prospect communications, sales contact,and sales/marketing reporting systems
  3. Coordinated, timely communications & feedback among field and headquarters sales and marketing personnel, dealers/distributors, customers, prospects, purchase-decision influencers and strategic partners
  4. Regular measurement of performance versus objectives

D. Integrated Sales & Marketing Support Services

1. Strategic & marketing planning

  1. Determination of corporate and competitive strengths & weaknesses
  2. Evaluation of the impact of changes in the marketing environment on company marketing strategies
  3. Marketing opportunity identification
  4. Impact of demographic & lifestyle changes on product & marketing mix strategies
  5. Marketing & strategic plan development assistance

2. Marketing database design, development & management

  1. Database content & structure
  2. Systems development, maintenance & access requirement
  3. Data capture systems & processes
  4. List management & maintenance
  5. Report generation and data access capabilities at client/user level

3. Market research & analysis

  1. Market segmentation analysis & modeling
  2. Market, territory, account and prospect potential forecasting
  3. Market penetration analysis
  4. Direct marketing response tracking & media effectiveness analysis

4. Sales management & sales support

  1. Sales lead generation, qualification and management systems & processes
  2. Sales performance evaluation
  3. Territory analysis, planning & design
  4. Key account profiling
  5. Account sales activity, product usage (yours/competitive), planned purchase timetable and sales contact profiles/reports (i.e. Briefing Report and Contact Report)

5. Thematic mapping of sales & marketing data

6. Integrated marketing communications planning & implementation

  1. Public relations
  2. Sales promotion
  3. Sales collateral
  4. General advertising
  5. Direct response advertising
  6. Point-of-sale

7. In-bound & outbound telemarketing

8. Product (direct order) and literature (information) fulfillment

E. Content & Structure of a Typical Sales & Marketing Decision Support Database

1. Product/Service Data

  1. Products, features
  2. Pricing, discounts, special packages, promotional pricing
  3. Competitive product data, compatibility with own product line

2. Customer/Prospect Account Data

  1. Acquisition date, source & threaded tracking (i.e. to link address or phone changes)
  2. Annual spending profile
  3. Account number or codes
  4. Multiple account/location links
  5. Purchase & payment history (products, quantities, method of payment, changes in standing orders or product/quantity/frequency mix; bad debts, returns)
  6. Sales contact category (phone, direct sales force, retail, distributor)
  7. Billing & shipping addresses, phone numbers
  8. Customer contacts (decision-makers & influencers)
  9. Service area of customer (if business): neighborhood, local, regional, statewide, national
  10. Form of ownership: corporation, partnership, sole proprietor, franchisee, individual consumer
  11. Years in business
  12. For non-customers: new non-customer or previous refuser?
  13. Customer profile/enhancements (geodemography, geo-coding, revenues, SIC codes, facility locations, credit data, employees, recency-frequency-value ranking, segmentation/categorization, etc)
  14. Contact history (dates, type: phone, mail, in-person, results)
  15. Inquiry history
  16. Future purchase plans; budgets
  17. Product usage (how are our/competitive products used?)
  18. Competitive product/service usage
  19. Product satisfaction feedback profile
  20. Preferred contact method/times
  21. Other research data
  22. Current and historical sales assignment: rep, branch, region, dealer/in-house

3. Marketing Communications Campaign Data

  1. Media, targets, costs, response data
  2. Creative formats & offers
  3. Lists/sources
  4. Formats, tests
  5. Links to telemarketing & lead tracking tables
  6. Multiple contacts, follow-up

4. Sales Force Data (Own & Dealer/Distributor)

  1. Name, ID, address, other basic classification data
  2. Sales revenue production history
  3. Territory & acccounts
  4. Product sales and commission data
  5. Lead utilization/disposition history
  6. Sales quota objectives,category-specific and total-revenue ranking, & other performance statistics
  7. Similar data on dealers, distributors, franchisees, manufacturer’s reps

F. Typical Database Analysis, Modeling & Testing

1. Areas of Investigation

  1. Sales performance by any combination of variables such as: product line, geographic classification of customer, sales contact, time of year, type of solicitation, special offers, previous history, etc.
  2. Price elasticity; customer receptivity to price increase
  3. Sales performance versus competitive intensity
  4. Changes in sales revenue, rate of growth, rate of attrition, etc.
  5. Analysis of customers or sales force by decile revenue performance
  6. Market, territory and/or account potential by geographic, economic, psychographic,or other classification variables (e.g. size of business, type of business)
  7. Market penetration analysis
  8. Site location (for dealers, distribution, warehousing, and sales operation facilities)

2. Methods Of Analysis

  1. Regression on historical data for price elasticity, etc.
  2. On-line models to perform “what if” analyses
  3. Raw numbers
  4. Demographics of distribution
  5. Geo-coded distribution
  6. Customized modeling programs for forecasting
  7. Pre-defined reports and screens
  8. Ad hoc inquiries (SQL or menu-driven)

3. Models

A. Sales Management Models

  1. Sales module balancing (to determine the mix of prospect/customer/account types by sales rep)
  2. Sales force management (to determine the number/type of reps required by branch, region or country
  3. Territory sizing (setting territories based on travel time, number of accounts/prospects, market potential, sales rep performance/capability/incentive)
  4. Sales goal setting (based on customer profiling data, competition, and micro-economic variables)
  5. Improved sales lead qualification criteria

B. Marketing Management Models

  1. Media mix optimization
  2. Advertising intensity optimization
  3. Geographic targeting and product niching
  4. Product pricing
  5. Competitive impact

G. A Data-Driven Sales Management System

Purpose: To establish the optimal level/mix of annual contact -- by phone, mail, and in-person -- of customers and prospects

Support sales reps & sales management with:

  1. prospect targeting and product focus
  2. planned promotions
  3. tracking of sales by territory
  4. tracking of purchase activity by account
  5. measurement of selling effectiveness and profitability
  6. definition of account worth and probable purchase by volume/product
  7. fair, equitable and manageable sales territories
  8. account purchase and contact histories
  9. recommended account/prospect contact frequency
  10. Detailed telemarketing-based lead qualification information which guides field sales to present products, features and benefits tailored to the prospect’s order of importance
  11. “closed sales loop” using computer-generated Contact Report form (or screen -- for computer modem-linked sales forces)
  12. Automated pre-call sales letter (rep personalized)
  13. Automated sales call follow-up via letter (rep personalized)
  14. Supplementary lead-generation, relationship-building mailings (scheduled and scripted based on purchase profiles)
  15. Sales force initiated “requested support” service to flag action required on behalf of accounts by sales administration, production, engineering, parts & service, customer service & training, accounting, etc.