Here are six strategies you can implement to create your own unstoppable marketing and sales machine: Follow up every inbound inquiry within 48 hours – preferably 24 hours.  Capture every lead in a single system (CRM or marketing database), along with all relevant marketing and sales data. ve talked to companies who have three or more opt-in inquiry databases, making it very difficult to implement drip marketing programs. If possible, make the qualification portion of B2B lead management a marketing task, not a sales task.  Sounds like a good plan to me. MORE >>

You have no doubt heard of the many benefits of pull marketing, also called inbound marketing. But perhaps you face a common challenge – how to implement pull marketing without disrupting what you are doing with your push marketing model. In other words, how do your reap the inbound marketing goodies, without sacrificing what is already working. First, let’s briefly recap the benefits of pull marketing. Generates leads at 1/3 the cost of push marketing. Pull marketing is a great way to stay in touch with prospects, and convert them later. MORE >>

'I’ve been practicing the B2B marketing thing since the late 1980s, when the term “database marketing” first started being mentioned. While the buzz around database marketing has waned, its importance to the B2B marketing community has not. You can find a lot of definitions for database marketing (just Google the term), but here is the working definition that I employ: “Building a permission-based contact list of suspects and prospects in order to facilitate re-marketing efforts.” Put real effort into your database marketing efforts. MORE >>

Like other first-class marketers, Avrin understands that marketing is way more effective when you have established yourself as a branded authority.  This principle echoes what we preach (and practice) and is the essence of the difference between push marketing and pull marketing. This is a key principle of marketing: Perception = Reality. Marketing yourself with a very broad focus (e.g. You are able to replace expensive push marketing with lower cost and more effective pull marketing. Branded Authority Pull Marketing Branding MORE >>

After you have set your SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals, it is a good idea to examine the types of habits that will make you a better B2B marketer in 2011, and benefit your company in a big way.  Here are my nominations for 10 winning marketing habits worth adopting in 2011: Habit 1:  Carefully analyze your strengths and weaknesses. We do this regularly at Fusion Marketing Partners , grading ourselves in areas like client service and effectiveness in pull marketing, web optimization, branding, sales enablement and content creation.  MORE >>