Marketsoft Case

After MarketSoft had completed its research it was able to identify their target market and customer as the VP of Marketing and the VP of Sales at companies with at least $1 billion in revenue annually. The ideal customer that MarketSoft would target would generate at least 100 leads each week. The leads that the target market compile each week could be high in volume and low in dollar amount, in industries like electronics, supplies, or finance. Or the leads could be high in dollar and low in volume, in industries like software, medical equipment, or computer hardware. The high revenue streams generated from these leads would give MarketSoft's target market a reasonable advantage to implementing the LEADS product, which could otherwise be costly and unjustified if the return on investment into their product wasn't sizable.

The external market factors that drive demand for MarketSoft's product include the three "pain points" (recurring problems) that can cause sales and marketing organizations to suffer. These "pain points" include: leads getting lost, leads that are not qualified before being routed to the sales departments, and leads that are not properly tracked. These market factors are things outside of MarketSoft's control but help increase the demand and necessity for companies to utilize their LEADS program. The demand drivers do not include MarketSoft's competitors because their competitors could in affect take demand away from MarketSoft.

One factor that is critical for the success of MarketSoft to capture and penetrate their target market is making sure they have compiled the right team of people in place to sell their product. They must employ team members with connections to VP of Marketing and Sales teams that generate a high volume of leads, or a high dollar amount associated with those leads. The ideal companies would generate high revenue streams that would help in justifying the initial cost of implementing MarketSoft's systems.

The impact of MarketSoft's research findings on their business and marketing plans include the idea that marketing tools must efficiently complement the existing environment. MarketSoft's vendors want flexibility in their lead data, this will allow them to adjust to their customer's needs because they will never be able to fully anticipate how a company will implement and use the data that MarketSoft's system collects. Furthermore, marketing needs to be maintained and efficiently set-up their other systems for success. It should be relatively affordable and simple to maintain the data collection.

To help measure marketing effectiveness and maintain high quality sales leads MarketSoft must implement a sales feedback system. Vendors need to utilize measurable, effective marketing channels that allow them to maintain partner privacy. By understanding marketing feedback MarketSoft can help provide high quality leads to the sales teams. On top of protecting partnership privacy, MarketSoft's products must track lead disposition in a timely manor. Their leads need to flow quickly and evenly to the proper sales reps so that there is a consistent, but not overbearing, stream of leads to the sales force. Sales people avoid work that carries with it a low value to them, so by incorporating the higher value work they are more likely to work independently and give the sales team more intrinsic value in the work that they are preforming.

The process that MarketSoft used to define their target market started with outlining the "Must Have," "Should Have," and "Would Be Nice" requirements. Some "Must Haves" include: revenue streams of more that $300 million, sales forces has access to internet via laptop computer, and the company has more than 50 resellers nationwide. The "Should Haves" include: having greater that 50% indirect sales channel, The company uses Siebel or Scopus for lead qualification, and the company uses a major 2-tier distributor.

Next, the company established an agenda for customer