Sales

Step up your lead generation game with these 5 tips

As we all know, your website is your shop window. In this day and age your website’s look and feel along with its functionality can really turn your customers on or off, there is hardly anything worse than a dated website that gives you a sense of the early 2000s. Nostalgia is a no-go when it comes to your inbound marketing and B2B lead generation. Your website is the tool which lets you attract, engage, convert, close and delight. Obviously, the conversion part is fundamental to this process, but how do you get there? The answer READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Sales, Strategy, Tactics|

Are your sales people merely communicating value – or creating it?

One of the problems with creating generic “unique value propositions” is that they are just that - generic. They might be a useful basis for communicating mass-marketing messages, but they are not a suitable basis for a truly productive sales conversation. To be truly effective - and to have real impact - your sales people need to be crafting uniquely customised value propositions for each individual prospect (and often each significant stakeholder). If that sounds like hard work, it is. But here’s why it is worth it… Your prospects are tired of generic value propositions that do READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Sales, Strategy, Tactics|

Sales and Marketing Alignment Showdown

Sales and Marketing alignment and effectiveness vary wildly between countries. Which country do you think has got this most right? I'll bet you a fine red wine your guess is wrong. Mine certainly was! Want to receive more content like this? Subscribe to our monthly B2B marketing blog! We looked for extreme differences between respondents from the five main countries. We didn't delve as deeply here as we did in other areas of our survey, so don't take these findings too seriously. That said, the Canadians were our performance poster child in this report – let them READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

B2B Marketing Definition

I've not typically been big on the necessity for definitions, but became frustrated recently when a senior marekter threw terms like strategy, tactics around as if they were interchangable. It is not hard to understand what B2B marketing is, nor how it is different from consumer, or B2C marketing. Let's start at the top: B2B marketing can be defined as the planning, execution and measurement of the strategy and the tactics needed to sell a product or service to a business. In this blog, I'll unpack that just a little, argue why the four P's is READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales, Tactics|

Why Marketing should report to Sales

Get your copy of our 2014 Sales and Marketing Alignment Report Marketing needs to report to Sales. I'll get to that blasphemy in a minute. If you have listened to some of my recent blogs, you know that in 2005 we published the first of our landmark reports into alignment. What we learned then has shaped much of the debate on the topic of alignment ever since. In 2014 we published the 2013 refresh of the landmark alignment research. What we learned about training, process, automation, structure, tactics, demand generation, measurement and location is going to get the READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

How to Generate B2B Leads

B2B Marketers are asked, more than anything else, to generate leads for Sales to pursue. But what kind of B2B leads do we want Marketing to generate? Broadly speaking, Marketers can generate three types of leads: named prospects who meet your ideal client profile; buyers who have shown interest in a topic you write about or a category you sell; or buyers who have shown they are troubled about the problem you solve better than any other; or buyers actively looking for solutions like yours. What we’re really distinguishing here is, how ‘done’ does Sales want its READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

B2B Buyer Behaviour

Want to receive more blogs like this? Subscribe to our twice weekly B2B marketing insights! I can show you how to almost double your closure rates from marketing leads with just 5 minutes work. I'll defend that outlandish statement in a minute or two. If you have listened to some of my recent blogs, you know that in 2005 we published the first of our landmark reports into alignment. What we learned then has shaped much of the debate on the topic of alignment ever since. In 2014 we published the 2013 refresh of the landmark alignment READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

Sales and Marketing systems don’t deliver the benefits you’d expect

Want to receive more content like this? Subscribe to our monthly B2B marketing blog! Adding sales and marketing systems to a business previously struggling without either will not deliver the uplift in sales performance or marketing contribution you'd have expected. So why would you bother investing in processes at all? In 2005 we published the first of our landmark reports into alignment. What we learned then has shaped much of the debate on the topic of alignment ever since. In 2014 we published the 2013 refresh of the landmark alignment research. What we learned about training, process, automation, READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

Who should own Go-to-Market planning?

Want to receive more content like this? Subscribe to our monthly B2B marketing blog! Get your free copy of the 2014 Sales and Marketing Alignment Report! Riddle me this. What can lift the probability of Sales accepting Marketing’s leads by 31%, increase the probability of closing these marketing qualified leads by 56%, and increase Marketing’s contribution to revenue by 62%? Planning. More specifically, assigning the right owner to planning. To accelerate your growth, it’s as simple as that. In this week’s blog, Hugh reveals some of the cutting-edge insights from the 2014 Sales and Marketing Alignment report. He delves READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

A freebie’s cost: a reputation for poor customer service

All customers love a freebie! Right? But, what happens when your good intentions backfire, and you’re left looking like the bad guy, as well as being out of pocket? This week, Hugh shares a few personal stories and examines the relationship between discounting and customer service. He looks at the common mistakes companies make when trying to provide deep discounts, and how to offer these discounts without disappointing your customer.

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales, Strategy|