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Account Based Marketing interview by Pfizer COE

Account Based Marketing interview by Pfizer COE

by cosawi | Jul 14, 2021 | Account based marketing

Account Based Marketing interview by Pfizer COE

In conversation with Dominique Côté from Cosawi Consulting– shining a light on the essential role of marketing in KAM.

We talk to Dominque Côté about the central role of marketing in Key Account Management (KAM). Driven by her desire to make a real difference to patients’ lives and following a successful 30-year career in executive sales and marketing roles in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, Dominique now advices organizations on effective KAM business transformation and implementation. One of her focus areas is maximizing Account-Based Marketing (ABM) capabilities to enable KAM and make patient-centricity a reality.

Change involved everyone

Organizational change requires a fundamental shift in mindset, away from the traditional brand-driven focus, to an account-centric approach that centers on Key Accounts as sophisticated institutions with multiple stakeholders and complex decision-making and organizational systems. A fresh perspective that examines everything through the customer’s lens, taking a thorough “outside-in” viewpoint is essential.  This is where marketing’s contribution can make a real difference by bringing understanding and insights about the customer journey.  It is vital that this “outside-in” perspective is taken prior to considering the usual “inside out” standpoint.      

 

It takes two to tango 

Along with the Key Account Manager, marketing is the co-orchestrator of KAM – they are intrinsically linked. Key Account Managers together with skilled marketing professionals are the central duo, the perfect partnership to deliver an effective and successful Account Value Proposition (AVP) and ultimately bring about value for the account and improvements for patients. The earlier and more involved marketing is in KAM, the more relevant the solution and the more that can be achieved.  

Marketing within KAM is an ABM approach, rather than one focused on a therapeutic area or brand and connects with brand marketing to build value beyond the products and services.  This broader perspective is vital to support the development of the account-centric Value proposition. 

Enabling effective KAM through integration of ABM 

ABM supports KAM in three main ways: 

  • ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS AND THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
    • Securing actionable insights and interpreting the data to understand the patient and stakeholder needs, journey and, decision-making process to add value to KAM engagement
    • In-depth Key Account understanding through specific stakeholder journey mapping

 

  • BROAD INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE 
    • Detailed and holistic understanding of Pfizer’s capabilities, available products and, services beyond the brands themselves
    • Ability to navigate the internal organization and secure the support needed from across functions to deliver AVPs 
    • Build business cases and scale best practice
    • Break down silos and siloed working

 

  • CO-ORCHESTRATION AND CO-CREATION 
    • Bring these skills and knowledge together to help co-create and implement solutions that deliver value for the Key Account and ultimately patients
    • Use insights gained to optimize touchpoints throughout the decision-making journey, contributing to enhanced engagement and shed light on the varying stakeholder perspectives  
    • Drive the necessary “outside in” perspective to ensure the value proposition speak to the Key Account needs and improve patient outcomes

Download the Full Article PDF Here

About the Author

Dominique Côté brings  30 years of experience leading commercial teams in global pharmaceutical and biotech organizations.  Her consultancy work is focused on Commercial Excellence, Executive coaching &  leadership, KAM/SAM roadmaps & journeys, as well as Account based Marketing.

She is an accomplished international business leader, recognized as a chief architect of global account program journeys, leading corporate changes and cultural shifts for customer-centric innovation and patient value.

Dominique is  a panelist and keynote speaker in Europe and the U.S. in the areas of commercial  Excellence and Customer centricity. She writes and is published in journals like Journal of Sales Transformation, Velocity, and others on these topics.

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Marketing Role in Creating Distinctive Business Value

Marketing Role in Creating Distinctive Business Value

by cosawi | Mar 1, 2020 | Account based marketing, SAM roadmaps

Marketing Role in Creating Distinctive Business Value

So what do the best marketing organizations do differently to create distinctive business value in today’s digital economy?

The Figure below illustrates what the best marketing organizations are doing. Focusing on  the right side, we can see some of the critical roles that Marketing needs to play for the success of the customercentric journey and what we have been exploring in this article.  

Customization and personalization are key to gaining more market share and decreasing “switchability.” Customers no longer choose an offering because everyone “has one.” Instead, the conversation needs to be steered towards how a product or service has been made or adapted just for them. This has been true for a while now in B2C – we can custom-build our car online, choose every specification on our laptop, etc. – and it is increasingly becoming the  expectation in B2B. All is focused on personalization. While SAMs are focused on the personalized engagement/overall relationship (market drivers, strategic goals, careabouts), both SAMs and Marketing need to be focused on crafting personalized solutions. Together, they have the potential to bring a better and differentiating customer experience using innovative frameworks like design thinking and others. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to offer a personalized customer experience if organizations are not deeply connected with their customer’s buying journey. And it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully understand the customer buying journey in the absence of this critical partnership between SAMs and Marketing. 

The only path forward is to take the plunge...together

Leveraging the full power (art AND science) of their function while tapping into the mindset of a scientist, marketers can analyze data to pinpoint opportunities to advance account plans and engage with customers. The magic lies in how they tell the value story using their brand, services and partnership as they would use Lego blocks to craft a personalized solution – an account-based solution – in a way that is engaging and consistent across all channels. Whether the customer is online, on the phone or in a store, the story should always be consistent, enticing and shareable.

We see the best organizations do these things as a team, coming together to provide the best customer experience. While SAMs must function as the orchestrator of both the customer organization and their own internal account teams, the Marketing team can help by participating in the development

of joint scorecards that integrate the customer goals and KPIs, thereby demonstrating measurable impact in and on the customer’s business model. In these disruptive times, where the SAM role is growing ever-more complex, the strategic accounts organization has a tremendous opportunity to leverage Marketing as their quarterback, especially when SAMs seek personalized, actionable insights and value solution alongside the customer decision-making journey. Allow us to borrow an analogy from diving. The SAM is the explorer, diving deeply into the needs and goals of their accounts. But in order to deep dive, they need air from their counterparts in Marketing in the form of analytics, business cases and data-based insights.

Download the Article HERE

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About the Author

Dominique Côté brings  30 years of experience leading commercial teams in global pharmaceutical and biotech organizations.  Her consultancy work is focused on Commercial Excellence, Executive coaching &  leadership, KAM/SAM roadmaps & journeys, as well as Account based Marketing.

She is an accomplished international business leader, recognized as a chief architect of global account program journeys, leading corporate changes and cultural shifts for customer-centric innovation and patient value.

Dominique is  a panelist and keynote speaker in Europe and the U.S. in the areas of commercial  Excellence and Customer centricity. She writes and is published in journals like Journal of Sales Transformation, Velocity, and others on these topics.

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The Marketing and Sales roles in this tight collaboration

The Marketing and Sales roles in this tight collaboration

by cosawi | Feb 1, 2020 | Account based marketing, SAM roadmaps

Customer buying journey: The Marketing and Sales roles in this tight collaboration

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, you tell them what they need well before they realize it.” - Steve Jobs

In both Sales and Marketing, we work so hard on customer centricity, customer focus and customer knowledge. Yet do we truly understand the customer’s buying journey – from the moment they realize a need for a product or service, i.e., the point of inspiration, to the point of purchase? What does that look like? What steps does the consumer go through before they even show up on the radar as a prospect? 

Why is this so important? Because if we are able to start engaging with the customer at the point of inspiration, rather than the point of sale, then we increase market share and share of wallet.

 What follows is a simple example…

Imagine that you have a company that manufactures soccer balls. At a point of sale, you are engaging with customers at the big-box sports store, sharing the shelf with 30 other soccer balls. You may have promotions, campaigns, advertisements and even PR, but it is all happening when the customer is shopping for the soccer ball. 

At the point of inspiration, on the other hand, you could be artnering with a technology company to create a portal to help coaches communicate with parents on tryouts, workouts and scheduling. What’s the difference when your product is showing up in front of potential customers at the point when their child says, “I want to try out for the team?” At the point of inspiration, your potential customers are moving from being unaware to being aware. This can result in loyalty and market share gains at the earliest stage of the customer journey.

SAMs traditionally are the experts at co-creation, identifying customer pain points and solutions connecting them – guiding customers through the steps of exploration, research, validation, purchase and, ultimately, advocacy. Digital marketing can be the perfect complement early in the buying journey, offering the capability for scale and customization across market segments.

Marketing serves as the guardian of what we call “the cupboards”

Done right, this is a true customerfocused collaboration between Sales and Marketing. Working together to create a true understanding of the customer buying journey, the SAM brings customer knowledge and “careabouts,” while Marketing contributes datadriven insights that create a 360-degree view of the customer and the opportunity. Together they can find “points of communication” that foster engagement with the  customer, connecting opportunities with products, services, value enablers and partnerships as well as alliance to bring the maximum value to what matters most to the customer.

Throughout the engagement, Marketing serves as the guardian of what we call “the cupboards,” i.e., your organization’s products, services and value enablers. Thanks to its broad view of the organization, Marketing can and should help the SAM to navigate internally, rallying internal assets that could potentially bring value to a specific account opportunity. Being part of the account team from the early days, Marketing can also focus the co-creation process by finding alignment between the customer’s and the supplier’s goals, helping to arrive at the best package of solutions that address what matters most to your customer. It can be a powerful tool to differentiate your company from your competitors and stave off commoditization. 

Marketing can and should also boost confidence and provide credibility by creating business cases that help accelerate, scale and replicate the best, most innovative solutions from across the organization. Marketing can help not only to co-create (with the SAM team) communication points but also to monitor how they are performing.

Roles in Digital Economy

This Venn Diagram illustrates how these two roles can work together to co-create value for the customer. Let’s look at how this might be applied using a semi-fictionalized example.

Let’s say that Danielle is the SAM for a large, international hotel company, and she is responsible for the company relationship with ContinUMotion, an  athletic apparel company that has started developing a business division for sleep apparel and bedding. After taking a deeper look at how her own company might partner with ContinUMotion, Danielle realizes that this new division might offer the perfect opportunity to co- create a solution to enable ContinUMotion’s foray into bedding and sleep apparel. 

Step one: Danielle arranges an internal meeting with Marketing. She knows that helping ContinUMotion gain exposure to new customers will help create a stronger business partnership with her customer, and so Danielle and her Marketing counterpart assembled an ABM-SAM roadmap.

Danielle’s idea is to put ContinUMotion’s bedding line in the hotel’s concierge-level rooms, which would expose the  hotel’s customers to its new product line. With this in mind, she then turns to Marketing for much deeper insights related to ContinUMotion. 

First, they map out a buying journey that makes sense given the solution to bring to ContinUMotion, from the time someone books a room through the duration of their stay – even after they leave. Rather than looking at marketing campaigns that are at the point of purchase only, once SAM and Marketing teams map out the entire customer buying journey, they are able to create communication points that are relevant to that customer for each stage of the buying journey. In this example, it could take the form of co-creation running maps that are co-branded with ContinUMotion or pre-arrival offers to upgrade to a room with ContinUMotion bedding. 

The Figure below outlines what Marketing and the SAM can offer during each stage of the customer journey.

CountinUMotion Customer Buying Journey

Connection Opportunities

Download the Article HERE

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About the Author

Dominique Côté brings  30 years of experience leading commercial teams in global pharmaceutical and biotech organizations.  Her consultancy work is focused on Commercial Excellence, Executive coaching &  leadership, KAM/SAM roadmaps & journeys, as well as Account based Marketing.

She is an accomplished international business leader, recognized as a chief architect of global account program journeys, leading corporate changes and cultural shifts for customer-centric innovation and patient value.

Dominique is  a panelist and keynote speaker in Europe and the U.S. in the areas of commercial  Excellence and Customer centricity. She writes and is published in journals like Journal of Sales Transformation, Velocity, and others on these topics.

About the Author

Kate Burda brings 27 years of experience leading sales and marketing teams in global organizations. Her consultancy work is focused on helping organizations realize optimal revenue performance through sales efficacy, enterprise marketing, branding initiatives and account-based marketing approach and price modeling systems or what is recognized as the “Revenue Trifecta.” She is the Owner and Founder of Kate & Co.

She can be reached at Kate@kateburda.com or through linked in at Linkedin.com/in/kateburda.

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Account Base Marketing

Account Base Marketing

by cosawi | Jan 1, 2020 | Account based marketing, SAM roadmaps

DO STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGERS REQUIRE SUPERPOWERS?

TIME FOR ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING TO COME TO THE RESCUE

The global economy is becoming increasingly complex and, since we work in  the strategic account management environment, we can see the impact it has on the day-to-day role of strategic account managers (SAMs). We are finding the skill set of the strategic account manager constantly evolving and increasing in demand due to today’s disruptive environment. With customer integration increasing, it creates additional complexity to build trustworthy relationships and partnerships. SAMs’ own organizations are evolving and often centralizing, adding more to the SAM’s plate not only in terms of skill set but also number of accounts, expectations for growth and required competencies. SAMs are being stretched thin, from both a customer and internal perspective. Today’s SAM really does feel like she/he needs superpowers to do the job.

How did we get here?

We are living in a world of skyrocketing complexity and information overload, and a combination of trends in today’s economy are driving companies to shift to a SAM culture and mindset. One of the key pressure points that we see is the increased complexity and diversity of types of customer problems suppliers are asked to solve. Facing more complex and broader issues, SAMs have no choice but to engage differently to differentiate themselves. 

Living as we do in a world overloaded with data, we increasingly look to technology to help us deliver valuable, relevant customer hindsight, insight and foresight. But to do so requires better data management, including a mastery of how disparate data sources connect and communicate in order to translate this information into relevant customer insight and foresight. 

As the closest person to the customer and the owner of the customer-supplier relationship, is the SAM or KAM alone with all of the demands wrought by the new economy? We argue the opposite. Every superhero needs a partner, and the very best SAMs know when and how to bring the best people to the table to ideate, innovate and create impact for their customers. 

Enter Marketing.

But First...

Let’s take a moment to level set. As you read the word marketing, you may have thought of enterprise marketing, branding, positioning, awareness campaigns, advertisements or flashy public relations campaigns. Shifting to account-based marketing (ABM) isn’t any of these things. So what is it, and why is it so critical in today’s world? Account-based marketing is the art of integrating digital marketing and the customer-buying journey to support, accelerate and be part of solution creation with the SAM and the SAM team.

Did you know that: 

• According to ITSMA, 75 percent of executives will read unsolicited marketing if it contains ideas relevant to their business. 

• Customers are twice as likely to engage when offers and communications are personalized (per Salesforce). 

• Seventy-four percent of B2B buyers conduct half of their research online before engaging a vendor (per Forrester).

Download the Article HERE

Next Page

About the Author

Dominique Côté brings  30 years of experience leading commercial teams in global pharmaceutical and biotech organizations.  Her consultancy work is focused on Commercial Excellence, Executive coaching &  leadership, KAM/SAM roadmaps & journeys, as well as Account based Marketing.

She is an accomplished international business leader, recognized as a chief architect of global account program journeys, leading corporate changes and cultural shifts for customer-centric innovation and patient value.

Dominique is  a panelist and keynote speaker in Europe and the U.S. in the areas of commercial  Excellence and Customer centricity. She writes and is published in journals like Journal of Sales Transformation, Velocity, and others on these topics.

Recent Posts

Transformation through Agile Leadership

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The idea of executive engagement impliesan accountable and engaged member of the account team, rather than a distant back- room player. In our organization's work, we see much confusion and lack of clarity on executive sponsorship,  even when it is in place....

read more
Thinking Globally and acting local

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    The COE creates the fine balance by driving the corporate shift, aligning the vision and mindset and providing an aligned communication and business process while enabling the local groups to focus on customer intimacy and relevant value In addition to everything...

read more
Creating customer-centric curricula

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  Simplicity and sustainability are created when we move from role competencies and curriculum to customer centric curriculums When looking at SAM's competencies and skillset, many of our clients struggle to integrate and connect with the diverse competency models...

read more

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