Sales Engine

MAY 22, 2016

Widening Gulf between Transactional and Consultative Selling - In spite of the commoditization of products, customers are getting tougher to deal with and are demanding more support and expertise (there’s that word again), especially with the more complex decisions. In Neil’s words “How you sell it is more important than what you sell”.

Allocation 136

Allocation RFP Consulting Paid Search Agency 136

Sales Engine

JULY 13, 2016

If you are familiar with the sales funnel, you are likely also familiar with the following: Your prospects’ expectations of you have changed, but your business leaders’ expectations haven’t. Prospects expect you to be a publisher , not a marketer. It requires a dialogue with prospects. Harder still, how do you sustain it?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JULY 13, 2016

If you are familiar with the sales funnel, you are likely also familiar with the following: Your prospects’ expectations of you have changed, but your business leaders’ expectations haven’t. Prospects expect you to be a publisher , not a marketer. It requires a dialogue with prospects. Harder still, how do you sustain it?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 28, 2016

They’re not interested in engaging with prospects who are not ready to buy. In fact, according to Gleanster , 30 to 50 percent of leads in a pipeline are not ready to buy. Marketing, on the other hand, often has a different definition of a qualified lead. So what can you do about it?

Marketing Qualified Leads 136

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads MQL 136

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 21, 2015

If you’re starting from ground zero, start with this simple calculation: Take the number of buyer personas you’ve identified as targets, multiply them by the number of buying stages you’ve identified, and multiply that by each unique issue or question to be addressed. What would a publisher do?

Budget Programs 120

Budget Programs Work Management Marketing Management Allocation 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 7, 2016

Now think about how you interact with them, aside from consuming their main products (reading, purchasing, and eating, respectively). So how do you create content that makes your own customers and prospects feel that way? What is their buying process? What business problem does your product or service help them solve?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Content Demand Generation Agencies Barriers 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 31, 2016

You don’t see the prospect, and you continue to say the same things over and over again and you don’t get those visual cues from watching someone’s face. These same brands are leading with product and brand rather than experience and utility.” This turns out to be a real challenge for digital marketers.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Process B2B Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 25, 2016

Today, I think so many companies are trying to muscle their way to more productivity with content rather than reimagining how they use it. Lead-gen math looks at how many times you must interrupt your prospects in the hope of making a connection with those few who are actually in the market. Media math is different.

Enterprise Management 120

Enterprise Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

We’re uniquely positioned because of our diversity in product offerings, but we compete with large firms that have more resources available to their marketing and sales team. Once the rebrand of the website was complete, First Rate implemented their content strategy in conjunction with Sales Engine and experienced immediate positive results.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

We’re uniquely positioned because of our diversity in product offerings, but we compete with large firms that have more resources available to their marketing and sales team. Once the rebrand of the website was complete, First Rate implemented their content strategy in conjunction with Sales Engine and experienced immediate positive results.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 13, 2015

People can hide behind voicemail, prospects can hide behind email. Or they want the ability to control the buying journey themselves? People are 60 to 90 percent through their buying cycle before they talk to a sales rep. So, the old tools sales reps used to leverage have dried up. The power has shifted.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Storytelling Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 25, 2015

In most companies, the expertise comes from an executive, such as the CEO or President, senior level sales and product managers, and customer service. So how can you extract this knowledge in such a way that you can marry it up with resources that know how to create content and get it in front of prospects?

Video Marketing 120

Video Marketing Marketing Management Copywriting PR 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

They won’t help you track where your prospects entered into the sales cycle and became customers. Prospects are already shopping on the internet for solutions to their problems. Think about it in your own life—how much information are you armed with before you go to a dealership to buy a car?

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Because of the high volumes of content required to address all of the high probability pain points for everyone involved in the decision-making process, combined with the timing of where they are in the buying process when they consume that content, there’s no easy formula for calculation. Even that explanation was complicated!

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads B2B Marketing Marketing Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 23, 2016

They realize that engaging with prospects through the internet is a process and not a series of projects—and marketing’s job is to generate leads that create actionable sales intelligence. Prior to 2005, B2B sales people were the gate keepers of information about the companies’ products and services.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 20, 2016

And most importantly, adding more sales people (or hiring calling firms) to prospect down a list won’t get you where you want to be either. That was what we used to do before the emergence of a content-heavy internet, and it worked because sales people were the gatekeepers of information about products and services within a company.

Lead Ranking 218

Lead Ranking Lead Gen Lead Scoring Leads 218

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 4, 2017

economy and an ever-expanding arsenal of technologies to help both salespeople and marketers reach more prospects, many companies continue to struggle to grow sales. In the pre-Internet universe, salespeople held all the information prospects needed to make purchase decisions, from pricing to detailed product information.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 24, 2016

Inbound marketing , a term popularized by Hubspot, is all about producing content that extends the boundaries of company-owned web properties in order to catch the attention of prospects and entice them to engage with your web properties, including social channels and blogs.

B2B Sales 149

B2B Sales B2B Inbound Marketing Cold Calling 149

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 8, 2015

They realize that engaging with prospects through the internet is a process and not a series of projects—and marketing’s job is to generate leads that create actionable sales intelligence. Prior to 2005, B2B sales people were the gate keepers of information about the companies’ products and services.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

JULY 20, 2016

economy and an ever-expanding arsenal of technologies to help both salespeople and marketers reach more prospects, many companies continue to struggle to grow sales. In the pre-Internet universe, salespeople held all the information prospects needed to make purchase decisions, from pricing to detailed product information.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120

Sales Engine

JULY 20, 2016

economy and an ever-expanding arsenal of technologies to help both salespeople and marketers reach more prospects, many companies continue to struggle to grow sales. In the pre-Internet universe, salespeople held all the information prospects needed to make purchase decisions, from pricing to detailed product information.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 7, 2016

Every quota-driven B2B sales team has the same focus—sales reps need to close as many deals as they can to make quota—and they’re simply not interested in engaging with prospects who are not ready to buy. It’s an opportunity now and up to sales to run their process on the prospective client.

Lead Ranking 136

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads MQL 136

Sales Engine

APRIL 27, 2016

The right approach is to identify the high probability pains that your prospect is experiencing and develop content based on those topics. At the bottom of the funnel they’re actually narrowing down their buying decisions and much of your content at this stage may be based on case study results or client testimonials. They have pain.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Webinar Metrics Paid Search Agency Companies 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 16, 2016

For me, that looks like marketing generating enough qualified leads so that most of my time is spent having productive sales conversations. Content marketing should work with the same goal in mind, but with a slight twist—our readers are our buying prospects. Does that mean that they’re a prospect?

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 28, 2016

Even though this article talks mostly about media companies, the same can be applied to B2B content marketers : We’re simply putting out too much content for our prospects to consume—and the more we produce, the less engagement we actually have. Instead, ask: Where do my prospects congregate digitally? Very poor—like 0.05%.

Webinar Metrics 120

Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Content Paper 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 13, 2016

Demand generation requires a complete marketing program that not only attracts prospects to your website, but also converts them into leads, nurtures them over time through their unique buying journeys, and assists the sales team to close each deal. Your content production isn’t integrated with your sales process.

Top of Funnel 136

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Lead Ranking Digital Marketing Funnels 136

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

It’s like they’re trying to build a house by digging a hole and immediately buying the windows and the wall treatments before meeting with an architect. Map out your individual buying personas, and most importantly, what their most pressing problems are that must be solved. That’s what a lead generation strategy is really all about.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 120

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

It’s like they’re trying to build a house by digging a hole and immediately buying the windows and the wall treatments before meeting with an architect. Map out your individual buying personas, and most importantly, what their most pressing problems are that must be solved. That’s what a lead generation strategy is really all about.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

Sales reps sought out potential buyers, convinced them that they had a need for a particular product or service, and proceeded to sell to them. Today, however, demand generation begins online, and the buying process is directed by the buyer. 1 This "Don't call us; we'll call you" sentiment is reflected in the rise of content marketing.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Generation Demand Generation Agencies 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

We must continuously evaluate whether or not these processes are worth the time and money spent, and if you agree that the ultimate goal of any sales and marketing program is to generate one-to-one sales conversations with prospects, then we must get smart about where to invest our energy and dollars. Does that mean that they’re a prospect?

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 30, 2016

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a viable sales prospect or ready to buy. That way, when a salesperson does reach out, the MQL is ready to have a productive qualification conversation. That way, when a salesperson does reach out, the MQL is ready to have a productive qualification conversation. And it works.

Lead Nurturing 136

Lead Nurturing Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Top of Funnel 136

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 28, 2015

But never mind what the facts say, you're still having a hard time getting buy-in. Whether you’re working on a massive, full-blown digital magazine or a monthly newsletter, the concept of content marketing is the same: develop great content, get it in front of your prospects, and convert the lead traffic.

Budget Programs 120

Budget Programs Top of Funnel Marketing Budget Webinar Metrics 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 23, 2016

The buying cycle may only be three months long, but it can take much longer than that to become cash flow positive—especially if your customers don’t pay their bills on time. When digging into the sales metrics, you find that you’ve got a 25 percent win rate for opportunities.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 17, 2016

Conduct content planning workshops and document a production plan that maps to your editorial calendar. Now that you’ve determined the topics and the problems that your prospects are trying to solve, schedule workshops with your thought leaders in your organization to discuss these issues in detail.

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Ad Building Buyer Personas 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 11, 2015

Conduct content planning workshops and document a production plan that maps to your editorial calendar. Now that you’ve determined the topics and the problems that your prospects are trying to solve, schedule workshops with your thought leaders in your organization to discuss these issues in detail.

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Ad Building Buyer Personas 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

We are all looking for a competitive advantage, and if you’re fortunate enough to be selling a completely unique product from a well-known firm to a needy market, you probably don’t have to be very good at marketing to be successful. Following up on link clicks with "buy from me now" messages also doesn't work.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Digital Marketing Funnels 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 6, 2015

We are all looking for a competitive advantage, and if you’re fortunate enough to be selling a completely unique product from a well-known firm to a needy market, you probably don’t have to be very good at marketing to be successful. Following up on link clicks with "buy from me now" messages also doesn't work.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Digital Marketing Funnels 120