Behind the curtain: Targeting the target in Sales Enablement

We here at Launch International have been spending the Fall months working on our own messaging and value propositions (you may have seen some of our press releases about new strategic services and the hiring of a recognized thought leader).

What has stuck me most over this process is the critical importance of targeting messages and content for specific responsibilities and titles across the organization.  If you consider the customer’s buying process–and all the people and responsibilities that come with it–then you recognize that a high-level message comes first, then to be followed by targeted messages across the LOB, IT and Finance functions for your customers.

This has all lead me to realize that the best examples I can give you for sales enablement is the materials we provide our own sales and account managers.  It’s not a huge audience, to be sure…but we really try to provide our team the most up-to-date information about WHO buys our services and HOW they buy them.

When it comes to targeted messages, we have a set of “personas” we use to talk about our value propositions to each person. I use “persona” in quotes, because persona marketing is an entire segment unto its own in B2B marketing. Companies spend many hours and dollars drilling down to create true personal profiles of the kinds of people who buy their services. We’ve gone part of the way there, and idenfied the pains and challenges our buyers face, as well as show the value we can deliver in their space.
We have created sales enablement ”battlecards” to help our sales and account managers identify pains and value propositions for several titles:

• VP Marketing
• VP Sales
• VP Sales Ops
• VP Training
• VP Channels/Alliances
• VP Professional Services

I’d be happy to share these battlecards with you if you want to see how we work through these issues.  Lemme know: enitschke@launchintl.com.