Closed-loop marketing (CLM) is a process where marketers create communication strategies and tactics for their sales teams. They strive to effectively reach their customers through multiple touch-points and loops of feedback in order to improve their overall communications approach. CLM helps companies understand their customers better. It results in personalized, meaningful messaging that delivers value-adding content to their customers.
CLM has been a buzzword for marketing and sales teams around the world for some time. Today, it is enriched with the flavor of best-in-class, hyper-effective solutions. You may wonder if it is the right timing to implement such a solution. The answer is: Yes!
So let’s go through some reasons why it is a good time to do so. The focus is set on the life sciences and chemical industries where there are many challenges in fully understanding the marketplace.
Why use the life sciences and chemical industries as an example to understand CLM?
When working in the sales team of a life sciences or chemical company, you may face multiple challenges to deliver your message to your customers. You might be challenged to sell products to physicians in hospitals, to medical specialist centers and clinics or to clients where you face tremendous competition from your “chemical brothers”. And because many of your customers are decision makers, you want to target them with truly meaningful content and deliver hyper-effective messages because useless content won’t go over very well.
Customers are constantly on call. Physicians take care of their patients and write prescriptions, while chemical buyers care about the right products, the best sourcing and their competition. Their mobility requires you to be the same. Now, let’s talk about how closed-loop marketing works at its best.
When you’re mobile, you must engage right away.
When customers finally have a few minutes to speak, reps must engage them quickly with what they have and not waste precious time.
Lengthy, dense paper brochures will not engage them—they are flooded with enough lackluster content as it is. A bland PowerPoint presentation won’t cut it, either. It doesn’t allow for quick, meaningful answers on unexpected questions. Nor do PowerPoints provide enough backup content during battles about scientific proof or the right material compound.
Customers are mobile and don’t have a lot of time to sit down. You must catch their interest with dynamic content and the right elevator pitch right away, or you will lose the sale before you’re out the door. Meanwhile, the marketing guys back home are waiting for rich, meaningful feedback following your interaction.
How CLM keeps you ahead with new sales opportunities.
Alright, one of your sales reps just nailed a quick meeting with a customer. The customer is genuinely interested in your product, and even referred you to peers in the area!
It sounds like an oxymoron, but despite their busy schedules, your customers are heavily connected via social networks. They greatly rely on colleagues’ referrals when it comes to the right medical treatments or the right products. So, if you play things right, you’ll score a big win. If you don’t, you’ll lose the sale with your customer and his or her network. Here are two things you can do to make sure you stay on track with your customer and any subsequent referrals:
First, your reps need to have the right CLM solution installed on the tablet to know what’s going on. Second, that CLM solution needs to be up-to-date at all times with the right content, customer information and insights. Otherwise your rep can kiss this briefly opened opportunity goodbye.
It is time to have a dynamic, super-fast feedback cycle CLM solution available for your reps. You need a solution that gives marketers the opportunity to create tablet presentations, which are quickly converted from PowerPoint presentations into rich-media content. These new presentations are distributed within seconds to reps, and are automatically equipped with all required keywords and metadata. Data allows customer feedback to be captured at the point of sale (PoS) as observed by the rep, or via direct input through micro surveys.
All of this information feeds back to back-office systems within seconds, or as soon as an online connection is available. Once it is uploaded this data can be analyzed on the spot and allows you to make improvements without the massive overhead of those larger, “classic” data behemoths.
You can stay mobile even if your customers want something more detailed.
A customer’s time is limited. But if your reps’ quick meetings and presentations are going well, they are likely to want a more informative session in the future. That said, you may not always be there when your customers are ready.
Enter the world of e-Detailing, or self-detailing! It’s a broad term, but it allows companies to provide additional information to their customers via online self-service portals. Customers can access content at their convenience, anytime, anywhere. The same content presented in the morning, but unfortunately not finished during the session, can be automatically made available to the same customer, KOL, HCP or decision maker. Your customers only need an email invite and online (micro) portal. This is just one of the many ways reps can stay mobile and still close the loop between customers and marketing teams.
It’s time to start closing the loop.
We’ve now shared some situations where the latest smart closed-loop marketing systems are the right solution to get your sales team ahead. Understanding closed-loop marketing is great, but doing it is even better. Click here to access our one-pager to learn more.
Are you ready to experience Pitcher’s closed-loop marketing solutions? Do you want to get your sales and marketing teams on the same page? Click here to schedule your demo today!