Chris Fell, Author at align.me

Four kinds of lead nurturing campaign for B2B marketers

How do you market to your B2B buyers in a way that won't scare them off, but instead nudge them down the funnel towards sales? For each campaign we are faced with this question. And each time, coming up with a good strategy takes much brainstorming and forethought. But that's the nature of this business: B2B marketing is challenging. Enter lead nurturing, as a way to stay on your buyer's radar without being overly pushy. Because sometimes, they want you to gain their trust before you hit them with a marketing message. Just like the beginning stages READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy|

If content is king for B2B marketing, then context is God!

I was fortunate enough to attend Inbound 2012 in Boston last week, organised by Hubspot, along with 2800 other delegates. It was an inspiring couple of days. This is a summary of the keynote speech given by hubspot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. B2B marketers are coming to understand how to effectively engage with their buyers in the internet age. But target customers are getting really, really good at blocking out your marketing messages. Email is blocked by spam filters, phone calls have caller ID, "snail mail" goes straight in the bin, TV ads are blocked READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Tactics|

Blogging: The Swiss Army Knife of B2B Marketing

Don’t be fooled by its unglamorous appearance and unassuming nature. Your blog is your most powerful survival tool in the B2B marketing jungle. Just like a swiss army knife, it can perform a multitude of functions required for survival. These functions include : Traffic Generation It doesn’t matter how amazing your website is if nobody comes to visit. But how does one go about attracting new website visitors? Writing blog posts and distributing them via social media, social bookmarking sites, RSS and email will help you to get found by new people. SEO One of toughest challenges in READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Tactics|

The Outsourcing Dilemma: 6 Steps for B2B Marketers

To outsource or not to outsource. It's one of the great B2B marketing questions. Is it more cost-effective to handle things internally or to outsource? Sometimes due to capacity constraints and headcount freezes there simply isn't a choice but to outsource. Here are some practical steps to take to help you decide whether to outsource. Step 1: The plan Based on your business objectives and your marketing strategy you will probably have worked out your tactics and execution plan. In particular, the plan for the volume of marketing activity you will require to make your lead and revenue READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Tactics|

3 Ways To Gauge Your B2B Buyer’s Interest Level

Digital body language (aka what you do online) can tell you a lot about how interested your prospect is. Of course, this is expected to change over time, depending on what goes on internally where said prospect works. In his book, Digital Body Language, Steven Woods outlines the 3 main dimensions that help quantify level of interest: 1. Recency How recently did the prospect engage with your site? Timing is everything in the buyer's journey; in fact, the same landing page download or page view can mean very different things at different times in the sales cycle. READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Tactics|

The Secret to Being a B2B Marketing Rockstar: Maths

In many organisations, it's an eyebrow-raising moment when the words "marketing" and "maths" are uttered in the same sentence. Many marketers are blissfully ignorant of the harsh realities of business, revenue and profits, making decisions based on instinct whilst the sales team huff and puff about how marketing live in cloud cuckoo land, not the real world of monthly targets. CEOs and CFOs allocate the marketing budget as a cost centre and scoff at the idea of a marketer taking a seat at the boardroom table. However, a new era is dawning. Smart marketers, equipped with the READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Tactics|

The Green B2B Marketing Solution: Lead Recycling

What happens to prospects when they leak from your funnel? I'm talking about people who have expressed interest in your products or services, but somewhere along the line they dropped off the radar. The issue of leaked leads is not a pleasant conversation for most organisations, particularly for the sales team. It's understandable, most people would prefer to discuss successes. It's better to focus on why we have won, not why we have lost, right? Wrong! It's simple arithmetic. In the journey from first contact as an unqualified lead to customer, typically 90%+ of leads will "leak" from READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Tactics|

3 Reasons Why Australian B2B Marketers Are Going Inbound

Inbound marketing isn't a well-known phrase to Australian marketers (yet!), but 2012 sees B2B marketers quickly catching on to the inbound marketing revolution. Inbound marketing refers to the art & increasingly the science of attracting buyers to your site, (getting found) converting them to leads (nurturing) and figuring out what is and isn't working (analytics). Better known phrases are website marketing, digital marketing or online marketing, but inbound marketing is a more comprehensive, inclusive discipline than these phrases suggest. Here are the top three reasons why we are beginning to make the switch: #1 It's Budget-Friendly (And READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy, Tactics, Velocity|

Misleading Data! 33% B2B Marketers Don’t Measure ROI

New data reveals that many B2B marketers are committing a major marketing no-no by failing to measure and report return on marketing investments to senior executives. According to a recent B2B marketing survey conducted by Sagefrog Marketing Group: Only 1 in 3 B2B marketers worldwide report financial-contribution metrics to senior management. Though one third track revenue metrics (associated with marketing-generated opportunities, closed deals, and percentage of total sales), they fail to communicate their findings to upper management. 58% are reporting on marketing performance metrics like leads, and 48% are reporting opportunities generated. However, they don't report metrics READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy, Velocity|

12 Online Lead Generation Mistakes to Avoid

The internet is a tough environment to make a sale, or even commence and influence a sale, especially for small to medium businesses. It's so crowded with competition and flooded with data that when someone does visit your site, it's a ever increasing challenge for B2B marketers to keep them there. Unfortunately, getting Google searchers to land on your site is only half the battle. Briefly skimming your homepage is different to sticking around and reading your content. People have almost zero patience when they're browsing online, so it's imperative to do whatever you can to keep READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy|

About Chris Fell