Santa’s Marketing Transformation | 2019 Edition

December 9, 2019 Mark Emond

 

The world is built on traditions passed on from generation to generation. This time of year is especially rich with them — Grandma’s shortbread recipe, Uncle Jim getting a little fluthered on holiday punch, and of course jolly ole’ Saint Nick. Speaking of Saint Nick, there are some troubling signs coming from the North Pole. One that only a Marketing Transformation can help.

Here’s the back story. Events out of his control are conspiring against Santa. Climate change is threatening his homeland. The declining birth rate is causing him to restate revenue and earnings. And his elves are addicted to their screens, which has caused a massive drop in productivity.

So, Saint Nick took a good look in the mirror and decided a marketing transformation project was needed to rekindle his story to young and old.

He naturally turned to Demand Spring for help.

Talent Optimization Badly Needed at S. Claus HQ

Our own Julie Zadow did a lot of work with Santa and his leadership team (ahem, Mrs. Claus). The jolly fella really benefited from Julie’s executive coaching. After all, leadership styles have evolved a wee bit over the last 137 years. Julie helped Santa update the skills’ profile of the elves – expect to see Mrs. Claus’ going hard at recruiting new MIT grads this spring. She will have to pay a location premium, but fortunately for Santa, he managed to secure his Series HO of VC financing this year, lead by Red Nose Venture Partners.

Delivery Failures Averted

It wasn’t only the challenges with talent hampering this venerable organization. Santa’s business processes also needed some significant work. Working throughout the spring and summer, Matt Roberts audited and optimized Santa’s demand system. Matt found some big gaps. There were a lot of data issues including significant gender errors in their CRM system. Santa’s wish list registration form was being blocked by Firefox privacy settings. And his BDR team was comped on volume, not SQL’s (Santa Qualified Leads) which was a complete mismatch with their supply chain capacity. Matt will definitely get a new Arsenal football scarf in his stocking this year.

Santa Goes Agile

Delivering presents to 6 billion people in 12 hours every year is all the training Santa needed to move from a waterfall process to agile in his marketing. Mrs. Claus agreed to be his Scrum Master. She runs a tight ship, keeping their backlog low despite their enormous total addressable market.

He used intent data to better determine which Hatchimal to give to whom. He invested in Karen Morad’s custom Storybuilding Workshop to recraft his messaging for his target personas. And he had Kris LaTulippe’s MarTech team deploy Marketo (with Donner as his administrator and power user) with a heavy emphasis on behavioral scoring.

He was even spotted wearing a Marketo as a Service t-shirt at Adobe Summit, but had to leave early (via the chimney of course at The Venetian). The desert weather was just too much for his northern blood.

Santa’s Gifts to Modern Marketers

Lo and behold, Santa’s modern marketing makeover yielded strong results. Not a surprise really. His move to cloud-based technology was a pretty easy transition for a guy who steers eight tiny reindeer through the atmosphere. His “why” is pure. He used his leverage to attract some pretty amazing guests to his podcast: Coal or 18 minutes with Santa? It’s a pretty easy choice.

As a result, Santa has decided to give back to the marketing community in a big way. Here are some of the marketing toys that the elves are working on to meet Santa’s December 25 ship date:

Customer Journey Mapping: Savvy Santa knows it’s the missing foundation in many revenue marketing plans. There is a lot of great content development and lead nurturing work being done today. How much of it, though, is missing the mark without this strategic framework?

New Technologies: On to the beepy things. Here are three of the hottest technologies that Santa will be delivering this holiday season (batteries not included):

  • Drift – Santa has specialized in bots that talk for years.
  • Conversica – Santa piloted this technology throughout the year and it worked wonders for efficiently responding to all the letters he received.
  • Voicify – Alexa, more pipeline, please.

Marketing & Sales Alignment: Data from Forrester identifies that 62% of B2B buyers finalize their decision-criteria completely through digital channels. It’s the reason behind Santa’s recent joint alliance with Amazon (we are worried that Jeff Bezos’ next acquisition might in fact be S. Claus Industries). The buyer is in control today. It’s imperative that marketing and sales work together in an interdependent manner.

Stocking Stuffers

It’s not all big gifts under the tree that excites modern marketers. Here are the stocking stuffers Santa is working on for us:

Pajamas: With more and more organizations like Demand Spring fostering a virtual work environment, flannel PJs and fuzzy slippers will come in handy.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards Marketing: From brand to demand and art to science, modern marketers are driving significant, measurable pipeline contributions. May 2020 bring peace, respect, and goodwill from the CEO and Sales.

Professional Development Passes: This is not a profession where one’s knowledge and skills can remain static. To that end, Santa will be filling stockings with passes to events like Adobe Summit, MarTech, and MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum.

Content: Like socks, you need just the right asset for each occasion.

Work/Life Balance: May the balance you hopefully enjoy over the holidays extend throughout 2020.

There you have it. A preview of what you may see under your tree on Christmas morning.

Happy holidays to you and yours from the team here at Demand Spring!

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