G Commins - Sales & marketing

Tech Start-up school – Core Lecture 2

Sales & Marketing

www.varoom.co.uk

Accelerating Technology Businesses

Overview
 What is Marketing?
 Marketing content in the business plan
 Developing your Marketing Strategy & Marketing Plan
 How will you take you product to market?
 What does a marketing plan look like?
 The marketing plan is your strategy in action.
 What mix of activities should you define in your marketing plan?
 How will you communicate to your targeted market sector
 What tools you need to help sales

 Developing your sales process
 Definition of the sales process – for your marketplace
 What sales methodologies can you consider?


What is Marketing?
 Finding profitable things to do  Checking the product has;
 What product?  Untapped potential
 Disruptive influence
 Where?
 Competition that are not ready
 Who?
 A route to market
 When?
 Barriers to entry
 How much ?


Why is Marketing important?
 To discover a need or problem a customer has
 And validate the value of solving the problem

 To research markets with potential customers
 Discover channels to sell to those customers

 To promote the product in the eyes of your customer
 Creating or stimulating demand for your product

 Good marketing is needed by all businesses…..


Do some market research
 Talk to/survey potential customers
 Run trials, tests, sampling
 Research the web,
 press articles, visit blogs, forums and Twitter
 Announcements from potential competitors
 Competitor web sites – investor relations pages
 Information from independent sources
 analysts, market research companies, government reports,
industry pundits and influencers
 Your experience, of the market, is valuable too


Choosing the right attractive market
 Markets where:
 profit potential is high
 No company in market control
 At right point in the life cycle
 the right price (profitable) is possible

 Defining an attractive market is a key component of your
business plan.
 You need evidence to validate your choice of market


Choosing target Market Segments
Low Value

Value of
Products &
Services
within
Category

Target
segment of
the market

High Value

Locations, Regions, Populations of Market
Too Large Too Small


Product price position in market…
 Formulation of price/value positioning
 Examine similar products
 Study/analyse competition
 Look at customers behaviour and buying power
 Who appropriates value out of the product…
 Assess value to end customer (what will they pay?)
 Value added by others
 Customer vs Consumer
 Consider costs of different levels of distribution
 Distributors, Wholesalers, Retailers
 Internet sales
 Mail order
 Direct sales

Understanding the competition
• The competition: SWOT analysis
 Who are they? Their size & market share?
 What do you have that’s better?
 Where are their weakness’, what are yours?
 How can they be beaten?
 Which customers are using the competition?
 Where are there opportunities that you can win?
 Your advantages and disadvantages?
 For example, price, quality, performance, brand, customer loyalty.
 Why will customers buy your product or service instead?


Marketing strategy
 The Marketing Strategy is how the company will
 Go to market and establish a position
 Build a brand identity
There
 Target customers Can
Only
 Define products and prices Be
THREE!
 Promote products
Leadership,
 Sell through which channels Differentiation
 Define Objectives & Measure results or Focus

derived from Porter (1980)


Only 3 generic strategies?

 Leadership  Focus
 Technology  Geography
 Cost  Customer
 Time to market  Product line
 Differentiation
 Performance
 Perception
Strategy methodologies:
 Features • Defensive (against change)

• Developing (new markets)

• Attacking (competitors)

derived from Porter (1980)


Strategy influencing factors
Many factors in your business influence your strategy

Reputation Brand recognition/values Good
& Trust
will

Differentiation
Problem importance
Customer
&
Market Sales channels
Knowledge Future
Market/Application/problem knowledge
Roadmap
Technology Team skills and experience
&
Skills Product h/w and/or s/w invention, patents

Financial stability, funding, profits


Developing your Marketing plan
 Your Marketing strategy is “HOW” and your Marketing plan
is “WHAT,WHEN,WHO”.
 A good marketing plan, inside your business plan, will build
confidence that you know HOW you will drive demand
 The marketing plan is your strategy in action.

 What mix of activities should you define in your marketing
plan to achieve marketing objectives?
 Create awareness of a problem or need
 Build awareness of the solution (your product)
 Build your Brand recognition
 Sales lead generation activities (and customer acquisition costs)


Marketing communications
 Various activities
 Brand building, Logos, market position
 Web presence,
 Social networking plan, blogs / Facebook / Twitter
 More in skill session 3, Social Media for marketing, 1st Nov

 Product and/or Brand launch plans
 Launch timing/location
 analysts meetings, briefings before launch
 press launches, stimulate articles
 PR (Press release) activities
 Sales tools, flyers, brochures, datasheets
 Support sales demand

Developing your Sales strategy
 The sales strategy is how the business objectives are
delivered in sales terms
 Sales leads generated by Marketing activities or Sales activities
 Selling brings in today's orders
 To which targeted customers (your focus of efforts)
 Who will you contact first?
 Why should they buy?
 How will they buy?
 How will you support them?
 Through which sales channels
 Direct, Distributors, Tele sales, Web/internet, mail order


The sales “Hopper”
Sales leads
 All businesses have a sales pipeline
(“Hopper”)
 Depends on the nature of your business,
 your sales cycle time
 your success rate
 Sales leads feed your pipe line to achieve
your sales targets.
 The Marketing plan defines how leads will
be generated
 Ongoing sales activity generates leads too

Sales orders


Selling is a process
 In Business to Business selling
 as opposed to retail sales
 Rarely (maybe never) does anyone in business buy at the
first meeting.
 Need to understand your customer(s)
 Large companies / organisation structures take time
 Counterparts have different roles & responsibilities
 Personalities & Behaviours
 Experience (of you and them)


Understanding the Sales Process
You need to define the sales process for your business
Closing
Prospecting

Supporting Relating

Advocating Discovery

Create solution

What do we do with this process?
 Need to understand each stage in the selling process
 It’s all about them NOT you!
 Define what key messages to convey at each stage
 Prospecting Relating, etc
 Marketing tools support each stage of the process
 Assisting in transitions between stages
 Track the process
 use feedback to fine tune to suit your marketplace

 How you will sell to customers needs to be defined in your
business plan
 Good customer identification is valuable

Conclusion: Focus on
What, When, Who, How
 In your business plan Sales & Marketing section be clear and
specific about;

 What you will do
 How you will do it
 When will you do it
 Who will be responsible


Thank You


G Commins - Sales & marketing

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