Don’t Let Your Campaign Sneak Up on Your Sales Teams

Do you know what happens when you startle a squirrel? Here is what happens: they leap straight up in the air like a demented Harrier jet, execute a flawless 720 degree spin, drop their nuts and rocket up the nearest tree from which they loudly scold the world for all the commotion and the missing nuts.

Our Sales Squirrel friends are no different. B2B sales folks don’t like surprises. Unless they look a lot like a new set of golf clubs for selling the most stuff last quarter. They especially don’t like surprises involving marketing campaigns. The surprises they like the least sound something like this:

Squirrel: Good morning, Bill. Thought I’d call and see how things are going with our products.

Bill: Why, good morning, Squirrel. I was thinking about you today when I was driving in. That new radio ad sure is catchy.

Squirrel: (typing frantically, trying to find the email with the details about the radio flight) Yeah. Those marketing folks sure are creative. Glad you liked it.

Bill: In fact, I was wondering if you could tell me the ballpark pricing on that baby.

Squirrel:  The pricing is, um, flexible. I’d really have to come in and discuss your needs and properly fit the right, um, version for your business.

Bill: Are we talking about the same product? I want the one in the ad with the funny jingle.

Squirrel: Ooooooh, that one. Well I’m not sure it runs on Citrix.

Bill: What the fu*k?

Squirrel: (making whooshing noises) Bill? Bill? Are you there? We’re having a big storm here. Oh my god, is that a funnel cloud? (now making thunder noises). Get to the basement! Oh the humanity…

Bill: What the fu*k?

Which is the very question the Squirrel’s co-workers will be asking as they realize there’s no funnel cloud and climb out from under their desks.

And it’s the same question your Squirrel will be asking the marketing folks about two minutes later as she realizes that she has no idea what campaign just broke because you never told her. Or you may have told her but only as part of some long, boring presentation six weeks ago. It’s possible you even told her last week in a sales bulletin that a new campaign was breaking, but who reads bulletins?

So how is it possible you startled your Squirrel? Let’s assume you remembered to tell the Squirrels about the campaign. Let’s also assume you maybe even showed them the creative at some point. But did you give them a talk track? Did you arm them to sell in the context of that creative? Did you explicitly agree with the Squirrel team about how to leverage the campaign into nuts (leads)? I would bet you didn’t.

Here are some ways to ensure your Squirrels remain un-startled by your activities:

•  Don’t bother with the big creative reveal unless you’re already doing a sales launch. They won’t care and they won’t remember the details; only that you wasted a ton of revenue on creative their kid could have done better
• About three days before your campaign breaks (squirrels have very limited attention spans) send out a PDF (they can’t change those) with all of the creative (print, online, broadcast) images (and the audio and video files too if bandwidth allows; otherwise with links)
• On each page, resist the urge to celebrate your strategic genius and instead use call-outs to show the Squirrels the things they need to be aware of: price, call to action, offer details, the nearly invisible mousetype at the bottom, regional variances etc.
• Give them three key talking points that tie the creative to the product benefits. No more than three, and make sure you test these on some captive Squirrels first.
• Clearly communicate where and when the creative will run. Please, oh please, oh please don’t just reproduce the schedule from the media agency. Nobody can read those, including the media buyers. Make a simple calendar or just list the publications, sites and station call letters for each  market.
• If the buy is big enough, do a separate document for each region. Squirrels don’t really care about the buy outside their territory (unless other territories are getting a bigger spend, in which case they care very, very much)
• Do a call with the Über-Squirrels the day before you send the document. By walking the sales managers through it all, you are likely to catch 90% of the questions their teams will have, and you can tweak the call-outs if you need to. Your goal here is agreement from the Squirrels that the talking points are what will drive the leads. Plus it’s a rear-end covering best practice.
• Don’t ask for their feedback. You know you don’t want it; the creative is baked and the Squirrels will doubtless send you helpful drawings. I save the drawings and attach them to my next agency briefing. It’s a lovely icebreaker with the agency.

Bizmarketer is Elizabeth Williams
Follow me on Twitter @bizmkter
or email escwilliams@gmail.com