Vertical Assessment & Sales Messaging Program

Business Relevant Content for Healthcare and Finance/Insurance/Banking

June 2020

Introduction

ETE is excited to have the opportunity to help Cisco & Cohesity refine, build and expand its Vertical specific go-to-market messaging.  Cisco & Cohesity need intriguing, engaging, and actionable content that can turn marketing-driven relationships into sales activations.   In particular, the messaging needs to shift from IT leading to one of business & financial relevance.  Cisco & Cohesity need to showcase “Why the technology partnership matters” to non-IT customer relationships. 

We continue to witness the circle of influence in IT buying decisions expanding beyond the IT departments of most customers, which creates a messaging challenge for technology vendors and Partner resellers alike.  This is where ETE can help.

This proposal is intended to help the Cisco & Cohesity Team maximize its marketing assets, customer touchpoints, and messaging effectiveness by addressing the following:

  • Segmentation of target customers – Identify who are we looking to engage by:
    • Customer role
    • Vertical
      • Healthcare
      • Finance/Insurance/Banking
    • Unique expertise Cisco & Cohesity offers
  • Simplification of messaging to make it easier for customers/prospects to understand the Cisco & Cohesity offering in terms of business & financial outcomes – “How Cisco & Cohesity helps drive my business forward.”
  • Dialog mapping to credibly articulate the Cisco & Cohesity value proposition to non-IT executives in a manner that is intriguing, engaging and thought provoking.
  • A defined framework for scripting to ensure consistency across all communications channels
    • Cisco & Cohesity AM’s/PSS’
    • Customers/Prospects
    • Partner AM’s/SE’s

We recognize the critical role Cisco & Cohesity messaging plays in ensuring that all customer-facing resources are engaging customers/prospects in ways that are directly relevant to their business & financial strategies. In short, all messaging needs to lead with the language of business & financial outcomes.  Through this process we will look through the lens of financial relevancy and business outcomes as we refine, refresh and script the Cisco & Cohesity market messaging.

Background

 

ETE recognizes that when done correctly Cisco & Cohesity is in the unique position to provide a broad set of products and services that provide customers with an edge in increasing sales, profits, and long-term financial results. Cisco & Cohesity offer powerful business benefits to customers and a strong value proposition for a win-win proposition. To take advantage of it, however, it’s necessary to change how we market and message internally and with our customers/prospects to ensure we create non-IT conversations as often as possible. To do this, Cisco & Cohesity need to frame their value proposition in executive terminology. That’s where ETE’s Financial Insights methodology comes into play.

The illustration below shows the clear line of sight ETE can create for your messaging.  We refer to this as our Marketing Product Map.

Our Process 

ETE leverages a unique marketing assessment & development program that helps Cisco & Cohesity put the focus on messaging efforts that drive intrigue & interest:

  • Vertical segmentation
  • Vertical specific messaging
  • Voice of the Customer studies & testimonials/case studies

The key to this model is our Product Mapping framework that ensures that everything Cisco & Cohesity communicates, both internally and externally is consistently demonstrating a direct link to what matters most to the customers/prospects – their five Financial Impact Zones, which are depicted below.

Deliverables

 ETE will work directly with Cisco & Cohesity’s marketing professionals to review and address specific business relevancy content, messaging, market dynamics and competitive intelligence.

We anticipate engagement, discovery, refinement and messaging to include the following:

  • Understanding business relevancy:
    • What is Cisco & Cohesity’s vertical message and offering today?
    • What opportunities have been identified to target with new messaging for Healthcare & Finance/Insurance/Banking?
    • What is resonating with targeted audiences today, especially outside of the IT department?
    • What messaging do we need to shift to create greater intrigue, interest and engagement with targeted verticals?
  • Defining the value in executive terms: (Think Like an Owner)
    • Aligning with the investor mentality
    • Aligning with how investment decisions are made
    • Exploiting the ramifications on business when they don’t meet strategic and financial goals as a result of proper execution
  • Articulating Cisco & Cohesity’s value in an executive’s language: (Speak Like an Owner)
    • How do investors analyze risk & how do we position Cisco & Cohesity to help mitigate it?
    • How do we talk about vertical specific business outcomes without talking about the technology?
  • Move the targeted verticals to action with some urgency: (Act Like an Owner)

 Build out the Marketing Message Kit across the Healthcare & Finance/Insurance/Banking verticals

 

Timeline

July

  • Client kickoff session – Formal session with key Cisco & Cohesity stakeholders
  • Content gathering with Cisco & Cohesity’s vertical SME’s
  • Review of existing marketing and communication materials (website, marketing materials, campaigns, testimonials, calendar of events, etc.)
  • Review marketplace competitors and threats (provided by Cisco & Cohesity)
  • Initial Marketing Product Mapping to (5) Financial Impact Zones™
  • Review findings & recommendations with Cisco & Cohesity’s vertical SME’s

August

  • Tailoring of content specific to Cisco & Cohesity marketing platforms (as applicable)
  • Build out of the initial Cisco & Cohesity Vertical Messaging Kit

    • New content framing and creation

    • Vertical specific Product Maps

    • Present Marketing Kit and new tools to Cisco & Cohesity’s Leadership & Sales

    • Review of engagements to gauge the message impact, net new conversations scheduled and new sales activations achieved.

    • Refine content and adjust roadmap accordingly

     

Conclusion

ETE believes that the Financial Insights™ program provides a unique opportunity for Cisco & Cohesity’s Vertical Teams to further innovate with a new way of engaging the market. We are confident that we can help to simplify and translate the Cisco & Cohesity offering into business outcomes, which will translate into earlier and more frequent sales engagements.

We are looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate with you to define this offering in more depth.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Ed Winkelmann at (949) 444-9683 or ed@etemarketing.com.