Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

The process of Q&A drives momentum based on addressing how context shifts with each new intake of relevant information that helps your buyers advance their thinking. In support of sales conversations valued by buyers. In the recorded sales calls you listen to. Asking questions is the best way to gain deeper insights.

B2B 75

B2B B2B Sales Webinar Metrics Buy 75

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Discovery is most often considered a function performed by sales reps. But in this context, it’s more about discovery FOR the sales rep, NOT B2B buyers. One of the problems marketing and sales have as B2B buyers’ roles shift is that they start too late in the process. ABM is a Great Construct for B2B Buyer Discovery.

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles Account Based Marketing B2B ABM 62

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2021

The sales folks who answered the post leaned toward the feeling that their time was valuable, and they weren’t inclined to waste it on those not ready to buy. And, before you start yelling that you “have” to send everyone to sales, I’ve heard this antiquated notion shared by marketers in a variety of companies. Lack of Agreement.

Marketing Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead 62

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 24, 2021

Either it will be too high level to be helpful, or it will be irrelevant in the parts that speak to people other than that reader. They include levels of your narrative from About Us to specific persona messaging to product messaging and sales (conversational) messaging. Difficulty in reaching target audiences (35%).

B2B Marketing 100

B2B Marketing Content Marketing Planning B2B 100

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 24, 2021

They need information that helps them understand what to ask, do, understand, and evaluate. I agree with Gartner that this is a huge opportunity for marketers to help buyers by creating content that assists them with job completion. And, for those of you going there, helping buyers set a future vision isn’t always thought leadership.

B2B Thought Leadership 62

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Gartner 62

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 8, 2021

“Sellers use their sales process to place solutions.”. She’s been working to expose and close the gaps between buying and selling for years—and to share a process for helping people through their uncertainties so they can become buyers. The other is a change management initiative with individualized criteria sales reps lack insight to.

Buy 62

Buy Work Management Lead Ranking Marketing Management 62

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 19, 2020

Which B2B buyer personas, when engaged, will help marketers drive contribution to revenues? They are convinced that the higher they can get in the organization, the more sales they will be able to influence. Start by talking to your sales team. How long is the sales process from the time you get involved?

Buyer Personas 121

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management Work Management B2B 121

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

Even though we know better, we seem unable to give B2B buyers what they want > unfettered access to information that helps them consider and manage change in the solving of their critical problems. Unless it’s a demo form—and sometimes not even then—filling out a form does not make someone a lead who is sales ready. No dead ends.

B2B 62

B2B Work Management Marketing Management B2B Thought Leadership 62

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 22, 2022

Given that 94% of B2B Buyers say they are very well informed or somewhat informed before they talk to a sales rep, there’s a lot of opportunity for marketers to help buyers self-qualify as ¾ of them push off engaging with sales until the end of their change process. Today, change is rampant which makes budgets a moving target.

Work Management 62

Work Management Marketing Management Ideal Customer Profiles Sales Qualified Leads 62

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

In B2B marketing and sales, we talk a lot about our buyers’ pain or need. Yet, given what your digital behavior indicates, this is when marketers are looking to get you to raise your hand for a demo or take a meeting with a sales rep. The Mandate to Help B2B Buyers with Problem Blindness. Help them justify the fix.

Top of Funnel 88

Top of Funnel B2B Peer-to-peer Lead Ranking 88

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 26, 2022

We can start by dropping the jargon and the “scripts” of how we think marketing and sales content should sound and just talk to our B2B buyers like the professionals they are—as people. Help them perceive the humanness of us as an organization. What about when something goes wrong on a website and there’s no easy way to ask for help?

Top of Funnel 91

Top of Funnel B2B Content Terms and Conditions 91

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 15, 2023

My friend, Dave Brock , recently penned a post, Buyers Using ChatGPT , where he approached it from a sales perspective and suggests his readers: “Think of the power available to buyers in leveraging these tools to help them think about their buying process.”. They need our help. Buyers Are Already Using ChatGPT.

Marketing Management 80

Marketing Management B2B Vendors Buy 80

Marketing Interactions

OCTOBER 5, 2022

I’ve been involved in helping clients create a slew of retention programs—more so in the last few years—and I’d like to clear up a few things when thinking about and planning them: Retention programs and onboarding programs are not the same things. Economic, Functional, Experiential, Symbolic) How can you help them gain more value?

Ideal Customer Profiles 62

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Marketing Enterprise Management Work Management 62

Marketing Interactions

AUGUST 15, 2022

Together, the combo can help you combat the lack of consensus, the stallers, and the regret that looms large— at 56% of buying organizations —per Gartner’s research. For Sales leaders, it may mean not only closing more deals but also selling more expansion deals. I think of them as Organizational Personas.

Buyer Personas 75

Buyer Personas Ideal Customer Profiles B2B Gartner 75

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

For those of you who know me, you know I spend much of my time talking to my clients’ customers to do the research necessary to build buyer personas that can truly inform content marketing, product marketing and sales enablement programs. These are based on the perspective and interpretation of the sales rep you’re speaking with.

Conversion 93

Conversion Planning Buyer Personas Dwell 93

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 14, 2019

Marketing automation can help to orchestrate buying conversations and get salespeople in the conversation at the right time—if you use it as more than a glorified email blast tool. If we’re trying to keep the conversation going, there features in marketing automation that can help: two of them are triggers and dynamic content.

Conversion 86

Conversion Marketing Automation Services B2B Trigger Marketing 86

Marketing Interactions

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

You can see in what city a user is located, but with remote working and companies that have staff across regions, that’s not helpful. On its own, it’s interesting, but not compelling unless you’re able to define that interest with long-tail keywords that help you dial in on the reason, problem, aka interest.

Intent Data 124

Intent Data Intent B2B Marketing B2B 124

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

This is true if you’re only interested in learning about your customers so that you can extract more revenue from them, instead of focusing on serving and helping them. These are the types of perspective-based insights—translated intelligently—that help you understand what your buyers may choose to do next.

B2B 69

B2B Peer-to-peer Gartner Top of Funnel 69

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 25, 2023

As someone who reads a ton of B2B marketing content and works to help companies create meaningful, provocative, and forward-looking content, I agree it is hard to come by. Sixty-nine percent of customers are unlikely to expand contracts if content isn’t helpful or valuable. Buyers want that – darn near all of them.

B2B Marketing 91

B2B Marketing Content Marketing B2B Content 91

Marketing Interactions

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

The idea that if we cram everything into a 3-week campaign, we can force our prospects into speaking with our sales reps and buying. In other words, learning something when you need to know it so that you can apply it helps with retention of that information. The campaign mentality. People hate change.

B2B 114

B2B Content B2B Marketing Trust Marketing 114

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 27, 2021

And yes, your buyers and customers are primary conversations, but it goes beyond them to your sales, product, and customer teams. This information will help you solve your content challenges and help you create a plan for addressing buyers’ needs across their buying process. This does two things.

Buyer Personas 111

Buyer Personas B2B Ideal Customer Profiles ABM 111

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 20, 2021

Sales thinks marketing messaging is, well, too “marketing like,” so they replace it with the casualness of personalized conversation for face-to-face meetings—including those conducted virtually—which can result in lost context and relevance, depending on the buyer’s experience with the brand, and via which channels, thus far.

B2B 62

B2B Marketing Management Customer Satisfaction B2B Sales 62

Marketing Interactions

DECEMBER 26, 2016

Corporate Visions recently surveyed more than 400 B2B organizations to find out how one statistic is creating challenges at the intersection of content strategy, sales enablement, and lead conversion. But what I really want this report to help marketing and sales practitioners come to terms with is the consistency gap.

Conversion 82

Conversion B2B Top of Funnel Stats 82

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 7, 2022

This means there’s a higher probability that they still need to solve the problem—and it’s worth taking another shot to help them do so. Aren’t convinced you’ve sufficiently demonstrated how you’d help them mitigate risk. Questions like these can help buyers overcome doubts: What could have caused you not to buy X solution?

Ideal Customer Profiles 88

Ideal Customer Profiles B2B B2B Thought Leadership Peer-to-peer 88

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 18, 2019

Instead, when you understand where your buyers are, you can create a shift that helps them start to see things a bit differently, because what you’re saying is based on a “truth” that already exists for them. For those of us who sell outcomes based on a complex sale, we really need to embrace simplicity and clarity. See what I mean?

Buyer Personas 119

Buyer Personas Buying Cycle Case Studies Case Study 119

Marketing Interactions

JULY 25, 2019

And content that tells a disconnected story will only result in confusion that causes buyers to have a lack of faith that your company knows what it’s talking about and has the expertise to help them solve the problem. Sales cares about winning net-new logos. Let’s take an example. Imagine you sell collaboration software.

Relevance 73

Relevance Work Management Marketing Management B2B Sales 73

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 25, 2022

Buyers expect consistent, helpful interactions that build confidence in your organization—and in themselves in relation to solving the problem. You need to help them orchestrate their progress in solving the problem by making sure there are no potholes along their route. They expect commitment. The entire route.

B2B Marketing 69

B2B Marketing B2B Budget Programs Marketing & Strategy 69

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 4, 2017

Our customers have shown high engagement with these content assets; what can we create to continue the story or fill in the gaps to help them solve this problem? This includes personas, messaging, stories, content marketing programs, sales enablement programs, and more. Marketing and Sales Alignment. We’re in the same boat.

Account Based Marketing 64

Account Based Marketing ABM Lead Ranking Lead Scoring 64

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 27, 2020

These are the people who will also become the vendor point of contact with your sales reps. The tertiary persona is the only persona that I think can be based on straight research and input from your sales team who have interacted with them. Focus Helps You Gain Efficiency and Effectiveness for Buyer Personas.

Buyer Personas 69

Buyer Personas Effectiveness B2B B2B Thought Leadership 69

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

In this blog, I’ll cover best practices for B2B marketers to make the shift from funnels to lifecycles to increase ROI and help your customers stick with you for the long run. How can you help them get more value? Do you have programs to help power users bring along those that are more reluctant to embrace new ways of doing things?

Marketing Funnels 87

Marketing Funnels Top of Funnel B2B Marketing Work Management 87

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

Offer insights that help me to better perform my day-to-day job” (58%) also seems to fall a bit short. I’d contend that all the content your marketing team produces needs to be human, be helpful, and be insightful. And you filter out the people who won’t ever buy from you, just waste your sales reps’ time. Read that again….

B2B Thought Leadership 69

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership B2B Content 69

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 3, 2022

Customers have solved that problem with your (your solutions) help. You are responsible for helping them connect the dots and make the transitions. We need to give them what they want, BUT we also need to help them help themselves. Therefore, the same content isn’t useful for both contexts.

B2B 69

B2B Paid Search Agency Lead Ranking Lead Scoring 69

Marketing Interactions

MARCH 8, 2017

When built with both qualitative and quantitative data they can help marketers transform the performance of their content marketing programs. Let’s say your sales team says they must engage a CXO in order to close a deal. This opportunity to invite one persona to share content with another helps them look good to their colleagues.

Buyer Personas 48

Buyer Personas Budget Programs B2B Cross-Selling 48

Marketing Interactions

JUNE 23, 2017

Enable collaboration among marketing, product, sales, and customer service for a consistent experience. Select members related to the focus of the project from sales, product marketing, and line of business management. What do you think sales needs to win more deals? Where did you find the most helpful information?

Buyer Personas 74

Buyer Personas Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing & Strategy 74

Marketing Interactions

SEPTEMBER 30, 2018

It is quite possible—as well as likely—that enterprises with a number of marketing departments and the sales team can be in different quadrants of the matrix at the same time. Becoming radically relevant is achieved when marketing, customer service and sales have adopted the outside-in approach with commitment that matches capabilities.

Relevance 58

Relevance B2B Marketing B2B Broadcasting 58

Marketing Interactions

APRIL 11, 2019

Five years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for me to work with a marketing team in one department that never spoke to or even knew the marketing teams in other departments: the social media team or the sales team or customer success teams. It’s easier with a bit of help. I’ve facilitated those introductions more times than I can count.

Peer-to-peer 53

Peer-to-peer Content Enterprise Management Broadcasting 53

Marketing Interactions

JANUARY 30, 2017

We’re asking them to think differently than they are today by adopting the approach or product we’re certain can help them reach their goals. In a B2B complex sale, this means nearly 7 of them, according to the latest research from CEB. Embracing these three pivots will help to make this happen.

B2B Marketing 73

B2B Marketing Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Webinar Metrics 73