Implementing an Effective Demand Management Process

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Implementing an Effective Demand Management Process

Best Practice Guidebook

guidebook summary

Firm: Kronos

Industry: Software Services and Applications

Headquarters: Chelmsford, Massachusetts, United States Geographic Footprint: Global

Ownership: Private

Revenue (2012): $870 million USD

Problem:

Corporate Marketing needs to improve the quality and volume of leads generated to help grow the business, by addressing shortcomings in the lead management process and demand generation performance.

Solution:

Corporate Marketing at Kronos develops a demand management strategy to provide Sales with high-quality, actionable leads through:

• Enhanced lead management:

- Conducting a thorough evaluation of the existing process - Developing a cross-functional vision for the future state of lead

management

- Improving the prioritization and scoring of leads - Establishing criteria for lead filtering and progression • Improved demand generation:

- Creating personalized multi-touch campaigns - Expanding and categorizing content

Business Results:

Resources Required:

• Executive sponsorship (Chief Marketing Officer)

• Cross-functional project team: Marketing, Sales, IT, and Finance • External project manager

• Investment in applications and integration development

Applicability of Best Practice to Executive Functions:

Function Applicability Marketing Sales Leadership Before (2008) • 15,000 Marketing Captured Leads (MCLs) • 4% inquiry to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) conversion

• 8% sales pipeline contribution

After (2011)

• 55,000 Marketing Captured Leads (MCLs)

• 12% inquiry to Marketing

Qualified Lead (MQL) conversion • 27% sales pipeline contribution

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Kronos Corporate Marketing builds a comprehensive demand management process

Create Demand

Management Strategy Lead Nurturing Conduct

Objective

Develop a strategy to revitalize lead management activities

Objective

Re-engage stalled leads at all stages of the buying cycle

Outputs

• Lead management task force • Assessment findings • Lead management goals • Demand management process • Glossary of terms

Output

• Nurture campaigns by function, vertical, and buying cycle stage

Improve Demand Generation Objective

Drive increased demand across the buying cycle

Outputs

• Vertical- and function-specific content that spans all stages of the buying cycle

• Personalized multi-touch campaigns for each segment

• Content Repurposing Methodology • Contact acquisition strategy

Enhance Lead Management Objective Expand the flow of high-quality leads to Sales Outputs

• Lead cleansing process and technology solution

• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) across the organization

• Lead scoring/qualification criteria

Activities

• Build a cross-functional team to address lead management issues • Assess existing lead management

practices from people, process, and technology perspectives

• Create a strategy and process for the future of demand management

Activities

• Organize and prioritize existing marketing content

• Create a content strategy that is: - Multi-touch

- Tailored by prospect - Aligned with the value

proposition

• Develop content/offers versioned by vertical, function, and buying stage

Activities

• Lead Processing:

- Conduct lead cleansing and augmentation

- Establish lead priority and routing based on explicit and implicit ratings

• Lead Development: - Adhere to Service Level

Agreements (SLAs) in developing leads

- Convert Marketing Captured Leads (MCLs) to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) through a qualitative and quantitative prioritization process

Activities

• Manually nurture prospects in the early stage of the buying cycle via offers tailored to specific needs • Institute an automated nurture

program for unresponsive prospects

• Continue nurturing customers for cross-sell and upsell opportunities

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key takeaway:

Focus on solving lead management challenges first

Kronos identifies issues with demand management

and prioritizes lead management challenges…

Demand Management Problem Identification

Demand Management Definitions

…by establishing a

cross-functional taskforce

Kronos Chief Marketing Officer

The Problem

Marketing’s contribution to the sales pipeline is less than 8%

Insight: tackle lead management first

A common pitfall is to boost demand generation efforts, without examining the lead management process. This results in:

• Continued Sales’ dissatisfaction with leads • Issues with lead velocity

and quality

• Inefficient expenditure on demand generation programs

Demand Management

The process of identifying and engaging prospects, converting them to leads, and moving them through the sales pipeline. There are two components to the process:

Demand Generation

Marketing programs designed to increase demand across all stages of the buying cycle

Lead Management

The process and systems designed to clean, prioritize, qualify, and route leads to Sales for progression through the sales pipeline

Marketing Sales IT Finance Percent of Time Spent on Project Steering Team—provides strategic direction and approves project scope

Chief Marketing Officer 10% VP, Corporate Marketing 25%

VP, Sales Operations 5%

VP, Information Technology 5%

Senior Director, Finance 5%

Director, Inside Sales 5% Director, Sales Effectiveness 15% Director, Demand Generation 15%

Project Team—provides expert understanding of the process, and develops future states Director, Marketing Operations 75%

Director, Web Strategy 25%

Manager, Inside Sales 25% Senior Sales Representatives (5) 5% X 5

Business System Analyst 25% 25% 25% 25%

Total Full-Time Equivalents 1.75 1.25 0.30 0.40

External Project Manager—helps manage the revitalization project, provides best-practice recommendations and benchmarks, and acts as objective advisor throughout the process

Project Manager 100%

Create Demand Management Strategy

January 2008 Project Duration April 2010

View the taskforce’s responsibilities

View Kronos marketing organizational structure

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key takeaway:

Root cause the people, process, and

technology issues undermining lead management activities

The Lead Management Taskforce uses a three-element framework to uncover performance gaps

Lead Management Assessment Framework

Focus Area

People

Review roles and responsibilities of Sales, Marketing, IT, and Finance in lead management, including:

• lead processing • lead development • lead progression

• Review current lead management process

• Benchmark process against competitors and industry standard • Evaluate alignment between process

and organizational structure

• Evaluate current technology architecture

• Review data flow • Identify requirements

• Map requirements to technical solutions, highlighting gaps

Process

Technology

Assessment Activities Issues Identified

System Support and Ownership

• Resource gaps and disagreements associated with issue troubleshooting and resolution

• Critical personnel lacked the skills required to support the solution

Organizational Alignment

• Misunderstandings on the role of Lead Development Representatives (LDRs) and chain of command

• Sales’ skepticism of leads due to historical lack of quality and quantity

Training

• Resources from Sales, Marketing, IT, and Finance require additional training to support the lead management solution (process and technology)

Marketing Measurement

• No closed-loop reporting structure

Marketing and Sales Handoff

• No agreement on process terminology or definitions

• Lack of clarity on lead development process • Disagreement on sales readiness criteria • No nurturing process

Systems Integration

• Limited and fragile integration between the Sales Force Automation system and Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) resulted in many “missing” leads

System Support and Ownership

• No centralized, automated procedure for error handling

• Critical applications were several versions out of date

Data Capture

• Lag of 2–3 days prior to reaching a Lead Development

Representative due to legacy processing methods

• High abandonment rate of web forms by prospects due to length and complexity

Create Demand Management Strategy

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glossary of terms

*

key takeaway:

Establish the objectives for lead management and a process to accomplish them

Corporate Marketing and the taskforce identify the goals for lead management…

…and modify the demand management process to attain lead management goals

Speed flow of

leads to Sales "sales-ready" leadsDeliver nurturing processImprove the lead management processDevelop a sustainable

Demand

Generation Inquiry ProcessingLead MCL MQL SQL

Lead Nurturing

Establish multi-touch campaigns targeted by vertical and title, utilizing a comprehensive database.

Update lead processing software to remove invalid leads, and revisit lead processing needs regularly.

Create Service Level Agreements between Sales and Marketing, and establish

qualitative/quantitative scoring for Lead Development Representatives to follow.

Establish lead nurturing programs across all stages of the buying cycle, tailored by vertical and title.

Marketing Captured Lead (MCL)

A “cleansed” lead sent to a Lead Development Representative (LDR) for further development

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

Progressed within the sales pipeline, to assign ownership

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

An LDR determines if the lead fits an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and would benefit from a Kronos product

Sales Accepted Lead (SAL)

Progressed into sales pipeline by Sales Representative

Lead

Development Lead Progression SAL

Create Demand Management Strategy

Benefits

• Fewer resources required to manually monitor and rectify issues based on automated centralized process tracking • Ability to provide closed-loop

reporting through streamlined data capture

• Flexible solution that can be

modified to meet changes in business requirements

Benefits

• Better customer/prospect experience • Improved ability to reach contacts

while they are still actively engaged

Benefits

• Improved lead routing and prioritization, resulting in more consistent follow-up

• Enhanced lead quality through the use of scoring and a standardized qualification methodology

Benefit

• Marketing and Sales reengage with leads to improve their explicit scores by delivering relevant offers at the right time

Deal Won or Lost

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key takeaway:

Combine explicit and implicit scoring to filter and prioritize leads for Sales

Marketing Operations uses a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)

_{to apply scoring criteria to leads}

Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)

Explicit Scoring 3 _{(Who they Are)}

Scoring Categories Scoring _Range

Vertical Market (Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare) 0–40 Company Size (<>500 employees) 0–30 Job Function (HR, Payroll, Finance) 0–20 Title (C-Level, VP, Director, Manager) 0–10

Implicit Scoring 3 _{(What they Did)}

Scoring Categories Scoring _Range

Submitted “Contact Us” form within last 24 hours 0–75 Responded to at least one live event in the last 30 days 0–20 Responded to at least one online event in the last 30 days 0–15 Downloaded High Value Asset within the last 30 days 0–15 Visited High Value Content within the last 30 days 0–5 Email clickthrough from any campaign within the last 30 days 0–5

Explicit Scoring A 75–100 B 51–74 C 25–50 D <24 Implicit Scoring 1 75–100 2 31–74 3 10–30 4 <9 Marketing Captured Lead (MCL) Nurture/ Discard Cleansed Data2

1 _{MAP is software designed to automate the process of screening leads against standard criteria.} 2 _{Filtered and appended using Dun and Bradstreet and Trillium Software}

3 _{Built upon Eloqua’s Co-Dynamic Lead Scoring Model, using Kronos business rules}

Lead Scoring Matrix

A1 B1 C1 D1

A2 B2 C2 D2

A3 B3 C3 D3

A4 B4 C4 D4

Enhance Lead Management:

Lead Processing

lead scoring maintenance

• review of current lead scoring matrix against lead scoring best practices

• capture of known issues

• review of existing campaign cadence • analysis of existing content

• creation of content deployment schedule To pursue customers that fit Kronos offerings, Kronos weights explicit scores more heavily than implicit scores.

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No

key takeaway:

Dedicate sales support staff to qualify leads for field sales representatives

Lead Development Representatives convert Marketing Captured Leads (MCLs) to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and route them to Sales

Lead Development Representative (LDR) Enhance Lead Management:

Lead Development

Role:

Service field sales representatives in one of Kronos key verticals by providing qualified leads.

Responsibilities:

• Follow up on prioritized lead queue

• Comply with Service Level Agreements (SLAs): - Respond to leads within 48 hours

- Establish contact with leads within 10 days - Disposition leads within 30 days

• Reject leads with reason codes and send to nurturing • Convert MCLs to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) using

defined criteria

LDR Impact:

• Provides field sales representatives with the highest quality leads

• Improves velocity, allowing Sales to engage with more warm or hot leads • Reduces field sales reps’ lead qualification responsibilities No (0 points) Yes (25 points) Yes (20 points) No (0 points) Yes (20 points) No (0 points) Yes (30 points) No (0 points) Yes (20 points) Profile Scores and Outcomes

< 25 points 26–65 points > 65 points

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) Nurture LDR Discard Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

To fit the ICP, the lead must be from a targeted vertical market and of appropriate size

Authority

Do we know who the decision maker is for purchase?

Need

Have we captured details on one or more business drivers for our solution?

Timeframe Has the prospect identified their decision timeline? Budget Is budget available? MCL LDR

Vertically aligned LDRs judge lead strength based on explicit and implicit scoring in conjunction with qualitative data to determine how it should be routed. Demonstrated

need trumps budget, authority, and timeframe criteria.

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Whitepapers

Passive Participation Active Participation

Surveys 3rd Party _{Research Studies}Case Webinars Demos Seminars VIP Events Offers

repurposing methodology

Kronos creates a “Repurposing Methodology” to ensure that content can be recycled by vertical and function over time.

Improve

Demand Generation

key takeaway:

Develop a plan to create content across all stages of the buying cycle

Kronos Corporate Marketing ensures the prerequisites are in place to develop engaging content…

…and deploys content designed to move prospects through the buying cycle

Content Imperatives Champion Brand advocate Buying Cycle Stages Awareness Building familiarity with Kronos Credibility 3rd-party validation of offers Interest

Seeing the product in action

Evaluation

Test drive

Content Development Prerequisites

Prioritize Purchase

Place Prepare

Plan

Forecast content needs at least one quarter in advance

Develop content to address all phases of the buying cycle/fill gaps Acquire sufficient

database contacts to achieve revenue targets

Rank existing offers by value to the buyer

Align the highest value offers across the buying cycle

Multi-touch

qThree touches per campaign at minimum

Tailored

qBy vertical qBy function

qBy title

qBy buying cycle phase

Differentiated

Each piece of content links to one of three Kronos differentiators: qComplete automation

qHigh-quality information qEasy to own

View the Repurposing Methodology

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key takeaway:

Create a targeted nurturing approach based on key objectives

Lead Development Representatives and sales representatives employ nurturing approaches customized to the lead’s standing in the sales pipeline

LDR Sales Representative Sales Representative Conduct Lead Nurturing

Lead Stage Buying Cycle Stage

Marketing Captured

Lead (MCL) Awareness

Marketing Qualified

Lead (MQL) Credibility

Sales Accepted

Lead (SAL) Interest

Sales Qualified

Lead (SQL) Evaluation

Customer Champion

Key Objective: Lead retention Manual Nurturing

Provides personal touch and outreach for early stage buyers

Activity

Marketing supplies LDRs with email templates versioned by industry and function to drive re-engagement

Key Objective: Lead reactivation Late Stage Nurturing

Services advanced stage buyers and repeat buyers

Activity

Marketing coordinates “high quality, high touch” offers such as VIP events, Kronosworks (a Kronos-led conference), customer portal, newsletter, and local customer conferences

Key Objective: Lead acceleration Automated/Trigger Nurturing

Delivers content based on prospect action and chosen media

Activity

Marketing provides mid-stage offers, to include case studies and webinars entailing moderate involvement

Nurturing efforts are designed to progress leads to subsequent stages of the buying cycle by retaining, accelerating, and reactivating customers.

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Business Results

As a result of the revitalized demand management process, Kronos has experienced major improvements

in lead acceptance, marketing contribution to pipeline, and revenue growth

4% _70% 85% 12% Leads MQLs MQLs SALs

Lead-to-MQL Conversion Rate MQL-to-SAL Conversion Rate

Marketing Contribution to Pipeline Revenue ($million)

FY08 FY11 0% 15% 30% 8% 27% FY08 FY11 $0 $400 $800 $600 $800

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Key Lessons Learned

Profiled Company Perspective

• Begin with lead management improvement. Ramping up demand generation efforts before the organization is ready to

properly handle leads when they come in is a misuse of demand generation resources.

• Kronos learned that any attempt to fix technology issues before fixing process issues would be doomed to fail. The

approach of revisiting requirements while including all members of a cross-functional team provided an understanding

of the desired state first. The team then analyzed how it could accommodate those requirements using existing and

new technologies.

• Lead quality has a lot to do with lead velocity. A lead can be very high quality when it is hot, but if it can’t be

funneled to a sales representative in a reasonable amount of time, the lead will degrade. By establishing Service Level

Agreements and removing as much of the manual labor as possible, Kronos serves leads to the sales force in a timely

manner.

• Substantive progress can only be achieved with senior sponsorship in both Sales and Marketing and ongoing

collaboration between the teams.

• Properly aligning capabilities with a fit in areas like Operations, Web, Demand Generation, and Lead Development is

as important as addressing technological needs.

• Managing the marketing funnel is a journey, and requires constant examination and ongoing adjustment. Focus first on

the process, which enables lead generation and management thereafter.

• Demand generation targeting and content versioning is only possible if the contact database is sufficiently robust with

account intelligence and contact names.

additional best practice featuring kronos

To learn how Kronos’ marketing and sales organizations created and delivered a differentiated value proposition, view GTM’s Best Practice Guidebook Sales and Marketing: Revitalizing the Value Proposition and our Ask the Thought Leader webcast.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The following is a summary of the question-and-answer session held with Steve Gray, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at

Kronos, Inc., and Susan Paugh, Director of Corporate Marketing Operations at Kronos, Inc. during the Ask the Thought Leader

Webcast conducted on March 27, 2012. To view the archived version of the webcast, please

click here

Q

How long did each phase of the demand management

revitalization process take to complete?

Kronos approached the revitalization process in three phases. The first phase assessed the existing people, processes, and technologies, which took three months. Many companies want to rush through this first step, since its purpose is to uncover issues but not to resolve them. The second phase also took three months and involved designing the process and solution to address issues identified in the first phase. The final phase focused on solution deployment, which took six months. Refinement and adjustment are on-going.

Q

What measurements are incorporated by the Service Level

Agreements (SLAs) between Sales and Marketing?

Kronos has instituted several SLAs between Sales and Marketing; however, two are particularly worth noting. First there is an SLA related to the quality of the lead. Kronos leverages implicit and explicit behavior to score, route and prioritize leads for the LDR to call. The LDRs use agreed-upon sales readiness criteria to progress leads for conversion to the pipeline. Kronos measures the relationship between the lead score, lead development and progression.

Second, Kronos has clear SLAs regarding lead follow-up. As Marketing improved its ability to provide high quality leads to sales, it was imperative that leads receive prompt follow-up. Marketing and Sales agreed that leads should be called within 48 hours of receipt and dispositioned within 10-30 days depending on the LDRs ability to connect. The 48 hour rule also applies to leads progression from the LDRs to field sales. Inspection reporting reflecting “lead aging” is available to all sales managers.

Q

Did Kronos create a specific content strategy for increasing

demand generation?

Kronos understood the importance of planning ahead and forecasting content needs, which is comprised of the following four components:

a. Establishing agreement between industry marketing and programming upfront during the annual planning cycle. Committing the marketing team to a Master or Foundational messaging document within the context of an overall marketing plan reduces message volatility as the work that goes into writing it helps foster commitment. An ancillary benefit is that the team is more prepared to handle unexpected changes in messaging when warranted by market shifts.

b. In conjunction with, or absent the above, a comprehensive content audit goes a long way towards identifying gaps and directing content development. Any debate on what is needed between industry marketing and programs is easier to settle when both are working off the same roadmap.

c. Project Management fundamentals—make sure all parties know in advance and agree to what is expected of them and when. Content and Creative Briefs coupled with a detailed list of tasks, owners, dates and deliverables keep content delivery running on-time.

d. Finally, recycle, recycle and then repurpose. Last quarter’s whitepaper becomes this quarter’s webinar. Executive briefs from 5 whitepapers become “5 steps towards improving whatever you’re improving”!

Q

What is the staffing ratio of Lead Development

Representatives (LDRs) to sales representatives?

3–4 LDRs service each vertical in which Kronos does business. Each LDR is aligned to approximately 10–15 sales representatives. This model is based upon revenue and conversion rates.

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Frequently Asked Questions (Continued)

Q

Did Kronos face objections to overhauling the demand

management system, and if so, how were they addressed?

While it may be obvious to marketers, Kronos marketing still had to connect the dots for other functions like Finance or IT, to communicate that there is a direct correlation between lead management and revenue. Marketing needed to impress the fact that addressing their role in the lead management process should be a priority.

Second, Kronos had to make a business case for investing in an infrastructure overhaul. Kronos did an assessment of several hundred dormant leads and did a call blitz. That effort uncovered nearly 50 opportunities which still had signs of life, totaling more than $2.5 million in pipeline. That was a compelling example to our CFO, who easily extrapolated the latent opportunities we were missing by virtue of the broken process.

Q

What effect did the transformation have on Kronos’

existing content? Did Kronos create new content to be used

on the new system, or reuse existing content?

First, Kronos performed a “content audit”. The audit categorized the value of the content (i.e., its degree of quality), and also how it supported prospects across the buying cycle. Prospects at the beginning of the buying cycle are more passive, necessitating content, such as white papers, that matches buyers’ moods at this stage. Likewise, prospects that have progressed along the buying cycle are more active and

receptive to interactive forms of content, such as live events and product demonstrations. Kronos was able to continue using much of its existing content, while also building up new content to support gaps across the buying cycle.

Q

What risks would be encountered if Lead Development

Representatives (LDRs) were not used, and tightened

marketing automation qualification criteria were used as a

substitute?

The quality of the leads supplied to the sales force would diminish, because leads identify themselves (unintentionally) in ways that can cause misrouting. For example, a prospect who works at a university can come in as a very valid lead for the Higher Education vertical. However, an initial discovery call with the LDR would uncover that the lead works in a teaching hospital at the university and is more appropriately served by the Healthcare vertical. By misrouting the lead, Marketing’s credibility would be diminished. And there is a potential that the sales representative in Higher Education wouldn’t take the time to pass the lead to a sales representative in Healthcare, thus dropping the lead altogether.

Q

How has Kronos incentivized sales representatives to

provide feedback as part of the closed-loop process?

Kronos utilizes the Lead Development Representatives (LDRs) to support this activity. The LDRs report into the corporate sales organization and are incented to convert leads into opportunities (i.e., it’s a sales-accepted lead and part of the sales pipeline). When the lead is passed from the LDR to Sales, Sales can accept it into the pipeline as an opportunity or reject it. If it is rejected, Sales must provide the LDR with its rationale for rejection. The “rejection reasons” are used for nurturing, database maintenance and as part of the measurement used to assess marketing program effectiveness.

Q

How did Kronos develop the criteria and scoring for the

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?

Because Kronos leverages Dun & Bradstreet information for the account assignment process, it developed a comprehensive solution to cleanse and augment records on a near real-time basis as they come in the door. The ICP is identified through data augmentation and then validated by lead development.

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Frequently Asked Questions (Continued)

Q

Was the Marketing Automation Platform (Eloqua) already

in place, or was that part of the revitalization process? If so,

how did Kronos choose Eloqua?

Kronos upgraded its Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) as part of this process. The previous MAP had significant financial and demand management capabilities but lacked the scoring and nurturing capabilities offered by Eloqua. Kronos made a significant upfront investment in designing the integrated lead management process, so the transition to a new integrated marketing automation platform was completed in approximately three months. Kronos understood that when you know what you are trying to automate, it is much easier to deploy a technical solution.

Q

How do sales representatives provide status updates on the

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)?

Kronos doesn’t rely on the sales force to report this information. Instead, Marketing tracks the number of leads in the pipeline, including Marketing’s contribution to the pipeline. The key is that Kronos provides access to pipeline data for both Sales and Marketing. This approach allows Kronos to avoid controversy over the accuracy of the numbers. The integrated process and solution was designed to provide full transparency.

Q

How did Kronos determine the optimal staffing model for

the Lead Development Representative (LDR) group?

Kronos centralized the LDR organizational structure. While Kronos considered outsourcing the LDR function, it determined that LDRs need to be closely aligned to the vertical team. LDRs operate as an extension of the marketing organization, as well as a conduit to the sales organization. They are not a commodity that is interchangeable. This is largely due to Kronos’ go-to-market strategy, which is vertically oriented. Therefore, LDRs are organized by vertical, and need to develop relationships, knowledge and expertise related to their assigned vertical.

Q

Please expand on the role of external project managers and

their relationship with the lead management taskforce.

This project was an additional responsibility on already-busy members of our taskforce, so it was useful to have a third party to run the project. Additionally, the third party was entirely objective in dealing with any of the functional groups that were involved in the project, which was essential. The external project manager regularly reported project results to the executive steering committee and served as a trusted advisor throughout the process.

Q

Does Kronos differentiate between outreach that occurs

in “nurturing” versus outreach that occurs in the sales

pipeline?

It’s all nurturing—what changes are the nurturing goals. “Nurturing” as used in this question refers to “lead warming”. In this context, there is a prospect that is clearly interested in Kronos and/or workforce management, but not ready to qualify or the lead was interested but has gone cold. Offering the lead valuable, early stage content at regular intervals gives Kronos a chance to re-engage them.

“Nurturing” that occurs across the pipeline has more to do with

shortening the sales cycle. In a complex B2B sale, lead acceleration options are somewhat limited but can still be effective. This includes getting a lead the right information when and where they need it, coupled with tactics that increase “face time” with sales and may even include limited time offers and/or bundles.

Q

Does Kronos operate a single application to manage all

aspects of demand management, or does each team

operate its own solution?

The Kronos demand management solution includes a Marketing Automation Platform (Eloqua) and a Sales Force Automation platform (Oracle CRM onDemand). Kronos also uses a data cleansing application (Harte-Hanks Trillium) to standardize and augment data prior to bringing it into the database.

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Frequently Asked Questions (Continued)

Q

What steps has Kronos taken to refine the process since

this overhaul was completed?

Kronos continuously refines the process at both macro and micro levels. An example of a micro-level change is the definition of a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). Marketing and Sales initially set stringent criteria for MQLs to regain credibility with the sales force. As Sales representatives embraced the leads provided by Marketing, the MQL criteria were loosened to allow more leads to flow through. At a macro level, Kronos constantly examines all phases of the process based on shifts in business need. One example was the decision to use Eloqua for Kronos’ Marketing Automation Platform. Once Kronos gained confidence that the right people and process were in place, it was time to again look at the technology. When Kronos revisited its business requirements and re-evaluated the latest functionality each vendor could deliver it was determined that Eloqua was able to fulfill many of Kronos’ key requirements.

Q

How does Kronos define a “quality” (i.e., sales-ready) lead?

Kronos uses implicit and explicit scoring to filter and prioritize leads, which are then automatically forwarded to the Lead Development Representatives (LDRs). The lead development process, which is run by the LDRs, further refines the quality of leads passed to Sales. Kronos uses the Sirius Decisions model as a benchmark for lead conversion. This model suggests that 10% of leads should become Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). Marketing tracks this number and makes adjustments to ensure it is consistently meeting or exceeding this threshold.

Q

What guidance can Kronos offer on how to create and

forecast relevant content, given changing customer needs

and preferences?

Kronos recommends the following four-step approach:

1. Work collaboratively with content experts, such as product or industry marketing, on content requirements. Kronos suggests creating an annual planning cycle to support this collaboration.

2. Perform a content audit to ensure use of only the highest-quality content, and identification of content gaps.

3. Ensure all relevant stakeholders agree that the content conveys an accurate message.

4. Recycle and repurpose content to the greatest extent possible. For example, white papers from a previous quarter can inform this quarter’s webinar series.

Q

What issues have been successfully addressed and resolved

as a result of Sales and Marketing’s collaborative, on-going

reviews of lead scoring?

The on-going collaboration has helped the team maximize the effectiveness of the lead development organization by reviewing both qualitative and quantitative results. For example, Kronos saw a large volume of leads being passed with an average score that made it challenging for the lead development team to prioritize follow-up. We evaluated and identified “high value” content that should get scored and prioritized higher in the calling queue.

questions?

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Supporting Tools & Resources

Steering Team

Responsibilities include:

• Reviewing and approving project scope, resources and budgets • Providing direction on project issues and risks

• Providing commitment of required resources • Reviewing and approving project deliverables • Functional quality of solution

• Assuring that project results will satisfy the business needs • Championing project throughout organization

• Meeting regularly with Project Management

Project Team—Business System Analyst

Responsibilities include:

• Developing future-state processes and procedures • Developing business and/or report requirements • Performing gap analysis

• Bringing cross-functional perspective • Following project methodology • Developing functional specifications

• Developing and executing user acceptance test plans

• Coordinating activities with technical leads and other IT resources as required • Conducting end-user training

• Ensuring business users are trained adequately • Ensuring content and quality of data migrated • Ensuring functional quality of solution

• Championing project within functional area or IT

• Meeting regularly to review project status and resolve potential business issues

Project Team—Directors, Managers and Senior Sales Representatives

Responsibilities include:

• Providing expert business understanding of their organization and subject matter

• Understanding current state business process model • Developing future state process and procedures • Developing business and/or report requirements • Bringing cross-functional perspectives

• Following the project methodology

• Performing process and application acceptance testing • Ensuring content and quality of data migrated

• Functional quality of solution

• Championing project within functional area

• Meeting regularly to review project status and resolve potential business issues

Project Manager

Responsibilities include:

• Project plans, resource management, and budget development • Developing project charter and other appropriate project documents • Escalating and resolving issues with the Steering Team

• Communicating throughout project • Assessing the functional quality of solution

• Assuring that project results will satisfy business needs • Ensuring project adherence to timeline and budget • Meeting regularly with Steering Team and Project Teams

Lead Management Taskforce Responsibilities

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Supporting Tools & Resources

Corporate

Communications Services MarketingCustomer and Product Marketing

Corporate Marketing

Industry Marketing Measurement and

Metrics

Web Strategy and Operations Events

Lead Generation Creative _OperationsMarketing

Chief Marketing Officer

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Supporting Tools & Resources

Kronos reuses existing content through its Repurposing Methodology

Memory The shelf life of an offer is 3 months—don’t be afraid to _recycle. Format Surveys and webinars can become whitepapers and vice _versa. Serializing Books can be chaptered. Executive summaries can be _combined. Versioning Vertical offers can be versioned by industry. Offers can be _{versioned by function.} Availability Just because it’s free on the website doesn’t mean it can’t be gated in a program. Consult reports to see what is

selling.

Outlets Canvas industry sources for articles and surveys. Reprints _{of these items work.}