Here, customers can click to find more information, whether it’s pricing, research, terms and conditions, or competitive analyses. Tweet CSO Insights , which interviews thousands of chief sales officers to benchmark B2B sales best practices, has tracked an alarming trend. Over the past six years, forecast deals are closing at a lower and lower rate, and a dramatically higher percentage are ending up with the prospect making no decision at all. In the technology industry, for example, “no decisions” have jumped from 17% in 2006 to a whopping 26% today. No deal = broken sales cycle. Sale MORE >>

The selected firm spends several months doing research on the topic – including interviewing Tellabs customers. Tweet Tellabs is a global communications equipment company supporting telecom leaders such as AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and Telefonica, and it’s able to hold its own in a cut-throat marketplace with competition up to 30 times its size. Tellabs is playing a David and Goliath game,” admits George Stenitzer, Vice President of Communications, Tellabs. And content marketing is the slingshot that gives us a fair advantage.”. The rock in that slingshot is controversy. MORE >>

In this Landing Page Optimization Workshop , Dr. McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, taught the live audience here at the Denver Marriott Tech Center about a simple case study drawn from the MarketingExperiments research library. Tweet I just arrived at the Pre- Optimization Summit workshop in Denver and caught the end of Dr. Flint McGlaughlin’s Value Proposition Session. In the case study, Dr. McGlaughlin revealed how one company clarified the value proposition of a landing page for a 201% increase in captured leads. The goal of the page was to capture a lead. Click to enlarge. MORE >>

Here’s an example from one of our past research partners, an $80 billion IT management organization. Tweet Confession: I wish I could flash this across every marketer’s computer screen the moment it powered up: A universal lead definition (ULD) clarifies what a lead is to everyone in your organization. It also: Fits the profile of your ideal customer. Has been qualified as sales-ready. Spells out the responsibilities and accountabilities of Sales and Marketing. Makes Marketing and Sales more efficient. Still, most of the companies I meet with do not have a ULD. Not really. MORE >>

In those kinds of discussion, the sales leader typically emerges the winner,” she says, “unless Marketing has the research from real conversations with customers in its back pocket. Tweet You could be racing the finest Formula One car, but if you’re always steering in the wrong direction, even a horse and buggy will beat you to the finish line. So it is with marketing. Too many marketers think they can lead the pack by leveraging the hottest channels, software and platforms. But these tools, like race cars, are only effective when they’re steered in the right direction. she laughs. MORE >>