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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 1
MARKETINGVELOCITYANDTHE5KEYS
TOMAKINGTHECASHREGISTERRING
By Kevin Mangum

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketing velocity is the speed or rate at which marketing efforts yield business results. Marketing velocity can be
accelerated with the thoughtful implementation of enabling technologies such as marketing automation, CRM, social
media platforms, and analytics solutions. However, companies often expect these technologies to be the solution rather
than enable the solution. In fact, sales and marketing technology slows marketing velocity or speeds up bad outcomes more
often than it serves as an accelerant to marketing velocity. Here are the keys to accelerating marketing velocity with sales
and marketing technology:
1. Velocity Metrics — Start by identifying the key
milestones in your sales and marketing process,
and then create baseline velocity targets for those
milestones. For example, the key milestones in your
process may include: (a) inbound lead, (b) first
meeting, (c) presentation and demo, and (d) proposal.
It’s not enough to measure the volume or conversion
rate of these outcomes. It is an indisputable fact that
the faster sales opportunities progress from milestone
to milestone, the more likely it is that your company
will win the business. For years, we have preached,
“Time is the enemy of sales.” Therefore, you must set
measurable velocity goals for each milestone. How
quickly can you respond to inbound leads? How soon
can you set the first meeting? How fast can you create
a proposal? The more time that elapses between
milestones, the more likely it is that you will lose the
deal to a more nimble competitor.
2. Process Mapping — If you can’t draw your marketing
and sales process as a single flow chart on a napkin,
then you don’t have a tenable marketing and sales
process. All companies are incapable of executing
complex processes with consistent, positive
outcomes. Create a simple process and memorialize
it in a diagram. Train your entire sales and marketing
team on the process so they can exercise their own
good judgment in the field.
3. Redundancy and Business Continuity — Systems
without redundant backups are doomed to fail. If your
entire sales and marketing process (and technology
stack) is controlled by a single person, you are
sure to experience downtime. You can mitigate the
risk of downtime by training several people on the
process and technology or by outsourcing systems
management to a managed service provider.
4. Custom Implementation — Much of the best sales
and marketing technology was not designed for
enterprise software companies (go figure). Marketing
automation, sales force automation, social media,
and analytics solutions must be shaped to serve the
unique needs of B2B companies. Your technology
stack will not accelerate marketing velocity with an
“off-the-shelf” implementation.
5. Strategic Alignment — Finally, your sales and
marketing technology must be tuned to your strategic
growth goals. Are you fighting for market share, or are
you squeezing margins for profit? It matters all the
way down to how your technology stack is configured.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 3
WHY VELOCITY MATTERS
Being good isn’t good enough anymore. Enterprise software companies have to be fast, too. Rooted in decades of tradition,
the sales and marketing function has largely failed to keep pace with the increased velocity of product development and
market dynamics. Meanwhile, research is proving what entrepreneurs have known intuitively for years: Speed matters. The
key to success in enterprise software markets is to win early favorite vendor status. More than 90 percent of the time, early
favorite vendor status is awarded to the company that gets to the prospect first! When prospects are researching a software
category, they are very likely to be persuaded to the worldview of the first company that contacts them (unless they have
a negative experience). Think calling a prospect back in 48 hours is good enough? Think again. If you’re not contacting
prospects within minutes of their interaction with your brand, you’re missing your window of opportunity. Forbes reported in
2012 that only 27 percent of leads ever get contacted, but sound structuring of resources, processes, and technology can
raise that rate to 92 percent.
Data reported in 2013 by Yahoo Small Business Advisor
shows that contacting a lead within five minutes yields a
78 percent close rate, compared with a 19 percent close rate
when the response to a lead is within five to 30 minutes.
The numbers are even more dismal if you wait to contact
a lead after 30 minutes, at just a 3 percent close rate,
according to the Yahoo business report.
78%
19%

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 4
Technology makes rapid response to even passive
interest possible — but it makes it possible for your
competitors, too. If you’re not competing on velocity,
then you’re not competing at all.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 5
CASE STUDY: POOR VELOCITY
The Starr Conspiracy worked with a large Human Capital Management (HCM) company recently that epitomizes poor sales
and marketing velocity and serves as a valuable example of the majority of enterprise software companies today. This
company was dissatisfied with its conversion rates from initial inquiry to closed deal and couldn’t identify the process break.
Popular theories circulating around the marketing team included everything from poor creative to ineffective sales training.
However, our audit of their sales and marketing process identified several choke points that were degrading velocity.
The scenario below was typical for this company (covering a single marketing process):
1. Email blast sent to rented media
2. Prospects download white paper from landing page
3. Prospects are “staged” in marketing automation system until qualified
by marketing
4. Qualified prospects are diverted to “lead-nurturing” program until “progressive
profiling” yields high lead score
5. High-scoring leads are staged in CRM system until qualified by sales
6. Inside sales reaches out to “sales-qualified leads” via email and phone
7. Successful “connects” result in first meetings with sales rep
8. Unsuccessful connects are dropped back into lead-nurturing program
1. Email blast sent to rented media
2. Prospects download white paper from landing page
3. Prospects contacted within 30 minutes of initial download
4. Prospects contacted five times within 10 days to establish connection
5. A successful connection results in a first meeting with a sales representative
In the above example, qualified prospects were not called for weeks after the initial
download. And when contact was not made on the first or second call, the sales
team gave up altogether.
Our analysis streamlined the process to focus on velocity. The new process required
a reconfiguration of the company’s marketing automation and CRM solutions to
eliminate choke points and prioritize fast response over cumbersome manual
qualification.
Here is the new process:

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 6
This simple reorientation around velocity increased
the conversion rate from inquiry to first meeting from
2 percent to 15 percent in less than six weeks.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 7
VELOCITY METRICS
Marketers have relied upon metrics for decades. In
enterprise software, we have settled into a nice rhythm
of measuring lead quality, conversion rates, and marketing
expenses. Today, most marketers can tell you their
average click rate, their MQL rate (marketing qualified
leads), and their cost per lead. The problem is these
metrics don’t actually correlate with business results. I’ve
worked with companies that have excellent visibility into
traditional metrics and perform quite well. They have low
lead cost, high-quality leads, and great conversion rates
all the way up to MQL. But they aren’t selling anything.
I’m not saying these metrics are not important or helpful.
But when they are not aligned with business strategy
and correlated to business results, they can actually be
misleading. If your marketing team is achieving a great
cost per qualified lead, what else is there to work on?
In these traditional metric environments (which represent
the vast majority of enterprise software companies),
velocity is not measured. Ironically, it is velocity that
has the most significant impact on business results —
especially in closing deals.
We recommend creating a simple definition of marketing velocity for your business based on speed
between milestones. The simplest definition of marketing velocity is the amount of time that passes from
initial inquiry to closed deal. We can now break that up into smaller cycles. How much time elapses between
inbound inquiry to outbound call, for example? Now that you have established a baseline, how can you
accelerate this phase of the process? Is it possible that an overly cumbersome lead-qualification process is
actually slowing down the time to response? Probably.
Over time, you can break the marketing and sales cycle into smaller and smaller
segments and focus on a simple question: How can we make this
faster? Inevitably, this will lead to a more streamlined
technology stack as cumbersome processes are
simplified to increase velocity.
If the process that your company uses to qualify
leads prevents them from being called within 30
minutes, then the qualification process is doing
more harm than good.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 8
PROCESS MAPPING
Very few companies that we’ve worked with have an
existing process map for marketing and sales. At this
stage, I’m not even talking about the technology process
map; I’m talking about the actual business process that
drives the conversion of raw marketing material (leads)
into finished goods (closed deals). How do people
work together to assemble the deal? Who has decision
authority at each stage in the process, and what decision
are they making?
When developing a process map, it’s important to start
with a strategic goal. The Starr Conspiracy believes
that velocity is the most important goal for marketing
in enterprise software companies. Markets move fast,
and we have to grab as much market share as we can
while the sun is shining. Now that we know the goal of
the process (to convert inquiries to closed sales deals
in the shortest amount of time), we can start working on
a process that only considers the people that we have
and don’t have. Pretend that you’re not going to have any
enabling technology at all beyond the Internet and email.
As you create the process, if you stumble upon a choke
point that slows velocity, figure out how to eliminate it.
Only after you have diagramed a high-velocity sales and marketing process should you consider how to
adopt technology to support your process. You see, most of us who buy these systems believe that the
system is the process. In reality, if we used every feature in the marketing automation or CRM system, we
would create a process so complex that velocity would be destroyed and the company’s ability to stick to
the program would be diminished to the point of futility.
The other outcome of this process, which can be uncomfortable for many companies, is that traditional
roles break down quickly. Sales and marketing must operate in a fluid manner. Roles are blurred. Decisions
are made on the fly to accelerate velocity. When pursuing maximum velocity, accuracy is often sacrificed
to a small degree. But perfectionism at this stage of your journey will kill velocity. Remember that we are
pursuing an outcome of a high-velocity experience for our qualified prospects. Occasionally, that means we
will let some nonqualified leads through the gate in the interest of velocity. This is to be expected.
There is no shame in using 20 percent of the
functionality offered by your sales and marketing
systems. Anything that slows down velocity
should be discarded.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 9
REDUNDANCY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY
Without fail, the lack of redundancy and business
continuity is the single most significant threat to
maintaining marketing velocity. This has happened
more times than I can count. We’ve seen companies
get just to the leading edge of marketing velocity only
to have their “marketing operations manager’’ or “sales
operations manager” leave to take another job (their
skills are in high demand).
When they leave, they take all the institutional
knowledge about how the system is set up with
them. The Starr Conspiracy launched the Tech Unit to
address this issue. We manage these systems for our
clients. We start by formulating the business strategy,
creating the right process map, and configuring (and
implementing) the sales and marketing technology
stack. After that, our team runs it for you. You never
have to worry that you’re going to give back gains in
velocity because we have a team assigned to your
account rather than a single individual. And every role
is staffed redundantly, so we’ll never skip a beat if a
system administrator is on vacation or sick or decides
to leave The Starr Conspiracy (heaven forbid).
We didn’t build the Tech Unit because we thought it
was an interesting line of business. We built it because
the work our Advertising Unit was doing to drive leads
and build brand awareness was often hitting a brick
wall in the marketing automation systems and CRM
system. We couldn’t achieve our clients’ business
goals in many cases because our leads couldn’t wind
their way through the spaghetti pipes of the sales and
marketing technology.
But three months later, the person we trained might be
gone and we were back to square one.
An unexpected outcome of managing the technology
stack for our clients is that we’ve been able to create
a comprehensive analytics dashboard that pulls
metrics from “both sides of the fence.” Specifically,
we can track all the campaign metrics associated
with media management (such as clicks, downloads,
list performance, etc.) and combine those with
downstream metrics from the marketing automation
and CRM systems (such as sales cycle, deep pipeline
conversion rates, etc.). The net result is that we
can be much more predictive and proactive in our
recommendations to increase marketing velocity.
Even if we had not launched the Tech Unit in
2013, I would still recommend outsourcing the
implementation and management of the sales and
marketing technology stack. These systems require
business continuity, constant care and feeding, and
a deep understanding of the correlation between
marketing outcomes and business outcomes.
Individuals who have the skill set to manage systems
at this level rarely stay in a single position for more
than nine months. Once they’re gone, it’s back to the
dark ages. A solid outsourced provider can ensure that
you achieve velocity and hold on to the gains for years.
We are experts in
sales and marketing
technology and have
often consulted with
our clients to guide
them through the
changes that needed
to be made to increase
velocity.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 10
CUSTOM IMPLEMENTATION
There is no way around it: Enterprise software companies need a custom implementation of their marketing and sales
systems. Here are just a few reasons why:
1. The technology provider always has its own
proprietary marketing model that it wants you to
implement. Its brand is often built on this model.
Unfortunately, these models were not built for
enterprise software companies. The complex sales
and marketing process involved in selling seven-figure
software deals in emerging markets is just different
from transactional sales models. This doesn’t mean
the systems won’t work. In fact, several of them are
game changers! They just need to be used the right
way for your business (which varies even among
enterprise software companies based on business
strategies).
2. Technology providers want you to adopt as many
features as possible. This is something they actually
work on. It’s one of the primary reasons that “lead
nurturing” and “progressive profiling” became two of
the most damaging concepts for enterprise software
marketing in the 21st century. Strong words, I know, but
lead nurturing and progressive profiling are oversold
as solutions to your problems because they leverage
the coolest components of marketing automation and
CRM. I’m not saying there isn’t a role for lead nurturing.
I am saying that the best way to kill marketing velocity
is to drop your leads in the purgatory of a 10-step
marketing program. Use only the features that increase
velocity and the business results you want will follow.
This most often means using a stripped-down version
of the technology (and, no, you won’t pay less for it).
3. Integrations need to be prioritized by velocity.
There is more to integration than simply tying two
or more systems together. What are they supposed
to do once they’re talking? The short answer is they
need to increase velocity by passing only the most
important information between marketing and sales. If
your marketing automation system isn’t placing a lead
in the call queue within seconds of download, then
the integration strategy is not driven by a focus on
velocity.
4. Standard dashboards and metrics are not focused
on velocity. The primary goal of your system is to
increase velocity. Who cares if we have a 25 percent
click-through rate if qualified leads aren’t called within
30 minutes? The technology provider wants to set up a
robust dashboard. And the executive team will always
want more metrics than are necessary. Your custom
implementation needs to focus only on the metrics
that matter. More than five, and you’ve boggled the
human brain.
I could go on and on about the need for a custom
implementation. HubSpot data from 2011 shows
that 50 percent of marketing automation users say
they haven’t seen the full value in technology and
25 percent believe they are not using their systems
to their full potential. But just keep this in mind:
More than 80 percent of marketing automation
system implementations are unsuccessful. The
reason? People can’t keep up with the management
of the system, they are overwhelmed by complex
functionality, and most users cannot absorb
all the data. Most often, this is because their
implementation is too ambitious and not aligned with
the critical path of accelerating marketing velocity.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 11
STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Profit-oriented companies need to see fast ROI on their marketing spend.
Accelerating velocity is the key to fast ROI, but it also means that financial metrics
need to be part of the mix. Profit-driven companies can’t lose money to grow. They
need to grow at fast rates while preserving profit.
Market-share companies, on the other hand, only care about grabbing as much
share as they can (especially in the early stages of market development). For these
companies, velocity is key. Aggressive, Agile-style campaign testing is more common
in these environments, which has an impact on technology implementation and
management. Also, the sales teams tend to be larger and more specialized (e.g., by
industry, by region, by product line, etc.), presenting more opportunities to accelerate
velocity. Market-share organizations are also more aggressive about channel
development and partnerships, which also has an impact on sales and marketing
process and technology.
In short, the marketing and sales stack that is right for one enterprise software
company isn’t necessarily right for the one across the street. Business strategy
should drive all decisions about people, process, and technology. It’s our goal as
marketers to achieve maximum velocity and drive business results in alignment with
overall strategy. Low cost per lead is nice, but it doesn’t make the cash register ring.
Finally, your sales and marketing technology must be tuned to your strategic growth goals. Are you fighting for market share,
or are you squeezing margins for profit? It matters all the way down to how your technology stack is configured.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 12
ABOUT THE STARR CONSPIRACY AND THE TECH UNIT
The Starr Conspiracy (founded in 1999) is a strategic marketing firm providing service exclusively to
enterprise software companies. The Tech Unit is an independent division of The Starr Conspiracy and
strives to increase business velocity for our clients by managing critical sales and marketing systems,
providing outsourced product development, and building technology-rich digital marketing experiences.
The Tech Unit was formed to meet an urgent need experienced by most enterprise software companies.
Rooted in decades of tradition, the sales and marketing function has largely failed to keep pace with
the velocity of product development and market dynamics. To meet this need, the Tech Unit accelerates
the flow of opportunities through sales and marketing systems, helps bring the right products to
market faster, and builds digital experiences that engage buyers while effectively communicating value
propositions and features and benefits (even as they are changing).
Marketing and sales must lead, not follow. It’s not enough to have great sales and marketing strategies
— they must also be fast, agile, and effective. That means moving at the speed of right.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 13
TECH UNIT SERVICES
Marketing and Sales Systems Management
The Starr Conspiracy Tech Unit manages a wide range of cloud-based sales and marketing technologies on an
outsourced basis, including multiple flavors of marketing automation, sales force automation, social media, and
analytics solutions. Our primary goal is to eliminate waste in the sales and marketing process and increase the velocity
of opportunities as they flow through your sales and marketing systems.
Agile Outsourced Product Development
The Tech Unit offers comprehensive mobile application development, mobile overlay development, legacy software
conversion, globalization and localization services, quality assurance testing, and UI design. Give us a cocktail napkin
and we’ll have a product in the market within three months.
Digital Marketing Experiences
From responsive Web development to interactive marketing campaign assets such as games and immersive Web
experiences, the Tech Unit lends development savvy to world-class campaign strategy and execution. White-paper
offers delivered via email used to be state-of-the-art. Not anymore.

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 14
WHY TSC?
Enterprise Software Companies: Keep Reading
The Starr Conspiracy Tech Unit is certainly not for everyone, but we
know we are the best fit for most enterprise software companies. Why?

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MARKETING VELOCITY AND THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING THE CASH REGISTER RING 15
INDUSTRY EXPERTISE
For more than a decade, The Starr Conspiracy has
worked exclusively with both large enterprise
software companies and fast-growth technology
startups. Simply put, we are a strategic marketing
firm born and raised in a software world. We
understand the nuances of the software marketing
and sales cycle. We also understand how to build
products that sell (right now — not 10 years from now).
You’ll never waste time telling us what you do for a
living or describing your buyer. And we won’t waste
time with generic recommendations and strategies or
failed trial and error.
B2B BEST PRACTICES
The Starr Conspiracy Tech Unit leverages proprietary
technology processes and configurations to maximize
the “fit” between your systems and your marketing and
sales cycles.
Businesses often turn to technology
solutions that fail in implementation,
are underutilized, or are a poor match
for their needs. TSC Tech Unit has
unmatched expertise in the enterprise
software arena and knows how to
configure your marketing and sales
force automation. We will integrate these
with your social media and other owned
media. And our solutions will provide you
with the analytics that drive results and
best serve your unique needs in B2B
marketing.
INTEGRATED STRATEGY
The Starr Conspiracy Tech Unit is one of three divisions
of The Starr Conspiracy and is closely aligned with
The Starr Conspiracy Intelligence Unit (our advisory,
research, and consulting group) and The Starr
Conspiracy Advertising Unit. The integration between
these three divisions is a blueprint for the B2B “agency
of the future.” Marketing agencies that only provide
traditional advertising support are not valuable
partners for enterprise software companies. The Starr
Conspiracy Intelligence Unit helps drive go-to-market
strategy; our Advertising Unit builds messages, brands,
and campaigns that are always in alignment with the
master business strategy; and our Tech Unit extends
our best practices through the sales and marketing
technology stack, while also establishing a strategic
link between marketing and product development.