1. Asking the Right Questions of Your Marketing Scoreboard

    by
    Content Marketing
    Your marketing metrics, or your scoreboard, should measure both activity and results.  Unfortunately it is the hidden insights into the relationship between the two that creates actionable intelligence.  Cause and effect relationships in a complex B2B environment characterized by multiple buyer touch points across a buyer driven buying cycle are as clear as mud.  It is fair to say that the easiest things to measure are the least meaningful.  Knowing what questions to ask of your metrics differentiates successful marketing programs from the money pits.  In a recent CRMSoftware.TV video, Jon Miller, Vice President of Marketing for Marketo, speaks to the importance of marketing quantifying its value to the rest of the organization.  Jon provides his point of view about going beyond activity metrics to linking them with results by asking the right questions. Jon’s insights touch upon lead generation, sales productivity, and marketing portfolio productivity. The credibility provided also establishes a...
    Read more...

  2. 35 Days to Great First Sales Meetings

    by
    Marketing and Sales Strategy
    35 Days to First Conversation — do the math For prospects who actively engage your content, assuming a two day lag in viewing, here is a possible sequence to your first call appointment (elapse time not work days) (“your mileage may vary”): Day 1 – send initial invitation touch with vmail call Day 3 – prospect views email content Day 5 – send Touch #2 automatically, no call Day 7 – prospect views content Day 14 – send Touch #3 mail, vmail call Day 16 – prospect views content Day 23 – send Touch #4 mail, vmail call Day 25 – prospect views content Days 25, 26, 27 – email & call to request introduction conversation Day 35 – have first introduction call For a detailed, comprehensive explanation of each step, download this document.
    Read more...

  3. Content Marketing Principles and Practices

    by
    Content Publishing
    Subtitle: Lip Service or Disciplined, Consistent Execution? A research briefing on Focus Marketing website called Best Practices in Content Marketing presents summary recommendations, a set of principles really, for conducting content marketing. Executive Summary “A content marketing strategy involves the creation of content for the purpose of engaging and establishing relationships with current and prospective customers, and subscribes to the belief that delivering high-quality information to prospects at the right stage of the buying cycle drives profitable action. There are several stages of a content marketing strategy each with many elements to consider before moving to the next. In this guide, Focus Experts Ardath Albee, Joe Chernov, Barbra Gago, Doug Kessler, and Stephanie Tilton have suggested their top tips and best practices for each stage of the content marketing cycle.” I highly recommend the briefing, the full roundtable discussion transcript, or the on demand recording of the full program. (I especially like that Focus offers MP3 and transcript versions,...
    Read more...

  4. Sharing a customer’s story

    by
    Content Publishing, Lead Management
    I’m just back from a client review meeting. We assist our customer with lead management and content. This week they started a campaign, here is their story. As a result of our customer’s ability to track and score buyer consumption of content, initially delivered through an outbound campaign, and supported by a content microsite, our customer identified several people whose content consumption behavior indicated heightened interest. This triggered a move of this “lead” in their (Marketo) lead management system from the initial “inquiry” status to “marketing qualified lead” (MQL). The lead scoring algorithm also triggered their inside sales person to conduct an immediate phone follow up. All of this was communicated automatically within their Salesforce.com system, virtually in real time. The “buyer” turned out not to be the actual buyer at all, but the administrative assistant for the President of the company. She indicated they found the content so valuable they...
    Read more...

  5. A Content Engine Drives Lead Management

    by
    Content Publishing, Lead Management
    I was walking my dog past the school playground recently and watched a dad with a young child playing on the monkey bars. The boy could barely jump up and reach the rungs, but seemed paralyzed at the distance between the rungs to begin his navigation. Then I heard him command his father: “swing me, Dad, swing me.” The father gave the boy a gentle push and, using the momentum created by the swinging, the boy navigated his way across the remaining bars. However, whenever he ceased his momentum and stopped on a rung, he was unable to restart. He dropped to the ground to return to his father for a lift and a swing. This got me thinking about lead management. We know that initial inquiries begin to go cold within hours. But too often our follow up connections are “one and done:” a phone call, landing page, white...
    Read more...

  6. On Sales Enablement

    by
    Sales Enablement
    As I listen to the sales enablement conversation, it sounds like sales enablement is a euphemism for training, skill development and knowledge sharing. The conversation is heavily influenced by system vendors. These systems improve access to content that delivers selling knowledge and customer collateral. Reminds me of the old expression, “when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Clearly improving skill and knowledge are part of what drives sales productivity. But I’m hearing two critical elements that have been missing from the conversation starting to emerge. Leads Are Part of Sales Enablement As a sales professional, I think one of the most important elements that enable sales to be more productive is a steady supply of qualified opportunities. Good leads vs. access to content? Give me leads every day. It is now clear that an automated lead management program is a “must have” for B2B...
    Read more...

  7. Sales VPs CEOs and the New Revenue Engine

    by
    Lead Management
    Our business partner, Marketo, has been articulate promoting a shift in thinking in B2B selling organizations from a sales engine to a new revenue engine. This is an important read. The key impacts of this shift include: Lower Customer Acquisition Costs Reduce Wasteful Spending –(reducing cold calls, direct and email blasts –IDC estimates 25% of sales time is spent on unproductive prospecting) More Predictable Sales Forecasts Greater Pipeline Stability After many years of listening to the diatribe about the “marketing and sales disconnect,” it’s refreshing to hear solid discussion of a collaborative marketing and selling process that is focused on the common goal of revenue growth, aligned around the customer buying process, and addressing the questions customers must answer in order to solve their business problems and make a buying decision. In the past I was among those from the sales side of the equation who thought “marketing didn’t get...
    Read more...

  8. Creating Relevant Content

    by
    Content Publishing
    The shift from building content about a company and it’s products and services, to building content that speaks to specific interests of target audiences, raises the issue of content relevance. What makes content relevant? How would we gauge the degree of relevance of a content item? This shift is being driven by new customer buying processes enabled largely by internet availability of information traditionally provided by vendors. As buyers begin their buying process with online research, content becomes more critical than ever before. Content is what helps companies get discovered during this research process. Used properly, content can help companies discover potential buyers before they decide to contact vendors. Search engine optimization (SEO), internet syndicated articles, and marketing automation technology (among others) have changed the marketing game. Buyers are not interested in vendor products and services until quite late in their buying process. At the start, they are primarily interested...
    Read more...

  9. Improve Your Connect Rates

    by
    Sales Enablement
    I continue to hear from sales people who still try to use email as a prospecting tool. I contend email is no longer a communication tool — especially when unsolicited — it’s primarily a delivery vehicle. Those who use marketing automation to track email open rates know it’s probably on the low end of 1% to 5%. Even if it’s “opened,” unsolicited emails might not be read, let alone have the message internalized. And this is what I mean by communication. In the email solicitations I receive I continually see “selling” in email messages. The objective of a prospecting communication must be to gain attention and to get a referral, meeting or conversation. Period. To accomplish this, the message must be compelling and relevant with a focus on the customer’s problems or opportunities. I know most people read emails on Blackberry and other portable devices. Therefore I have to write differently with...
    Read more...

  10. Sales Enablement — Revisited

    by
    Sales Enablement
    I was on vacation when Gerhard’s blog came out on July 29 “Is Sales Enablement just Lipstick on a Knowledge Management Pig?” I just saw it this past weekend and feel compelled to comment now. Having read the post numerous times I’m not sure what the primary point really is: to denigrate the label sales enablement (why?), to criticize the “hype” of systems vendors, or to question the integrity of the analysts? (“Do you trust what analysts are saying about this concept?”) And what’s with the non sequitur about the “delay economy” and Twitter and the “real-time economy”? I like the concept, but how does that fit with a rant about sales enablement? I think the blog comments were more useful than the blog points. The premise of the post perpetuates the problem of an over pre-occupation with technology. Let me explain. Gerhard’s comments exhibit a tool obsession. Isn’t that what “Sales...
    Read more...

Subscribe

CONNECT

B2B Marketing Zone