Many have heard the story about Eskimos having 32 words for snow, given how important it is in their lives. Similarly, technology companies have many different classification for technology workers — from CTO to CIO, and from lead web developer to database architects. Most technology companies have a very clear idea about what these jobs entail and who qualifies for them.

But many technology company executives are lost when they set out to build a marketing department. When I ask them what flavor of CMO (chief marketing officer) they need, they often freeze up. And when I start to discuss the various roles that might fall under the CMO, they get confused. In many cases they believe that the CMO handles just advertising and public relations, while the technology groups do the product development and management. These beliefs are a leading reason why many technology companies hire their marketing team just before they launch, instead of realizing that hiring the right marketers at the start of the development effort might have targeted their products more effectively at customer needs.

In the interest of clarifying the picture, here is my basic list of marketing roles. I list them roughly from the most conceptual and strategic to the most operational. One person can perform more than one role, but generally the adjacent roles on this list group best together. (For a complete selection of articles on many of these roles and their unique challenges, see Crimson Consulting’s Insight page.)

• Marketing strategy - where (customers & products) and how (distinctive competence) to compete
• Business development - key strategic alliances, and channel partners
• Product:
  • Product/service strategy - what products/services to sell to which target customers with what value proposition
  • Product design and development - what features and functionality, design, packaging, etc.
  • Product management -what prices, discounts, bundles, etc. through which channels
• Channel:
  • Channel strategy - what sales and distribution channels to use to get to market
  • Channel program design and management - how to attract and manage the desired channel partners
• Marcom (short for marketing communications):
  • Brand strategy - what the brand should mean to customers and how to build that
  • Advertising and Promotion - what messages in which media choices
  • Public Relations - how to convey the right messages through news sources, spreading the good and limiting the bad news
  • Promotions and Events - what other means to get the products and services in front of customers
• Demand generation:
  • Campaign design and management - what is the best mix of promotional and sales campaigns
  • Direct Mail/Direct Response - managing one-to-one interactions with prospects and customers
  • Web design - best design and layout of the web site(s) to attract customers; optimization of search engines
  • Operations -managing the processes and logistics of the campaigns
• Customer Service:
  • Customer service strategy and policies - determine the nature of the ongoing relationship with customers
  • Call Center - manage the (inhouse or outsourced) telephone sales reps, email responders, click-to-chat teams
• Sales
  • Direct - manage the customer-facing (inside or outside) sales reps
  • Indirect - manage the distribution channels
  • Telemarketing - manage the (inhouse or outsourced) telephone reps who make sales.
  • Administration - ensure proper processing of all the orders

Some companies put all these roles under the CMO. Others divide the CMO role into several different senior roles along the lines of strategy, business development, product, marcom, customer service, and sales. Some look for generalist CMOs to “cover the waterfront” across these roles, while others look for CMOs with particular strengths along this continuum and then support that person’s weaker areas with key hires.

Regardless of the approach and organization strategy, it helps to think broadly about the important roles within the marketing function and the best way to get the work done.

The New York Times ran an interesting story about how the Apple iPhone is going to take a bite out of RIM Blackberry sales. I have credited RIM for doing an excellent job targeting the corporate market for email and PIM synch functions, while making the CIO comfortable about security. They opened up the corporate smartphone market with a head start on Microsoft’s Exchange offering.

However, as I pointed out in my blog “Enterprise Customers are People Too“, RIM may have squandered their lead by failing to innovate quickly. This article describes how they are stepping up to the challenge on device development. Where it falls short is to look at the entire “system”.

Smartphones are more than stand-alone devices. They are increasingly part of a broader system or network of computers, applications, and networks. RIM scored early wins by seeing how to incorporate a smartphone into a corporate network. Apple plans to match this by announcing that in June they will support Microsoft Exchange as well as offer corporate VPN and security features. I am still looking for evidence that RIM understands that when they add media functions (music, etc.) they need to understand that Apple has a lock on the iTunes application and many propriety playback devices.

I am a sample of one, but may represent many “corporate” users. I held off buying an iPhone, needing Outlook Exchange functionality, but will buy iPhone over Blackberry because of the way iTunes pulls down my favorite podcasts and because I have iTunes connectors in my cars.

More and more the tech community is becoming a large system in which devices, content, networks, and applications must “play well with others”.

As we conclude this series, we now will look at the art of selling into the mid-market.

6. Effective selling – Admittedly, it’s a massive challenge to align a Go-to-Market organization with the target customers and ecosystem of partners. Many large enterprise companies are very strong at having direct sales forces aligned on a one-to-one basis where they have a deep understanding of the account, a deep understanding of the industry and the core business processes. Hence, their solutions are clearly aligned with the customer’s business processes. Their organizations however are NOT aligned when they are in the one-to-many business model where the enterprise company doesn’t get to directly touch the customer – their ecosystem of partners evaluate customer needs, etc. However, this type of organizational transformation does not happen overnight. Software companies need to migrate from an organization designed to sell directly to large enterprises to a mix of direct and indirect sales, key account management and key partner management. Yet, there are very different organizational capabilities required to be in the business of direct selling vs. the business of partner management. This requires thought planning and balance to maintain the existing revenue stream from enterprise customers while nurturing the one-to-many partner relationships to effectively sell to the mid-market. (For more information on designing an effcient channel strategy, see The New Solution-Selling Paradigm).

When I finished my conversation with the enterprise software executive, we concluded that centralized, enterprise marketing organizations and consulting firms do indeed have a very difficult time understanding the complexities of marketing enterprise software to small- and mid-sized markets. Clearly categorizing those markets, effectively segmenting the mid-market customer, developing a clear “marketecture” of the partner ecosystem, creating clear business propositions to partners and effective value propositions to customers and, finally, wrapping these together with an effective mid-market selling machine, can go a long way to solve these challenges.

There has been a great deal of focus on broadcast Mobile TV over the past several years, on the DVB-H and MediaFLO standards. Many European and Asian mobile operators, as well as Verizon Vcast, Sprint TV, and AT&T in the U.S. have launched or are launching 8 or 9 real-time, broadcast, mobile TV channels with great fanfare. New products, services, and press announcements have dominated the news at the last two annual CTIA conventions.

I am a skeptic about the success of real-time mobile TV though. Even back in 1992, Bruce Springsteen sang about 57 Channels and Nothin’ On. And now in the age of declining TV viewership, increased (TiVo) time-shifting, explosive growth of YouTube, and other forms of media “snacking” and personalization, I have trouble seeing how real-time mobile TV will catch on.

Some analysts, such as in this Slash Mobile article, are still predicting explosive growth. Others are saying that the industry is solving the content, device, pricing, and network challenges — paving the way for growth (see my earlier post on 2007 Mobile Internet Scorecard for more info on the challenges the industry still faces.) Lately though, we are hearing some contrarian voices, such as BBC Worldwide mobile director Peter Mercier citing M:Metrics stats showing just a 1.2 percent UK take-up: “The hype you’ve seen at past 3GSMs about mobile TV is not warranted by the real growth. Mobile video itself is probably one of the least used applications on a device.” And Jeff Herrmann, Nielsen Mobile VP , said: “Not that many countries outside Asia are using it in a big way, but proportionally fewer Americans are watching mobile TV than anywhere else surveyed”.

It would seem a more efficient use of precious spectrum if users were to consume broadcast video, or even do some time-shifting with their mobile devices, using them as mini-TiVos. And there might be a small segment of users with real-time needs, such as watching sports events. But my bet is still on personal casting. I predict that if most people want to grab a quick video on their mobile device they are going to be more likely to watch some clips downloaded or stored on their device, such as from the Onion News Network or something more serious. I think the opportunity is to break the real-time broadcast TV paradigm and use this broadcast spectrum for mobile data.

So now that we have correctly defined the mid-market, segmented correctly, defined the partner ecosystem and devised the business proposition that will appeal to them, we can now look at creating the right value proposition.

5. Once an organization has determined the unique partner business proposition, it must provide its ecosystem of partners with the unique and compelling Value Propositions that meet the needs of their end customers and align with the market structure and customer segmentation.

   This is easier said than done, and there are three areas that can really trip things up:

   1. A mismatch in the product or solution – how does an software company work with their partners to create effective solutions that meet the needs of their customers? For the small business market, a one-to-many type of solution is usually needed – called Commercial Off-the-Shelf software or COTs – but how do companies sell COTs when their customers are looking for vertical solutions? For the mid-market, the challenge is even greater when customers feel that they have unique business processes and specialized industry needs but they don’t have the resources to invest in customer solutions to meet these emerging needs. There are ways it can be done with technology today, including items like solutions-oriented architecture, collaboration and communities – but it’s hard to manage, requires flexible product development and extensive solution generation teams to manage so often there’s a misalignment of products and solutions by segment. (For more ideas on tailoring a program to appeal to solution partners, see Do You D-Gen It Alone or Get Some Help?)
   2. Challenges associated with pricing – because many enterprise software companies approach the mid-market as if those customers were also enterprise companies, the perception can be that their solutions are too expensive. On the flip side, if they had previously served small companies, and then try to address the mid-market, they can be perceived as cheap or as not understanding the needs of the market – because they’re used to pricing towards an out-of-the-box solution. Their pricing is then perceived as not relevant to the mid-market.
   3. Communication and messaging of the value proposition can also be out of alignment. Many enterprise marketing organizations hear from their field sales groups that the content they create does not effectively land in the field. Either the messaging is too high-level to effectively communicate with the customer sitting in front of the field sales rep, or the process is not effective and the sales rep cannot find, access and utilize the right information for the right customer at the right time.

Coming next: Effective selling and the big wrap up.

The shift to the Mobile Internet will require the support of advertising funding to make it affordable for the masses. Advertisers will shift to mobile media as they:

1. See the number of users increase, and
2. Discover the impact of targeted and interactive advertising models (see Building A Successful Mobile Web Content Strategy).

One leading indicator is for advertisers to move away from the standard pay-for-impressions model, measured as CPM (cost per thousand), for interactive advertising.

A recent blog entry by Andy Plesser for AlwaysOn describes how VideoEgg is taking the first step to price their online ads by the number of viewers rather than the number of impressions. The interview with Troy Young nicely describes how this is a move along a continuum of pricing models.

This is a good early move. Once advertisers embrace this (which could take some time given the inertia in that industry) it will make online media more valuable, attract more funding, and lay the ground work for further extension to the mobile world. While the mobile extension will have to accommodate smaller screens, slower speeds, and shorter viewer attention spans, it offers the advantages of knowing the location and the activity (sometimes referred to as “presence awareness“) of the user. This, in and of itself, may be worth the price.

How do you see the mobile internet changing the way advertisers do business?

We have talked about correctly defining the mid-market and more effectively segmenting the customers in the earlier posts (see the First in this series and the Second in this series). Today, we will be exploring how to gain a better understanding of the partner ecosystem and correctly target business propositions.

3. Organizations often fail to fully understand their Ecosystem of Partners. They try to reach the customer through a broad ecosystem of partners, but don’t do a good job in differentiating between the different categories of partners – nor do they develop programs or materials geared to specific types of partners. For example, in the bottom tier of the mid-market, some partners may be geographically focused – they have a storefront, or an office that serves a local, regional customer base across multiple industries. Or they may only serve small companies in a specific broad category, like automotive. In the middle tier, partners are frequently categorized within a broad array of Value Added Resellers, Independent Software Vendors or Solution Providers. They can also be geographically focused. Finally, at the top, some partners can be nationally or internationally focused players such as large Value Added Distributors. Each type of partner, like the customers they serve, has very different needs, and the ecosystem of partners can vary greatly by size, geography and segment. (For more information on managing your alliances effectively, please see Improving Alliance Marketing).
4. Companies must also provide their partner ecosystem with the Compelling Business Propositions that will make them want to consider working with their firm. Most marketing departments understand the requirement that a value proposition clearly align with a target customer segment’s needs. On the other hand, few take the time to think through the financial, marketing, operational training and management needs of their partners and craft a business proposition that aligns with these needs, creating strong incentives for partners to work with your organization instead of a competitors. Needs can vary greatly depending on the various partner type – and different types of partners require business propositions tailored to each type. Ignore this, and partner recruiting and partner retention will become a painful drain of time and resources.

Coming next: Creating compelling value propositions.

Recently, I spent the morning attending an amazing event in San Francisco: The Chocolate Salon at Fort Mason and it got me thinking about how dramatically the promotion of local events has changed in the past few years with the prevalence of social media and Web 2.0 technologies. Its a topic that appeals to both the chocoholic and web strategist in me.

The event itself was fantastic - a chocolatey, gooey and somewhat indulgent day for people who love everything chocolate. I checked out the Chocolate Salon site and hit cacao nirvana when I discovered TasteTV’s “Chocolate TV” video segments!!! On it you can see every imaginable story around chocolate and the event: some examples of chocolate couture, chocolate hairstyles, stories about some of the fantastic chocolate manufacturers and retailers that we have right here in San Francisco including one of my favorite retailers: CocoaBella Chocolates.

How does social media play into it? For starters, like a lot of things I go to these days I learned about the event from both upcoming.org and meetup.com from my friends listing it as something that they were planning to attend.

Here is a list of basic social tools that likely will (or should be used) to promote and report on the event before, during and after:

• Blogging - I’m blogging about it and so are others. (For more info on setting up a corporate blog, see Starting a Dialog with your Market
• Comments on the event sites, blogs, etc.
• Twitter - attendees were twittering about the event.
• Flickr - I uploaded photos to Flickr from the event and many others did too.
• Groups , reviews, ratings and forums were formed in sites such as Yelp
• Video’s and podcasts were created around the event.
• E-Commerce - of course many of the local manufacturers and vendors like Christopher Elbow Chocolates have websites with e-commerce

Then, there is the use of so many “sharing” tools, that are inherent in many of the above, that help to create a viral effect: “send to a friend”, tagging, send a message, get link, get code.

What else could have been done? Social bookmarking on sites like Delicio.us or Ma.gnolia, recipe sharing, links to food or chocolate blogs, a wiki on chocolate related topics, mobile alerts, FaceBook groups …the list goes on and on.

What social tools do you use for events?

Continuing in this series on why centralized marketing is failing in the mid-market, I will be discussing the failure to correctly define the mid-market and the pitfalls of “one-size-fits-all” customer segmentation (for a good angle on segmentation, see Needs-based Segmentation).

1. First, let’s talk about Market Sizing and Categorization. Enterprise companies frequently don’t take the time to fully define the mid-market category – and there are actually at least three different size tiers to the mid-market:
   • The top tier – these are large mid-market companies that are scaling rapidly – their needs are similar to those of enterprise companies – i.e. they have emerging IT organizations, sophisticated infrastructure, etc.
   • The middle tier – these are small, rapidly-growing companies with a need to focus on scale but don’t yet have the breadth or resources of the enterprise. They need solutions targeted to their needs, but can’t afford or support enterprise solutions that are highly customized, or that require ongoing management, training, etc.
   • The bottom tier – these are companies that until recently were small businesses, and are only just starting to put in place the capabilities to provide more robust processes and effective business management.
2. Many organizations take a one size fits all approach to Vertical Markets and Customer Segmentation. Centralized marketing will look at customer needs and then categorize customers in vertical markets at the broadest level – like automotive or communications or financial services. However, there are many differences within a particular vertical category. For example, a “discrete process manufacturer” can describe not only a milk farmer who has broad operations in the central part of the U.S., but also a machine tool maker or a metal bender. Even though all three manufacturers “fit” within the same market segment, they all have unique business needs, processes and issues. Automotive provides a good example of the importance of segmentation within verticals. When companies say they are targeting the “automotive market” what do they really mean? Are they targeting regional equipment manufacturers? Assemblers? Distributors? Electronics manufacturers? You get the idea.

Coming next: How to gain a better understanding of the partner ecosystem and making sure your business proposition is aligned with the needs of your partners.

We recently conducted a global Secret Shopper program for one of our clients. The primary objective was to understand how well a particular program was being executed by the channel to small business customers. Our client was both very pleased and somewhat shocked by some of our findings.

Our client had developed a program that would influence how both distributors and resellers marketed and sold a new product (for more information on product launch Best Practices, please see Four Pillars for Product Launch). Our client is quite sophisticated when it comes to channel relationships, so they gathered information from their channel partners, put together clear instructions, and provided training and support. And yet, the Secret Shopper assessment revealed several unexpected key issues that have caused us to take a much closer look at how programs actually manifest through channel partners.

The overall finding was that the new product being offered from our client was either:

1. Not even offered to us (the small business customer buying the product), or
2. Was offered reluctantly when we asked about it, and / or
3. Was presented to us incorrectly.

Why did this happen? In this case, we believe there were three fundamental key issues or root causes behind the underperformance of this channel program – the program was complex, the customer benefit was not clear, and there was a lack of alignment between vendor and channel goals:

Let’s look at this from the perspective of the channel partner:

Program Complexity

• Inertia. The vendor (our client) may have been gearing up for this new product launch for a long time. The channel partner (the person marketing and selling the new product to the small business customer) hadn’t given it a second thought. Now, all of the sudden, our client wants their partner to change? Change extends sales cycles, distracts resources, costs money, requires attention. Good luck.
• Confusion. Exactly how is the new product different from the older one? Has the channel partner (the person selling the new product) achieved a clear understanding of the difference between the old product and the new product? If not, the channel partner is likely to go back to the tried and true. The channel partner is going to sell what he/she understands.

Clear Customer Benefit

• Pride. Exactly what is the benefit of this new product to the user/buyer? Is there a clear value proposition that the channel partner can share with their small business customer to convince this customer that the new product is worth replacing the old product? The channel partner does not want to be accused of not knowing what he/she is talking about. The channel partner wants their clients to come to them because they know what they are talking about and they are recommending what is best to me, the small business customer. The channel partner needs to look good to the small business customer.

Vendor & Channel Goal Alignment

• WIFM (What’s in it for me?). This is often the biggest channel breakdown, the creation of a clear and compelling business proposition for the channel partner to change everything that they are doing to get on board with a vendor’s launch of a new product. If the channel partner thinks it’s easier to sell the old product, and thinks they will get paid the same or spend less with the old product, why bother pushing the new product? Does the channel partner get paid more? Will his/her sales be easier? Will the channel partner’s costs go down with the new product? Will the channel partner be able to sell more of other products as a result? Is there huge demand for this product already? And most importantly, will the channel partner create stronger customer relationships because the small business customer feels that the channel partner is recommending a new product that is truly in the best interest of the small business customers operations?

So, what are the lessons from this?

Our client had already done an outstanding job of evaluating this new product program with an internal team. The client thought that they had a very robust understanding of the issues and challenges from their own perspective and indeed they had. Our client had created a detailed list of challenges with the product launch; the client had prioritized the list of challenges; and the client was actively working to fix these challenges in the order prioritized order of issues.

On the other hand, the client also realized that there were two additional perspectives that were critical to understand to determine the success of the new product launch – the channel partner’s perspective and the target customer’s experience. To fully understand these critical perspectives, we recommend 3 steps:

1. Channel Partner Perspective (to see more about what Channel Partners are thinking, see our recent study on the state of the channel )
   First, understand the channel partner’s list of what they perceive is working with the new program as well as the channel partner’s list of what is not working with the program.
2. Channel Partner Priorities
   Second, understand the channel partner’s prioritization of what are the most important things to fix and what are the items that are working best and why
3. Target Customer’s Experience
   Third, walk a mile in the end customer’s shoes. In this case, acting as a small business customer and buying product through the channel showed our client what it was really like from the perspective of their end customer to try to buy this new product. At times, it was a fantastic customer experience. During other times, it was bewildering or worse for the small business customer.

Do you know what your channel is really doing?

(Glenn Gow and Todd Keleher also contributed to this post).