ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

The New Year has brought more volatility than many of us may have expected. Given unclear demand patterns – and unending debate over the condition of the economy – it is a good time to take a step back and reflect on how your go-to-market might be categorized in 2023. Does indecision have you committing a repeated string of ‘ random acts of sales and marketing ,’ or are you taking advantage of this moment to bring cohesion, orchestration and repeatability to your sales and marketing mix across

B2B Sales 130

B2B Sales Marketing Strategy Marketing B2B Marketing 130

ANNUITAS

DECEMBER 14, 2022

Do you recall t he most business savvy reindeer of all? Once upon a time, there was a marketer named Randolph. Randolph, let’s call him “Randy,” lived in upstate New York as a marketer. Not just a marketer, though—Randy considered himself a growth marketer, and he had a vision. He had a vision of a go-to-market strategy that would transform marketing forever; one where sales and marketing were converged, every piece of marketing was mapped and tailored to a detailed customer jo

Marketing 130

Marketing B2B Marketing Marketing Strategy B2B Sales 130

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

Do you have a marketing professional on your list this year? If not, you should add one because we need the extra love! From keeping the business afloat during “unprecedented times” to staring down the barrel of an impending financial downturn (and not to mention layoffs) it has been quite the year for marketers! . We can’t speak for everyone but, we have taken the liberty of compiling a list of things that we think every marketing professional would love to receive this holiday season. .

Marketing 130

Marketing High Quality Lead CAN-SPAM Trust Marketing 130

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 19, 2022

My most recent blog posts have proposed a new approach for B2B go-to-market teams — a Converged Growth organizational model. This new organizational model represents a complete rethink of traditional B2B sales, marketing and customer service roles, with blended teams, organized around stewardship of customer journey phases. The approach is to operationalize go-to-market around customer lifecycle.

B2B Marketing 130

B2B Marketing B2B B2B Sales Digital Marketing Funnels 130

ANNUITAS

JULY 21, 2022

Spoiler alert: The ‘classic’ B2B go-to-market organization and approach is fundamentally broken and out-of-date; moreover, trying to course correct by working on ‘sales and marketing alignment’ is inadequate and unattainable. This is the topic I covered in my last piece, “Transforming Your Go-to-Market Team: Building a ‘Converged Growth’ B2B Organization.” In my last piece, I also outlined a new strategy tack.

B2B Marketing 130

B2B Marketing B2B Sales B2B Marketing 130

ANNUITAS

JULY 12, 2022

Is your go-to-market team still trying to achieve sales and marketing alignment? B2B organizations have for decades attempted to achieve so-called sales and marketing alignment – fueled by countless business books, analyst reports, strategic frameworks and consulting engagements – all well-meaning. We’ve been on a search for the ‘silver bullet’ – including whether optimized lead-pass and the role of inside sales/lead development teams could be the perfect marketing-to-sales bridge.

B2B Marketing 130

B2B Marketing B2B B2B Sales Organization 130

ANNUITAS

APRIL 19, 2022

On average, customers engage with nine different channels in their buying process before making a purchasing decision. Communication preferences have changed over the past few years. Buyers are choosing to engage in new ways as they continue to increasingly prefer to do their own research prior to ever getting on the phone with a salesperson. But while customers have had massive changes in their engagement channel preferences, traditional marketing hasn’t kept up.

Advertising Channels 130

Advertising Channels Digital Marketing Funnels Marketing Funnels Peer-to-peer 130

ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Three main cohorts are leading businesses right now – Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. Yes, Millennials are well established as decision makers in B2B companies, and even if not the decision maker, research shows that others are highly likely to seek a Millennial’s input. But there is a huge generational divide in how these groups make decisions.

B2B 182

B2B Generation B2B Sales Marketing Prospects 182

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

There’s been one constant over the last year and a half: change. Change in the working environment, change in the tools companies are using, and change in how buyers seek information and make purchases. Now more than ever, trust is important in the buying process as prospects continue to carefully consider purchases. But sellers have been challenged to build trust through relationships.

Ad Building 246

Ad Building B2B Sales B2B Marketing Marketing Prospects 246

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

Seventy-six percent (76%) of buyers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations before ever getting on the phone. But that’s rarely what happens. There is a massive divide between what buyers want to discuss with sales vs. what sales wants to discuss with buyers. The data shows a clear pattern: sales is struggling to maintain an otherwise personalized buying journey.

Marketing Prospects 228

Marketing Prospects CRM Marketing Strategy Marketing Report 228

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

Seventy-six percent (76%) of buyers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations before ever getting on the phone. But that’s rarely what happens. There is a massive divide between what buyers want to discuss with sales vs. what sales wants to discuss with buyers. The data shows a clear pattern: sales is struggling to maintain an otherwise personalized buying journey.

Conversion 234

Conversion Marketing Prospects CRM Marketing Strategy 234

ANNUITAS

JULY 20, 2021

For most companies, the challenge of regularly delivering enough leads and opportunities to hit growth targets has historically meant building a strategy around producing high volume, low quality marketing and sales campaigns. But those campaigns are neither scalable nor efficient. Typically, marketing and sales campaigns are a collection of tactical activities loosely tied together with the goal of capturing and converting leads.

Campaigns 147

Campaigns Marketing Marketing Prospects Marketing Funnels 147

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

If you haven’t had the opportunity to watch the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” yet, I highly recommend it. The rather dark story it tells is fascinating in terms of what our major social media and search platforms are capable of, especially in a time of a major political election and extreme social unrest. The film purports that the capabilities of these platforms are being used to drive digital addiction and even intentionally manipulate users’ thoughts and actions.

B2B 130

B2B Ethics Personalization B2B Marketing 130

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

While some of you may already be familiar with ANNUITAS and the success we have leading our clients through Demand Marketing Transformation – helping them better orchestrate customer engagement and drive pipeline lift in order to achieve a Strategic Demand Marketing state (and if not, hello ) – you may not be familiar with the amazing team behind what we do. .

Marketo 130

Marketo B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing B2B Sales 130

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Let’s talk about leads. Odds are, you’re having conversations about how to attract more leads, how to improve the quality of your leads, how to convert your leads, or all of the above. And in that conversation you might be wondering, “why are we getting bad leads in the first place?” . According to recent research by Hubspot , only 7% of salespeople consider leads received from marketing as “very high quality” and 23% of salespeople said the thing they need most from their marketing team is R

Leads 147

Leads Lead Marketing Funnels Buyer's Journey 147

ANNUITAS

OCTOBER 7, 2020

Who doesn’t love a good one-hit wonder? Thinking back to the musical artists of our youth, that we may or may not be embarrassed to remember how much we loved in their heyday. But there’s also a parallel in the marketing world. As we see new trends come and go, and attitudes shift, it’s worth considering for sustainable strategic demand marketing what separates a one-hit wonder from a solid-gold standard that stands the test of time.

Account Based Marketing 147

Account Based Marketing ABM Banner Ads B2B Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

OCTOBER 1, 2020

The past six months have challenged companies in many ways, but perhaps the greatest challenge has been a precipitous drop-off in sales and the resultant impact on the ‘top line.’. Said differently, everyone has a demand problem at this point. Everyone needs to re-start their pipelines. Yet amid this type of environment, the macro-level situation can make it harder than ever to assess what is actually uncontrollable market conditions vs. what is truly broken in your go-to-market approach.

Demand 162

Demand Marketing Interactive Marketing Marketing Prospects 162

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 27, 2020

We’ve all been there – we see a catchy headline on LinkedIn or Google, we click through only to be greeted with a form asking for the equivalent of your life story. Sure, if that article will answer a BIG question for you, you’ll clench your jaw and fill it out. However, more often than not, it’s isn’t worth it. There’s a better way to collect the information you need to qualify your buyers, and it doesn’t necessarily need to involve forms – or rather, forms as you know it.

Contact Marketing 147

Contact Marketing Profiling High Quality Lead Interactive Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 19, 2020

One of the key ingredients to achieving growth goals in demand marketing has always been the customer experience. Putting the customer at the center of everything has been the cornerstone for successful growth strategies for decades, so nearly 10 years ago, a group of tech companies built a formulaic approach to growth that centered around the customer experience and called it “ growth marketing ”.

Marketing Prospects 147

Marketing Prospects Interactive Marketing Trigger Marketing Buyer's Journey 147

ANNUITAS

JULY 29, 2020

ANNUITAS CEO Adam Needles recently discussed what makes up a Strategic Demand Marketing Plan, one of the main offerings of what we do at ANNUITAS, in this eBook. Over the next several weeks, we will be breaking down that anatomy into bite sized blogs that dig into each aspect of a Strategic Demand Marketing Plan and then we’ll explain how we at ANNUITAS implement those plans.

Demand 162

Demand Marketing Plans Marketing Conversion Rate 162

ANNUITAS

JULY 16, 2020

A well-orchestrated demand marketing program is a beautiful thing. Lead flow is consistent and predictable. Marketing interactions align to the customer journey. Marketing investments are optimized to produce the most lift, technology is fully leveraged to enable the whole process, and your Inside Sales team is a strategic bridge between sales and marketing.

Marketing 147

Marketing Marketing Prospects Demand Interactive Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

JULY 8, 2020

To say that 2020 has caused us all to rethink our demand marketing approaches moving forward is an understatement. We all started Q2 having to triage and rapidly iterate at every level of our marketing and sales motions. For many companies, the focus initially was on preserving business with existing customers and adjusting expectations and plans for new customer acquisition.

Demand 263

Demand Marketing Marketing Prospects Tactics 263

ANNUITAS

JULY 2, 2020

Managing the timeframe to purchase in a customer’s lifecycle has always been a challenge for financial institutions. In an industry heavily reliant on relationships, the reality is that the B2B banking customer’s buying process is typically long, and rarely linear. Potential customers can enter and exit the decision-making process at any point, and external pressures are a heavy factor in whether or not a purchase (or change) will occur.

B2B Marketing 130

B2B Marketing B2B Demand Buy 130

ANNUITAS

JUNE 25, 2020

Developing and delivering upon a growth strategy is the most important mandate for a today’s successful CMO. Without this focus, the CMO faces a shortened tenure. And while it’s not easy, I applaud those who have pivoted from storytelling and brand building to driving revenue-focused growth with accountability across the entire customer journey. Driving a long-term strategic growth plan requires alignment across all organizational business functions – from product marketing, analytics, and sales

Marketing Strategy 147

Marketing Strategy CMO Social Marketing Demand 147

ANNUITAS

MAY 28, 2020

A few weeks ago, my colleague Scott Parent wrote about the immediate impact the COVID-19 pandemic was having on marketing. It’s one of our highest performing blog posts, and for good reason – this is completely uncharted territory. In it, Scott offered four actionable ways to quickly and effectively shift your demand marketing plan to accommodate the changing business environment.

Marketing Strategy 147

Marketing Strategy Demand Digital Marketing Funnels Marketing Funnels 147

ANNUITAS

MAY 21, 2020

Throughout my career at ANNUITAS, I have probably spent more time thinking about and enabling Marketing Attribution models than any other activity. Over the years, I have seen Marketing Attribution models transform from a nice-to-have tool to help demonstrate marketing’s performance into a must-have core business planning component. To understand the outcome that more and more business are trying to move towards, it makes sense to first examine the fundamentals of Marketing Attribution models.

Marketing 264

Marketing Trust Marketing Interactive Marketing Demand 264

ANNUITAS

MAY 13, 2020

What do CFOs and CROs have in common? Both ask the same, fundamental question when analyzing demand marketing budgets: What real sales ‘lift’ am I getting from this spend? What do we mean by lift? Incrementality. A Nielsen blog post notes : Marketers in every industry have one common goal: Prove that marketing efforts help drive more revenue… . One way you can do this is by measuring incrementality.

Demand 147

Demand Marketing B2B Sales B2B Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

MAY 5, 2020

It’s no big surprise, marketing is expected to do more today than ever before. No longer is marketing only responsible for brand and events – it’s now responsible for generating leads and tying performance back to impact on revenue. It’s a big shift in the marketplace and has been made possible, in part, by the emergence of demand marketing technology and technologist. .

Demand 130

Demand Marketing Marketing Automation Marketing Strategy 130

ANNUITAS

MARCH 19, 2020

We all share concern over the health and safety of our loved ones during this humanitarian and health crisis – it’s truly something like we’ve never seen before. But many of us also share concern over a different crisis: the state of our businesses at this time. Business leaders and marketing and sales teams are struggling now, more than ever, to not only drive new demand, but to replace the loss of existing demand in the marketplace.

Marketing Plans 232

Marketing Plans Demand Digital Marketing Funnels B2B Marketing 232

ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

During an increasingly competitive time in the digital marketing landscape, it can be easy to get lost in the ever-changing trends and customer needs in the B2B space. However, at least one trend is overwhelmingly clear, and has been for some time: B2B customers expect tailored content. In fact, not only do they expect it, but some require it to move forward in the buying process.

B2B 147

B2B Buyer Personas Personalization B2B Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Marketing and sales once were considered separate, but allied, disciplines, but major change is afoot. Companies are starting to consider “go-to-market” more holistically and so they’re building teams focused around integrative concepts such as “ Revenue Operations” (RevOps) and “ Strategic Demand.” Taking a rapid approach to digital demand transformation is key to this process.

Demand 113

Demand Buyer's Journey Marketing Proposals Organic Leads 113

ANNUITAS

JANUARY 21, 2020

How to know if your marketing and sales efforts are eroding your growth. How would you describe your current marketing and sales motion? Do you have a finely tuned, highly repeatable, highly predictable model for generating demand and closing business? Could you easily turn the dial for demand up or down? If you had another dollar to invest in sales and marketing, do you know what impact it would have?

Marketing 238

Marketing Marketing Strategy Conversion Rate Tactics 238

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 7, 2018

Revamping our Demand Generation Survey to Gauge How Effectively Marketing Helps to Grow the Business. Participate in our new study by clicking here. Request a copy of the results when it is completed by clicking here. Back in 2012, the Fournaise Marketing Group published results from a study that showed that 80% of CEOs do not trust marketers , compared to a 90% approval rating on trusting the CFO or CIO.

Demand 127

Demand Generation Studies Trust Marketing 127

ANNUITAS

OCTOBER 26, 2018

What makes Demand Generation perpetual ? I’ve been thinking about this while considering an update of my last post on this topic. One key component (other than a decreased reliance on tactical, campaign-based activities to drive demand) is its adaptability. A company needs to be able to anticipate a buyer’s needs, and then adapt as their needs change.

Demand 199

Demand Generation Marketo Buyer Personas 199

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

I had my heart broken at Content Marketing World in Ohio this week. I was very pleased to return to Cleveland for my sixth #CMW, and curious to see what was new at the show as I had missed last year’s event. Event founder Joe Pulizzi came back from a 9-month sabbatical (and 30-day technology detox) refreshed and inspired, delivering an aspirational keynote advising focus, dedication to your goals, and empathy and awareness for the good of others as well as yourself.

Content Marketing 213

Content Marketing Demand Content Marketing 213

ANNUITAS

JUNE 8, 2017

The term “nurture program” can have different meanings to people across, and even within, organizations. While some marketers may use the term to refer to a series of “drip” emails that a group of leads receive in a row, it can also be used to describe a perpetual engine serving up relevant content based on a lead’s persona and their place in their buyer’s journey.

Ad Building 153

Ad Building Buyer Personas Marketing Automation Marketing Strategy 153

ANNUITAS

DECEMBER 23, 2016

I thought it would be interesting to revisit some content marketing predictions for 2016. Looks like they are holding up! Especially the discussion of quantity over quality, which was a big theme for this year’s Content Marketing World … The following is a repost of an article that was published in January of 2016. Top 5 Mistakes Content Marketers Will Make in 2016.

Content Marketing 100

Content Marketing Content Marketing B2B Marketing 100