Issue #7 - ABM, ICP, FFS
In this issue: The new silo- customer success v marketing (arms around the customer) | The email cadence- Annoying at Scale | Agency/SI Marketing- Have an opinion?
Every 3 weeks, like clockwork - see the discipline? Those of us old enough to remember printed IT magazines will remember a trade journal called The Register - we always loved the subhead “Biting the hand that feeds IT”. Clever, irreverent and classy. We aim to emulate that vibe here 🙂
The new silo in the SaaS scaleup - Marketing / Sales / Customer Success
The last few weeks recruiting speakers for MACH TWO and other Commerce Futures conferences has evidenced a chasm in communication relating to existing customer engagement. It seems to us that the sheer terror of customers churning has created a culture in CS which over-protects and shuts off all communication from those people who did the initial deal.
Example One - Late 2022 we heard this story… client has 3 weeks to go until critical “go live”... customer emails the whole SaaS vendors’ team (Sales, Marketing, Leadership, Customer Success) making it clear this is vital AND needs to be achieved, with a few clear wrinkles to be dealt with. 48 hours later - No response from anyone, Sales can’t wait any longer and respond on behalf of the SaaS company - immediately get told off by Customer Success 😥
Our suspicion is that churn has become so challenging that CS are starting to misbehave (over-protecting clients whilst being somewhat untruthful about renewal). This leads to poor customer engagement which in turn means that (for example) clients are unavailable to speak on behalf of the platform. Of course, many SaaS relationships are too transactional anyway, which leads to customers having no relationship with the platform anyway. This is one reason why MACH has been so successful - it’s like customer marketing on steroids… by accident.
Example Two (you can start nodding now). A CX platform needs to find a customer to speak at an event (assume most SaaS vendors need 50x these each year). There are 5 “go to” clients who say yes enough that nobody tries elsewhere, then those 5 start saying “no” (they have day jobs), and the blame internally gets assigned to the customer rather than the fact they’ve been asked too often.
Nuff Said…
The email cadence - Annoying at Scale
I saw a survey a few weeks ago about how many SDR’s write and design their own email cadences. The survey received 146 votes and the outcome was a little scary:
The inescapable conclusion here is that SDR’s are creating sales content on behalf of your company - in order to represent your brand AND engage with target customers. The feedback we see from prospects about these email cadences is truly appalling (there is a whole channel in the CF community group dedicated to “outing” crappy emailers). The content is often pushy, overbearing and self-serving, and their cadence is seen as annoying in the extreme.
If you’re reading this email (and in a position to do so) I strongly recommend you change this as a matter of urgency - if your teams do this. Why isn’t marketing templating these? Why buy an ABM engine and then let 22yr old SDR’s fresh out of university write your content? To quote an enterprise AE I know well - this is just “Annoying at scale”.
Finally - if you leave these cadences untouched they fast become quite amusing - one-way email threads where the annoying person is having a conversation with themselves. It’s sad though 🙁
Here endeth the rant, although the other Jamie will be producing a top tips follow-up blog about how to fix this.
Agency/SI Marketing - Have an opinion?
In the many years since our business started helping System Integration & Consulting firms with business development, the landscape has changed entirely. Back when Javelin Group ruled Tier 1 retail for eCommerce SI’s had owner/managers who sold (and nobody else helping), but no marketing function for sure.
Then came small marketing functions who ran client/prospect events and created thought leadership content, but essentially the last 10 yrs have been full of SI’s chasing platforms for leads, ambulance chasing by another name.
Gradually this landscape seems to be changing. Agencies like Apply/e2x, Valtech and others are investing in partner marketing AND positioning themselves as thought leaders with opinions… they’re looking to assert some real credibility within their target sectors, and focusing efforts in the marketing medium - long game. Of course these programs are being co-funded by vendors, but this seems fair, after all the SI has the most valuable relationship with the end customer right? (see section one).
Of course, we live in a world where the content cycle is fast-becoming an “opinion cycle”, where facts are few and far between but personal views are broadcast - this missive is another example of opinion couched as fact - so it’s vital that these agencies follow-through on their positioning and earn the trust of their customers.
It struck me a few years ago when an SI Managing Director said to me “there’s no such thing as a fixed price project, we just work until it’s a success. Reputation is everything”. I liked that a lot, customers do too.
Thanks for reading everyone :)
Abusive word of the week:
Pothole - “The person everyone swerves to avoid”