Sales Engine

MAY 19, 2016

In the context of digital marketing and demand generation, lead intelligence is the sales rep’s ability to predict high probability pain points that a prospect may have before trying to establish contact so that they may have a more fruitful consultative conversation. How can sales use lead intelligence used to get in front of prospects?

Sales Qualified Leads 159

Sales Qualified Leads B2B Marketing Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy 159

Sales Engine

JUNE 28, 2016

Marketing, on the other hand, often has a different definition of a qualified lead. What is a marketing-qualified lead (MQL)? Like any sibling relationship, the Marketing-Sales dynamic can be competitive—and even nasty. The scenario is similar for any quota-driven B2B sales team. So what can you do about it?

Marketing Qualified Leads 136

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads MQL 136

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 16, 2015

The answer is critical for anyone in B2B marketing today. Content marketing uses the same skills and tactics as publishing a magazine—only the distribution methods, audience-building techniques, and analysis tools are different. So what can we learn from magazine publishers about content marketing? #1 Of course there are!

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Lead Ranking Content Marketing & Strategy 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

Since it’s become more difficult for sales people to get in front of prospects, many B2B companies are relying heavily on content marketing to supply top-of-the-funnel leads that can be converted into closed business. But how do they know if those marketing efforts are having impact on the bottom line?

Marketing Qualified Leads 120

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking MQL Top of Funnel 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

Since it’s become more difficult for sales people to get in front of prospects, many B2B companies are relying heavily on content marketing to supply top-of-the-funnel leads that can be converted into closed business. But how do they know if those marketing efforts are having impact on the bottom line?

Marketing Qualified Leads 120

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Top of Funnel MQL 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Because the search engines like Google have changed their algorithms in the last few years, the role that search engine optimization (SEO) plays in content marketing is causing a lot of confusion. First and foremost, content marketing IS marketing. So as a content marketer, what do you do with that information?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel SEO Content Marketing Long Tail Marketing 120

Sales Engine

JULY 7, 2016

But there are two major problems with that model today: Quota-carrying, outside sales reps are an expensive resource to be putting on the phones to follow up on marketing qualified leads. Prospecting at the top and middle of the funnel has changed, and it requires marketing to produce a bulk of the interest in the company through content.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency Content Marketing 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Several years ago, we made some significant investments in marketing after we’d purchased a marketing automation system, and the idea was to gain as much market traction as possible. It’s hard to say—we did grow the company, but not by a factor that justified the marketing expenditure.

Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead Conversion Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 30, 2016

One of the biggest failure points in content marketing is not actually in marketing—It’s the handoff from marketing to sales. That’s because most sales and marketing organizations are not properly aligned. Does this sound familiar?

Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Qualified Leads Allocation Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 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. Prospects expect you to be a publisher , not a marketer. Marketing is no longer a one-sided endeavor.

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. Prospects expect you to be a publisher , not a marketer. Marketing is no longer a one-sided endeavor.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 20, 2016

Most marketing and sales leaders in the business-to-business world know that nurturing leads is essential to maintain a digital connection with buyers who want to learn about a business pain, product, or service—but who are not yet interested in talking to a sales person.

Lead Ranking 174

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Nurturing Lead Scoring 174

Sales Engine

JUNE 23, 2016

As content marketers , there are a lot of things that we can and should be measuring—open rates, click through rates, number of visitors (unique and returning), number of users, conversion rates, number of impressions, social media likes and followers, and so on.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel 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? Most companies start with buying marketing automation without a solid strategy and underestimate the amount of content they require. Sounds good, right? So What Should It Look Like?

Demand Generation Agencies 136

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Budget Programs Demand 136

Sales Engine

AUGUST 2, 2017

Most marketing and sales leaders in the business-to-business world know that nurturing leads is important. In this article, we look at a case study of lead nurturing that finds that nurtured leads were three times more likely to convert to sales-accepted leads than traditional marketing-qualified leads.

Lead Ranking 168

Lead Ranking Case Studies Marketing Qualified Leads Case Study 168

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 2, 2015

But what about the B2B marketer? 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. Do you know how marketing is going to accomplish that mission? Sales needs more than Marketing’s branding and awareness initiatives.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Paper Fulfillment B2B Marketing 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2015

The point of content marketing in B2B is to collect actionable sales intelligence on your prospects at every stage of the buying process and attempt to replace the one-to-one conversations that salespeople used to get more readily. Conversions into marketing qualified leads (MQLs). Was it a value-added offer in a blog?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads B2B Marketing Marketing Qualified Leads 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

AUGUST 24, 2015

Everyone’s talking about content marketing , and companies are investing big dollars to jump on the bandwagon—but most are still thinking about it from yesterday’s marketing perspective where marketing’s primary role is branding and positioning. Consider for a moment what that means—people are talking about your market 24/7.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies RFP Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Even as a CEO of a content marketing agency , I still get this pressure from my board and colleagues—and they all know how buyers have more control these days, buying on their own time frames, not ours. There are not a series of projects that you can assign to marketing that maps to this journey. Need a Sales Hunter?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Thought Leadership Demand Generation Agencies 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 27, 2015

Before we get into best practices on content marketing follow-up, Marketing and Sales must be on the same page regarding their lead definitions. How you define these three terms is really important because it gets Sales and Marketing on the same page and a good starting point. Get if wrong, and you’ll lose them.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Buy 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 17, 2016

Once upon a time, branding was the main focus of marketing departments. As marketers, we spent our budgets on bold logos, memorable slogans, pricy sponsorships, advertising, and PR campaigns designed to get us in the Wall Street Journal. They need marketing-qualified leads today and sales-ready buyers tomorrow.

Budget Programs 168

Budget Programs Content Marketing Brand Identity Branding 168

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 22, 2015

Whether you are the owner of a business or the head of marketing, let’s face it—you want to dominate your marketplace. This looks exactly like the sales funnel, which is why top-of-funnel has largely shifted to marketing.) You want to be number one, and you won’t settle for a 20% growth rate putting you at a distant number 10.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Funnel Advertising 120

Sales Engine

MAY 11, 2016

Mike Vannoy, co-founder and COO of Sales Engine talks about how this has happened in the marketing automation industry. For over ten years now, there’s been a gold rush in marketing automation technology with some fantastic features that make it a must-have for any B2B company engaged in content marketing.

Webinar Metrics 149

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

Sales Engine

MARCH 3, 2016

I thought it was a big opportunity to craft the company and marketing team to make us one of the more innovative companies in the space.”. Assembling a Team of All-Stars To meet his aggressive content marketing initiatives, Spangler assembled a team with specialized skill sets in media production. “We

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Content Marketing Storytelling Advertising Agencies 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. If you’ve been a marketing executive for more than 10 years, you’re probably pretty good at product marketing.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Marketing & Strategy Public Relations 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 3, 2016

I thought it was a big opportunity to craft the company and marketing team to make us one of the more innovative companies in the space.”. Assembling a Team of All-Stars To meet his aggressive content marketing initiatives, Spangler assembled a team with specialized skill sets in media production. “We

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Content Marketing Storytelling Advertising Agencies 120

Sales Engine

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Content marketing gurus all seem to be talking about the need to create experiences for marketing to engage with buyers, but what does that mean to the average B2B company? So Before You Purchase Marketing Automation… Marketing automation systems have reached some maturity in the marketing landscape.

Acquisitions 149

Acquisitions Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Automation Services 149

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. “The I’d gladly trade lots of audience for influence—because that’s what marketing is.

B2B Marketing 120

B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency B2B Storytelling 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. “The I’d gladly trade lots of audience for influence—because that’s what marketing is.

B2B Marketing 120

B2B Marketing Paid Search Agency B2B Storytelling 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Content has to be aligned to the high-probability pains of the personas of the people you’re marketing to. They don’t understand your market, your consumers, or your clients well enough to lay out that plan. Content Marketing is No Longer a Choice. Let’s go to the Zoo!

Personalization 120

Personalization Content Planning Video Marketing 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 20, 2017

MARKETING AUTOMATION AND LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS have allowed for a near-scientific breakdown of the sales funnel. Technological tools allow marketers to score leads and move them through the buying journey with the help of nurturing content. Sales reps are as important as ever—it’s just that their role has changed.

Lead Ranking 120

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

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

Savvy B2B marketers are recognizing the limits of today’s email marketing and web analytics applications for generating qualified sales leads and are switching to a demand generation solution to ensure a continuous stream of qualified leads. Execute a marketing campaign—does the system work as promised?

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Budget Demand Generation Demand 120

Sales Engine

MAY 17, 2016

Marketing automation and lead management systems have allowed for a near-scientific breakdown of the sales funnel. Technological tools allow marketers to score leads and move them through the buying journey with the help of nurturing content. Behavior that indicates sales-readiness to a computer may be more complex than it appears.

Lead Ranking 136

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel 136

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 12, 2015

If you’ve been prospecting for sales recently, you may have noticed some differences in our culture—most importantly the fact that disruptive marketing and sales is out. In-person networking, online (LinkedIn) prospecting, market positioning, content marketing , and value messaging are now the ways to go. That means cold calls.

Cold Calling 120

Cold Calling Allocation Youtube Internet Marketing 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 22, 2016

We’re uniquely positioned because of our diversity in product offerings, but we compete with large firms that have more resources available to their marketing and sales team. Quick Results Validate the Strategy Strong content engagement and increased website traffic is a welcomed result from First Rate’s new marketing initiative. “In

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 31, 2016

As technology and connectivity advances, marketers have had to move away from mass media targeting campaigns towards producing more real-time, contextual content that creates one-to-one interaction with potential buyers. This turns out to be a real challenge for digital marketers. Marketing is based on trust.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Process B2B Marketing Automation Services 120