By Michelle Radlowski
I have spent the last 15 years of my career within the IT industry. For the last seven years, I have been at Zscaler, the global leader in zero trust, most recently as the Director of Regional Marketing. During my tenure, the company grew from 250 to almost 6,000 employees globally and IPO’d back in 2018. As of February 2023, I am now the Senior Director of AMS & EMEA Regional Marketing and ABM at DigiCert, Inc. I’ve seen so many changes in field marketing since I started. I’m excited to share some of the changes I’ve seen and the lessons I’ve learned both in this article and in my session and panel appearance at CyberMarketingCon 2023.
It’s important to look at the evolution of field marketing and its value in today’s business landscape. There is a need for a mindset shift, focusing on building trust and partnerships with sales, distilling noise, and the continuation of cultivating field marketing to grow even more with time.
What is field marketing?
“Field marketing is measurable, face-to-face brand development and customer relationship management through using highly trained people.” – Field Marketing Council
Would you agree with this definition? Field marketing is measurable and results-driven, but I disagree with the idea of it being strictly face-to-face communication. Digital communication has evolved, and messaging is not always face-to-face. By definition, that is what field marketing has been, but overall it has evolved. Yes, the goal is still to create a relationship between the brand and the customer; however, nowadays, that relationship is developed in different ways. The one thing that’s a staple in field marketing is change, and COVID-19 was what propelled the reality of how we need to adapt to change.
“Field marketers are not event coordinators or party planners. Sure, they may be the mastermind behind killer events, but field marketing is so much more than “menus and venues.” Field marketing is a critical component of the customer experience revolution. Field marketers are the end-to-end creators of the programs that engage our target accounts in meaningful ways.” – No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls. by Latané Conant
Field marketing is a core part of the marketing team and plays a crucial role in identifying sales and customer needs. It can help the digital team with targeted digital outreach and customer marketing, as well as distilling customer feedback to inform product marketing. From the demand-gen standpoint, field marketing takes campaigns and puts them into the region, ensuring they are targeted and reachable to accounts. Field marketing aims to create an integrated journey to drive business results. This includes regional content needs to ensure targeted messaging as we represent the voice of the customer and sales internally, so it’s important for field marketing to be aligned with all marketing teams. To make the customer journey a success, a team charter needs to be developed. The team charter aligns all of marketing with the same goals and objectives, who are the accounts and personas being targeted, how to measure results, and how to work together (team swim lanes)
Field Marketing in a post-COVID world
The constant change in the post-COVID world has forced marketers to adapt and pivot quickly. As cliche as this sounds, it is true that change is a constant. This includes organizational changes, account changes, changing of territories within sales, executives changing, and campaign messaging to stay relevant. As a regional marketing team, being proactive and embracing change will take you far. Don’t allow for negativity or complaining to take you off course from your plans.
To overcome this, we must have a positive mindset and embrace the opportunity for growth and learning. Remember that your customers need you. If there is a positive takeaway from COVID, it would be adapting to change, which has helped me be successful in my field.
Evolution of the role of field marketing
A Regional Field Marketing Manager treats their territory like their business, is data-driven, and is a part of the sales process that helps drive, accelerate, and upsell/cross-sell sales pipeline.
Things to keep in mind:
Be a full-stack Marketer:
- By having a foundational understanding of the products, solutions, use cases, target personas, and overall value and benefits of the company.
- Incorporate full marketing opportunities with online and offline programs (meaning digital and events along the customer journey). This means teaming up with the corporate marketing team (demand gen, campaigns, digital, and partner marketing).
Be a business partner AND business advisor to sales and sales leadership:
- Uncovering opportunities for pipeline generation – engaged accounts, engaged people, what that means, and how to use that for their outreach.
- Being data-driven – understanding data (throughout this article, you will run into the word data a lot 🙂). Pipeline solves all problems! Be ready with data when you meet with sales.
Follow objective-based marketing
I think we can all agree it’s easy to go straight to tactics (what will the booth look like, what do I want my giveaway to be, etc.), but you have to lead with strategy.
- What is your goal?
- Who are you going after (account type and persona)?
- What will you do to achieve your goal?
- What will the messaging be? Why should who you are targeting care?
- What are you anticipating the results to be?
Have an account-centric approach
The most important idea to remember is that data is number one. Categorizing accounts based on intent, engagement, and asking questions like:
- What buying signals are we seeing? Are they engaging with our content?
- Based on the engagements, what are the key messaging use cases that would apply to those accounts – and then message appropriately to the personas?
- If you don’t have intent software (like 6sense, Demandbase, ZoomInfo, etc.), that is OK! Use your CRM system to review low-hanging fruit – like a concentration of customers you can cross-sell to other products, OR customers who are up for renewal.
Power to the data! Data, Data, Data. Data is so important in field marketing. We have to develop plans based on content, needs, and what the data is telling us, not just on emotions. This is why things like buying signals are important. You can also use lead scoring and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) to help gauge interest. The combination of engagements that make a lead “hot” to go to the sales team and schedule a meeting.
Based on what the data is telling you, along with sales input, categorize your accounts based on intent, engagements, and even verticals (creating small account clusters). Based on your account clusters, you would then market key messaging use cases that would apply to those accounts and personas.
The marriage of Marketing and Sales
How field marketing interlocks with sales
Field marketing is a crucial partner to sales, the face of marketing in the field, and a business partner to the sales team. We digest everything and simplify the most relevant information for sales. The goal of field marketing is a revenue function to help the organization reach pipeline targets and increase engagement (“stickiness”) in sales target accounts. This can involve regional events, door openers, targeted account-based messaging (i.e., email templates, specific account content), executive dinner round tables, speaking opportunities, and brand exposure in the field.
We drive campaign execution in the region, which is focused on new logo opportunities, as well as upselling/cross-selling with existing customers. The relationship between sales and field marketers is like a marriage. They need to work together to get the best results. The conversation with sales should involve understanding:
- Their territory
- Target accounts
- Quotas
- Average Deal Size
- Where are they engaged, and at what level within their accounts
- Customer pain points
- Data intelligence you can provide via intent
Sales is pipeline-driven, so by being a part of their pipeline contribution and targeted account engagement, the field marketing team becomes more of a strategic business partner with sales.
Sales + Field Marketing
The Field Marketing Blueprint
We talked a lot about the change and the value of what being a field marketer means, but how do you ensure success in your work and strategies? Regional marketers should create a regional marketing plan (as described above being goal/objective oriented) and build a program blueprint. This blueprint should outline the different types of programs and events to help align all teams to what is to be expected, such as:
- What programs are you going to use within your customer journey
- Event Types: Third-party events, Partner events, Company-hosted, webinars, etc.
This screenshot is just an example of what an event blueprint can look like:
Graphic of the funnel/Blueprint by Michelle Radlowski
The goal is to move accounts and contacts through the funnel through multi-touch engagement. The blueprint also includes a detailed table with brief descriptions, objectives, expected outcomes, and grids for each slide. The goal is for people to walk away with a better understanding of the programs and apply it in their role, but also serves as a centralized document that aligns with the goals and objectives of the organization.
2023 and beyond
Going forward, the focus is driving business value, which is the standard value measure used in business valuation, and the contemplation of whether companies should rely on the use of Marketing Sourced Pipeline, which is a performance metric for B2B marketing.
We’ve discussed the ever-changing landscape that we need to embrace and how field marketing has evolved, but it is also important to:
- Be constant learners – The willingness to learn different things and the flexibility to adjust as the industry changes are what will help keep you competitive. From content, processes, and the relationship with sales to how data is collected, used, and improved. Data is your bestie 🙂
- Change – Don’t be afraid to take risks. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable; that means growth. Change involves risks where you step from the known to the unknown. And that’s OK.
- Align to sales – Being a partner with sales will help you achieve your goals and remain relevant to your customers. This means always communicating and providing insights into performance.
Many companies are unfortunately struggling with layoffs. There will be ups and downs in the market that impact businesses’ budgets. However, we are such a STRONG community. This is one of the reasons why I love this industry so much. We actively support one another in times of need. The amount of times I have seen LinkedIn posts with job sharing and referrals is heartwarming.
I look forward to reconnecting with the community and sharing more field marketing insights during my “Field Marketing for Revenue: Pipeline, Upsell & Deal Acceleration” session and the “Effective ABX: Crawl, Walk, and Run Your Way to Successful ABX” panel at CyberMarketingCon 2023. Grab your tickets for the in-person or virtual event at https://www.cybermarketingconference.com/
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