Why 2010 Planning Must Start Today
So, perhaps for your company, 2009 hasn't exactly been the greatest year from a bottom line performance standpoint. Many economists would argue that we've just passed through one of the worst years in the economic history of our country. I can say from my experience, that I wouldn't disagree. But hey, we all made it. We are here at the start of Q4, thinking of finishing a tumultuous year strong. We are dusting off our budgets and figuring out what we truly need to do to build the foundation for a great comeback year in 2010. As a leader in the outsourced sales and marketing space, we've seen the economy slowly but surely regain it's footing over the course of Q3. Our clients have gone from discussing how to best conclude our relationships, to trying to figure out how to expand the amount of spend they apply to our services. Our new business acquisition has increased dramatically over the course of Q3. In my completely untrained and wholly unsubstantiated opinion, U.S. technology companies are getting ready to roll in 2010. While '09 was tough for all of us, everyone left standing is smarter, leaner, wiser, hungrier, and more determined than ever to succeed in their space. It's a good time to be in technology.
I'll dispense with the pep talk and get to the point: It's go time.
What is your demand generation plan for Q4?
What do you want to accomplish? How much forecast for Q1 2010 do you need to generate from your Q4 initiatives? Have you figured out exactly who you want to sell to in 2010? More importantly, can you clearly and concisely explain to them exactly why they should part with their precious cash to work with you? If you do know the companies you want to sell to, and what you are going to say to them, do you have the names and contact info for the people in those organizations that you need to say it to? If you do have the list, what are you going to do with it? What programs will you run this quarter and when and why? You know by now that you must make more with less in 2010, so, do you have a Marketing strategy that includes the optimal mix of social media and traditional marketing and that will enhance every marketing dollar that you spend? Do you have a politely aggressive teleprospecting plan in place to support all of your programs? Have you worked with sales to define exactly what a qualified opportunity is and when it should be transitioned from teleprospecting to sales? If you have, have you mapped out what is to be done with all those nuggets of gold that your teleprospecting is going to deliver to your sales team? How will they follow up? How many times and what will the sales team say to those prospects? How will you close the loopon all of those qualified opps that were previously delivered to sales over the last 9 months? Where are they in the process? What is the nurturing plan for those opps? Most importantly, you work hard to market what your company does, how will you measure your own success and the return on your marketing investments for Q4. The list goes on...you get my point, we've got our work cut out for us.
Over the course of the next month, I will be posting details, thoughts, and progress pertaining to the AG Salesworks Q4 09 Demand Generation Campaign. We've done our best to answer all of the questions above and are ready to begin execution of our own comeback. It is my sincere hope that by sharing our experience over the next three months, you'll be able to commiserate with us, empathize with us, congratulate us, and ideally decide to include us in the story of your company's 2010 comeback.
Pete