Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 - (Page 35)

help your contact sell your product and service internally. Interactive tools that involve your viewers make them want to talk about you and show your presentation to key decision-makers in their organization. “Presentations developed in Flash now have better integration of video, back-end systems and other Webbased technologies,” Alberts says. “One benefit of this greater integration is the ability to incorporate dynamic information and develop modular presentations with a focus on user experience and usability. These changes allow for more interactivity, flexibility in customization and a richer experience for the prospect.” The cost of doing business Although creating these presentations can be costly and complex, even short-term rewards (such as reducing reps’ travel costs) can be substantial. These presentations can be run by reps from their own offices and shown to prospects around the globe simultaneously through Webinars, for example. To offset creation costs, Alberts recommends that you build solutions to last. “Flexibility, customizability and updatability are key requirements in every presentation development project,” he says. “Look beyond the short-term scope of a project and consider strategies that will allow for growth and changes in products and services. Develop solutions that are flexible and evolve with your business. All of those things will contribute to a longer shelf-life for your presentation.” He suggests designing the content of your presentation with a modular approach, which can give you the flexibility to customize and tailor your presentation specifically for each prospect’s goals, needs and unique business challenges. You can create “evergreen” elements and use easier-toupdate and customizable media like text, links, PDFs and Excel workbooks for the more detailed information on products and services, as well as to detail competitive advantages and ROI. “Make sure everyone who uses the technology is familiar with best practices,” Alberts recommends. “Provide solid training at launch, and make sure there is someone in the organization assigned to provide support for those using presentation systems.” If you don’t have the necessary capabilities inhouse, you can partner with a company that has www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com extensive experience leveraging new technologies for sales and marketing applications. It takes working with a creative and imaginative team—one that understands your business and target audience—to find new, interesting and innovative ways to market your company while making the shift. By effectively utilizing new Web and software technologies in every aspect of your sales presentation, you will not only overcome the challenges presented by modern demands, but also reap other advantages, such as being able to track your prospects’ habits and make up successful sales initiatives based on the data collected online. You can measure the impact of your presentation and collect data to track your campaigns by using JavaScript tagging schemes, which can track the entire online experience with great precision and generate a custom report on the data. “This allows you to learn Interactive tools that involve your viewers make them want to talk about you and show your presentation to key decision-makers at their company. what your users are interested in so you can target products and services that best meet their needs,” Alberts says. “It also allows you to measure the impact of specific marketing initiatives and compare their effectiveness at producing results.” As expectations have risen, so have the rewards of a good presentation. The greatest advantage of investing in great presentation tools, however, is that frees us your sales reps to focus on what only they can do: build relationships that increase revenue. —Izabella Iizuka MARCH/APRIL 2008 istock photo SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT 35 http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Brian Tracy University Sales Marketing Management Cover Story: Lessons From the Master Maximum Mobility Training Technology Incentives/Motivation Travel/Meetings Book Excerpt - Value Merchants The Way I See It - End the Discounting Habit

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

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