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

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

AUGUST 13, 2015

In this episode Paul went over modern marketing, lead generation, and how important storytelling is for the buyer's journey. It's up to marketing to produce the marketing qualified leads to get turned over to sales. Spend your money upstream, right up the sales pipeline, generate demand, nurture business leads.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Storytelling Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

MAY 11, 2016

The problem has been that many have invested in the technology first while grossly underestimating the amount of content needed to get value from their investments. 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.

Webinar Metrics 149

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

Sales Engine

JULY 13, 2016

As a marketer, you’re no doubt familiar with this ubiquitous image: contacts fall into the top and by some kind of magic become leads, then qualified leads, then sales-ready leads, and eventually, (you hope) closed sales. Content is the soul of lead nurturing; it is the fodder of the conversation that drives conversion.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JULY 13, 2016

As a marketer, you’re no doubt familiar with this ubiquitous image: contacts fall into the top and by some kind of magic become leads, then qualified leads, then sales-ready leads, and eventually, (you hope) closed sales. Content is the soul of lead nurturing; it is the fodder of the conversation that drives conversion.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

Because we are now in a position to generate consistent, value-added content for our prospects and customers, driving people to our new website is a much easier proposition,” said Traxler. Now that marketing is proactively sending leads, we’ve been able to increase our average conversions into sales conversations.”

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

Because we are now in a position to generate consistent, value-added content for our prospects and customers, driving people to our new website is a much easier proposition,” said Traxler. Now that marketing is proactively sending leads, we’ve been able to increase our average conversions into sales conversations.”

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 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. Maybe you’ve produced a white paper or two and generated some good leads, sustaining marketing success in this world requires reimagining how to play the game.

Enterprise Management 120

Enterprise Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 7, 2016

So how can you use content to generate more leads at the top of the funnel? Content marketing has proved to be an effective approach for B2B lead generation , especially those with a complex sale—but, to work effectively, it can’t be campaign driven. The Internet has crushed a sales rep’s ability to get in front of enough prospects.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Features B2B Thought Leadership Digital Marketing Funnels 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 20, 2016

That’s done by producing content that adds value, builds trust, and offers knowledge in your area of expertise. So what may have started out as a simple campaign to generate leads now turns into a whole lead-nurturing process with value-added content that shepherds them through the process until they’re sales-ready.

Lead Ranking 218

Lead Ranking Lead Gen Lead Scoring Leads 218

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. They need to develop an intimate knowledge about the issues they care about so they can get their attention and add value. How can you add value?

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Lead Ranking Content Long Tail Marketing 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 21, 2015

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. Do you see it? The focus needs to be on the buyer and not YOU.

Budget Programs 120

Budget Programs Work Management Marketing Management Allocation 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 23, 2016

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. So, marketing’s new role as lead generators for sales requires more than just project management and stellar execution.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 8, 2015

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. So, marketing’s new role as lead generators for sales requires more than just project management and stellar execution.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

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. I don’t know.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads MQL Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 23, 2016

The next key performance indicator we must consider is the customer lifetime value (CLV). You want to know the incremental value each customer brings, not just what part of the overhead they’re going to account for. It sounds complicated, but it’s not. All you need is your average win size (your sales price) and your conversion rates.

Lead Ranking 120

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

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2015

That’s what we mean by actionable sales intelligence , and it’s created over time by using your content to collect information on your prospects and tie it to their lead record in the CRM. Conversions into marketing qualified leads (MQLs). But the first step is converting them into a marketing qualified lead.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads B2B Marketing Marketing Qualified Leads 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

JULY 5, 2016

These aggressive approaches to traditional lead-generation tactics are not as effective anymore because buyer behavior has changed, and therefore, breaking through plateaus requires changing your overall customer acquisition strategy. Sales reps used to be the only source of leads. High Customer-Acquisition Costs.

Work Management 149

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Budget Programs 149

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

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. The development of stellar content that adds value and caters to niche audiences will always work—give someone good information that they can use and they’ll thank you for it.

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 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. Not that there isn’t branding and awareness value in these projects. It’s great when content shows up in one of our prospect's Twitter feed because of a targeted hashtag.

Demand 120

Demand B2B Marketing B2B Trade Show 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

The development of stellar content that adds value and caters to niche audiences will always work—give someone good information that they can use and they’ll thank you for it. People must find the value in the content to keep them coming back, or they won’t. 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

MARCH 3, 2016

Here’s how we conducted our research: In a seven-month period, we were able to generate just under 2000 Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs, defined as the demonstration of digital behavior, i.e. link clicks, white paper downloads, infographic views, etc.) based on marketing to over 117,000 lead records. That translates into a 1.6%

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Purchase 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 3, 2016

Here’s how we conducted our research: In a seven-month period, we were able to generate just under 2000 Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs, defined as the demonstration of digital behavior, i.e. link clicks, white paper downloads, infographic views, etc.) based on marketing to over 117,000 lead records. That translates into a 1.6%

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Purchase 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. But it doesn’t stop there.

Top of Funnel 136

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Lead Ranking Digital Marketing Funnels 136

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 16, 2015

And to make it even more complicated, content development must be high-quality and add value or it will go unnoticed, regardless of how often you post. To fully close the loop, a lead record’s digital behavior must be recorded and stored in a CRM and be viewable at any time.

Advertising Agencies 120

Advertising Agencies Budget Programs High Quality Lead Content 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 requires re-working by in-house subject matter experts, and that defeats the purpose of outsourcing in the first place.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership B2B Business 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 22, 2015

But eventually you will cap out, and the only way to generate more leads for your sales team is to grow your database —and that comes with its own set of challenges: deliverability, segmentation, acquisition, and so on.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Funnel Advertising 120

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. So what does the professionally trained sales rep do?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Digital Marketing Funnels Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 12, 2016

Sreenivasan leads their content marketing arm like it’s a full-blown media company, running a 70-person “newsroom” that focuses on topics he loves: digital, web, social, mobile, video, apps, data, geolocation, email, and more.

B2B Marketing 120

B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency B2B Storytelling 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. Good stories lead to future good stories or blog posts. What else should I know about X, Y or Z?”

Planning 120

Planning Content Marketing Best Practices Content 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 12, 2016

Sreenivasan leads their content marketing arm like it’s a full-blown media company, running a 70-person “newsroom” that focuses on topics he loves: digital, web, social, mobile, video, apps, data, geolocation, email, and more.

B2B Marketing 120

B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency B2B Storytelling 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 6, 2015

Team A would score and then immediately retreat to its own end of the court. When marketing provided “air cover”, sales reps used to be able to generate their own leads. But as most of you know, the world has changed, and the internet is crushing a sales rep’s ability to generate their own leads.

Top of Funnel 120

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

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

Team A would score and then immediately retreat to its own end of the court. When marketing provided “air cover”, sales reps used to be able to generate their own leads. But as most of you know, the world has changed, and the internet is crushing a sales rep’s ability to generate their own leads.

Top of Funnel 120

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

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

When you decide to update, the title of the content should stay the same, and so should its URL; changing that information removes some of the value of the link. Repurposing content is an essential to greasing the content marketing gears and keep the leads cranking in.

Content 120

Content Youtube Statistics Social Media 120