The KloudReadiness Playbook - SYNNEX€¦ · The Cloud Services Playbook ... In this chapter of the...

The Cloud Services Playbook Step 3: Build an Effective Marketing Machine

Copyright © 2016 KloudReadiness, LLC of 36

The KloudReadiness Playbook

Step 3: Build an Effective Marketing Machine

The Role of Marketing for Cloud and Managed Service Providers

The role of marketing means different things to different people. For some it means the very

intangible concepts branding, positioning and market awareness. For others it means very

concrete deliverables such as sales tools that support the sales process. And for others it

means the leads that drive sales opportunities – pure and simple. Of course, marketing is all of

these things, but what does the role of marketing mean to a managed services business? As

an MSP, how do you conduct your own marketing programs to achieve your specific goals and

measure their effectiveness? How can you be sure that your marketing investments will lead

to more sales and the right kind of sales? In this chapter of the KloudReadiness Playbook, we

will present an approach for building an effective MSP marketing machine. We will show you

how to look at marketing as a science rather than as an art form. We will literally provide you

with a formula to follow to execute your own marketing campaigns and then give you the

metrics to measure their effectiveness.

Westcon Avaya Marketing Resources

The Westcon Avaya Marketing Resource Toolkit provides a number of very useful

materials to help partners create marketing programs and materials for their cloud

and managed services. These materials provide key differentiators and marketing

messages that will successfully position your cloud and managed service solutions

against the competition and will showcase its business value to your customers and

prospects. For example, you will find some of the important door opening questions to

ask during approach calls, a pain points cheat sheet for the sales team, templates for

direct mail and email campaigns, and a standard company presentation to use on first

sales calls.

Absorb this material carefully and look for ways to incorporate its messaging into all

aspects of your marketing machine – from your corporate website to your sales

collateral. In the appendix to this Playbook, you will find professionally designed

graphical formats that you can use to build your own presentation materials and sales

literature based on the Westcon Avaya content.



Westcon Avaya also has many excellent white papers that provide thought leadership

topics to enhance the credibility of your cloud and managed service offerings. They

can be used as a fulfillment piece or as part of a call‐to‐action for lead generation

campaigns. Other Westcon Avaya resources that can be incorporated into marketing

programs and materials include a cost comparison between cloud and managed

services and specifically UCaaS, a matrix that can be used to compare Westcon Avaya

to competitive solutions and a sales guide with many tips for identifying prospects and

target markets. Also look for ways to integrate a product demonstration or a proof of

concept into your marketing campaigns. There are many valuable resources like these

for your to keep in mind as we discuss a variety lead generation strategies in the pages

that follow.

Lead Generation Programs

Leads are the necessary fuel that powers the growth of your MSP business. Some leads will be

generated by the suppliers of the products and services you represent, others through

referrals. In order to grow your business consistently, it is going to take more than these two

sources. If you don’t have one already, you need to build an effective marketing machine to

feed your sales reps with new opportunities and drive your business forward. It’s always a

challenge to generate enough leads to feed the appetite of your business . . . but how many

leads are “enough”?

We believe the goal of an effective marketing campaign is to generate as many quality leads

as possible as opposed to a creating a huge quantity of leads with questionable quality, we call

it a “quantity of quality”. When you take into consideration the time and resources you need

to qualify your leads combined with the time and sales productivity wasted in chasing the

wrong leads, your investment in qualifying your leads far exceeds your investment to create

them. One point should be made about execution: your sales force should play a significant

role in the execution of marketing campaigns and should bear equal responsibility for

generating, qualifying leads to fill the pipeline. At the end of the day, driving pipeline activity

must be seen as a shared responsibility.

As outlined in the diagram on the next page, quality leads will maximize conversion rates and

produce the most deals. By focusing on a smaller number of highly qualified leads that

represent prospects that meet your ideal customer profile and have a need for your solution,

you will increase your conversion rates, conserve marketing dollars and increase sales

efficiency.



How will you determine how many leads are enough? The first step is to review the

performance of previously executed campaigns as illustrated by the “tracking performance”

arrow in the above diagram.

How many leads were generated?

Of the total number of leads generated, how many were qualified leads?

How many qualified leads were converted into sales opportunities

How many of the sales opportunities were actually closed and converted into wins?

Tracking the performance of each of your campaigns is critical to helping you develop a

predictable process that will generate the consistent quality and quantity of leads to drive

enough sales opportunities into the pipeline to maximize your conversion rates. Performance

tracking is also critical to understanding which marketing campaigns give you the best ROI and

how often you need to run a campaign. Once you have a baseline of these conversion rates,

you can use them for setting targets for future performance. You will have the metrics you

need to forecast the lead volume required in the time frame necessary to support a sales

process that will meet your revenue goals.

Developing an Effective Lead Generation Campaign

Compelling content is the core of an effective lead generation campaign. Key to building this

content are the elements learned in Step #1: Your differentiated value proposition which is



based on your core competencies, target market focus, ideal customer profile and the

quantifiable business value that you create for these customers.

That is why the very first step in this playbook is to take the time to get this very important

content well‐defined and truly compelling. As you can see from the diagram on the previous

page, so much is dependent upon the strength of your differentiated value proposition. It

becomes your “Mantra” and it is reflected everywhere: in your introductory sales pitch, your

telephone sales script and your in‐person elevator pitch. It forms the basis of your lead gen

campaigns and directly influences the conversion rates you will experience in these

campaigns. If you have not taken the time to get your marketing message as compelling,

differentiated, quantifiable and targeted as possible, then please go back to Step #1 and do so

now. The investment of time now will pay back enormous dividends later.

If you follow the proven lead generation methods outlined in this playbook, you will

consistently and cost‐effectively generate a high volume of quality leads and convert them

into new customers to grow your revenue. An effective lead generation campaign is much

more of a science than an art form. By “science” we mean the process for building effective

campaigns with compelling content aimed at your target audience. By “art” we meant

professional looking graphics and design for your presentation materials and marketing

literature. We will provide you with both dimensions: the success formula for executing

effective lead generation programs and the professional artwork you can use for marketing

campaigns and collateral materials.



Marketing Campaigns

What is the best approach for building an effective lead generation campaign? As you can see

from the diagram below, lead generation comes in many flavors, some more effective than

others, yet campaigns are strengthened when used in conjunction with one another and we’ll

describe how to do that.

Below we will examine the pros and cons of the various marketing campaigns and provide

some recommendations for using them to generate qualified leads for your MSP business.

Direct mail: Direct mail programs involve sending a mailer to a mail list with your offer and

CTA incorporated into the mail piece. Mailers can be two‐dimensional, taking the form of a

postcard or envelope mailer, or they can be three‐dimensional and take on a variety of forms

– often with outrageous designs to attract attention or increase the perceived value of the

mailer. By themselves, direct mail campaigns are fairly ineffective as a lead generation

strategy for MSPs. Response rates are low; typically in the .5% to 2% range and less than a

third of those responses will be qualified into actionable sales leads. That’s less than ten leads

per thousand mail pieces. Outbound telemarketing can provide effective follow‐through for a

direct mail campaign and will double or triple your response rate – but this will also double or

triple your cost per lead.



The best way to use direct mail to generate leads in the context of our marketing formula is to

use it as an invitation to a webinar, lunch & learn, or a face‐to‐face (F2F) event and send it to a

smaller and more targeted list. F2F events are educational and they allow you and the

representatives of your business to engage directly with prospects to communicate the value

of your products and services more effectively. Telephone follow‐up to a small targeted list is

much easier and more cost‐effective. Often there are two passes of follow‐up calls. In the

first call, your telemarketer will ask if the intended receiver of the invitation saw the mailer

and registered for the event. The second call is made the day before the event as a reminder

for the attendee and as reinforcement for the value of its content.

Email marketing

Lead generation by email is similar to direct mail. Although the material costs are low – there

is no printing and postage cost – purchasing a large email list can be expensive. Email

addresses are often rented as opposed to purchased and you will only get to keep the

addresses of those who respond to your campaign. The response rate for email campaigns is

higher than postal mailers, but not by much. While “open rates” are between 12% and 20%,

the “click‐thru” rates are between 6% and 10% and the actual registrations that take place on

your landing page can be under 3%. And this assumes three drops of the same email to your

list over a 3‐4 week period.

Similar to direct mail, we recommend using email marketing as in invitation for an event,

especially a webinar, because the invitation, follow‐through and event all take place within

the same medium – the web. In this scenario, your follow‐through will be an email version of

the telemarketing responses outlined above. There should also be a thank‐you email after the

responder registers and then one or more reminder emails before the event is held.

Outbound telemarketing

This form of lead generation has one of the highest response rates, but it is also one of the

most expensive. The hourly cost of telemarketing for technology buyers runs from $30 to $50

per hour and the cost per lead will run from under $100 per unqualified lead to $250 per

qualified lead. The issue with telemarketing is the high percentage of marketing leads

generated as opposed to actionable sales leads. Think about it… you are contacting someone

out‐of‐the‐blue and looking for an opportunity to sell them your service within 30, 60 or 90

days. Chances are, on a good day, you will find a decision‐maker who is receptive to your

message and attracted to your value proposition. They are unlikely to be in the buyer zone at

the moment you make contact and, based on circumstances, might be ready to seriously

evaluate your solution sometime during the next 6 to 12 months. This is not necessarily a bad

thing, it’s just reality. However, it does call into question the wisdom of telemarketing as an

exclusive lead generation approach.



Use telemarketing as a follow‐through strategy for your webinar, lunch & learn, or F2F event

preferably with an employee of the company making the calls. It adds the personal touch to

your campaign by making direct contact with the people you are inviting and starts the

conversation around the issues you are planning to cover in your webinar or lunch & learn.

Because your list is small and targeted, the demands on your employee‐turned‐telemarketer

will be low and their style of communication will remain conversational as opposed to

scripted.

Webinars

By now you are realizing that we are not fans of big expensive marketing campaigns. We

believe in simple and cost‐effective lead generation programs that you, the MSP, can execute

yourself. In place of advertising and direct mail campaigns that are long on dollars and short

on content, we recommend you invest differently. Invest your time, knowledge and customer

experience into preparing content‐rich campaigns for targeted groups that will respond

promptly and positively to your value proposition. Webinars are one of the best vehicles for

getting leads simply and cost‐effectively. They allow you to get your message out there,

generating awareness for your business and leads for your sales effort. We will take you

through the process of building an effective webinar later in this playbook.

Design and deliver excellent content via webinars to reach your target audience. Promote

them with email invitations if you have access to a targeted list of addresses. If not, use a

direct mail postcard invitation and follow up with outbound telemarketing that ideally is

performed by an employee of your company.

Lunch & Learns

Now that we have described the benefits of a targeted and content‐rich lead generation

program, like a webinar, we can apply the same principles to the Lunch & Learn. A Lunch &

Learn adds a twist to the traditional concept of a “ground seminar”. As the name implies, you

hold an educational seminar at lunch time and treat your attendees to a casual meal while

they learn about the value of your solution. The use of food serves multiple purposes. It’s

practical – pretty much everyone needs to eat lunch so it’s easier to get people out of the

office for a seminar during a time when they are unscheduled and planning to eat anyway.

Also, it makes the event more casual than a formal presentation of a slide deck delivered by a

speaker to rows of attendees. And, of course, the food itself is an attraction. Who doesn’t like

to eat?



It can be more difficult to get attendees to physically attend a Lunch & Learn event rather

than the simplicity of logging into a webinar and attending from their desk. So expect fewer

attendees. Also, you will spend more money on a Lunch & Learn than a webinar – you will

need to cover the cost of the room, AV services and, of course, the meal. However, a Lunch &

Learn lets you shake hands and meet people face to face, read their body language, gauge

their interest and, in some cases, begin the sales process on the spot. The best Lunch & Learn

campaigns are held for an audience that already recognizes your brand. That way, you are part

of the reason they’re attending and that will improve the draw. Your current customers would

make a prime target. Think about relevant topics for current customers that can result in

expansion business with their companies.

Develop a Lunch & Learn series for your current customers with compelling content around

issues of importance to them and having expansion business potential. Use the event to

reinforce your customer relationships, ensure customer loyalty, solicit feedback on your

products and services and foster open customer‐to‐customer communications. Invite a

customer to speak about how they benefitted from your solution.

Internet Marketing

The online world presents many opportunities for generating leads with Internet marketing

programs. They include search engine optimization (SEO), Pay‐Per‐Click (PPC) programs,

banner advertisements, and pay‐per‐lead programs offered by information technology

portals. SEO and PPC are both effective traffic generators to your website. Properly sized,

these programs represent good investments in building your on‐line presence and improving

your page ranking on prominent search engines. They help you to leverage the tremendous

power of online search when your future buyers are in the information gathering stage. But

remember, all they do is generate traffic. It’s up to your website to convert these anonymous

visitors into registered users.

Like keyword search, banner ads are also traffic generators. However, we are somewhat

skeptical of banner ads as a marketing investment for MSPs. Why? When a potential buyer is

entering your keyword as a search term into Google and they find you (either organically or

via PPC), you are competing for their clicks at precisely the moment they are interested in

what you do – and it’s on their terms. When you flash a banner ad in front of them, you are

competing for their attention while they are visiting a site with another purpose in mind.

You’re interrupting them and competing for their clicks on your terms, not theirs. So use

banner ads with caution.

Pay‐per‐lead programs are offered by information portals that are dedicated to a given

technology sector and offer whitepapers and other downloadable resources on their site.

They aggregate traffic, collect visitor data using a registration form, perform a quick



qualification with a follow‐up call and then sell the contact information on a pay‐per‐lead

basis. Fees are generally scaled based on the size of the company and prices range from $100

to $200 per lead. At first glance, this seems like a reasonable cost. That’s because they sell the

same lead to at least three vendors and all three proceed to hammer the poor unsuspecting

prospect with an unsolicited telemarketing call. Furthermore, the effective cost per lead is a

much higher number if you eliminate the poor quality leads and spread the total cost over the

remaining high quality leads. Do pay‐per‐lead sites really sell you poor quality leads mixed in

with high quality leads? You bet they do. In fact, it would not be surprising to find more low

quality leads than high quality leads on any given month.

Start with your website – it must operate as the centerpiece for your Internet marketing

strategy. Before you invest a dime in programs that drive additional traffic to your site, make

sure that your site is ready to convert that traffic into leads. Otherwise, all you are doing is

increasing your hit rate – along with your marketing expenses. Ask yourself if your site

provides all of the following elements:

My home page provides a clear and concise description of my value proposition and my

solutions to new visitors

The navigation on my site quickly and efficiently guides these visitors to interior pages

where they can educate and self‐qualify themselves

My site has appropriately placed registration forms where visitors can identify

themselves and provide basic qualification data

I have downloadable resources on my site that offer value to my visitors and I provide

these in exchange for their contact information

If your site provides all of these elements, then you are ready to invest marketing dollars in

driving more traffic volume with the expectation that higher traffic will convert to higher lead

volume. Now you will realize the full value of SEO and PPC programs and you can set up

appropriate tracking systems to measure their effectiveness.

We do not recommend banner advertising, unless you are convinced that they will be placed

on a site where buyers from your target market segment will flock and the cost of these ads

will drive traffic in sufficient volume to justify the investment.

We also do not recommend pay‐per‐lead programs. They are notorious for mixing poor quality

leads with high quality leads reducing their yield to the point where they become much more

expensive than other lead generation methods. If you need to increase lead volume quickly,

don’t resort to online pay‐per‐lead programs. Instead, invest in a short term telemarketing

campaign with a highly targeted list and pay your telemarketing resource on a per lead basis

and only for qualified leads.



Traditional Advertising

Traditional print media advertising is still used by some MSPs as a lead generation method.

Increasingly, however, the print world is transforming into an online world as readers

consume industry and general business news via online editions. This has significantly reduced

the effectiveness of print advertising. Because print publications are issued periodically, lead

generation is not continuous like their online counterparts. Also, print editions drive

responders to an 800 number – a more cumbersome process that makes it difficult to track

response rates and to measure ROI. Online editions, on the other hand, allow readers to

simply click‐thru to your website at any time to get follow‐up information on demand.

Radio advertising is a medium that is occasionally used for promoting an MSP business, but it

is almost impossible to create a tracking mechanism for measuring and evaluating the

effectiveness of radio advertising as a lead generation program. If you like to hear the name of

your company on the radio, then give it a try. If, however, you want a predictable and

measurable program for generating qualified leads, then leave radio to the DJs and talk show

hosts.

Avoid print media and radio advertising as your primary lead generation investment. They

require frequency and repetition to be effective and that means dollars out the door for

campaigns that are not as measurable as other lead‐generation strategies.

Bottom line: Based on our experience, we feel webinars and seminars present the best

opportunity for you to reach your target audience for a number of reasons.

Webinars are cost effective and they allow you to:

Generate awareness for your company

Target a specific vertical

Customize your content to address the pain points of your audience

Capture leads through registration

Build a prospecting database

The next step is to build a lead generation campaign using the MSP Marketing formula.



The MSP Marketing Formula

Let’s discuss the science first; we will cover the art later. Our formula for a successful MSP

marketing campaign is a fairly basic concept ‐ but be forewarned ‐ if you leave out any of its

elements, your marketing campaign will suffer and its results will be diminished. We will

provide you with step‐by‐step instructions to ensure that you cover all of the bases. Let’s get

started by defining the KloudReadiness Marketing Formula:

These four elements are your keys to a successful lead generation campaign that will result in

qualified leads for your MSP business. The successful execution of each of these elements is

critical to the overall success of the campaign. Please do not take short cuts as it will adversely

affect campaign results. Excellent preparation will lead to excellent results every time. In the

paragraphs that follow, we will break down this formula and provide you with a detailed

description for each of these elements. We will also provide some examples describing how to

implement each element with real marketing campaigns that will generate high quality leads.

The First Marketing Element ‐ Targeted Promotion

The most effective marketing campaigns are targeted – meaning the marketing message is

tuned for a specific customer segment. Why? Think about your past experiences with lead

generation campaigns and the answer will make perfect sense. It’s really a question of quality

over quantity. When a marketing campaign is based solely on volume, the message of the

campaign is broadly communicated to a diverse audience. The message is generalized so it

appeals to everyone and does not exclude any particular segment of the audience. The

problem with this approach is that generic messages are diluted messages and diluted

messages are less compelling to specific groups of buyers. Many marketers operate under the



false assumption that lead generation is just a numbers game. . .the larger the audience, the

more qualified leads it will produce. Don’t fall into this trap. You will just end up wasting

money on expensive campaigns that generate more and more unqualified leads. Then you

will waste even more of your precious time and resources qualifying a few good leads while

disqualifying many more undesirable campaign responses.

The more effective approach is to target smaller and very specific groups. Targeted marketing

campaigns will generate fewer leads overall, but they will yield more qualified leads at a lower

cost per lead. If you have a solution for firms that deliver professional services (doctors,

lawyers or financial advisors), then develop a campaign targeting one of these groups

exclusively. Promote your campaign in places where they congregate, like online information

websites, trade publications and professional associations. If your solution does not have a

vertical market focus, you can still promote your horizontal solution to vertical market

segments by communicating the value of your solution in their terms, showcasing their

applications and using their jargon. You will save marketing dollars by focusing your list

purchase, online and print advertisements or other promotional expenses on a smaller and

more targeted audience. Your response rate will be high because your audience will respond

to a message that speaks to an issue that is relevant and important to them.



Selecting which audience to target is a very critical decision. You should start by

understanding who are your best customers, why did they select you as their MSP and what

are the most important benefits that you offer them? Identify the top vertical markets you

serve, determine how many customers you have in each segment and which ones represent

the customer profile you wish to repeat over and over again. Then rank these vertical

segments according to their value to your business. The market segment at the top of your list

is the target audience for your next marketing campaign. Once you successfully execute a lead

generation campaign for this segment, you can repeat the process for the other market

segments on the list – tuning and refining elements of the campaign for each audience. Over

time you will have an effective lead generation process that is repeatable, predictable and

effective.

The Second Marketing Element ‐ Compelling Content

This is your marketing message to your targeted group and it must capture their interest in a

very simple and direct way. As mentioned previously, compelling content is the heart of an

effective lead generation campaign and it is the most important element of the formula. With

that in mind, we have developed the following five step‐by‐step guidelines for developing

your own compelling content.

1. Identify the top concerns of your target audience

The concerns of your target audience will come directly from your target market analysis.

Recall that when you selected your top target market, you thought about your best

customers in that segment. Now ask yourself… What was their pain? What problems were

they trying to solve? What motivated them to buy? We are going to use their experience

to predict the buyer behavior of your sales prospects. Once you understand why your best

customers decided to buy, you can look and target future buyers that are motivated in the

same way. To do this, you will need to understand what triggered their buying decision…

these decision drivers, sometimes called impending events, may include any of the

following items:

Rapid expansion of users or branch office locations

An expiring service contract with another provider

A major event like a service outage or system downtime

Support for new applications or services that are coming online

Cost reduction and better cost controls over IT and network resources



We have found that since the economic downturn, almost every business sector is

motivated to reduce or control costs in the area of IT and network services.

Increasingly, businesses of all sizes are looking to outsource the management of

technology while taking advantage of new applications and resource virtualization. These

market conditions could not be better for managed services providers! Focusing on

strategies for reducing the cost of information systems and technology management

would be an excellent customer concern to focus on in your first campaign. It’s not the

only topic you should consider, but it’s a very good place to start. We will use this top

customer concern throughout the playbook as we describe the best practices for

implementing lead generation programs.

2. Identify the top benefits of your managed service

In the first step we identified the top concern of your best customers from your most

important target market. Now we are going to identify the top benefits of your managed

service. These benefits will come directly from your value proposition. They should be 3 to

5 simple statements about your differentiated value. For example, your service:

allows customers to cost‐effectively modernize their IT

significantly increases their employees’ productivity

raises business efficiency with process improvements

provides expertise that customers do not possess internally

reduces a company’s operating and/or capital expenses

These are all important business benefits that can be enabled by your managed service.

One word of advice… Select one of your 3 to 5 statements as your principle benefit and be

confident that once you make the claim, you can “pay it off” when it comes time to

defend your claim with a full presentation of your solution.

3. Match your benefit to the customer concern

From your list of benefits in step #2, select the one that best matches up with the top

customer concern identified in step #1. At this point, you have probably recognized a

familiar approach that we have applied to building your marketing message: First identify

the pain that your top prospects are experiencing and then provide a solution that will

take that pain away. In step #1 we identified the need for cost reduction and cost control

over IT and network resources as a top customer concern. In step #2 we listed the top 3 to

5 benefits associated with your unique value proposition and one of them was reducing



operating and/or capital expenses. So this relationship makes perfect sense for building

your marketing message.

4. Provide tangible evidence of the benefit

In marketing circles, there is a phrase that is often used to describe a strong marketing

message. “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Loosely translated, this time‐honored expression

means that you should highlight the benefits of your product or service and not provide a

boring description of the product itself. That is all well and good, but, while you are selling

the sizzle, be sure that you can actually provide the steak that goes with it. Then quantify

it. You will truly have compelling content when your message is important to customers in

your target market and believable as well. Providing tangible evidence may require some

homework on your part, but the results will be worth the effort.

Here are some examples of key benefit statements backed up by tangible evidence.

Our solution will reduce IT expenses by 50% compared to an in‐house model

ABC Corp. realized a 300% ROI after implementing our call center solution

Cut your phone bill by 50% or more with our Voice‐over‐IP solution

Increase productivity by 50% with real‐time applications that require no additional

capital expenses

There are many ways to develop tangible evidence, or steak, to back up the sizzle of your

marketing claims. One important way is with a customer case study. Take the time to

interview 2 or 3 of your most important customers and capture evidence of the value you

deliver to them. Gather as many facts as you can and use numbers or percentages to

quantify the business benefits – look for improvements like expense reduction,

productivity gains, business growth, time savings, etc. This effort will pay enormous

dividends – not only for the marketing campaign you are about to implement, but as

matching content for your webinar or lunch & learn and as marketing literature to

distribute as a follow‐up to marketing events and sales calls.

The bottom line: If you want your marketing message to be taken seriously by

prospective buyers, then don’t feed them hype, offer them a compelling solution to a

problem they are trying to solve and provide tangible evidence that you understand their

business and have experience in solving problems for companies just like them.



5. Formulate your message as an “offer”

The final step in the process of creating compelling content is to formulate your marketing

message as a promotional offer. As the name implies, an offer is simply the pitch you are

making to your audience via your marketing campaign. Your offer should reflect the

elements of your marketing message as defined in steps 1‐4 while presenting the

reader/viewer/listener with an opportunity to take advantage of your webinar, lunch &

learn, white paper, free trial period, no‐obligation evaluation, limited‐time discount,

trade‐in, rebate or other promotion designed to get them to take action. How they take

action should be very clear and very easy. This will become your “call‐to‐action” and is

covered in the next section.

But first, following is an example of a targeted promotion that invites your audience to a

webinar that will address a top concern of theirs with compelling content specific to their

industry describing how they can reduce expenses by 50% or more. You’ll notice that

there are bullets that describe exactly what they will learn by attending and a promise to

describe how you have done this for companies similar to theirs. The webinar is free, they

can attend from their desk during their lunch hour and by attending they will qualify to an

iPad.

Here is an example of a webinar invitation that highlights business content:

June 6, 2017



This sample marketing message incorporates the five steps for building compelling content

and demonstrates the first two elements of the KloudReadiness Marketing Formula. It is a

targeted promotion aimed at your most fertile market segment using compelling content that

identifies a top concern of potential buyers and an offer to cure that pain with a solution that

has tangible benefits.

To recap. . .compelling content is critical to an effective lead generation campaign. Follow the

five guidelines outlined above to ensure that your message resonates with your audience:

1. Identify the top concerns of your target audience

2. Identify the top benefits of your managed service

3. Match your benefits to your customer concerns

4. Provide tangible evidence of your benefits

5. Formulate your message as an offer

Is this difficult? We don’t think so. However, you would be amazed to learn how few lead

generation campaigns follow these simple, yet powerful principles. But we are not done yet.

We still have two more very important elements of the marketing formula to cover. So let’s

complete the full explanation of the formula and then put it into practice with some easy‐to‐

implement lead generation campaigns.

Call‐To‐Action

The third element of the marketing formula is your call‐to‐action, or CTA. The CTA is important

because the most critical objective of your lead generation campaign is to get the

reader/viewer/listener to take action. You must make it abundantly clear how the responder

can take advantage of your offer and then provide an incentive for him or her to do so

immediately. In the example of compelling content provided above, our CTA was to register

for a content‐rich webinar combined with an incentive – a chance to win an Apple iPad from a

drawing to be held during the event. There are many possibilities for an effective CTA. Here

are just a few suggestions:

Register for an webinar

Register for a lunch & learn

Download a free white paper

Perform your own on‐line ROI analysis

Request a free consultation or assessment

Build your own configuration and quotation

Offer a free‐trial period or a product demonstration



Offer a rebate on newly purchased equipment

Offer financing incentives for purchased equipment

Offer a competitive upgrade or a trade‐in program for old equipment

Offer a limited‐time discount or their first month of service free

The CTA that you decide to use will depend on the nature of your offer and the objectives for

your campaign. If your lead generation campaign is a first‐time outreach to an audience that

has never heard of your company, it would be wise to start with an educational webinar. This

approach will introduce your firm, showcase your expertise and establish your credibility as

you present the business value and the tangible benefits they will realize.

Remember: the principle goal of your marketing campaign is to:

- Get people to take action based on your content

- Provide an actionable response for your sales reps to follow up

Formulate your Call‐To‐Action as an Offer. . .which could range from a

- White paper or other educational resource

- Free evaluation or an ROI analysis

- Free trial, rebate, competitive upgrade or trade‐in, financial incentive and put a time

limit on the offer

Follow‐Through

The fourth and final element of the marketing formula is campaign follow‐through. We can’t

emphasize enough the importance of this element for maximizing the response rate of

campaigns and the conversion of those responses into qualified leads. There are many

different kinds of follow‐through activities and, depending on the nature of your campaign,

the activities will vary as outlined in the beginning of this Chapter.

Using our example of the webinar, telemarketing is one of the strongest campaigns to conduct

follow‐through. You increase its effectiveness if the calls are conducted by a member of your

internal team. Personal outreach allows you to continue the dialog established during the

webinar to determine how well your major messages resonated with each attendee. It also

enables you to better identify which attendees can be categorized as “sales leads” and which

attendees will be categorized as “marketing leads”. Let’s refer to immediate potential buyers

as “sales leads” and potential future buyers as “marketing leads”. Once they are qualified,

sales leads must be acted on immediately.



Qualify your leads using a formal process (use a rating system)

- Do they have “pain” ‐ what is their appetite for managed services?

- Was there an event that triggered their interest ‐ what was it?

- How well does your solution relieve the pain?

- Understand the “deal economics” – what is the business benefit?

- What is the decision process and who is involved?

- What is the timeframe to closure and how far out is it?

- Separate the “sales leads” from the “marketing leads”

- Sales leads are qualified prospects in the buyer zone

- Marketing leads are future buyers – implement a lead nurturing program to convert them

into buyers down the road

For the marketing leads, you will want to execute ongoing lead generation programs with

different objectives. Nurture those leads into future buyers with follow‐on campaigns and a

CTA that will facilitate an evaluation of your managed service. Perhaps you will offer them a

white paper that explains the productivity gains enabled by the real‐time applications you

provide. Or perhaps you will offer an ROI tool that quantifies the financial return of a managed

service when compared with the more expensive investment required for premised‐based

systems managed by in‐house resources.

There will be other marketing leads representing prospects that eventually enter the “buyer

zone” and you will want to ensure that these companies involve your MSP business in their

selection process. This category of leads calls for a more direct promotional strategy –

something that provides a strong incentive for these new potential buyers to make their

purchase decision in your favor and to do so within a limited timeframe. So an effective

campaign for these marketing leads might be to offer an attractive trade‐in or rebate program

to upgrade the end‐point devices managed by your service. Another approach would be to

offer the first month of service free to buyers who sign up before the end of your fiscal

quarter or some other deadline set by you. Remember that in marketing, frequency and

repetition are crucial to the long‐term effectiveness of your campaigns. So design your lead

generation campaigns to reach your target audience on a recurring basis and vary the offer

and CTA to motivate potential buyers in all stages of the sales process ‐ from information

gathering to the purchase decision.

Every campaign you execute will require a consistent lead qualification process to convert

campaign responses into qualified leads. Next we will describe a consistent lead qualification

process you can use to maximize their conversion into sales opportunities for your pipeline.



The Lead Qualification Process

After you create a lead generation program with appropriate follow‐through you will begin to

generate responses from your campaign that must be qualified. It is important that lead

qualification becomes a process that is applied consistently and categorizes your leads

accurately. Leads must be sorted into buckets as either high quality actionable sales leads or

as marketing leads that will become potential future sales leads after a lead nurturing

program. Otherwise they should be disqualified and not pursued any further.

KloudReadiness has developed a formula for qualifying your leads and it employs a rating

system based on our Qualifiers That Matter for measuring lead quality. If you apply this rating

system to the leads generated by your campaign, then you will know exactly how many

qualified leads were produced and which qualified leads you should pursue first. Another

benefit of using the 5 qualifiers is to remind your sales people to ask the right questions and to

think objectively about the viability of winning business from their sales prospects. This

qualification process is exactly that. . .a process. You can’t ask five questions and then be

done. You must constantly probe for new insights into each of the 5 qualifiers throughout the

sales cycle. With that in mind, following are the 5 qualifiers that matter used in the

KloudReadiness lead qualification process.

Qualifier #1: Managed Services Appetite or “Pain Level”

The first thing you will want to determine is your prospect’s appetite for managed services. No

matter what form of managed services you offer, there is a fundamental value that you

provide to small and mid‐sized companies: the value of managed services ‐ your prospect will

either recognize this value or not.

How much pain your prospect is experiencing? If they are not feeling pain, then they will not

be motivated to make a change. Pain comes in many forms so you, or your rep, will have to do

some detective work to identify it. The prospect may be feeling the pain of an IT environment

that is out of control with lots of user complaints, system downtime, slow network

performance or poor integration between applications. Another form of pain might be

spiraling hardware and software costs or the number of technical employees needed to

support them. These costs might be in the form of capital expenses to acquire new technology

or operating expenses to keep everything running. Still another source of pain might be the

need for expertise to help them develop an IT strategy to support the growth of their

business. If their information systems are not keeping pace with the needs of the business,

then the business will suffer.



In addition to identifying the source of the pain your prospect is feeling, you must gauge the

level of pain as well. What is impact of the pain on their company? What is the level of

urgency to find a solution for this pain? If you understand the nature and severity of your

prospect’s pain, you will be prepared to formulate the best solution, and to position the value

of that solution at the same time.

We recommend that you review the customer pain points provided in the Westcon Avaya

Marketing Resource Toolkit and incorporate them into your lead qualification process. Then

rate your prospect on a scale of 1 to 5, where a score of 1 represents minor pain with

minimum business impact and a score of 5 represents severe pain and significant impact. Use

a score of 2, 3 or 4 if the pain level is somewhere in the middle.

Qualifier #2: Solution Fit:

The next criterion used to qualify your prospect is to assess the value of your managed service

as a potential solution that will remove the pain identified in the first qualification step. Resist

the urge to break into a full presentation of your products and services. This is not the time

for presenting. This is a time to be asking critical questions and listening. You should ask just

enough questions about their current environment, and how they would like to improve it, to

allow you to objectively measure the value of your solution for their business. You are trying

to understand how well your value proposition lines up with their need for managed services.

In some cases you will find the matchup is very strong and compelling. In other cases you will

find the matchup is not as compelling. Be objective. Wishful thinking will not help you close a

sale…Focusing your time on prospects that have a need and desire for your service will. Be

flexible and open minded. This matchup will be different for each selling situation and over

time you and your reps will become very proficient in asking the right questions to evaluate

this matchup. Be honest with yourself and you will avoid wasting time pushing a solution that

is not highly valued by your prospect. Then devote your time and energy to those

opportunities representing a great fit between their pain and your ability to remove that pain

with a managed services solution.

Do some very surgical information gathering with a few well‐placed needs analysis questions.

Then assess the value of your managed service as a solution that will address those needs and

eliminate the pain level associated with them. Rate your prospect on a scale of 1 to 5. Assign

a score of 1 to represent low business value and a weak alignment of your value proposition

to their pain, use a score of 5 to represent perfect alignment of your value proposition and use

a score of 2, 3 or 4 to rate your prospect somewhere in between.



Qualifier #3: Business Value:

The next step in the qualification process is to understand the financial position of your

opportunity in as much detail as you can. Early on in the discussion, you should determine the

source of funding available for a new IT or network infrastructure project. Is there a monthly

budget to cover the cost of managed services or will you have to cost‐justify your solution by

showing a reduction in expenses? What does their current IT environment look like? Is there a

data center with in‐house systems and software in place? What are the total monthly

operating expenses for this infrastructure? How big is the technical staff that supports it?

Does the current staffing level support future growth? Of course, you won’t be asking all of

these questions during the opening conversation. As the sales process develops, you will

gradually develop a clear understanding of the current environment which will enable you to

demonstrate the financial benefits of your proposed solution.

Let’s summarize the financial facts you are going to gather. First, you want to understand

their ability to pay for your service. Second, you want to determine the cost structure of their

current IT or network environment, including labor, and how it will be projected to support

future growth. Third, you want to develop an ROI model that quantifies the value of your

managed service solution as an attractive alternative to their current environment. You should

begin your fact‐finding during the qualification process to test your prospect’s appetite for

managed services. If they are philosophically opposed to managed services even in the face of

a strong financial benefit, then don’t waste your time pushing a rock up a hill. On the other

hand, if they appreciate the cost‐benefit analysis that you are undertaking, you will build

tremendous credibility during the sales process and this will set you apart from your

competitors.

Qualify your prospects by asking questions about whether or not they have a budget for

managed services. Determine if they are interested in seeing a cost comparison of in‐house

infrastructure versus managed services and/or virtual data center resources. Use the

KloudReadiness ROI calculator to show the financial benefits of your solution.

Then rate your prospect on a scale of 1 to 5. Assign a score of 1 if there is no visible ROI or

budget available and no interest or desire for managed services. Assign a score of 5 to if there

is a visible ROI and budget available for managed services and a score of 2, 3 or 4 if there is no

budget for managed services, but you see real potential to cost justify your solution.



Qualifier #4: Decision Process:

The next qualification criterion is to understand your prospect’s decision process. This

includes determining who makes the final decision versus who are the recommenders,

influencers and stakeholders. Recommenders, influencers and stakeholders have a less critical

role than a decision‐maker but you cannot overlook them on your way to the top. During the

sales cycle, you must address the needs of all constituents with an aspect of your solution to

strengthen your position and to avoid an unexpected veto from any one of them. Over time

you will develop a thorough understanding of the company’s organization, who is involved in

the decision process and each person’s role in making the final selection. Start by identifying

the role of the person who responded to your campaign. Why did this person respond? Was

he or she simply gathering information on behalf of someone else, or was there something

about your marketing message that resonated with them? Is this person your ultimate

decision‐maker, or will he or she become your internal advocate as the buying process

unfolds? Figure this out right away and plan your sales campaign accordingly.

Again, don’t try to answer every question on the first call. Start by understanding the role of

the responder in the decision process and identifying the ultimate decision‐maker. Your

objective is to get in front of the decision‐maker as soon as possible and develop a

relationship with this person. If the responder is not the decision maker, then ask for a

meeting with both the responder and the decision‐maker at the same time. This will allow you

to directly engage both players. You may find that you are dealing with a gate‐keeper ‐

someone who is shielding the decision‐maker from pesky sales reps. If that is the case, then

use the information you have already gathered about pain, solution value and financial

benefits to propose a meeting with the decision‐maker to discuss these concepts in more

detail. Suggest that you will need this meeting in order to prepare the most accurate proposal

possible. Then meet with all other players in the process to understand and address their

concerns as well.

Understanding the decision process is fundamental to managing a successful sales campaign.

It starts during the very first call when you are qualifying your campaign responder. Learn this

person’s role and why they responded to your campaign. Then identify the decision‐maker

and work towards a meeting with that person as soon as possible. Rate your prospect on a

scale of 1 to 5. Assign a score of 1 if you are being blocked by a gatekeeper, a score of 5 if you

are talking to the decision‐maker and a score of 2, 3 or 4 if you are talking to a stakeholder,

influencer or recommender and in that order.



Qualifier #5: Timeframe to Close:

The last criterion for qualifying your prospect is to determine when they plan to make their

final buying decision. Understanding their decision timeframe will be a key factor for you, or

your salesperson, in prioritizing the time you spend on this prospect versus others. A prospect

with a decision timeframe of 9 months is far less attractive to you than a prospect making a

decision in 30 days – regardless of the order size. As they say, a bird in hand is worth two in

the bush. Use this qualifier to establish a threshold for classifying a prospect as a sales lead

versus a marketing lead. Decision timeframes up to 6 months can be classified as actionable

sales leads. This is the longest timeframe you should allow for prospects that will demand

valuable sales time and effort to close. Decision time frames of 6 months or more should be

classified as marketing leads and put into a lead nurturing program to be cultivated as future

sales leads.

Remember, everything takes longer in practice than in theory so be conservative in estimating

the length of a sales cycle for any opportunity. Regardless of what the prospect tells you,

assume there will be extra time required to justify the solution, allocate the budget, secure all

of the approvals and negotiate the final contract. However, if you are diligent in working the

details associated with all of the qualification steps, then your time to close will be

accelerated.

During your initial qualification call, get the best understanding you can for the prospect’s

decision timeframe. Estimating the time to close a deal is difficult at the very beginning of the

sales process, so listen to what the prospect has to say and then factor in your own experience

and intuition. The sales cycle can go very fast if your prospect has a very high level of pain or a

deadline to hit. On the other hand, a lack of clear objectives, a need to analyze multiple

alternatives or a decision‐by‐committee can add weeks or months to the sales process.

To recap the five qualifiers that matter when measuring lead quality include:

Qualifier #1: Managed Services Appetite or “Pain Level”

Determine your prospect’s appetite for managed services

Qualifier #2: Solution Fit

Assess the value of your managed service as a potential

solution that will remove the pain identified in the first

qualification step



Qualifier #3: Business Value

Understand the financial position of your opportunity and the source and timing related

to funding

Qualifier #4: Decision Process

Understand your prospect’s decision process; who is the decision maker vs. the

recommenders, influencers and stakeholders.

Qualifier #5: Timeframe to Close

Determine the timeframe for your prospect’s final buying decision

Rate your prospect on a scale of 1 to 5. Assign a score of 1 if the

timeframe is between 4 and 6 months or if there is very little

urgency to implement a managed service, a score of 5 if there is a

strong sense of urgency and a compelling need for a solution like

yours and a score of 2, 3 or 4 if there are factors that put the

decision timeframe somewhere in the middle. Now it’s your turn ...

complete the KloudReadiness worksheet titled: The KloudReadiness

Marketing Formula found in the appendix of the Playbook.



Executing the Perfect Prospecting Webinar

As outlined earlier, we feel webinars provide the best vehicle for generating high quality leads

as well as awareness for your company. Webinars are effective, practical and professional.

They give you an excellent opportunity to target a specific market segment and tailor your

value proposition to address the pain points of that audience. You control the messaging and

the speaker (preferably a member of your team) can establish a personal connection with the

audience during the session. The campaign is cost effective, repeatable and can also be

repurposed for ground seminars, events and sales meetings.

Let’s take a closer look at six steps to effectively executing the perfect prospecting webinar.

1. Determine your target audience

(Target market and ideal customer profile)

2. Create compelling content

(Top concerns, their solutions and business value)

3. Develop a call‐to‐action

(Attendees take action and sales reps follow‐through)

4. Promote your webinar

(Build your webinar audience within budget)

5. Ensure professional execution

(Great preparation deserves great execution)

6. Measure effectiveness

(Follow a process of feedback, assessment and fine tuning)

Determine Your Target Audience

You’ve identified the profile of your ideal customer and their industry segments in Step #1. .

.this is your target market and this is your webinar audience. For your webinar, you need to

decide if you want to focus on one of those industry segments or take a more horizontal

approach. Once you’ve determined your target audience, you need to identify sources for

audience development.

Audience development ‐ finding attendees for your webinar. . .sources to consider include:

trade associations, industry conferences, various list rental companies, customer referrals and

your in‐house marketing and sales database. If you’re announcing a new product or an

enhancement to your current offering, you may also want to include existing customers.



Create Compelling Content

This is one of the most critical components of your campaign! Your messaging has to address

the top concerns of your audience and very clearly and concisely articulate (1) how your

solution can relieve the pain associated with their top concerns and (2) the business value and

benefits that will be realized with proof points like customer quotes, ROI analysis, product

demonstration.

Develop a Call‐To‐Action

The primary objective of your webinar is to generate leads so you have to give your audience a

reason to take action. The goal is to get them to register for the webinar. Whether you’re

offering a white paper, free evaluation, ROI analysis or a demo, the registration process gives

you an opportunity to collect some additional information from your audience that will enable

you to better qualify your leads later and will give your team a reason to follow‐up. If you

offer a financial incentive like a free trial, rebate, competitive upgrade or trade‐in, make sure

you specify a time limit for the offer to encourage them to take advantage of the offer ASAP.

Promote Your Webinar

In step 1, you’ve identified sources for audience development. Now you need to reach out to

those sources to purchase lists for an email campaign. Remember, lists should include your

in‐house database as well as existing customers, if you’re announcing a new product, upgrade,

etc. Your invitation should highlight what the attendees will learn by attending and offer them

an incentive to encourage them to register when they receive the invitation. For example. .

.register for this webinar and qualify to win an iPad. Don’t rely on email alone to promote

your webinar. You’ll generate additional attendance as well as awareness for your company if

you issue a press release, post notices on your company blog and social media sites like

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Whether you’re using your web site or an outside resource to capture registration

information, this gives you another opportunity to capture information on your audience

because when you rent lists, information is limited. However, limit the number of questions as

your goal is to encourage them to attend so you need to make it easy for them to do that.

Follow‐up with a reminder to all registrants on the day of the event. If you have the in‐house

resources (or budget for an outside firm), a telemarketing campaign executed in conjunction

with this event will increase attendance. . .although you may have to conduct some research

to find phone numbers if you haven’t captured them during registration as they are not

included in your list rental. If the list resource does have numbers, there will be an additional

charge up front to rent the list. You’ll need to take this into consideration when budgeting,

along with any agency fee to design the invitation as well as the PR agency’s fee to distribute

your release over the wire.



Ensure Professional Execution

This is the first time many of your attendees will be introduced to your company and first

impressions are extremely important. Your speaker is a reflection of your company; the

messaging needs to be crisp and compelling and the delivery engaging and professional to

capture and hold the attendees’ attention. Attendees are all busy and they have dedicated

one hour out of their day to listen to what your company has to offer and how you may be

able to help them increase productivity, lower costs, streamline their infrastructure, etc. It is

up to you to capitalize on this opportunity. If you have a customer willing to present, that adds

another dimension. If not, include customer and/or analyst quotes throughout your

presentation to provide validation of your messaging. . .and always allow time for questions.

Questions from the audience will not only give you another opportunity to elaborate on the

features of your offering, but it will also enable your team to further qualify the prospect.

Use a conferencing platform with quality audio/video, recording features as well as the ability

to conduct a survey following your webinar. And, practice, practice, practice! Conduct an in‐

house dry run using the same platform that you will be using the day of the event. . .and pay

attention to the time to ensure that you are able to deliver your message and still have time

to take questions from the audience. Lastly, record and post the webinar on your web site. To

capture additional leads, set up a registration page for visitors to your web site to register and

view the webinar on‐demand.

Measure Effectiveness

As we’ve outlined previously, we can’t emphasize enough the importance of measuring the

effectiveness and overall success of each of your marketing campaigns. First, review the

answers that attendees provided in your follow‐up survey as you can use this information

when assigning a rating. Using the same “tracking response” described earlier, your “response

rate” would be the number of people that registered to attend your webinar. The people that

actually attended the webinar would be considered “qualified”, but would also fall into two

groups: “qualified” and “highly qualified” depending on the information captured during the

event or in the surveys following the event. Qualified leads that developed into sales

opportunities would fall into your “conversion rate” and sales opportunities that close would

fall into your “win rate”. So, your rating system for a webinar could be:

A – Leads: this would include the prospects that you classified as

“highly qualified”. Remember, you broke your “qualified” rating into

two groups: “highly qualified” and “qualified”. The “qualified” leads

will be considered “B‐Leads” and described below. Prospects in the

“highly qualified” A‐Lead group require immediate follow‐up. An

inside sales person should call and try to schedule a sales



appointment. Set up a “tickler” system as it may take several calls

combined with email outreach to connect with the prospect.

B – Leads: prospects that registered and attended the webinar but

for whom you did not have enough information to rate them “highly

qualified”. The fact that they took the time to attend gives them a

qualified rating. Hopefully, you were able to capture a phone

number so you can follow‐up to determine if they become a

marketing lead or a “highly qualified” lead. If not, reach out to them

via email. If you connect and there’s a match, try to schedule a sales

appointment. If you do not connect, set up a similar tickler system

to send them additional information to encourage them to make

contact with you. Until you are able to further qualify them, they

will remain a marketing lead that should be nurtured.

C – Leads: prospects that registered, but did not attend the webinar.

Follow up via email to determine if there was a conflict, include a

link to the recorded version of the webinar, and try to determine if

they are still interested. Depending on the answer, the prospect will

either become a “marketing lead” which you will continue to

nurture, a “qualified lead” which will require sales follow‐up or a

“disqualified” lead which can be discarded.

Your close rate is the number of sales opportunities that were converted

into wins … congratulations!

Summary and Next Steps

Remember … webinars are most effective as a series, not as a one‐shot

deal. You should use them to continue to nurture your marketing leads

and to try to move your qualified leads to sales opportunities. Focus on

additional “pain points” that may not have been covered previously; use

them to promote a new product or offering.

Webinars have proven to be effective and should be run as a cornerstone

of your lead generation plan. If your message is compelling and your

execution is solid, then your webinar program will be successful. And a

successful webinar offer multiple uses. As previously mentioned, it can be

used to generate additional leads and awareness as an on‐demand

webinar off your web site. It is important to ensure that every sales rep is

comfortable delivering the messaging because this will enable them to



deliver their own regional webinars either for multiple prospects or to

multiple employees at a specific company to advance the sales cycle.

Webinar Template … getting started

You’ve decided to conduct your first webinar. To assist you in “creating

compelling content” for this webinar, we have designed a presentation

template to guide you through the process. The template captures the

guidelines that we have described in this chapter and will use the

information that you’ve compiled to create the messaging … i.e., your

value proposition and how your solution relieves the pain associated with

your audience’s top concerns. . .as well as the business value that will be

realized by purchasing your solution. . .validated by proof points like

customer and analyst quotes. You’ll notice that throughout the template,

we have included post‐it notes to prompt you as you create your content.

This slide will be visible when attendees join the session. Make sure it

captures the essence of your topic.



This slide should “tell them what you’re doing to tell them”.

This slide should tell them exactly why they should want to consider becoming a customer.



This slide should drive home the risk to their business if they do not take action.

This slide should outline how your solution can eliminate, or minimize the risk described on

the previous slide.



On this slide, you need to emphasize the business value of your solution, backed up with proof

points powerful enough that they will want to take the next step.

The purpose of this slide is to summarize what you’ve told them and address any questions

they may have. . .as this will help you to further qualify attendees.



People tend to be influenced by people they can relate to. . .and your existing customers can

provide the validation that prospects need to justify investing additional time to further

explore your offering.

Give them a reason to take action and a limited time in which to take that action. This process

will also give you a reason to re‐engage and further qualify your prospects.



Don’t forget to thank them for attending and also let them know how they can find additional

information on your company and your solution, as well as how to connect with your sales

team.

Standard Company Presentation

KloudReadiness has created a standard presentation for its partners available in the

company’s Marketing Resource Toolkit. It contains guidelines for how to prepare an overview

presentation for an initial customer meeting.

We have taken the bullets from this presentation template and incorporated them into a

graphically enhanced format that you can use as your own branded template. You can find

this enhanced template in the appendix.

Westcon Avaya Cloud Migration Strategy

In addition to the Perfect Webinar Presentation and the Standard Company Overview

described above, KloudReadiness has created a Cloud Migration Strategy presentation for use

by Westcon Avaya partners. This presentation can be used whenever a sales prospect or

existing customer expresses a desire to learn more about cloud computing and the role that

UCaaS plays in a migration to the cloud. The presentation can also be used as a webinar to

educate suspects and prospects in your target market about cloud computing. The strategy

positions unified communications as a service (UCaaS) as the first step in a migration from

traditional on‐premise computing based on physical IT infrastructure to cloud‐based

computing based on virtual, cloud‐based IT resources.

2017



The following pages contain the slide materials and a recommended script for each of the

slides. You can modify the slides or the narrative to reflect your managed service.

KloudReadiness

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