Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

If you’ve been in the sales game for a while, you’ve probably noticed some differences in both the ways that customers are buying and the ways that sales cycles have become less and less predictable. The sales rep could easily fill their calendar with appointments leveraging off of that branding. They reduce the scope.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Thought Leadership Demand Generation Agencies 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

It’s all about driving revenue , and to do that effectively, our marketing efforts much create actionable sales intelligence. They won’t help your sales people meet quota. They won’t help you track where your prospects entered into the sales cycle and became customers. Sales can’t control this whole process anymore.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Since the days of buying lists and blasting them sales messages are mostly gone, creating experience through content is becoming more necessary than ever before. But if you’re not in a position to be constantly talking to prospects as a marketer, your sales people are the next best thing.

Acquisitions 149

Acquisitions Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Automation Services 149

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

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Since the days of buying lists and blasting them sales messages are mostly gone, creating experience through content is becoming more necessary than ever before. But if you’re not in a position to be constantly talking to prospects as a marketer, your sales people are the next best thing.

Acquisitions 120

Acquisitions Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 24, 2018

3 Reasons to add pay-per-lead white paper syndication to your digital marketing plan There are three challenges every B2B marketer faces as they try to build a lead generating engine to feed their sales team: 1. Content marketing can be a long, expensive, and uncertain journey. NOT ANY MORE!

Paper 159

Paper Planning Marketing Plans Marketing Automation Services 159

Sales Engine

APRIL 20, 2016

It’s time to face some hard truths about B2B sales. 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. We may not have wanted to talk to sales reps, but that’s how we got the information we needed. The B2B sales process has changed.

Lead Ranking 218

Lead Ranking Lead Gen Lead Scoring Leads 218

Sales Engine

AUGUST 23, 2016

They develop white papers, email campaigns, go to trade shows, and —well, you know, execute on lots of projects. When it’s all over, you ship the booth and collateral boxes home and collect the leads for sales. The world has changed, and the internet is now crushing a sales rep’s ability to generate their own leads.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

JULY 5, 2016

For companies struggling to reach sales goals, doing more of the same (more cold-calls, adding more salespeople) won’t break through growth plateaus. Sales representatives used to be a prospect’s only source of product and industry knowledge, but now prospects largely research things online while ignoring reps’ calls.

Work Management 149

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Budget Programs 149

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 8, 2015

They develop white papers, email campaigns, go to trade shows, and —well, you know, execute on lots of projects. When it’s all over, you ship the booth and collateral boxes home and collect the leads for sales. The world has changed, and the internet is now crushing a sales rep’s ability to generate their own leads.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

There’s certainly nothing wrong with more people being aware of who you are, but there’s a big difference between people being aware of who you are and what you sell, and those people actually engaging with your sales team and buying products and services from you. 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

There’s certainly nothing wrong with more people being aware of who you are, but there’s a big difference between people being aware of who you are and what you sell, and those people actually engaging with your sales team and buying products and services from you. 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

JANUARY 28, 2016

They recently set up an experiment where they adjusted their publishing volumes by half the amount of content and then doubled it, both for a two-week period against their normal benchmark, to see what would happen to engagement and lead generation. In other words, when I send out a campaign, how many leads did it generate?

Webinar Metrics 120

Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Content Paper 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 7, 2016

Sales and marketing alignment has been overused because many B2B companies are still operating with an outdated model where marketing builds branding and awareness and sales books appointments. If that describes your company’s current sales and marketing process, then yes, alignment is just a buzzword.

Lead Ranking 136

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads MQL 136

Sales Engine

MARCH 3, 2016

This is why it’s important to have great content available that supports every stage of the buying process in a complex sale. A recent client evaluation of their data revealed that, when content marketing was used in tandem with sales, the closing rates went up, the deal sizes were larger, and the cycle times were shorter.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Purchase 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 3, 2016

This is why it’s important to have great content available that supports every stage of the buying process in a complex sale. A recent client evaluation of their data revealed that, when content marketing was used in tandem with sales, the closing rates went up, the deal sizes were larger, and the cycle times were shorter.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Purchase 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 9, 2015

When it comes to B2B marketing—whether it be social media, email marketing, blogs, white papers or attending trade shows—it has to be about lead generation. That usually requires an expensive, highly trained sales rep to get the deal closed. Not that there isn’t branding and awareness value in these projects.

Demand 120

Demand B2B Marketing B2B Trade Show 120

Sales Engine

MAY 5, 2016

times more leads, and you’ve been burned outsourcing content production in the past, that number looks pretty scary. Content for Lead Generation Should Focus on Business Problems, Not Solutions. It’s about identifying business problems that generate interest.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership B2B Business 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 17, 2016

Back then, a company that had established a strong brand could distinguish itself from competitors in the mind of a buyer long before a sales pitch even happened, and for sales, the stronger the brand, the better the odds of getting your call returned. Of those who consumed a piece of your content: How many downloads turned into leads?

Budget Programs 168

Budget Programs Content Marketing Brand Identity Branding 168

Sales Engine

AUGUST 19, 2015

I have a friend in sales who continuously argues with me over the definition of what a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). As a salesperson, he simply cannot understand how someone that’s not qualified, but demonstrates interest by clicking on a link or downloading a report, can be counted as a qualified lead by any means.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads MQL Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 14, 2016

A newspaper editor, a digital producer and a content marketer walk into a bar…and they discovered that great stories and brand communications are no joke—it takes all of their combined skills to engage an audience and generate leads. Plan your story: Are you going to write a blog post, white paper or news feature article?

Planning 120

Planning Content Marketing Best Practices Content 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

Once upon a time, branding was an indispensable part of a company’s success in B2B sales. Marketing budgets spent on bold logos, memorable slogans, pricey sponsorships and colorful presentation were all devised for a simple overarching purpose: to get Sales in the door. This relationship was not always about the sale.

Brand Identity 149

Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs Marketing Automation Services 149

Sales Engine

AUGUST 16, 2016

What does a perfect world B2B sales process look like? For me, that looks like marketing generating enough qualified leads so that most of my time is spent having productive sales conversations. Once they enter their information to receive your offer, you’ve now converted the lead. Think of it like a news room.

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 17, 2016

The development of ongoing, thought-leadership content has become the necessary element for a marketing program that increases visibility and produces leads, but it’s not enough simply to publish a blog or white paper anymore. Generate Buyer Personas. Talk to sales and find out how they’ve been finding leads.

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Ad Building Buyer Personas 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 16, 2016

Most marketing organizations today do not have the right resources in place to properly execute a content marketing strategy for lead generation, and if you’ve had less than desirable results, this could be a major reason why. They don’t want to talk to sales reps. They don’t want to hear about your products.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Marketing & Strategy Public Relations 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 13, 2016

Just because B2B companies are investing heavily in content marketing doesn’t mean that they’re successful at generating the leads they need for business growth. Additionally, 85% of the companies surveyed indicate that lead generation and sales growth was their primary objective for greater investments.

Top of Funnel 136

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Lead Ranking Digital Marketing Funnels 136

Sales Engine

MARCH 24, 2016

It certainly beats cold calling, and in an ideal world, we’d have so many inbound leads coming through our websites that we have to hire more sales people to deal with them. However, most B2B companies haven’t been able to supply enough leads through their inbound efforts to make sales quotas and hit revenue growth targets.

B2B Sales 149

B2B Sales B2B Inbound Marketing Cold Calling 149

Sales Engine

JUNE 9, 2016

Creating an end-to-end lead generation process with content marketing requires that your top-of-funnel content (the content that focuses on early stage buyers and is commonly found in blogs) is tied together with your premium conversion assets. But it can’t stop there. The core model actually is that simple.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Digital Marketing Funnels Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 11, 2015

The development of ongoing, thought-leadership content has become the necessary element for a marketing program that increases visibility and produces leads , but it’s not enough simply to publish a blog or white paper anymore. Generate Buyer Personas. Talk to sales and find out how they’ve been finding leads.

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Ad Building Buyer Personas 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 30, 2016

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a viable sales prospect or ready to buy. This strategy is called lead nurturing. Consider these research findings: Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20 percent increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. And it works.

Lead Nurturing 136

Lead Nurturing Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Top of Funnel 136

Sales Engine

MARCH 13, 2017

Once upon a time, branding was an indispensable part of a company’s success in B2B sales. Marketing budgets spent on bold logos, memorable slogans, pricey sponsorships and colorful presentation were all devised for a simple overarching purpose: to get Sales in the door. This relationship was not always about the sale.

Brand Identity 120

Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

So how do you compete with content marketing and sales follow-up when the waters have been muddied? As buyers, we don’t need to talk to sales people to get the information we need—therefore, we don’t take phone calls (and get upset when we feel tricked). Sales follow up on converted leads is repeatable, but the approach is not.

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 28, 2015

Lead by Example and Start Small Even though 88% of B2B marketers are using content marketing (with 42% increasing their budgets for 2016), it doesn't mean that they’re doing it well—or are going to do so in the future (and I’m sure many companies that post to their blog once a month have been included in this statistic).

Budget Programs 120

Budget Programs Top of Funnel Marketing Budget Webinar Metrics 120

Sales Engine

MAY 12, 2016

Once upon a time, branding was an indispensable part of a company’s success in B2B sales. Marketing budgets spent on bold logos, memorable slogans, pricey sponsorships and colorful presentations were all devised for a simple overarching purpose: to get sales in the door. This relationship was not always about the sale.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 6, 2015

First, we need to realize that the sales and marketing game in large part is still being played in the 24-foot portion of the court, even though companies have shifted resources to content marketing and social media selling, because they are still are executing 2005 marketing and sales process strategies even though the tools are current.

Top of Funnel 120

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

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

First, we need to realize that the sales and marketing game in large part is still being played in the 24-foot portion of the court, even though companies have shifted resources to content marketing and social media selling, because they are still are executing 2005 marketing and sales process strategies even though the tools are current.

Top of Funnel 120

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

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

If you’re just starting out with content marketing and need to generate traffic to your site, it probably makes sense to have most of your content un-gated so you can build some following and brand awareness. We need them to generate leads for salespeople —and conversion mechanisms are the only way.

B2B Thought Leadership 120

B2B Thought Leadership Content Paper Thought Leadership 120