ANNUITAS

MAY 26, 2016

And while this is true, and has been mentioned more than several times here on the ANNUITAS blog, I see very little being written or spoken about the role of B2B sales and how their roles have changed. These mistakes must be corrected if B2B sales organizations are going to have any measure of success. They Measure The Wrong Things.

B2B Sales 113

B2B Sales Demand Generation Agencies B2B Work Management 113

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

To understand why it’s happening to you, you need to take into consideration the full buyer journey, starting with how to define a lead and evaluating how your lead management framework maintains sustainable lead sourcing, nurturing and conversion. . Your Marketing and Sales Teams Are Misaligned.

Top of Funnel 147

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Lead Scoring 147

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 19, 2014

Take a look at an excerpt from a Leadspace Radio via Sales Lead Management Association with Carlos Hidalgo , CEO and founder of ANNUITAS. I never heard a Buyer say, ‘I’m in the sale acceptance stage of my buying process.’ We eat it up. I’ve said it before. Listen to the full interview here.

Top of Funnel 100

Top of Funnel Lead Nurturing Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 100

ANNUITAS

MAY 4, 2011

Over the last few days, I have had several conversations about the idea of lead management process as it relates to marketing automation. During two of these conversations, I was told that marketing automation is only useful for nurturing the middle of the sales funnel. Lead nurturing should happen at every stage in the funnel.

Top of Funnel 100

Top of Funnel Automation Marketing Funnels Marketing Automation 100

ANNUITAS

DECEMBER 4, 2020

It does double duty, educating prospects while accelerating sales, and so the tool has grown in popularity over recent years. Customer Support vs. Sales: Live chat strategy should be prepared to handle both. Companies want to drive sales, so they add chat. Post-client chats can be support or sales related.

Demand 130

Demand Enterprise Management Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy 130

ANNUITAS

MARCH 8, 2022

Chat should be holistically applied to your sales, marketing, and customer support functions. To be successful here, your tool must be tied back to a strategy, a content model, and a lead management framework. Ask yourself these questions: Is the tool tied back to a strategy, content model, and lead management framework?

Marketing Automation Services 130

Marketing Automation Services Lead Ranking Tools Top of Funnel 130

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Several years ago I was on-site with a client discussing their desire to develop and implement a lead management process.    What I mean is that in today’s B2B market, you need someone who knows marketing strategy, understands the buyer, and thinks about marketing and sales as a process. Markets by the Numbers.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management De-duplication 100

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 21, 2023

All too often, this leads to organizations engaging in random acts of sales and marketing — in an attempt to shore up tactical gaps and with an insufficient perspective on customer critical path — instead of building sustainable go-to-market programs. DX covers the journeys and interactions that CX misses. CX is not DX.

Marketing Analytics Tools 130

Marketing Analytics Tools Demand Optimization Work Management 130

ANNUITAS

APRIL 21, 2015

Take a look at both the value of a solid Lead Management Architecture and Lead Management Process: Lead Management Architecture- How Qualified is Qualified? In most organizations, these two types of leads are classified the same way, despite the fact that they require different approaches.

Conversion Rate 100

Conversion Rate Conversion Lead Ranking Demand Generation Agencies 100

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

This is part two of our 2-part series on how the C-Suite can help affect marketing and sales for the better. (c Yet marketing and sales need budget so they can adapt to the changing buyer, move them faster through the buying cycle, and ultimately drive revenue. Use common objectives and measurements between marketing and sales.

Positioning 100

Positioning Work Management Planning Marketing Management 100

ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Does indecision have you committing a repeated string of ‘ random acts of sales and marketing ,’ or are you taking advantage of this moment to bring cohesion, orchestration and repeatability to your sales and marketing mix across your customer journey? Said differently: Are you sticking your head in the sand, or are you innovating?

Lead Ranking 130

Lead Ranking Peer-to-peer Paid Search Agency Terms and Conditions 130

ANNUITAS

JUNE 8, 2017

Lead Management Strategy: A lead management strategy is the mechanism that maps out the stages a lead passes through from the point where it’s simply a name in your database to a closed/won customer. The lead management strategy is a pre-requisite to a successful nurture program. Is your data clean?

Ad Building 153

Ad Building Buyer Personas Marketing Automation Services Top of Funnel 153

ANNUITAS

MAY 13, 2021

Too often MAPs are associated with tactical email nurturing and simple lead qualification — tactical use cases that dominate immature platform deployments. Achieving this requires operationalizing every element of go-to-market, across all sales and marketing interactions, around customer journey.

Enterprise Management 130

Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services Analysis Work Management 130

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 30, 2018

As we were going through a refresh of our targeted personas, we noticed an increase in engagement with leadership roles that have revenue responsibility (sales leaders, business unit leaders, and even CEOs). Why is marketing’s story so different than sales? Lack of Trust in the CMO. Different Approaches to Marketing ROI.

CMO 197

CMO Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Top of Funnel 197

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

There is a massive divide between what buyers want to discuss with sales vs. what sales wants to discuss with buyers. The data shows a clear pattern: sales is struggling to maintain an otherwise personalized buying journey. In other words: sales doesn’t know how to translate online behavior into meaningful conversations.

Conversion 234

Conversion Sales Qualified Leads Ideal Customer Profiles Opinions 234

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

There is a massive divide between what buyers want to discuss with sales vs. what sales wants to discuss with buyers. The data shows a clear pattern: sales is struggling to maintain an otherwise personalized buying journey. In other words: sales doesn’t know how to translate online behavior into meaningful conversations.

Sales Qualified Leads 228

Sales Qualified Leads Ideal Customer Profiles Opinions Work Management 228

ANNUITAS

JUNE 10, 2020

It is a strategic component of a company’s overall go-to-market motion — complementary to and collaborative with a company’s sales and channel organization(s). Managing go-to-market processes, technology systems and data. Optimizing demand investments against sales outcomes. But the new dynamics of a Web 2.0

Demand 162

Demand Work Management Marketing Management Peer-to-peer 162

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Yet budget is what is going to enable marketing and sales to adapt to the changing buyer, move them faster through the buying cycle, and ultimately drive revenue. Earlier in my career, I was asked to begin developing a lead management process for my employer, a $1 billion software company. Where are we with sales?”.

Positioning 100

Positioning Planning Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 100

ANNUITAS

APRIL 28, 2020

What’s the problem with sales and marketing in financial institutions today? Financial services companies have long relied on sales to do the heavy lifting when it comes to connecting with prospects. Integrating content marketing and lead management. Shifting to a perpetual state. Optimizing against outcomes.

Work Management 165

Work Management Marketing Management Service Paid Search Agency 165

ANNUITAS

APRIL 10, 2023

In short, when companies treat their sales model as a linear journey, they fail to consider their customers’ engagement with the company over a lifetime. A simple four step funnel, though helpful for visualization purposes, is far from the reality of what most B2B sales processes are like. What about what comes after?

Ideal Customer Profiles 130

Ideal Customer Profiles Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership Lead Ranking 130

ANNUITAS

MAY 16, 2012

In each of these conversations, folks have weighed in about the importance of sales and marketing working together to define a “lead”. “If If they can just do that”, so goes the refrain, “then marketing and sales will live happily ever after.”. Will all leads be sent to sales? Obviously the answer is “No”.

Sales Qualified Leads 100

Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads Top of Funnel Lead Ranking 100

ANNUITAS

MAY 16, 2012

In each of these conversations, folks have weighed in about the importance of sales and marketing working together to define a “lead”. “If If they can just do that”, so goes the refrain, “then marketing and sales will live happily ever after.”. Will all leads be sent to sales? Obviously the answer is “No”.

Sales Qualified Leads 100

Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads Top of Funnel Lead Ranking 100

ANNUITAS

MAY 28, 2015

There is still a great divide between sales and marketing. Despite the silos, some organizations are able to meet their sales and marketing goals. Marketing should not work in a vacuum but in a collaborative working session involving sales and marketing. Will it be easy? Technology is part of that.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Eloqua 100

ANNUITAS

MAY 8, 2012

Historically, this “lead generation” approach has been one of the main culprits in contributing to the alignment gap between marketing and sales. Marketing claims victory because they have generated quality leads. Note: If marketing is being successful, sales success should follow.

Lead Generation 100

Lead Generation Generation Top of Funnel Leads 100

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

I’ve recently been involved in an ongoing online discussion regarding marketing automation, lead generation, and lead management (including lead nurturing). Should it be on lead generation, or lead management? The Lead Management Framework TM. The Lead Management Framework TM.

Top of Funnel 100

Top of Funnel Gartner Forrester Lead Nurturing 100

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 30, 2011

To have a successful marketing automation implementation start with this question and this question alone: “What does our lead management process look like and how can we automate it?” If you don’t have a solid lead management process in place than a marketing automation platform (MAP) will only automate a broken process.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Buy Automation 100

ANNUITAS

JANUARY 21, 2016

Likewise, the primary goal of many marketing teams is to deliver a certain number of top-of-funnel leads, and then sales’ job is to turn those leads into customers.The problem with these measurements is that none of them add value to the business.They aren’t metrics that matter. How many leads actually become customers?

Tactics 100

Tactics Top of Funnel Demand Generation Buyer Personas 100

ANNUITAS

OCTOBER 23, 2014

PPC is always challenging in B2B, and is clearly a different animal than the more transactional sale that PPC was clearly designed for. Not to mention how difficult it can be to trace any of those conversions to actual sales, and how the “brand” value is tenuous at best. Focus on lead management-.

Demand Generation Agencies 100

Demand Generation Agencies Paid Search Agency PPC Marketing Automation Services 100

ANNUITAS

MARCH 10, 2011

To the contrary, marketing automation is a highly sophisticated set of rules and processes for lead scoring, nurturing and management that move prospects through the various stages of the marketing-sales funnel. He asked: “ What’s the difference between demand generation, lead management and marketing automation?”

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Lead Qualification 100

ANNUITAS

JANUARY 10, 2011

I see more and more marketers adopting good lead management approaches, driven by the number of high quality consultants and educators out there to ensure that organizations chart their course efficiently. Many vendors and organizations are using the terms “marketing automation” and “lead management” interchangeably.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management 100

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 27, 2020

A Progressive Profiling Model should guide data intake sequencing in your lead management by asking for small bits of information from a buyer in digestible increments. The information you collect should be the information that marketing and sales need to be able to qualify a lead. What Information to Collect.

Ideal Customer Profiles 147

Ideal Customer Profiles Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Budget Programs 147

ANNUITAS

OCTOBER 17, 2010

A few years ago that simply meant generating some leads and some new names for the sales team to pursue, but we are now seeing marketing teams play an active role on engaging prospects at each stage of the buying cycle. This requires new discipline in lead management, which many B2B marketers are still getting their arms around.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Demand Marketing Management Web 2.0 100

ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

I once was on the phone with a client who was describing his sales organization to me and he said something that caught my attention: “My people have gotten robotic. In other words, you stop committing random acts of sales and marketing and instead, start to generate predictable, repeatable patterns of demand.

Peer-to-peer 173

Peer-to-peer Work Management Marketing Management Sales Qualified Leads 173

ANNUITAS

JULY 7, 2011

USA Financial recognized by DemandGen Report in 2011 Sales & Marketing Alignment Awards. USA Financial was one of 10 companies recognized for deploying marketing automation tools and re-engineering internal processes in order to drive new revenue growth, produce quality leads and improve campaign results. “We

Conversion 100

Conversion Marketing Automation Services Work Management Demand Generation Agencies 100

ANNUITAS

JANUARY 14, 2013

Fournasie Marketing Group. Organizations that jump the gun and begin with the technology often find out after some time that a one legged stool is very hard to balance.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management Marketing Management Demand Generation Paid Search Agency 100

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 30, 2011

Relationship expands end-to-end demand generation and lead management service offerings for clients. Grand Rapids, MI – August 30, 2011 – The Annuitas Group, an expert provider of lead management process services, today announced that it has formalized an alliance with Harte-Hanks, Inc. About Harte-Hanks ®.

Demand Generation Agencies 100

Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Management Demand Generation Marketing Automation Services 100

ANNUITAS

APRIL 23, 2015

Yes, the attendees did agree to be scanned to enter to win your contest or obtain a new pen, but many of them are not going to Engage with your sales team now, or ever, and that needs to be ok with you as a marketer. Then, let your Lead Management Process do the rest. Bravo- well done!

Demand Generation 100

Demand Generation Demand Advertising Benchmark Marketing Prospects 100