Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 30, 2015

A common issue in B2B companies with a complex product or service offering is whether or not they can outsource content production that will resonate with prospects. The right question to ask is how can we effectively communicate our solution to prospects to demonstrate that we understand their pain?

B2B Thought Leadership 120

B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Content B2B Sales 120

Sales Engine

JULY 13, 2016

If you are familiar with the sales funnel, you are likely also familiar with the following: Your prospects’ expectations of you have changed, but your business leaders’ expectations haven’t. Prospects expect you to be a publisher , not a marketer. It requires a dialogue with prospects. Harder still, how do you sustain it?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

JULY 13, 2016

If you are familiar with the sales funnel, you are likely also familiar with the following: Your prospects’ expectations of you have changed, but your business leaders’ expectations haven’t. Prospects expect you to be a publisher , not a marketer. It requires a dialogue with prospects. Harder still, how do you sustain it?

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Conversion Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

MAY 22, 2016

Widening Gulf between Transactional and Consultative Selling - In spite of the commoditization of products, customers are getting tougher to deal with and are demanding more support and expertise (there’s that word again), especially with the more complex decisions. my product does ABC and is better than Brand X because of LMNOP).

Allocation 136

Allocation RFP Consulting Paid Search Agency 136

Sales Engine

JULY 7, 2016

Prospects aren’t as willing to talk to sales people anymore, and because they can conduct research online, they don’t think they need to. 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. When it works that way, it’s great!

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency Content Marketing 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 11, 2017

Think about how you buy products and services now as opposed to just 10 years ago. And neither would the buyer of your products and services. We start by developing an editorial calendar of thought leadership topics that our prospects are interested in and then start slotting in campaigns accordingly. I wouldn’t.

Demand Generation Agencies 136

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Budget Programs Demand 136

Sales Engine

JULY 29, 2016

You’ve seen the Internet decimate industries such as record labels, newspapers, and cable TV—and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s crushing the B2B sales rep’s ability to get in front of qualified prospects. (If This requires way more than just knowing the demographic information on your prospects.

Buyer Personas 120

Buyer Personas Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel Leads 120

Sales Engine

DECEMBER 21, 2015

But, if you examine your total universe of prospects, what percentage are actively searching for a solution in the next three months? That means 20% of all of your prospects will evaluate solutions like yours in any given year. If you break that down into a three-month window, that’s 5% of your prospect universe.

Budget Programs 120

Budget Programs Work Management Marketing Management Allocation 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 7, 2016

Now think about how you interact with them, aside from consuming their main products (reading, purchasing, and eating, respectively). So how do you create content that makes your own customers and prospects feel that way? What business problem does your product or service help them solve? Know who your audience is.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Content Demand Generation Agencies Barriers 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 MQL Top of Funnel 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 5, 2016

You’ve seen the Internet decimate industries such as record labels, newspapers, and cable TV—and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s crushing the B2B sales rep’s ability to get in front of qualified prospects. (If This requires way more than just knowing the demographic information on your prospects.

Buyer Personas 120

Buyer Personas Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel Leads 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. Once the rebrand of the website was complete, First Rate implemented their content strategy in conjunction with Sales Engine and experienced immediate positive results.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 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. Once the rebrand of the website was complete, First Rate implemented their content strategy in conjunction with Sales Engine and experienced immediate positive results.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Demand Generation 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 25, 2016

Today, I think so many companies are trying to muscle their way to more productivity with content rather than reimagining how they use it. Lead-gen math looks at how many times you must interrupt your prospects in the hope of making a connection with those few who are actually in the market. Media math is different.

Enterprise Management 120

Enterprise Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 31, 2016

You don’t see the prospect, and you continue to say the same things over and over again and you don’t get those visual cues from watching someone’s face. These same brands are leading with product and brand rather than experience and utility.” This turns out to be a real challenge for digital marketers.

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Process B2B Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 13, 2016

Like any product or service a company offers, content must be the result of deliberate organizational focus, infrastructure, research, and planning. To create a productive and sustainable content operation, the sales and marketing departments must be on board. Your prospects are tired of marketing and sales jargon.

Allocation 120

Allocation Content Demand Generation Agencies Work Management 120

Sales Engine

JUNE 28, 2016

They’re not interested in engaging with prospects who are not ready to buy. Marketing, on the other hand, often has a different definition of a qualified lead. Unfortunately—and this is where it gets tricky—interest does not necessarily equate to sales readiness. So what can you do about it?

Marketing Qualified Leads 136

Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads MQL 136

Sales Engine

APRIL 14, 2016

I’ve always loved the content production side of what we do. She uses an example of a sweepstakes offer on Facebook that many brands offer as lacking interest and engagement with prospective buyers. “I Everyone still wants to get in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and Vogue both in print and online—and that’s awesome.

B2B 168

B2B Blogger Content Public Relations 168

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

They won’t help you track where your prospects entered into the sales cycle and became customers. Prospects are already shopping on the internet for solutions to their problems. They won’t attract top performing salespeople to your organization. Sales can’t control this whole process anymore.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 25, 2015

In most companies, the expertise comes from an executive, such as the CEO or President, senior level sales and product managers, and customer service. So how can you extract this knowledge in such a way that you can marry it up with resources that know how to create content and get it in front of prospects?

Video Marketing 120

Video Marketing Marketing Management Copywriting PR 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 24, 2015

So the bottom line is that if you’re not engaging your prospects through content , you’re not getting an invitation to the dance. When the time comes for them to shop for the product or service that you sell, you’re going to be well thought of and invited to the dance. And they are barraged with information from likely competitors.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies RFP Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

But that’s just not enough—it has to translate into appointments with qualified prospects and sales conversations. This means journalists, editors, media and production crews, designers, and more. If you are not staffed for it, it will be impossible to keep up.

Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead Conversion Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 13, 2015

People can hide behind voicemail, prospects can hide behind email. There is still a need for a salesperson, but you don't need a salesperson to communicate the value of the product. Eighty-five percent of B2B phone calls go to voicemail and are never returned. So, the old tools sales reps used to leverage have dried up.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Storytelling Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 20, 2015

KOGLER: Obviously, the role of salespeople has changed significantly over the last couple of years, not only because they need to be more consultative, but also the nature of B2B products and services that they sell has become increasingly complex. It helps the prospect to connect the dots in their own mind. KOGLER: Numerous ways!

Storytelling 120

Storytelling Work Management Acquisitions Marketing Management 120

Sales Engine

JULY 5, 2016

Sales representatives used to be a prospect’s only source of product and industry knowledge, but now prospects largely research things online while ignoring reps’ calls. Prospects now do their research online first and decide for themselves if they are interested in talking to a sales rep. It’s that they had to.

Work Management 149

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Budget Programs 149

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 4, 2017

economy and an ever-expanding arsenal of technologies to help both salespeople and marketers reach more prospects, many companies continue to struggle to grow sales. In the pre-Internet universe, salespeople held all the information prospects needed to make purchase decisions, from pricing to detailed product information.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 20, 2016

And most importantly, adding more sales people (or hiring calling firms) to prospect down a list won’t get you where you want to be either. That was what we used to do before the emergence of a content-heavy internet, and it worked because sales people were the gatekeepers of information about products and services within a company.

Lead Ranking 218

Lead Ranking Lead Gen Lead Scoring Leads 218

Sales Engine

AUGUST 23, 2016

They realize that engaging with prospects through the internet is a process and not a series of projects—and marketing’s job is to generate leads that create actionable sales intelligence. Prior to 2005, B2B sales people were the gate keepers of information about the companies’ products and services.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

JULY 20, 2016

economy and an ever-expanding arsenal of technologies to help both salespeople and marketers reach more prospects, many companies continue to struggle to grow sales. In the pre-Internet universe, salespeople held all the information prospects needed to make purchase decisions, from pricing to detailed product information.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120

Sales Engine

JULY 20, 2016

economy and an ever-expanding arsenal of technologies to help both salespeople and marketers reach more prospects, many companies continue to struggle to grow sales. In the pre-Internet universe, salespeople held all the information prospects needed to make purchase decisions, from pricing to detailed product information.

Paid Search Agency 120

Paid Search Agency Trade Show Content Urgency Marketing 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Determining that the prospect was qualified and motivated, it turned into an opportunity that was funneled through the sales process and closed. 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.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads B2B Marketing Marketing Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 8, 2015

They realize that engaging with prospects through the internet is a process and not a series of projects—and marketing’s job is to generate leads that create actionable sales intelligence. Prior to 2005, B2B sales people were the gate keepers of information about the companies’ products and services.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Process B2B Thought Leadership Work Management 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 24, 2016

Inbound marketing , a term popularized by Hubspot, is all about producing content that extends the boundaries of company-owned web properties in order to catch the attention of prospects and entice them to engage with your web properties, including social channels and blogs.

B2B Sales 149

B2B Sales B2B Inbound Marketing Cold Calling 149

Sales Engine

MAY 5, 2016

times more leads, and you’ve been burned outsourcing content production in the past, that number looks pretty scary. So whether the prospect found you in an email, organic search, or social media—it doesn’t really matter. while showing that your brand understands customers’ pain.)

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership B2B Business 120

Sales Engine

JANUARY 28, 2016

Even though this article talks mostly about media companies, the same can be applied to B2B content marketers : We’re simply putting out too much content for our prospects to consume—and the more we produce, the less engagement we actually have. Instead, ask: Where do my prospects congregate digitally? Very poor—like 0.05%.

Webinar Metrics 120

Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Content Paper 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. Content marketing should work with the same goal in mind, but with a slight twist—our readers are our buying prospects. Does that mean that they’re a prospect?

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120