Reaching the mid-market is a challenge for centralized marketing departments within enterprise software companies. Selling to the mid-market is very different from selling to large, Fortune 100 firms, and enterprise software companies regularly struggle to get it right. Messaging and value propositions that resonate with enterprise customers are frequently misaligned with mid-market customers pain points, and the transition from a direct sales model to selling via channels is quite complex (as Allan Adler explored in Resell vs Co-sell - What's it all about?). The result is that lots of time and money is wasted from the fundamental lack of understanding of both customer and partner needs.

A marketing vice president at a well-known enterprise software company recently told me that he wastes about $15 million a year in addition to spending a quarter to half of his time re-purposing existing materials so they can be used by partners and the field organization with target customers.

Well, I had to say I understood. In my experience, most centralized marketing departments (in conjunction with their outside consultants) create marketing value propositions towards customers and business propositions towards partners that are aimed at the mid-market, but they never effectively line up with the true segmentation of customers or the true ecosystem of partners that deliver to those customers.

There are 6 reasons why this happens:

1. Failure to correctly define the mid-market
2. Broad and ineffective customer segmentation
3. Inadequate understanding of the partner ecosystem
4. Poorly targeted business propositions
5. Unappealing value propositions
6. Unproductive selling strategies

Over the next few posts, I will discuss each of these potential pitfalls and explore ways that the savvy enterprise software marketer can avoid them.