Avitage

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017

When B2B buying teams are made up of 5 to 6 stakeholders, the specific issues of the buying team is the “one.” ” If content isn’t relevant and useful to the specific issues of the buying team, it won’t have much impact. Sales engagement is essentially a one-to-one activity.

Content 120

Content Verticals B2B Sales Tactics 120

Avitage

JANUARY 11, 2016

This is a question I regularly ask B2B sales professionals, especially those with new customer acquisition responsibility (hunter), more than an account maintenance (farmer) role. But generally they sound like: “Persuading someone to buy my product or service.” They don’t want to … talk, meet or buy from you.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Acquisitions Buy B2B 120

Avitage

MARCH 6, 2013

Ask the following questions: How many and which buying roles are they targeting with their content? Is the content predominantly focused on the company’s products or the customers’ problem? Assuming the content is focused on their customers’ problem does it: Effectively articulate the problem, symptoms, causes, and impacts?

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Urgency Marketing Content Marketing & Strategy 120

Avitage

JANUARY 19, 2016

You’re gaining respect and trust that makes it possible for you to educate buyers and influence a buying vision and decision criteria. According to SiriusDecisions, 71% of sales leaders identify customer conversations as their biggest challenge to hitting their revenue targets. is a considered average.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Design Conversion B2B 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

Principle #4 — Think buying first, selling second. Again, we’re re-thinking what it means to “think buying first.” ” Aligning with the customer’s buying process is an important starting point, and one we baked into our process well in 2010. .” This will.

Buy 120

Buy Process Practices Organization 120

Avitage

MARCH 28, 2013

The opening lines, and most of the lines that followed, really grabbed my attention: “Marketers spent more than $40 billion on custom media in 2011. Content Marketing Strategy b2b content buying stages content curations content quality content strategy quality content relevant content video content'

Allocation 120

Allocation Curation Content B2B Sales 120

Avitage

JANUARY 7, 2015

Ardath Albee: Marketers typically think of their B2B marketing efforts as a series of campaigns focused on specific parts of the buying decision. The problem is, if a B2B buyer is at a different stage in their buying process than the content you distribute suggests, you could miss engaging them entirely.

Process 120

Process Campaigns Buyer Personas Buyer's Journey 120

Avitage

MARCH 6, 2013

Ask the following questions: How many and which buying roles are they targeting with their content? Is the content predominantly focused on the company’s products or the customers’ problem? Assuming the content is focused on their customers’ problem does it: Effectively articulate the problem, symptoms, causes, and impacts?

Marketing Management 120

Marketing Management Content Marketing Content Vendors 120

Avitage

MARCH 21, 2013

Any sales conversation must begin with the nature of the selling process, especially from the buyers perspective — how they see their problems, available solutions, and buying challenges. My colleague Rob Scanlon developed a simple “Three Level Selling Model” that I’ve found useful.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Vendors B2B Sales Buy 120

Avitage

MARCH 21, 2013

Any sales conversation must begin with the nature of the selling process, especially from the buyers perspective — how they see their problems, available solutions, and buying challenges. My colleague Rob Scanlon developed a simple “Three Level Selling Model” that I’ve found useful.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking B2B Sales Vendors Buy 120

Avitage

APRIL 3, 2016

See 7 reasons you’re not getting the most out of your customer facing content) What is Content Source Content source is a repository of all text elements that are used in, or to create content.

Resources 120

Resources Content Verticals Landing Pages 120

Avitage

MARCH 28, 2013

The opening lines, and most of the lines that followed, really grabbed my attention: “Marketers spent more than $40 billion on custom media in 2011. Content Marketing Strategy b2b content buying stages content curations content quality content strategy quality content relevant content video content'

Allocation 120

Allocation Webcast Curation Content 120

Avitage

AUGUST 7, 2013

Competency Checklist Strategic Make decisions across all functions and competencies, determine priorities Big picture and interconnected perspective Demand management and related content strategy Buyer Understanding and Useful Insights Who buys Why they buy How they buy Useful insights Data and Database Complete, accurate data Tagged What to collect (..)

Demand 120

Demand Work Management Microsite Landing Pages 120

Avitage

JANUARY 28, 2016

Business Strategy Background and context for this conversation are the new realities associated with self-educating, B2B buyers, and their preferred buying decision process. Belief in this, and the role of content, is the foundational premise for what follows. Are you assuming everyone “gets it”?

ROI 120

ROI B2B Content Urgency Marketing 120

Avitage

MAY 7, 2016

In the content business, create vs. curate is similar to the traditional business decision of make vs. buy. To address the second question, B2B content strategy must identify primary topics customers care about, and that relate to company offers. Companies struggle to keep up with the content demands of a digital business environment.

Marketing & Strategy 120

Marketing & Strategy B2B Curation Content 120

Avitage

MARCH 13, 2015

Or, you are accountable for any number of other content dependent, customer engaging groups across your organization. Your inventory and budgets are starved for the customer relevant content you require. Hopefully your process aligns with your buyer’s buying process.

Wikipedia 120

Wikipedia Lead Gen Lead Ranking Budget Programs 120

Avitage

JUNE 13, 2012

Content marketing is fundamentally about creating buyer relevant, education oriented content, that supports the buying team as they progress through a buying journey. One customer commented, “I need a constant stream of fresh content.” Content marketing has created a content conundrum. But what do you do next?

Video Marketing 120

Video Marketing Content Marketing Best Practices Content 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

They should be worked on well before customer engagements begin, and simply selected and applied to each call. In addition to “prepare to fight the status quo” I would recommend reading Sharon Drew Morgen’s writing on Buying Facilitation(TM). They tend to be related to account strategies and plans.

Vendors 120

Vendors Custom Publishing Tips Efficiency 120

Avitage

JUNE 10, 2014

Enterprise organizations face a serious challenge with the creation and management of content that impacts the success of new customer acquisition and profitable revenue growth, as well as tactical marketing and selling initiatives. This has been famously missing when it comes to content enabling marketing and sales.

Enterprise Management 120

Enterprise Management Marketing Management Marketing & Strategy Content 120

Avitage

AUGUST 6, 2012

With solutions that have several variants, or that require customization, the process is designed to postpone adding variant features or customizations until the last possible moment. Think of the genius in the Dell custom PC supply chain. They should be able to do this every day without consuming their day.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Marketing Management Buyer Personas Advertising Agencies 120

Avitage

MARCH 17, 2014

This is why we say: Content is a strategic imperative.

Organization 120

Organization Enterprise Management Cross-Selling B2B 120

Avitage

OCTOBER 1, 2012

October 1, 2012 Max, Our executive team has been visiting customers and partners for the past two weeks to identify sources for our next phase of growth. Chapter One Max Wilson, Director of Marketing for WE-CAN Technologies, received the following email from his boss on Monday morning.

Advertising Channels 120

Advertising Channels Planning Video Marketing Advertising Agencies 120

Avitage

OCTOBER 1, 2012

October 1, 2012 Max, Our executive team has been visiting customers and partners for the past two weeks to identify sources for our next phase of growth. Chapter One Max Wilson, Director of Marketing for WECAN Technologies, received the following email from his boss on Monday morning.

Advertising Channels 120

Advertising Channels Planning Video Marketing Advertising Agencies 120

Avitage

JUNE 15, 2012

These, “revenue drivers,” are closest to the customer, online or in person, and have disciplines for communicating with customers. Turning those big ideas into relevant actionable content to meet the buyers’ expectations isn’t what they do. That job actually belongs to the people in marketing and sales that drive revenue.

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership B2B Thought Leadership Deliverability Buying Cycle 120

Avitage

JUNE 28, 2017

What to do is universally understood and generally accepted.

B2B 120

B2B B2B Sales Differentiation Segmentation 120

Avitage

OCTOBER 28, 2013

They often sell more complex, “solution” oriented offerings, to multiple buying team members (average 5.4), into multiple industry verticals, with buyers in different stages of long consideration periods. This is especially true in larger organizations. Let’s pull […].

Verticals 120

Verticals Work Management Blogger Trigger Marketing 120

Avitage

OCTOBER 28, 2013

They often sell more complex, “solution” oriented offerings, to multiple buying team members (average 5.4), into multiple industry verticals, with buyers in different stages of long consideration periods. This is especially true in larger organizations. Let’s pull. Content Publishing blog ideas blogging write blog posts'

Verticals 120

Verticals Work Management Blogger Trigger Marketing 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

Two strategic insights I found especially helpful: Must have a real-time mindset (David Meerman Scott) The “consumerization” of B2B marketing (Tom Pisello) This summary of especially salient points looks like a pretty good content checklist: Content will get shorter (Doug Kessler) Relevance will become the new standard (Sandra Zoratti) Must become (..)

Social Media 120

Social Media Microsite Planning Social Marketing 120

Avitage

AUGUST 21, 2012

At the time we were transforming from a traditional and simplistic, “Buy low – sell high,” merchandising model to category management. The key point is that we took a tremendous jump in the level of customer focused detail that drove the most important operational decisions.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Merchandising Content Lead Ranking 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

With content marketing, we first have to think about the needs and the pain points of our customers and create content that answers those questions. They then buy from us. If we do that right, they then pay attention to us. They then talk about us. It’s easy to.

Practices 120

Practices Content Marketing Best Practices Content 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

I’m immediately buying copies for my people and to use with customers. I’ve just completed reading Rebecca Lieb’s new book, Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher – How to Use Content to Market Online and in Social Media.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Resources Content Marketing Planning 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

The company initially applied a typical market research approach before it engaged “one of Christensen’s fellow researchers, who approached the situation by trying to deduce the ‘job’ that customers were ‘hiring’ a milkshake to do.”

Merchandising 120

Merchandising Content Comparison Demographics 120

Avitage

OCTOBER 15, 2012

Forgive the redundancy, but Ardath Albee has another good post talking about the role of content in the b2b IT buying process. She is referencing the recently released IDG 2012 Customer Engagement Study report. One major finding is enterprise IT Decision Makers engage with an average of 10 content assets during their buying process.

Buy 120

Buy Process B2B Content 120

Avitage

OCTOBER 15, 2012

Forgive the redundancy, but Ardath Albee has another good post talking about the role of content in the b2b IT buying process. She is referencing the recently released IDG 2012 Customer Engagement Study report. One major finding is enterprise IT Decision Makers engage with an average of 10 content assets during their buying process.

Buy 120

Buy Process B2B Content 120

Avitage

MARCH 28, 2013

The opening lines, and most of the lines that followed, really grabbed my attention: “Marketers spent more than $40 billion on custom media in 20111. B2B marketers are allocating one-third of their budgets to content marketing, and more than half plan to increase content marketing spending in 20132.

Allocation 120

Allocation Webcast Content Case Study 120

Avitage

MARCH 7, 2012

Obviously, waiting for marketing to get an entire buying team to sales ready status introduces serious risk factors of being late to apply the critical sales professional resource. After all, people progress individually at different rates, and in a non-linear manner, through their buying process.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency B2B Sales Buy Marketing & Strategy 120