How to Sell your CEO on Inbound Marketing
In today's business culture it can be tough to get executives buy into new initiatives. With rapid changes with how consumers make their purchase decisions, marketing teams need to adjust accordingly. Often this involves convincing your CEO and executive team why to do online and inbound marketing. Sometimes this problem has to do with company culture or leadership, but often it comes down to communication and how it is explained. Really, many marketing teams could learn from their sales counterparts on how to achieve this.
Here is a 7-step process to convince your boss to start inbound marketing:
- Do Your Homework
As any good sales person can tell you, doing your homework before you get in the meeting can make the biggest difference in terms of success. You need to study your CEO like a must-have customer. This means knowing his demographic, BANT and behaviour patterns. Did he come up through marketing or sales, or maybe it was through operations or finance? If he is from a sales and marketing background, talk to him about how the buying process has changed and how 79% of all executives are involved in doing their own online research. Or that 89% of all Business to Business purchases start online. If your CEO comes from a finance background, show him how inbound sales leads cost 60% less than their traditional outbound counterparts. You also need to take a look at their age. If your CEO is a Baby Boomer, growing up during an age of Rock and Roll, protests and riots (though recent events here in Toronto during the G20 summit might revive this) you need to speak to what they respond to: cues of achievement and status as well as being a trailblazer. But if your CEO is a Gen-X who grew up with divorced families, crack, gangs and violence, you need to use creative ideas and smart messages.
- Discover what your CEO Cares About
After getting a good understanding about what motives your CEO, you need to match your presentation to what his organizational goals are, whether that's cost reduction, sales growth, a new product launch or something else. Match his language to your message, whether the context is a new blog or maybe a well-conceived Facebook strategy.
- Remember the 80:20 Rule
In sales, there is the golden rule: you should only talk 20% of the time and have your prospect (your CEO) talk 80% of the time. How do you do this? Ask questions. Walk your CEO through the whole process by asking him question about current challenges, goals, and how he wants to bring about change. By doing this you will not only discover more about what is important to him, but also you increase his engagement and buy-in.
- Sell on Benefits, not Features
Sales 101 teaches you that you don't sell features, you explain the benefits. That means don't explain how you can track a lead and nurture it from start to finish. Rather, explain how you can pass well qualified leads to sales so they will waste less time chasing unqualified prospects resulting in greater efficiency for the organization. Remember to be as specific as possible and match it to his personal and organizational goals.
- KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)
At it's depth, inbound marketing can be very complex, and it goes deep into every behaviour prospects/clients make. Your CEO doesn't need to be the inbound marketing expert. If he was, why would he need you? Filter what's important into a message simple enough that your CEO can not only make an appropriate decision but also repeat the message. You want to make him your advocate; if cannot explain it himself, how is he going to champion it into your organization?
- Be Prepared to Draw
Dan Roam's book "The Back of the Napkin" showed that thinking with pictures can help anyone develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and share insights more powerfully. The quickest way to help your CEO understand is to draw a diagram - on paper or a white board. Diagram existing communications channels like e-newsletters, word of mouth, and emails, alongside social media platforms and blog posts, and then use that diagram to talk through when to use what and why.
- Ask for the Business
I see it all the time with people who are new to sales, they are afraid to ask the most important question of all: "what's the next step?" If you are not comfortable asking for a 100% commitment, ask about preferences. If you feel that you're CEO will not green light a new initiative based on a single meeting, keep momentum building by clarifying the next step: ask your CEO to choose between action and further study. For example, you might say, "We could study this more, maybe involve more people in the discussion, or I could test a few ideas and keep you posted on results before we spend lots of company resources. What's your preference?"
Remember, when looking to implement inbound marketing in your company, you need to sell it to your organization. These 7 steps can set you up for success, and help your organization achieve a greater number of lower cost leads. And isn't that what your job as a marketer is to do?
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