Sales Engine

MAY 19, 2016

In the context of digital marketing and demand generation, lead intelligence is the sales rep’s ability to predict high probability pain points that a prospect may have before trying to establish contact so that they may have a more fruitful consultative conversation.

Sales Qualified Leads 159

Sales Qualified Leads B2B Marketing Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy 159

Sales Engine

JULY 29, 2016

Sales reps need leads, and it’s marketing’s job to get at least some of them—a majority would be nice. As much as I hate the term “lead generation,” I don’t know a better one, so let’s start by defining what it is not. Generating content and seeing what sticks to the wall—that’s what.

Buyer Personas 120

Buyer Personas Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel Leads 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

Since it’s become more difficult for sales people to get in front of prospects, many B2B companies are relying heavily on content marketing to supply top-of-the-funnel leads that can be converted into closed business. But how do they know if those marketing efforts are having impact on the bottom line?

Marketing Qualified Leads 120

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking MQL Top of Funnel 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

Since it’s become more difficult for sales people to get in front of prospects, many B2B companies are relying heavily on content marketing to supply top-of-the-funnel leads that can be converted into closed business. But how do they know if those marketing efforts are having impact on the bottom line?

Marketing Qualified Leads 120

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking MQL Top of Funnel 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 5, 2016

Sales reps need leads, and it’s marketing’s job to get at least some of them—a majority would be nice. As much as I hate the term “ lead generation ,” I don’t know a better one, so let’s start by defining what it is not. Generating content and seeing what sticks to the wall—that’s what.

Buyer Personas 120

Buyer Personas Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel Leads 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2016

If you expect Marketing to produce 50% of a $10M Sales goal (a reasonable goal in 2016 by the way), and the average deal size is $50,000, the Marketing department will need to generate 100 qualified leads. That's 25 leads per quarter. A shortfall of 25 leads x $50k/lead = missing your sales goal by $1,250,000.

Planning 179

Planning Sales Cycle Sales Qualified Leads Paid Search Agency 179

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

But how much of that exposure translated into leads and sales? The first key to making this work is hiring a marketing leader that has his/her effectiveness ratings tied to lead generation and revenue growth— similar to a commissioned sales person. Less is more if there are more qualified leads for salespeople to follow up on.

Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead Conversion Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2016

If you expect Marketing to produce 50% of a $10M Sales goal (a reasonable goal in 2016 by the way), and the average deal size is $50,000, the Marketing department will need to generate 100 qualified leads. That's 25 leads per quarter. A shortfall of 25 leads x $50k/lead = missing your sales goal by $1,250,000.

Planning 120

Planning Sales Cycle Sales Qualified Leads Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

MAY 11, 2016

B2B lead generation is all about conversions. You’ve got to develop content that leads to conversations, employ marketing automation, and track lead intelligence in a CRM. Usually we do webinars to educate the market about the usefulness of content marketing and best practices for generating leads for B2B sales.

Webinar Metrics 149

Webinar Metrics Sales Qualified Leads Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Automation Services 149

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 2, 2015

If the sales team has a cycle time of 90 days from opportunity create date to close, then they'd better be getting leads from marketing TODAY to impact Q1 of 2016. If you haven’t restructured your marketing into lead generators for sales, you’re behind. Marketing’s new role is to generate leads for salespeople.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Paper Fulfillment B2B Marketing 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 23, 2015

They based their findings on overall number of page views, leads generated through form conversions, and new subscribers to their blog. Companies that had achieved that level of library generated 3 to 4 times more leads on a monthly basis compared to companies that fall below that threshold.

Social Media 120

Social Media Media Long Tail Marketing Hubspot 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 13, 2015

In this episode Paul went over modern marketing, lead generation, and how important storytelling is for the buyer's journey. In the past, marketing was responsible for branding and awareness — not l ead generation , not demand generation. Paul Rafferty: There's a lot to a modern marketing program.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Storytelling Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 18, 2016

While we were pleased with the lead generation effort, the sales resulting from those leads were disappointingly low. So was it a quality of leads issue or a sales/opportunity conversion issue? During the evaluation timeframe, we generated almost 6,000 leads, for a Suspect-to-MQL conversion rate of 27.3%.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Cost per Lead 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 25, 2016

Most of us remember a day when sales reps used to be able to generate their own leads. But, the world changed and the internet crushed sales ability to generate their own leads. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with tactical hand to mouth lead-generation with great content.

Enterprise Management 120

Enterprise Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 28, 2016

Many companies have focused on increasing their inbound traffic for new leads to combat tighter spam regulations and more concentrated email filters. But increasing web traffic without a thorough conversion strategy is just branding and awareness— that won’t supply enough leads to salespeople to hit your revenue growth targets.

Marketing & Strategy 120

Marketing & Strategy A/B testing Broadcasting Content 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 7, 2016

At the top of the funnel, when you’re trying to generate interest, no one cares about you or how you do what you do. So how can you use content to generate more leads at the top of the funnel? Tell them that you need leads and what they should be talking about to get your prospect’s attention.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Features B2B Thought Leadership Digital Marketing Funnels 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 14, 2018

But there are two major problems with that model today: Quota-carrying, outside sales reps are an expensive resource to be putting on the phones to follow up on marketing qualified leads. A middle reliever is needed to connect the marketing produced lead and the sales closer. (If

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency Content Marketing 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

If you think about the traditional sales funnel, marketing established the brand and generated awareness through a series of projects and campaigns. But now, the internet is crushing a sales reps ability to generate their own leads. The sales rep could easily fill their calendar with appointments leveraging off of that branding.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Thought Leadership Demand Generation Agencies 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 7, 2016

By now, you have no doubt heard that content marketing is the future of demand generation. But if the function of content is to generate and nurture your leads through your sales funnel, how do you create content that is good enough to comply with the demands of your sales team?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Content Demand Generation Agencies Barriers 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

As a side note, I know many top performing sales reps that would not even consider a position in a company that wasn’t generating at least half of their leads from marketing. Ultimately, we do business with people we know, like and trust.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 30, 2016

This is how many leads marketing is going to produce , this is how much time sales has to follow up, this is how we’ll code these things) and they walk out thinking that they’re aligned. There’s more of a fundamental shift in the way that sales organizations need to look at how they are going to pursue the marketing qualified lead.

Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Qualified Leads Allocation Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 24, 2015

Where these goals are important, they place second and third to the ultimate goal of content marketing—to generate leads and increase revenue. Content plays a critical role in the new world of demand generation, and it goes way beyond branding and thought leadership. Yes, it helps you build credibility.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies RFP Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It's likely that your sales department isn't the root of your demand generation problem at all. Demand generation was once the responsibility of Sales. Today, however, demand generation begins online, and the buying process is directed by the buyer. With content engagement, that interaction can be significantly more fruitful.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Generation Demand Generation Agencies 120

Sales Engine

JULY 7, 2016

But there are two major problems with that model today: Quota-carrying, outside sales reps are an expensive resource to be putting on the phones to follow up on marketing qualified leads. A middle reliever is needed to connect the marketing produced lead and the sales closer. (If

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency Content Marketing 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 21, 2015

But how much content do we actually need to generate the results we want? In the B2B space, the number-one goal of most content marketers is to generate leads for their sales team. The message we should take away from Redbull is that, even when it comes to B2B lead generation , content marketing is not an event or a campaign.

Budget Programs 120

Budget Programs Work Management Marketing Management Allocation 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 6, 2016

Most B2B companies are realizing that, to hit their growth goals, they need to shift the focus of their marketing from branding and awareness to lead generation. So they task marketing leadership with building a demand generation engine and run into myriad problems. But demand generation is new territory.

Demand Generation Agencies 168

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Paid Search Agency Demand 168

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Content marketing is maturing in 2016 from a social media tactic to a formalized go-to-market strategy, but that doesn’t mean that, as marketers, we must generate more content. Noah Lemas, VP of Distilled in New York, recently commented on how he approaches content generation. That way, the content basically writes itself.

Content 120

Content Thought Leadership Custom Publishing Segmentation 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Content marketing is maturing in 2016 from a social media tactic to a formalized go-to-market strategy, but that doesn’t mean that, as marketers, we must generate more content. Noah Lemas, VP of Distilled in New York, recently commented on how he approaches content generation. That way, the content basically writes itself.

Content 120

Content Thought Leadership Custom Publishing Segmentation 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 31, 2016

These same brands are leading with product and brand rather than experience and utility.” By taking our customers out of context we’re only focusing on what we, the marketers, need, and we must do a better job at being contextual if we expect to generate qualified leads. Brands tend to appear tone deaf and context insensitive.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Process B2B Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

That’s what a lead generation strategy is really all about. So what are the building blocks of a lead generation strategy? A demand generation strategy must map directly to the sales funnel to be effective, which is why most B2B content marketing initiatives miss the mark—they don’t understand sales process.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 120

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

That’s what a lead generation strategy is really all about. So what are the building blocks of a lead generation strategy? A demand generation strategy must map directly to the sales funnel to be effective, which is why most B2B content marketing initiatives miss the mark—they don’t understand sales process.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 27, 2015

What’s the right way to follow up on content to turn leads into sales conversations? Before we get into best practices on content marketing follow-up, Marketing and Sales must be on the same page regarding their lead definitions. Once a conversation has been agreed to, you have a Sales Accepted Lead (SAL).

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Buy 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 16, 2015

B2B content marketing today is really about generating leads for sales by replacing the one-to-one conversations that salespeople used to be able to get more predictably. But with everyone jumping on the content marketing bandwagon, it’s not enough to publish a blog or a white paper.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Lead Ranking Content Marketing & Strategy 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 13, 2016

Unencumbered by entrenchment in the marketing establishment, a non-traditional content craftsman is better able to think like a lead: What does the lead want to know? Remember: the goal of content marketing is to learn about the lead, not to talk endlessly about your brand.)

Allocation 120

Allocation Content Demand Generation Agencies Work Management 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

The good news is that as technology such as marketing automation advances, creating a more individualized marketing communications program that leads to sales conversations is becoming more real. But before you go out and invest in these tools, it’s important to really understand your customers’ issues so you can develop a strategy.

Acquisitions 149

Acquisitions Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Automation Services 149

Sales Engine

APRIL 20, 2016

But the reality of the situation was that the buyer needed us much more than we needed them—and that was the real reason that we were successful at generating new appointments. Many of us who grew up in sales thought that we were awesome at prospecting.

Lead Ranking 218

Lead Ranking Lead Gen Lead Scoring Leads 218

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

The good news is that as technology such as marketing automation advances, creating a more individualized marketing communications program that leads to sales conversations is becoming more real. But before you go out and invest in these tools, it’s important to really understand your customers’ issues so you can develop a strategy.

Acquisitions 120

Acquisitions Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Automation Services 120