sales and marketing strategy

Sample go to market strategy for B2B

We want B2B marketing to be a respected management science around the world and we want to play a role in helping it get there. As a part of that, I went looking for samples of go-to-market strategies, but in the top 5 results I didn't find a single go-to-market strategy sample. What I found was loads of theory about the processes that you should use to form your plan. So if no one's willing to share theirs, I'm going to share my Go to Market Strategy. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/QKcsjmK7vyo Based on the 4000+ plans we've READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Evergreen, Strategy|

Product marketing strategy – 6 questions and 2 bold actions [video]

What's needed for great product marketing strategy? I'll answer that in eight basic steps. To form your product market strategy, ask six questions: What problem are you trying to solve (most)? Who most has this problem? What will you offer to solve this problem - for that market - better than anyone else? How mature is that market then they buy in this category of product / service? What is your profit strategy? How are you trying to position your brand with that market? I'll explain why, but there's two more steps: Build, price and articulate a READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How to beat your competition by ignoring them

B2B competition strategy is like just every other aspect of strategy - there is no 'of course' approach to strategy for addressing your competition. Anyone who tells you that you always need a competition strategy in B2B is spending too much time looking behind them, and not looking at where they are going. In sales and marketing, where we are going is to the buyer. Often, the best B2B competition strategy is to ignore the competition all together and just focus on the buyer. Except for that strange stage where you can't and you actually have READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

A market strategy example: why too much demand is bad

Here is a great go to market strategy example of why crude assumptions are dangerous. Brand / Demand / Enablement need a balance, and it changes over time. B2B marketers seem to be dragged between two extremes at the whim of Sales: We're either just doing branding 'stuff' or we're supposed to focus on leads. So which should it be? Today we'll use a go to market strategy example to show why too much demand is just as bad as too little, and how to get the balance right. Want to receive more blogs like this? Subscribe READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How do you sell to the C-Suite? You don’t

It’s a question that comes up a lot, and sometimes we even ask ourselves: How should you approach the c-suite? How do you get the attention and time of that elusive senior person who you need to get onside early and who, ultimately, can approve your deal? Often, the answer is: you don’t. And you shouldn’t. Let me show you why. Before we sell, we solve – so who is having the problem? Often the person who can approve the deal is not the person who actually has the problem that the deal is going to READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How to get your team to buy in to your problem choice

In the wonderful African proverb, we are reminded that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. In this week's show, we'll explore how to get the whole tribe to buy in to your Sales and Marketing plan and to join you on your journey. Although the focus is on problem choice, the approach holds true for all decision making. Want to receive more blogs like this? Subscribe to our twice weekly B2B marketing insights! Get your copy of our 2014 Sales and Marketing Alignment Report Unless you are READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Your Marketing is probably helping your competitors more than you

Troubling the market about the wrong problem may actually help your competitor more than it helps you. Businesses spend money to fix problems or to avoid problems in the future, therefore buyers want a solution to meet their needs and perceived problem. If they believe that they have a problem that a competitor solves better than you do, they will go with your competitor. You may try to convince them that they actually need the solution that you offer but that will be very hard work and low yield. Instead, it is best to change their READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy, Tactics|

Don’t measure Sales or B2B Marketing on revenue

Revenue targets have nothing to do with the targets you want to set for Sales and Marketing. So, how do you figure out your Sales and Marketing targets? Firstly, you need to know the value of new business that you need Sales and Maketing to generate for you, you also need to know the average size of each deal. Secondly, you need to figure out how many sales need to occur over a specfic time period in order to determine how much revenue you actually need Sales and Marketing to generate. In this video blog, Hugh helps to READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Velocity|

B2B Sales: You need to focus on the workarounds that aren’t working

In most “solution selling” methodologies, B2B sales people are encouraged to uncover their prospect’s issues, rather than leading with their products. But there’s a potential problem: any organisation, any stakeholder, always has many more issues that they would like to address than they could possibly have the have money, time, or inclination to deal with. That’s why so many issues stimulate so many apparently positive sales conversations that end up going absolutely nowhere. The prospect is interested enough to talk, but not motivated enough to act... One of the ways of dealing with this, of course, is READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Evergreen, Skills|

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|