In today's complex market, product advantage is fleeting. It is no longer what you sell, but how you sell it - meaning it is now vital to bridge the gap between sales and marketing. CUSTOMER MESSAGE MANAGEMENT does just that, eradicating the disconnect that for years has plagued the two departments and, in the process, increasing the effectiveness of both. With its thorough, practical coverage of CMM, this comprehensive guidebook gives readers invaluable insight into how to create effective brand, marketing, and sales messaging based on customer business roles and goals. It also equips readers with the skills to deliver those messages efficiently and effectively across all selling touch-points in a way that can be personalized for each prospect and customer. More than just creating customer-ready messages for the sales force to use, CMM helps companies discern how best to create messages, stimulate conversations, and continue customer dialogues that activate purchase intent.
Chapter 1: What Is Customer Message Management?
Chapter 2: Is Marketing at Risk of Irrelevance to Sales?
Chapter 3: The Sales Frontline: Welcome to No Brand's Land
Chapter 4: Principles of Customer Message Management
Chapter 5: The Business Case for Customer Message Management
Chapter 6: Setting up a CMM Project Plan and Team
Chapter 7: Building a Message Map
Chapter 8: Cross-Functional Messaging Workshop
Chapter 9: Message Development and Validation
Chapter 10: Sales-Cycle-Relevant Deliverable Design
Chapter 11: CMM Delivery: Ensuring Sales Adoption and Use
Chapter 12: CMM Turns Commodities into Solutions
Chapter 13: CMM Fuels the Sales Training Process
Chapter 14: CMM Across the Marketing Continuum
"Unisys has applied a consultative solution selling approach for some time. The CMM methodology not only better enables consultative selling, it provides the means to deliver truly customer-centric messaging and collateral which aligns marketing to the way sales actually works! The reaction by sales has been superb not just from increasing the time they can spend with clients by not having to create customer-specific messaging but through a stronger collaboration between sales and marketing."
--Steven Burrows, Director, Sales Support, Unisys--
"Strategic selling in the c-suite is every company's goal. With the c-suite becoming so crowded, it has become imperative to be able to deliver effective, high impact messages that allow organizations to align culturally, economically, and our entire sales force to raise their game by establishing the framework for vision-based selling that differentiates our company."
--John Palumbo, SVP Sales and Marketing, Amerisourcebergen--