A friend and fellow country-man, Steven Van Belleghem from InSites Consulting , wrote two books, ‘ The Conversation Manager ’ and, more recently ‘ The Conversation Company ’. Steven makes very valid points of how important it is to involve people and facilitate conversations while having a ‘social’ mindset across the organization. In social media, the emphasis has been on the holy conversation for quite some time now. Indeed: “Join the conversation.” However, we must not drive and facilitate conversations for the sake of them. Sounds familiar? MORE >>

Here are 5 lead conversion tips to do just that. The way you follow up with a lead can, and should, vary dramatically for prospects at different stages of the buying process. The sales team should understand your lead management processes and what part of lead conversion marketing controls. Think of how Amazon.com recommends stuff based on past purchase history. In B2B sales, it’s hard to find any two buying processes that look exactly alike. Unpacking past wins can help divine trends in the buying process and automate the delivery of key content. MORE >>

While the specific conversations with individual marketers must remain confidential, Tinsen and Staley agreed to give me a high-level overview of their most common solutions to the issues marketers brought forth: Solution #1: Understand your customer. You can’t know who your best lead is until you really understand who is buying from you and why,” says Tinsen. Find out information, such as: What motivated their purchase. Who was involved in the purchasing process. Their buying cycle. She adds that purchased lists can fill the gaps. MORE >>

Posted in Buying Cycle Conversion Conversion Optimization Customer Customer Experience Personalization Strategy. And it’s obvious why: buying cycles are longer, buyer mentalities are different, and products typically require more investigation before a purchase. But the reality is that B2B buyers are very similar to B2C consumers— whether it’s buying a new car or new enterprise software, consumers want to be educated and informed. And they certainly don’t want to be bored to death with encyclopedic catalogue-type information. MORE >>

The second chart shows that the length of the buying cycle is shorter. This is defined from first lead inquiry to purchase. This means that every customer and prospect is more important to your sales conversion. One of things that we have learned about the buying cycle in the social media era is that prospects contact a sales rep after 60% of the cycle is complete. This means that a company no longer contacts you for general information, but they seek it out themselves from the web, including social media platforms. B2B Social Media Marketing Takeaways: 1. MORE >>