ANNUITAS

MAY 31, 2023

Some of us at ANNUITAS just returned from the Ignite USA conference in Chicago hosted by B2B Marketing. It was an interesting mix of marketers from both client side and agency side, making up a true picture of the go-to-market reality of today. The event featured a variety of excellent speakers, including industry experts, thought leaders, and practitioners.

B2B Marketing 130

B2B Marketing Marketing Analytics Tools B2B DemandBase 130

ANNUITAS

MAY 12, 2023

Recently, I spent a few days in Austin, Texas with Zoho for the “Zoholics” customer conference. I had great conversations with Zoho executives, getting into some of their latest product announcements. The company has been hard at work building what I see as a set of go-to-market enablement tools aimed at the small and middle markets (think: a few hundred to a few thousand employees) that are simple to use, powered by AI, and priced right for smaller enterprises.

Marketing AI 130

Marketing AI Enterprise Management Ad Building Work Management 130

ANNUITAS

MAY 10, 2023

ANNUITAS has presented a series of posts outlining both ‘why’ and ‘how’ organizations can evolve their go-to-market approach to adopt what we refer to as a Converged Growth model. This approach represents both a new organizational model and a new operational approach to go-to-market for B2B go-to-market teams – one that we believe could make-or-break your 2023 and beyond.

Marketing Analytics Tools 130

Marketing Analytics Tools Enterprise Management Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services 130

ANNUITAS

APRIL 13, 2023

ANNUITAS has in recent posts talked a lot about the role of the Chief Growth Officer (CGO) – and how/why this concept is growing in importance. As part of this dialogue, we created an ‘open source’ position description to help those searching internally or externally for their next CGO. Developing a Converged Growth B2B go-to-market organization goes beyond naming a CGO, though, and it’s worth taking a step back to look at how organizational design must also evolve when you take a Converged Gro

Lead Ranking 130

Lead Ranking Top of Funnel Enterprise Management Work Management 130

ANNUITAS

APRIL 10, 2023

We’re living in a marketing world that is inundated with buzzwords. Sometimes, they make sense. Other times, they’re trendy hype words that have lost their real meaning through overuse, misuse, and lack of understanding. In our Behind the Buzzwords content series, ANNUITAS breaks down the complex jargon you see trending in go-to-market thought-leadership and helps you cut through the noise to contextualize it for your organization.

Ideal Customer Profiles 130

Ideal Customer Profiles Top of Funnel B2B Thought Leadership Lead Ranking 130

ANNUITAS

MARCH 21, 2023

Updated 21 MAR 2023 Adobe Updates Focus on Chat, Event Management and Advanced Analytics Adobe is holding its annual Summit event in Las Vegas this week. The company is making a slew of product announcements across its portfolio, but for the core Adobe Marketo Engage and Measure product lines, the announcements focused on three key areas: Dynamic Chat Interactive Webinar Management Advanced Analytics The company also announced some strong new customer wins and solid momentum for the Adobe Market

Marketing Automation Services 130

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation Webinar Metrics 130

ANNUITAS

MARCH 10, 2023

We’re living in a marketing world that is inundated with buzzwords. Sometimes, they make sense. Other times, they’re trendy hype words that have lost their real meaning through overuse, misuse, and lack of understanding. In our new content series, Behind the Buzzwords , ANNUITAS will break down the complex jargon you see trending in go-to-market thought-leadership and help you cut through the noise to contextualize it for your organization.

Thought Leadership 147

Thought Leadership Top of Funnel Advertising Funnels Trust Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

MARCH 8, 2023

Building a repeatable, scalable, and effective Perpetual Growth Engine is hard work. If it were easy, funnel conversion benchmarks would be a lot higher than low, single-digit percentages, right? And even when you have crisp, perfectly aligned messaging, a lot can be lost in the execution phase in terms of aligning content and engagement channels with the right customer target, in the right place, at the right time.

Lead Ranking 130

Lead Ranking Top of Funnel Demand Marketing Qualified Leads 130

ANNUITAS

MARCH 1, 2023

We have been making quite a bit of noise about how important it is for enterprises to name a Chief Growth Officer (CGO). As companies look to embody a Converged Growth mindset , a CGO is needed to lead the charge from both a strategic and “day to day” perspective. The financial benefits speak for themselves , but the benefits to process and internal alignment (and employee satisfaction) make naming a CGO a mandate for 2023.

Positioning 130

Positioning Marketing Analytics Tools Enterprise Management Customer Satisfaction 130

ANNUITAS

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

I’m excited to introduce a new offering from ANNUITAS — one that is not only timely, but also helps companies address the #1 business challenge that they face today. In an ‘uncertain’ marketplace, the greatest challenge lies in driving and converting demand – i.e., being in the right place, at the right time, with the right message and solution and the right motion to turn a prospect into a customer and turn an existing customer into a “customer for life.

Planning 130

Planning Paid Search Agency Marketing & Strategy Act-On 130

ANNUITAS

JANUARY 31, 2023

A lot of “ why I joined [company x] ” blog posts tend to digress into the philosophical and are too vision quest-y for me to take them seriously. Look, I understand people are excited to start new roles, but let’s take a pragmatic view, or at least a professional one, when we talk about why we take on new roles and challenges in our careers. For me, it’s all about timing, opportunity, scale and impact.

Enterprise Management 130

Enterprise Management Paid Search Agency Marketing Analytics Tools Work Management 130

ANNUITAS

JANUARY 20, 2023

We’re living in a marketing world that is inundated with buzzwords. Sometimes, they make sense. Other times, they’re trendy hype words that have lost their real meaning through overuse, misuse, and lack of understanding. In our new content series, Behind the Buzzwords , ANNUITAS will break down the complex jargon you see trending in go-to-market thought-leadership and help you cut through the noise to contextualize it for your organization.

Top of Funnel 130

Top of Funnel Paid Social Agency Digital Marketing Funnels Advertising Mediums 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 Analytics Tools 130

Marketing Analytics Tools Planning Peer-to-peer Ideal Customer Profiles 130

ANNUITAS

DECEMBER 9, 2022

As we know, all organizations have had a tough year but no one feels the pressure quite like sales teams. Sales is on the front lines of uncertainty, dealing with organizational pressure to bring in new business, increased expectations with decreased resources, and all the uncertainty that this past year has brought us. Marketing has already made their list this year , so it’s time to hear from sales!

Cold Calling 130

Cold Calling Blast Campaigns Work Management Click Rate 130

ANNUITAS

DECEMBER 2, 2022

We’re living in a marketing world that is inundated with buzzwords. Sometimes, they make sense. Other times, they’re trendy hype words that have lost their real meaning through overuse, misuse, and lack of understanding. In our new content series, Behind the Buzzwords , ANNUITAS will break down the complex jargon you see trending in go-to-market thought-leadership and help you cut through the noise to contextualize it for your organization. .

Growth Marketing 130

Growth Marketing B2B Thought Leadership Thought Leadership Marketing & Strategy 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. .

Planning 130

Planning Work Management Marketing Management High Quality Lead 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.

Lead Ranking 130

Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency SIC Research 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.

Organization 130

Organization B2B Marketing Lead Ranking Ad Building 130

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.

Work Management 246

Work Management Marketing Management Ad Building Sales Qualified Leads 246

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 24, 2021

Seventy percent (70%) of all digital transformation initiatives do not reach their goals according to a recent McKinsey survey. The most common roadblocks were listed as a lack of employee engagement, inadequate management support, poor or nonexistent cross-functional collaboration, and a lack of accountability. Transformations fail because of people.

Peer-to-peer 130

Peer-to-peer Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency Work Management 130

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.

Top of Funnel 147

Top of Funnel Campaigns Enterprise Management Work Management 147

ANNUITAS

MAY 13, 2021

Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs) are perhaps the most misunderstood component of the Demand Technology Stack. Too often MAPs are associated with tactical email nurturing and simple lead qualification — tactical use cases that dominate immature platform deployments. But in an enterprise environment, MAP is literally a keystone element – underpinning Enterprise Demand Process and enabling marketing and sales systems (and their data) to successfully operationalize go-to-market around cus

Enterprise Management 130

Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services Analysis Work Management 130

ANNUITAS

APRIL 7, 2021

If you read the latest business books or shop for the latest sales and marketing technology, you see the same story, over and over. That there is a revolution of companies that have reinvented how to engage with and convert customers. That they’ve discovered the secret to driving sustainable corporate growth. This story isn’t the whole truth; actually, it’s a rather convenient lie.

Peer-to-peer 130

Peer-to-peer Demand Digital Transformation Act-On 130

ANNUITAS

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

Your online content strategy is immaculate. Your analytics give you a thorough understanding of your prospects’ journey. Your design is award-freaking-winning. But you’re still struggling to connect with prospects in the right place and at the right time and therefore your demand marketing program is struggling to realize success. Most notably, you don’t see the level of traffic and conversions that you expect from your strongest engagement channel: your website.

SEO 147

SEO CMS Development Paid Search Agency Lead Scoring 147

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

Top of Funnel 147

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Lead Scoring 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.

Work Management 162

Work Management Demand Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 162

ANNUITAS

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

While both patient demand and legislative change have increased provider focus on patient experience over the last few years, COVID-19 has dramatically accelerated the expansion of the patient-centric care model. Never before has it been so critical to provide patients healthcare when and where they want it through methods like patient-centric demand marketing.

Demand 113

Demand Top of Funnel Planning Digital Marketing Funnels 113

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.

Ideal Customer Profiles 147

Ideal Customer Profiles Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Budget Programs 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 ”.

Touchpoints 147

Touchpoints Multi-Channel Buyer's Journey Trigger Marketing 147

ANNUITAS

AUGUST 12, 2020

Over the past two weeks, we have covered the definition of strategic demand marketing and introduced you to the first phase in our process, the insights phase. This week, we take it a step further as we share how the insights phase builds a foundation for the strategy phase. It is at this stage that we define the critical customer journey and begin to build the Strategic Demand Marketing Plan. .

Top of Funnel 147

Top of Funnel Planning Demand Marketing Plans 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.

Planning 263

Planning Demand Paid Search Agency Terms and Conditions 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.

Demand 130

Demand Buy Work Management Process 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

Cost per Lead 147

Cost per Lead Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management 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.

Top of Funnel 147

Top of Funnel Demand Webinar Metrics Paid Search Agency 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 Attribution 264

Marketing Attribution Lead Ranking Planning Top of Funnel 264

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. .

Marketing Automation Services 130

Marketing Automation Services Demand Work Management Marketing Management 130

ANNUITAS

APRIL 20, 2020

“Content is king” is a phrase that’s dominated the marketing world for years now, and for good reason. Content works. It helps connect with customers in their buying process and it helps drive demand. But it’s also a lot of work , and if you’re producing content without any sense of how well it is or isn’t performing relative to your demand marketing, then you’re potentially wasting a lot of time, energy, and money.

Elasticity 147

Elasticity Effectiveness Marketing Budget Top of Funnel 147