Login

Username:Password:

• Register here
• Forgotten Your Username
  or password?

• Leading Articles
• Case Studies
• Market Reports
• Information Services
• Consultants Directory
• Critical Facts
• Marketing Glossary
• Marketing Knowledge
  • Agenda Papers
  • Brands and Branding
  • Customer Relationship Management - CRM
  • E-Branding
  • Ethics and Sustainability
  • Innovation
  • Internal Branding
  • Marketing Effectiveness
  • Marketing to Business
    • Best Practice
      • Factifile Index
      • Factfile Introduction
  • Media Neutral Planning
  • Pan-Company Marketing
  • Promoting Marketing
  • Services Marketing
  • Small Business Solutions
  • The Impact of E-business on Marketing and Marketers
  • the marketer
• Marketing Links
• Research Surveys

Factfile 22

Figure 10: Companies are now learning to create an integrated mix of channels to maximise coverage and minimise costs



Source: M2B Canon, 2002.

A new model has emerged
So what does work? After significant time and effort, leading companies have created new coverage models by listening to their customers and approaching data analysis with discipline.

• Not only are new alternate channels such as the telephone, Internet, and partners developing in response to customer demands, they are being integrated and managed as a united coverage front to the customer.
  
  
• The customer moves seamlessly through the sales cycle, perhaps learning about a new product via the company web site, calling a telephone call centre to learn more details, receiving a visit from a field rep to complete configuration, pricing and implementation, while post-sale questions and reorders occur through a telephone centre rep.
  
  
• More refined customer segmentation based on account potential and profitability analysis, coupled with more refined product segmentation based on transaction complexity, enables companies to better focus their most costly sales resources on those accounts that will deliver the most results.
  
  
• Additionally, detailed customer data capture and analysis enables accountability in the model. Marketing campaigns that used to be next to impossible to measure now enable account-level tracking of demand generation metrics, lead-to-close ratios, revenue attribution and overall profitability.
  
  
• Companies can now target the right customers with the right products through the right channels and have the ability to shift these targets to meet changing needs and goals.

It has become clear that augmenting and remixing channel portfolios dramatically increases market coverage and reduces cost-to-serve/sell.

• Deploying valuable field reps to high opportunity, profitable accounts and providing them tele- and Web-based resources to complete more administrative tasks increases selling time and creates more revenue.
  
  
• Telephone centre based reps can handle dozens more accounts than a traditional rep, at nearly the same capability yet significantly lower relative cost.
  
  
• Leveraging the Web for product and service information such as ?webinars? and product demonstrations increases awareness at a fraction of the cost of traditional demand generation tactics.

The end result is compelling: decreased selling expenses combined with increased revenues leading directly to bottom line profitability.

© The Chartered Institute of Marketing 2008 Disclaimer and Privacy Statement