This Will Help You Sleep at Night

Salesforce Scale.

Sales Acceleration.

Customer Reach and Loyalty.

Do these terms sound familiar? To others in different industries, these might just be simple phrases.  To you they mean so much more. They were also a constant theme among partners shared with me during the Partner Summit 2016 Event. It’s clear that scaling your sales teams, accelerating sales, and customer loyalty — keep you up night. For many of our partners they are conflicted with how to adjust to meet the demands.

Our CMO, Karen Walker set the stage that we are in the midst of a monumental landscape change during her marketing session at Partner Summit. More than just a trend, digital transformation is shifting how your customers decide when, how and who they buy from.

It’s time.

It’s time to bring digital marketing to the forefront of your sales and marketing strategy, and to start sleeping better.

 

Why is Digital Marketing an imperative?

Customers are wholeheartedly jumping into digital – from Amazon to Uber, its clear we are now a digital society. So why isn’t marketing, sales, and business practices following suit, much less leading the conversation?

You already know that more than half (57%) of purchase decisions are made before a supplier is called, and that 67% of customers’ journeys are done online. Traditional sales and marketing just can’t compete with the digital first preferences of customers.

Like the ShoreGroup example that Karen shared, or VEM SISTEMI SPA, the global Partner Summit Innovation Partner winner, we know that partners who have changed their marketing approach from traditional to digital are seeing the gains. Like double-digit growth gains! This is happening through the evolution of shifting their marketing mix to digital, inbound, social, and a focus on data and analytics.

 

As I mentioned in my last blog, companies that blend tighter alignment to their sales and marketing efforts are also experiencing more success throughout the funnel. Digital is changing everything. Marketing is no longer just the noise maker trying to get customer attention, just like sales is no longer seen as closing the deal.

The shift is now, it’s time to refocus and just like our SVP of Sales Wendy Bahr shared during the event, “Its time to accelerate!” Digital marketing gives you the power to scale your teams, accelerate sales and presents effective customer service opportunities from the digital disruption.

 

How do you get started?

Regardless of your organizations size, focus or category there are numerous things you could do from the simple to the complex. Let’s start down the ‘exhilaration of acceleration’ path together, by employing the ENGAGE Marketing Suite.

ENGAGE is part of our value exchange with you to help you grow, make a profit and win more customers by putting digital first and giving you the shortcuts to market like you mean it. Through two sides, Educate: where we’ll connect you to training, experts, and best practices with Marketing Velocity. And Enable: the tools to put those skills into action through Partner Marketing Central.

We know we won’t be successful without you, our partners. So we’re making major investments in the digital customer experience to help you capture these new opportunities. ENGAGE is the virtual handbook to help, giving you education and action creating that digital push, you just need to personalize it for your success.

Now is the time to expand your digital marketing capabilities. I challenge you to:

• Learn how the ENGAGE Marketing Suite will impact your sales and marketing capabilities.
• Bring a digital first approach to the UCS, Security and Collaboration campaigns announced at Partner Summit
• Bring your sales and marketing teams together, and change the way you work with your customers.

 

The digital marketing shift has occurred. Learn, implement and grow your business with digital marketing. Borrowing from the theme of Partner Summit, together we can go Full Speed and accelerate on the demand that digital has created!