Building an Early Adopter, High Growth Solution into #1 Market Share

CLIENT:

High Growth Division of Major Publishing Company

 

DRIVER: 

The publishing company needed to find new revenue streams for revenue growth.

 

CHALLENGE:

The company had started a web-based clinical documentation portal to move their print information for nursing online.   However, there was only one product selling (for nursing procedure information) and it had minimal market share (<5%).

 

SOLUTION:

The Lippincott Solutions clinical decision support and competency development product suite brand was created, and strategies were created and implemented that drove both messaging and product development to be directly in line with the needs of the healthcare organizations – i.e., bring evidence-based best practices to the bedside for use by nurses and clinicians to improve patient care and outcomes.  The plan included a complete brand and messaging directive from scratch, a reorganization of the sales team and funnel development process, and increased market insights to build what the market most needed.

 

RESULT:

In 4 years, the Lippincott Solutions product suite for CDS (Lippincott Procedures and Lippincott Advisor) grew into the #1 market share product in the US and entered 17 countries globally by mid-2016.  Revenues and Sales increased from $3.1M to $34M, lead generation increased by 450%, the funnel increased by 230%, and brand loyalty grew by 77% directly to the economic buyer and coach personas (Chief Nursing Officer, Director of Professional Development, VP of Quality, VP of Clinical Informatics).

Inventing the Digital Experience Generates Millions in Views

CLIENT:

$150M division with little antiquated or non-existent digital infrastructure

 

DRIVER: 

Current Promotional costs were inefficient, lacking sufficient return on investment for the executive team to continue to fund.

 

CHALLENGE:

Implement a test case digital experience with one more round of funding and all eyes on the its success while traditional infrastructure remained.

 

SOLUTION:

We created an entire digital experience for a specific b2b product line by

1.    Implementing a new SEO optimized, CMS enabled, lead generation focused website (on Drupal);

2.    Delivering benefit based and persona personalized lead generation campaigns that included Pay Per Click going directly to message specific landing pages;

3.    Automating lead generation and lead nurturing to bring leads directly into salesforce with automated notification to the sales team and follow-up to the customer;

4.    Creating social media profiles for both the economic buyer and the users of the products on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.;

5.    Investing and publishing the Calling the Shots blog with free content, advice, and industry news.

6.    Forming a multi-pronged online advertising strategy for both lead generation and brand awareness;

7.    Establishing digital public relations presence with newswire publications, blogs, newsletters, and article placement; and

8.    Providing customer interaction with both each other (digital user group and online community) and with the products (development created Apps to use that we offered online as marketing and digital support).

 

RESULT:

Opportunities driven by marketing went from less than 3% to 28% overall (the funnel tripled in size).   In addition, those who responded in a different way (sales rep call, conference meeting, etc.) indicated that they used our online presence 84% of the time (market research poll, 3%+/-) prior to the event that led to the opportunity.  Our Facebook presence grew to over 250,000 followers, our online view reach grew to over 3,600,000 views per week, our blog email sign-up grew to over 36,000 subscribers, and our lead generation forms grew from 6 per week to over 42 per week.

Establishing a High-Performing Sales Team Quadruples Sales

CLIENT:

$3M b2b Start-up within a larger consumer oriented business

 

DRIVER: 

Mature market company – mostly consumer oriented – was asking for significant growth from this ‘side project’.

 

CHALLENGE:

How to transition a ‘feature-focused’ inside sales team selling year to year subscriptions in an environment where the competition was winning deals that we were not involved at all or that we were considered the less appropriate option.

 

SOLUTION:

We created and successfully sold to senior management a 3-phased plan to invest in the sales team and sales operations around it to a new Consultative Selling, field based model.  

 

In the first phase, we opened 4 field positions and brought in experienced consultative sales reps who sold to benefits, not features, while transitioning the inside sales reps to a customer experience and field support for renewal role. 

 

In the second phase, we provided the corporate infrastructure to support the growth –

1. sales enablement training and support;

2. marketing lead generation, product suite branding, and relationship management support,

3. sales operations with tool automation support (moved to salesforce.com, cleaned up the data, combined the data with industry relevant third-party data, implemented new business lead management and tracking as well as renewal management, improved contracting process and moved to 3-year subscription deal cycle, and created ROI calculator that focused on understanding the impact to the customer so they could build a business case for purchase).

4. Metrics identification and tracking to both territory management and executive review, including sales growth, average profit margin, average contract value, win-loss by sales stage, length of sale, weighted funnel pipeline management, prospect leveling, and individual rep metrics – leads to Op close, ave deal $ and # of products, total contracts by prospect level, etc.

 

Phase 3 included expanding out the sales department to 8 FTEs while advancing their sales skills (Miller-Heiman, LinkedIn Social Sales, etc.), integrating sales automation with marketing automation, and further refining the renewal process.

 

RESULT:

The product suite continues to grow at 25% year over year revenue clip with last year’s new cash sales growing 45%.   In addition, the funnel size has tripled in the same amount of time.  The sales reps are expert consultative sellers, with 87% exceeding their quota goals, and the overall North America department met 114% of quota in 2014 and 112% in 2015.  The average contract dollar value increased from $10k a year to $28k while the net promoter scores went from 34 to 56.  Renewal rates continue to be at 99.1% (customer calculation) and 102.3% (revenue calculation).

Successful Product Launch Brings In $150M+

CLIENT:

Health Systems - CFO, Managed Care Negotiator, Revenue Cycle Director

 

DRIVER:

Managed Care was driving hospitals to negotiate and track reimbursement agreements with dozens of payers.

 

CHALLENGE:

Hospitals did not have a sophisticated way to model contracts for pending contract negotiations or track if an existing managed care contract was profitable - and the payers were paying what they should be paying based on the agreed terms.

 

SOLUTION:

As the development Product Manager, I led a cross functional matrixed team that integrated and rolled out the Contract Management system that accurately tracked expected vs. actual payer reimbursements and built a foundation for insight to simulate future contract negotiations.

 

RESULT:

Customer:   Captured Return on Investment within 9 months of installation.

 

Company:  Successful sales of contract management product ultimately delivered over $150M to the company.

 

Combatting a 20% Year-Over-Year Revenue Decline Increases EBITA 200%

CLIENT: 

Nursing Drug Guides Print Market within Major Publishing Company

 

DRIVER: 

Per industry market intelligence data, the drug guide industry had been dropping 15% to 20% each year, with the Nursing Drug Handbook product line keeping it’s 27% market share in the decline, but not gaining market share against the competition.

 

CHALLENGE:

Promotional costs for the drug guides were over 70% of the revenue generated, barely generating a positive ROI in all facets of marketing.  The company wanted to significantly decrease costs while asking to stave off the complete decline of the drug guide market, using no new product entry in this direct to consumer market.

 

SOLUTION:

We successfully architected and then implemented a digital direct-to-customer strategy for nursing practice print products, moving from an offline, direct mail based system to a multi-channel, digital based strategy, using search engine marketing, web presence, social media, thought leadership, article and blog writer placement, content marketing, customer advocacy, and channel management strategies.

 

RESULT:

The Nursing Drug Handbook product line saw market share increase from 27% to 41% in the still steeply declining market, keeping overall revenues in tact while saving over 50% in costs.

 

Winning Mindshare by Talking Directly to the Customer Increases Brand Awareness by 57%

CLIENT: 

Lippincott Nursing Education Sales Publishing within Wolters Kluwer Health

 

DRIVER:

Digital-native nursing students needing online solutions to help learn were challenging the traditional textbook model currently imbedded in the school culture, led by faculty course curriculum decisions.

 

CHALLENGE:

Lippincott Nursing Education Publishing created the next generation solutions for the students, but the message was being directed to the faculty through onsite visits from the field sales staff, which were limited to 1 per semester for existing business relationships and extremely minimal exposure for faculty using competitor textbooks.

 

SOLUTION:

Created and implemented direct to customer messaging and lead generation to ‘warm’ up the market regarding both the ‘ease of faculty transition’ to the digital world and the unique market solutions that Wolters Kluwer can provide.  

 

RESULT:

Nursing Education revenues are now growing, with over $3M in new lead opportunities per semester being provided to sales and a 57% brand awareness increase to faculty and deans of nursing schools for the key digital products as of mid-2016.