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

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. Purchased lists can land you in hot water.

Paper 159

Paper Planning Marketing Plans Marketing Automation Services 159

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 11, 2017

As a marketing leader, have you been tasked with building a demand generation program designed to funnel leads to salespeople? The sales team is not set up to qualify and nurture leads, and management isn’t committed to supplying the time and money it takes to get it up and running. We call this a “sales accepted lead” or “SAL.”)

Demand Generation Agencies 136

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Budget Programs Demand 136

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

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

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

They’re reading white papers, watching videos, reading articles, attending webinars, and asking people questions in social media. 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.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

But now, the internet is crushing a sales reps ability to generate their own leads. Buyers search for their own solutions by reading white papers, watching videos, attending webinars, etc—and they are just not going to engage with a sales rep until they’re good and ready. They reduce the scope.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Thought Leadership Demand Generation Agencies 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 120

Acquisitions Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 20, 2016

They diagnose their own pain (for better or worse) and start searching for solutions by watching videos, downloading white papers, attending webinars, and using social media to check vendor references before ever talking to a rep. The internet gives the buyers a lot more control as they use the Internet to learn about best practices.

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

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

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

MARCH 30, 2016

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. Our first nurture offer—sent later on the same day an email click enrolls the suspect in the nurture campaign—is for a white paper.

Lead Nurturing 136

Lead Nurturing Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Top of Funnel 136

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? Sure, you can start writing some blogs and you might get some inbound traffic, but the leads will be substandard and it won’t help you hit growth numbers of 20% or more.

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? Sure, you can start writing some blogs and you might get some inbound traffic, but the leads will be substandard and it won’t help you hit growth numbers of 20% or more.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 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. conversion rate.

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. conversion rate.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Purchase 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

Sure, marketing may be generating leads , but because most of them aren’t “sales ready,” they’ll be declared DOA (dead on arrival for those of you that don’t watch detective shows). Most misalignment starts with different definitions of what a qualified lead actually is. They might love their current vendor.

Lead Ranking 136

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads MQL 136

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’s what we mean by lead conversion, and it only happens with good meaningful content that is gated such as a white paper, infographic or webinar registration.

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. Once they’re engaged in finding a solution, then you can pull out your technical white papers.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership B2B Business 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 16, 2015

Most B2B companies need help from an outsourced content development partner at different stages in the sales cycle, but many companies will fail to produce qualified leads for their sales teams, making it harder to justify increasing expenditures. In other words, for that conversation to continue, the prospect’s curiosity must be piqued.

Advertising Agencies 120

Advertising Agencies Budget Programs High Quality Lead Content 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

APRIL 27, 2016

It’s not hard to develop a piece of content —say, a video or an infographic, an article or a white paper—on a topic that somebody might find interesting. When good sales reps prospect for leads, they’re probing for the same pain points, and when they find it, they’ve found the beginning of the consultative sales conversation.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Webinar Metrics Paid Search Agency Companies 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. Talk to sales and find out how they’ve been finding leads. Many may disagree—but that’s okay!

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Ad Building Buyer Personas 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 17, 2016

Content marketing done correctly opens the door for salespeople not because of the brand recognition, but because the content piques some sort of curiosity with prospects or touches a nerve that leads a sales conversation. Of those who consumed a piece of your content: How many downloads turned into leads? Did it translate into a lead?

Budget Programs 168

Budget Programs Content Marketing Brand Identity Branding 168

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. Talk to sales and find out how they’ve been finding leads. Many may disagree—but that’s okay!

Thought Leadership 120

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Ad Building Buyer Personas 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. Before the Internet, that approach used to lead to newsstands where we would browse cover headlines and pick up the ones that interested us. What does a perfect world B2B sales process look like?

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

They need marketing-qualified leads today and sales-ready buyers tomorrow. Did it translate into a lead? Did the lead become a sale? A compelling white paper or infographic can be viewed, shared and linked to over an endless digital lifespan, attracting new buyers both identified and anonymous.

Brand Identity 149

Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs Marketing Automation Services 149

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 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.

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. But it doesn’t stop there.

Top of Funnel 136

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Lead Ranking Digital Marketing Funnels 136

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

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

Before the Internet, that approach used to lead to newsstands where we would browse cover headlines and pick up the ones that interested us. Once they enter their information to receive your offer, you’ve now converted the lead. 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

OCTOBER 4, 2017

But it's a dance that your prospects, not you, are leading. White papers, articles, infographics, and videos are effective content assets in this regard. You still want prospects to dance with your salespeople. You need to be invited.T That's where compelling content comes in.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120