Sales Engine

JULY 7, 2016

In the not-so-distant past, scaling a B2B company meant hiring more sales people that were responsible for all their own business development. 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.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Paid Search Agency Content Marketing 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 24, 2015

Everyone’s talking about content marketing , and companies are investing big dollars to jump on the bandwagon—but most are still thinking about it from yesterday’s marketing perspective where marketing’s primary role is branding and positioning. They went to trade shows and gave away trinkets in exchange for business cards.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies RFP Thought Leadership Paid Search Agency 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 13, 2015

In the past, marketing was responsible for branding and awareness — not l ead generation , not demand generation. Eighty-five percent of B2B phone calls go to voicemail and are never returned. It really changes the mix of what companies want to stand on sales and what they want to spend on marketing.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Storytelling Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 15, 2017

What is Demand Generation? Demand generation is about creating a presence in the minds of your prospective buyers. And, ultimately, it’s about being on those buyers’ short list when they’re ready to purchase. In fact, demand generation not only requires discipline, it is a discipline.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Resources Demand 120

Sales Engine

MAY 31, 2016

Demand generation is about creating a presence in the minds of your prospective buyers, connecting them with your brand as a solution for specific problems, and ultimately about being on their short list when they’re ready to purchase. This perpetual nature that demand generation requires is what makes it so difficult.

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Resources Demand 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 28, 2016

Many companies have focused on increasing their inbound traffic for new leads to combat tighter spam regulations and more concentrated email filters. But increasing web traffic without a thorough conversion strategy is just branding and awareness— that won’t supply enough leads to salespeople to hit your revenue growth targets.

Marketing & Strategy 120

Marketing & Strategy A/B testing Broadcasting Content 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 2, 2015

For many companies, the pressure to hit Q4 numbers is so high they aren't even thinking about 2016 quotas yet. But what about the B2B marketer? 38% of B2B companies said that their content marketing was effective. 47% of B2B companies have a DEDICATED content marketing group. When does their quota start?

B2B Sales 120

B2B Sales Paper Fulfillment B2B Marketing 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

Many companies that have embraced content marketing are still using it as a branding and positioning function of their marketing department. It’s not that this approach is wrong, but it’s not the main reason that most successful companies have embraced content marketing. I’d be lying if I said it was an easy solution because it’s not.

Content Marketing 120

Content Marketing Cold Calling Marketing Qualified Leads Lead Ranking 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 27, 2015

More Related Posts from Sales Engine: Demand More from today's B2B Marketer Feeding Sales is a Process, Not a Project Content Marketing Requires the Mindset of a Publisher. The play is then to tap into your content library and share other content on the same topic to further nurture them down the process.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Buy 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 12, 2015

Companies still need to sell to generate more revenue, right? Demand More From Today's B2B Marketer. If you’ve been prospecting for sales recently, you may have noticed some differences in our culture—most importantly the fact that disruptive marketing and sales is out. That means cold calls.

Cold Calling 120

Cold Calling Allocation Youtube Internet Marketing 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

It’s hard to say—we did grow the company, but not by a factor that justified the marketing expenditure. Our marketing leader is always thinking about how to get value added content in front of our target audience and how to best get them converted into leads for sales people. Marketing works in tandem with sales on an ongoing basis.

Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Qualified Leads High Quality Lead Conversion Paid Search Agency 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. The project is most likely dead on arrival because of the time it takes, even in the companies that have executives with the skills and desire to write.

Video Marketing 120

Video Marketing Marketing Management Copywriting PR 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 23, 2015

Both of these companies manipulated their publishing frequencies (both increasing and decreasing the total number of posts) with some interesting findings. Companies that had achieved that level of library generated 3 to 4 times more leads on a monthly basis compared to companies that fall below that threshold.

Social Media 120

Social Media Media Long Tail Marketing Hubspot 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

The differences are being caused by significant changes in the way a customer finds solutions to their problems, and most companies haven’t changed their internal sales and marketing processes to deal with them. In fact, the last few deals that we’ve won have varied from a one-month close to over 13 months.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Thought Leadership Demand Generation Agencies 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Measuring content marketing’s return on investment in B2B companies can be a complex calculation, especially if your solution is expensive, requires committee-based decisions, and has long and unpredictable sales cycles. Have they just started looking for a solution or are they down to vendor selection? Increased web traffic.

Top of Funnel 120

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

Sales Engine

MARCH 17, 2016

I just want them to have heard of us when I call them,” retorted one salesperson I worked with at an enterprise software company in the late 90’s. Even though companies are increasing their expenditures on content marketing, they’re still unhappy with the results. How much revenue was generated? Did it exceed the investment?

Budget Programs 168

Budget Programs Content Marketing Brand Identity Branding 168

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 9, 2015

When it comes to B2B marketing—whether it be social media, email marketing, blogs, white papers or attending trade shows—it has to be about lead generation. It’s great when content shows up in one of our prospect's Twitter feed because of a targeted hashtag. If you’re B2B, there’s only one place they can buy—and that’s from you.

Demand 120

Demand B2B Marketing B2B Trade Show 120

Sales Engine

MARCH 13, 2017

Once upon a time, branding was an indispensable part of a company’s success in B2B sales. A company with strong branding could distinguish itself from competitors in the mind of a buyer long before the sales pitch. Strong branding, which would announce a company as a player, is what made this partnership possible.

Brand Identity 120

Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

MAY 12, 2016

Once upon a time, branding was an indispensable part of a company’s success in B2B sales. A company with strong branding could distinguish itself from competitors in the mind of a buyer long before the sales pitch. Strong branding, which would announce a company as a player, is what made this partnership possible.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

Once upon a time, branding was an indispensable part of a company’s success in B2B sales. A company with strong branding could distinguish itself from competitors in the mind of a buyer long before the sales pitch. Strong branding, which would announce a company as a player, is what made this partnership possible.

Brand Identity 149

Brand Identity Branding Budget Programs Marketing Automation Services 149

Sales Engine

JULY 5, 2016

For companies struggling to reach sales goals, doing more of the same (more cold-calls, adding more salespeople) won’t break through growth plateaus. How can companies adapt to this change in buyer behavior? When a company is starting out, most sales usually come from executives’ professional connections. It’s that they had to.

Work Management 149

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Budget Programs 149

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

Where most B2B companies are investing in content marketing , less than a quarter are satisfied with their return. Many factors contribute to this dissatisfaction, but the primary reason that I’ve run across in discussions with companies is that they’ve approached the situation backwards. The next step is nurturing.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 120

Sales Engine

JULY 21, 2016

Where most B2B companies are investing in content marketing , less than a quarter are satisfied with their return. Many factors contribute to this dissatisfaction, but the primary reason that I’ve run across in discussions with companies is that they’ve approached the situation backwards. The next step is nurturing.

Lead Generation 120

Lead Generation Top of Funnel Generation Ad Building 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 16, 2016

What does a perfect world B2B sales process look like? For me, that looks like marketing generating enough qualified leads so that most of my time is spent having productive sales conversations. In fact, Red Bull’s CEO Dietrich Mateschitz comments in a Fast Company article about brands becoming full-blown media companies.

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Top of Funnel Cold Calling Content 120

Sales Engine

APRIL 13, 2016

Just because B2B companies are investing heavily in content marketing doesn’t mean that they’re successful at generating the leads they need for business growth. Additionally, 85% of the companies surveyed indicate that lead generation and sales growth was their primary objective for greater investments.

Top of Funnel 136

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Lead Ranking Digital Marketing Funnels 136

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 8, 2015

For decades, the B2B marketer has been a manager of projects. So, marketing’s new role as lead generators for sales requires more than just project management and stellar execution. 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

AUGUST 19, 2015

Chitnis says that most marketing organizations will commit to generating a number of MQLs, but they are essentially useless beyond the marketing department, and that if the sales team doesn’t believe that they have the right targets, they won’t follow up. Salespeople need leads, and it’s marketing’s job to generate them.

Lead Ranking 120

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads MQL Sales Qualified Leads 120

Sales Engine

AUGUST 14, 2015

But that hasn’t stopped them from tasking you to create a demand generation engine—and on a limited budget, of course. This is the demand generation dilemma , and it’s far too common in today’s B2B company. Effectively is defined as over 50 percent of your total sales pipeline coming from this process.).

Demand Generation Agencies 120

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Demand Generation Marketing Automation Services 120

Sales Engine

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

If you’re just starting out with content marketing and need to generate traffic to your site, it probably makes sense to have most of your content un-gated so you can build some following and brand awareness. In a B2B context, that usually means content that’s educational in tone and is very informative.

B2B Thought Leadership 120

B2B Thought Leadership Content Paper Thought Leadership 120

Sales Engine

NOVEMBER 6, 2015

But B2B companies have found success in content marketing , and they’re upping the ante. For example, companies create content on their blogs and websites, and then use social media to distribute that content—but all they’re really getting out of that is branding and awareness, which is what we did as marketers in the 90s.

Top of Funnel 120

Top of Funnel Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Digital Marketing Funnels 120

Sales Engine

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Company blogs serve as the cornerstone of most successful content marketing programs , and they are a great place to get started if you’re making the shift to marketing as a lead generator for sales. Content Marketing is No Longer A Choice The B2B Content Marketing ROI You Should Care About. See what I did there? ).

Content 120

Content Advertising Mediums B2B Sales Paid Search Agency 120