3 Reasons Your Marketing & Sales Departments Aren’t Clicking
While many companies have made great strides in addressing the alignment issue between marketing and sales, it’s still a safe bet to say that the challenge around alignment will continue to exist for...
View Article4 Tips for Adapting to the Fire Swamp of B2B Marketing
There’s a scene in the film “The Princess Bride” (one of my all-time favorite movies) where the hero and heroine, Wesley and Buttercup, flee their pursuers and face the decision to enter the perilous...
View ArticleNo Mind Melding Here: Don’t Assume Your Customers Know What You Know
Only you know how your organization’s systems work. Only you know if your systems are typical for your industry or specialty area. Not every customer does. If you’d like fewer complaints and to...
View ArticleProof of Life: 4 Reasons Why B2B Marketing Lives On
In a recent speech, Rick Segal, worldwide president of GyroHSR, stated that B2B marketing is obsolete. Following the speech, he participated in an interview with B2B Online. In it, he not only claimed...
View Article3 Ways to Ditch the “And” in “Sales and Marketing”
In 2001, I became director of marketing for an enterprise software company. My first day was the annual sales kick-off, where I was ready to go and excited to meet my sales counterparts. In an early...
View Article3 Ways to Improve Marketing & Sales Alignment
A guest post by Kathy Rizzo of TeleNet Marketing Solutions. Marketing and sales alignment—or in many cases, lack of alignment—seems to be an age-old challenge.One of my first eye-opening experiences in...
View ArticleDitch B2B and Think B2P (Business to People)
The world of B2B marketing continues to change at an incredibly rapid pace. Just when it seems that marketing automation and social media are finally being adopted, we have pundits proclaiming them...
View Article5 Ways B2B Marketers Can Think (and Act) Different
On August 3, 1997, Lee Clow, then an advertising agency rep, pitched the Think Different campaign to Steve Jobs and the team at Apple. At the time, Apple had a tarnished brand, slumping sales, and they...
View Article7 Reasons You Need to Love Lead Management
A guest post by Sarah Goliger of HubSpot. When it comes to converting your leads into sales, lead management is a crucial and powerful tool. Most of your leads will not be ready to engage with a...
View ArticleHow to Deliver Your Sales Pitch, So Folks Listen
A guest post by Sarika Periwal of karmaCRM. Talking is the best tool of a salesperson. The only way that you have face to face of convincing a person to buy a specific product or service is by...
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Timing Is Everything: The Five-Minute Rule of Lead Response
A guest blog post by Irv Shapiro of Ifbyphone. What do birthday greetings and punch lines have in common? Both rely on good timing to be effective. The same is true for responding to inbound marketing...
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Is Your Marketing Out of Shape? Back Up Your Goals With Actions
I have a secret. I’ve kept it from most of my colleagues and coworkers for some time now. The sad truth is this: Seven years ago, I weighed close to 205 pounds. And I stand all of 5 feet, 9 inches. So,...
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Four Tips for Creating an Effective Lead Scoring Program
A guest post by Ashley Furness of Software Advice. Most companies dream of being flooded with leads. And why wouldn’t they? More leads provide more chances to close deals. But high-lead volume also has...
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What Salespeople Must Consider in a Customer-Centric Market
We’re all consumers. We all like to buy on our own terms, from people or companies we like, in our own time, and at what we perceive to be the greatest value. So, what about the seller in this...
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Are You Helping Your Customers After They Buy From You?
We’re all familiar with the concept of the sales funnel, the metaphorical structure that represents the research, nurturing-receptive and purchasing stages of a consumer’s buying journey. Those phases...
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The Folly of Inbound Marketing
First published in 1841, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a history of folly by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay. The book chronicles what Mackay called “National...
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Marketers, Give Your Salespeople the Info They Need to Succeed
In Daniel Pink’s new book, To Sell is Human, Pink talks about information asymmetry in the sales process. He points out that the reason people have historically distrusted salespeople is because...
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Three Weapons to Help You Win Sales From Your Competitors
Selling has never been easy, and in a digital era where you don’t even have a chance to meet the customers face to face, selling can turn into a tough war. How can you and your sales team overpower...
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Fighting the Lead Generation Battle with Big Data
Many organizations struggle with sales and marketing alignment. In companies both large and small, Sales and Marketing are commonly at odds. In a recent survey of more than 1,200 executives, research...
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The Psychology of Sales: Six Facts Every Brand Should Know
Discount retailers, such as Target, Macy’s, and J.C. Penney, have tried various pricing strategies over the years to lure customers to buy more of their products. The primary tool in the competitive...
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Three Reasons Your Demand Gen Stinks (and What to Do About It)
Marketing departments have become more and more sophisticated regarding demand generation. When I talk to sales organizations, however, they never tell me their marketing departments are doing a great...
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What Are the Characteristics of a Good Lead?
Ah, the never-ending question: What makes a good lead? Well, I hate to say it, but it depends upon your specific situation—what you sell, to whom you sell, how you sell, and at what price. But there...
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Three Reasons Why Content Marketers Need to Make Friends with Sales Reps
Sales and marketing alignment is hardly a new challenge for organizations, but its importance to content marketing doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. We hear a lot about the different ways...
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Narrow the Suckiness Quotient of Your Leads for Better Sales and Marketing...
The following headline from the Sales Benchmark Index blog caught my eye recently: “The Sales Force Thinks Your Marketing Leads Suck.” My first reaction was typical of a marketer: “Great—here we go...
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Is Unwanted Price Discounting Actually a Marketing Problem?
Q: When does 1% equal 9%? A: According to McKinsey and Co., a 1% change in discounting has a 9% impact on your operating margins, indicating that a seemingly small capitulation on pricing can have a...
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Awkward! The Most Uncomfortable Fact About Your Product Might Be Its Most...
No matter how much we avoid awkward, uncomfortable conversations, we find ourselves in them from time to time. Whether we’re telling the neighbor that he needs to prevent his German Shepherd from...
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Rethink Sales and Marketing: You’re Really Doing Commerce
Thanks to the cloud, today’s online buyer has more exposure to information. Some studies estimate each of us are exposed to more than 3,000 brand impressions a day… and that is only being matched by a...
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Three Habits of a Harmonious Sales and Marketing Relationship
Do we have to keep reinforcing the stereotype that Sales and Marketing don’t get on? After all, can’t we just be friends? The discussion dates back to, well, the formation of Sales and Marketing...
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Keeping Online Shoppers Happy: A Q&A With the Director of Zappos Labs
Zappos Labs, the research and development arm of the giant online retailer, was launched to test new ways of improving the online shopping experience. To date, Zappos Labs rolled out a number of...
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Will Black Friday and Cyber Monday Be Bigger Than Ever in 2013?
Black Friday started off as a single day but now has expanded into an entire week or more of offers both at retail stores and online ones. How has Black Friday expanded and what has driven this...
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