That company reputation, if built on a foundation of corporate openness and transparency , can contribute greatly to the amount of trust prospective buyers are willing to give to the salesperson they are dealing with. There is a significant shift underway in how we establish and build trust. Craig Newmark (of Craigslist fame) discussed this transition in quite some detail in an article on GigaOm that's worth a read. While the general evolution of buyers is causing some challenges for field sales teams , the evolution of trust is opening up new opportunities for inside sales teams. MORE >>

Data and the User Experience In thinking about data, there can be a temptation to burden your audience of prospects with the data requirements of your marketing database. Data is key to all your marketing efforts. Whether it is segmentation, personalization, lead scoring, lead routing, or marketing analysis, if you don’t have clean and consistent data, your efforts will be built on the shakiest of foundations. However, when thinking about your marketing automation efforts, data management can often be an afterthought. Current Database First, you need to understand your current database. MORE >>

This dashboard metric gives you a clear sense of whether prospective buyers in the early stages of their education process are learning about you through paid efforts, such as advertisements, or through your efforts to earn their attention, such as through content marketing. If you notice that prospects discovery of your solutions is mainly from paid sources, there is an opportunity to assess whether content marketing efforts may provide a more economically efficient way to drive awareness. An important metric to start with is an understanding of paid vs earned awareness. MORE >>

As a marketer or salesperson interacting with a prospective buying audience, how that audience is defined changes as a more direct connection is made with them. As individual prospects become known, uniquely identifying them by an identifier such as an email address or other id becomes possible. One of the more interesting ways of assessing the revenue performance of an organization that we looked at in thinking about revenue benchmarking was via an overall plan (whether just an adjustment of historicals, or a forward-looking revenue projection). An individual? company? dollar? MORE >>

At each stage, a failure to successfully get these messages out to prospective buyers can quickly lead to buyers failing to progress in their buying process - the three types of leaks in the funnel covered in an earlier post. We looked earlier at the evaluation of existing content assets that can be done at each stage of the buying process, and for each buyer role involved. similar exercise needs to be done to assess where the need for content is greatest. For each stage in the buying process, and for each role, a list of the perception challenges we face in the market can be created. MORE >>