Marketing and Sales Messages Not Aligned? Tie Your “Message Map” to a “Solution Blueprint” (Part 5 of a Series)
Over the past year, I’ve done a continuing series on what it means to market and sell “Solutions” Today’s post is Part 5 of the Series
- What 3 Questions Indicate Whether You Need to Sell “Solutions”? (and when does selling “Product” work better?…) (Part 1_
- Do Your Product Business Units Lead to (Product) “Push” Marketing (and Missed Revenue)? (Part 2)
- The Three Types of “Solutions”: Which One Do You Use to Market and Sell? (Part 3)
- The Solution Blueprint: A Visual Tool for Connecting with Your Customers (and accelerating product revenue…) (Part 4)
- Today’s Post – What are the Steps to Create Solution Messaging? (Part 5)
I’ve talked a lot about the advantages of using “Solution” (rather than “Product” messaging to connect to customers, and drive more revenue for your products, but the question I often get sounds something like this:
“OK, I see the advantages of using Solution Messaging – What do I do now?”
That question is the focus of my post today.
The key to messaging Solutions is a tool that I call “The Solution Blueprint”, a visual tool that helps technology vendors communicate the value of their offerings in terms of “Solutions” to customer problems – and accelerate revenue. I talked about this tool in more detail in my Solution Blueprint post. In Figure 1 below, you can see an diagram that describes the key elements of the Solution Blueprint. (more…)
Startup or New Product? When Should You Plan and Build Your Route(s)-to-Market (RTM)?
In my post last week, I talked about planning route-to-market for a startup, or a more established company launching a new product category. The framework for approaching the situation is that you need to “Build a Bridge” to connect your products your target customers. As shown in Figure 1 below, that bridge consists of 4 key elements (Solution, GTM Model, Sales Plays, Sales Channel) that every company needs to take into account – if they want to drive revenue for their products, and alliances…
Figure 1: Building your Foundational “RTM Bridge”
But the Focus of this post is WHEN you need to plan and build this RTM Bridge?
To be honest, it is always a bit surprising to me that when I talk to folks in the industry (even very experienced executives and folks that I consider to be friends), the assumption seems to be that this needs to be done AFTER the product is ready. I’ve had quite a few discussions with prospective clients or with clients talking about future needs, where they told me something like: (more…)
Startup or New Product? Building a “Route-to-Market (RTM) Bridge” as the Foundation for Revenue
In a number of my posts in the past year, I’ve talked about the importance and best practices for “Building a GTM Bridge” to create a repeatable approach to marketing and selling your products – and drive more revenue. This process is shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Building a “GTM Bridge”
Building a GTM Bridge – to Make Your GTM Approach More Effective
What I have seen is that within a vendor, many organizations are involved in supporting the marketing, selling and delivering of products and solutions through sales channels – but often this alignment does not occur. The dynamics of why this process breaks down is covered in more detail in my series, “Why do Companies Struggle to Build the GTM Bridge?”
Here are some examples of what happens without a repeatable “GTM Bridge”: (more…)
Are You Jumping to the “Product Sale” Too Early (and Missing out on Revenue Opportunities)?
If you are a regular reader of my blog posts the past year you have seen a lot of discussion about the importance of “Solution” messages to connect to customers (and sell more of your products). My most recent series provides a good overview of the issues and the best practices in connecting with customers with Solution messages.
- Does Your Messaging Work in the “Cocoon”- But Fall Flat with Customers?
- How to Build the “Hook” into Your Messaging to Create “Pull” and Accelerate Revenue
- A Case Study: Building a Message Map that Connects to Your Customers and Accelerates Revenue
By now, I’m sure there are some folks out there that are saying to themselves – “This is getting old, we all know that selling products works (why else would everyone be doing it?)” It is true that I’ve made the discussion too much of a battle between “right” or “wrong” approaches, when the reality is that the right time to sell Solutions is more nuanced. (more…)
“Climbing Out of the Box”™ 