This post expands on some of the potential pitfalls identified in our first post on marketing with customer financial business cases.
As discussed in that post, strong quantitative business cases for technology-based solutions are often critical to closing deals with prospects. But there are several things to watch out for when developing and leveraging them, and we expand on some of the common problem areas below.
Financial Business Cases — Mistakes to Avoid
Making the business case too complex — A business case analysis or tool that appears overly complicated will turn off a good portion of your potential audience, making it harder to use as a general-purpose sales and marketing tool. The solution's ROI model needs to be comprehensive enough to earn the attention and respect of a financial executive (e.g., a business unit GM, VP of finance, or CFO), but not overly complicated or difficult to operate.
Making it too simple — An overly simplified ROI analysis runs the risk of being viewed as a 'toy', rather than a serious decision support tool. The balance between simplicity and complexity comes down to understanding the target audience and the role you want the tool to play in the buying process. It may even make sense to create two variants of the business case: A simple one for getting the conversation started with technical buyers and letting them play with a few input assumptions, and a more detailed one for stronger final business justification with higher-level executives.
Not calculating what the target audience truly cares about — If your target audience is on a cost-cutting and efficiency mission, then pushing a financial business case that is heavily weighted toward revenue enhancement isn't likely to resonate as well. However, that same ROI model may work great with a VP of sales and/or marketing. The best business models have ROI components from both the revenue and expense sides of the prospect's business, though this will be very solution dependent.
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