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B2B marketing insights - Funnel Vision
MathMarketing’s global network of B2B marketing consultants bring you Funnel Vision, a series of thought leadership articles that explore B2B marketing best practice based on the underlying principle of Funnel Logic. Through quick and actionable sales and marketing tips, Funnel Vision takes sales and marketing leaders through a journey to discover means for growth in their businesses. From simple tips to in-depth guidelines, our leading insights cover a range of B2B marketing topics – strategy, sales and marketing planning, sales funnel management and buyer progression tactics, to name a few. Simply put, Funnel Vision presents you with a fresh methodology for B2B sales and marketing, giving you the expertise you need to grow your business.
How to allocate limited budget
There is never enough money and never enough resources in a business. Whether you work in a multinational corporation with billions of dollars to splash around, or a micro business with only a few staff, budgeting is always tough.
The Best Time to Align Marketing and Sales
If you sense that your revenue engine is under-performing and believe that aligning Marketing and Sales will lead to the necessary transformation you might next ask when is the best time to launch an alignment initiative.
How to size your funnel - top, bottom and middle
Market sizing is often done with a degree of rigour, but far less rigour is applied to the task of sizing your own sales funnel. The proposition that "there is plenty out there" might be true, but sizing is not just about working out if the market can support you.
How saying goodbye to your customers can help you re-engage with them
We’ve spoken about Funnel Logic and the way we manage work-in-progress using a sales funnel. One of the critical things in this process is keeping your funnel clean, as there’s nothing worse than a clogged funnel.
How measuring lag can boost sales
Most businesses have an accurate handle on the length of their sales cycle – the time that elapses between a lead being qualified and the closing of the deal. If your total sales cycle is six months, or three months, or twelve months, what does that mean and what can you change to improve results?
10 A/B test Do's & Don'ts for B2B Marketers
When was the last time you tested some part of your marketing? If it takes a bit of thought, you're probably not doing it enough. The problem with that is, even just a minor test can go a long way - improving traffic, leads, and even sales if done right.
How to make your strategy more buyer-centric
All businesses strive to recognise the needs of buyers when developing strategies for sales success. Well, at least you should.
Maximising the propose to close ratio
Many selling organisations are submitting an increasing number of proposals, in the hope that this will lead to an increased number of sales. But, proposals don’t always close. So, how can you fix a low propose to close ratio?
Six Strategies for Sales and Marketing in 2012
The liquidity risks of 2008/9, public bailout, market nervousness and contraction, financial market uncertainty, high unemployment and subsequently sluggish US economy have all commanded world attention for the last two or three years. None of this though prepared most of us for the genuine risk of sovereign debt default for a growing group of member states, and the potential collapse of the European Union, or at least that of the Euro Zone.
Competitively superior in-field targeting
Fish where the big fish are! Go for the 80/20! Don’t mess around with the small end of town – spend your time at the big end of town. All laudable exhortations. As a fledgling Sales Exec decades ago, I heard them all. You probably did too, huh?
How to make your funnel flow faster
Yes, you can speed up the time it takes for a potential buyer to make the purchase of your product or service. But not by skipping steps along the buyer’s journey.
How long is your revenue runway?
Many business managers I speak with don’t have an accurate view of how long their revenue runway is; or to put the metaphor aside for a moment, they are unclear about how much time is required for the marketing and sales team to create enough customers to achieve a revenue target.
How to choose measures you can act on
If you don’t know what’s working, how do you know what to change? So measure inputs (not outputs), measure buyer progression, and don’t measure what you’re not prepared to change (or can’t).
Social media: from B2C to B2B
Although B2C companies were first to jump on the social media bandwagon, B2B companies are starting to recognise that social media can also work in a B2B context. But, as a B2B marketer, where do you start?
How to size for sales success - know thy funnel
Most sales teams have an inherent awareness of how many customers they need to see in order to make a sale – in other words, the key ratios that affect their business. But how do you drill back into your statistics to determine the total number of activity steps needed to achieve a result?
Regular healthchecks....on the key customer interfaces with Sales and Service
The medicos tell us that it is good fundamental health and wellbeing practice to undertake a regular health assessment. You know the stuff………blood pressure, cholesterol, weight: height ratios, lifestyle questionnaires etc - a simple and quick way to ensure our all-important health and wellbeing is on track. The same principles apply to B2B sales organisations.
How to include buyers in your strategy
Some companies defy convention to become great. Stories abound of businesses that excel through innovative solutions which meet needs that buyers did not even know existed. Think Microsoft or the Sony Walkman, for example.
Top 3 priorities for B2B marketers: Marketing Sherpa
According to new research from MarketingSherpa, published recently by eMarketer.com, marketers are concerned primarily with 3 stages of the marketing funnel. While 60% of B2B marketers revealed that lead generation is their top priority, converting leads into customers trailed closely behind with 57%
How to decide where to play
Strategic decisions involve choice: deciding what to do and, importantly, what not to do. This leaves businesses facing a conundrum. CEOs and managers understand the power and importance of focus, but what should they focus on, and what should they ignore?
Equipping your sales team for success
We’re often asked by clients: “How can we replicate the results that are being achieved by our top sales performers?” In other words, they want to know what they have to do to get their whole team performing at the same level.
How to make recycling pay
In sales and marketing, we celebrate winners – the salesperson who returns with the signed contract is a hero, as is the marketer who exceeds their quota of qualified leads. But what about recycling?
Are your Salespeople asking the right questions.......
to add value to the conversation with an informed, self-driven prospect?
Reading Paul McCord’s contribution to an interesting discussion on sales force ineffectiveness, initially started by Dave Brock over at The Customer Collective, led me to this question.
How to make money from failure
Sales and marketing teams are geared towards success, but it's how they handle failure that will make them rich. What do we do with the prospective customers who don’t proceed? Those who leak from our funnel? The answer is usually “not much”. They are usually dropped like a hot potato.
Reset the Sales Funnel for Revenue Forecast Accuracy
In case you didn’t notice your customers are buying differently today than they did last year. The differences could be subtle or obvious, but if you observe closely you’ll see that the process they follow to make a buying decision –the buyer's journey– has changed.
How qualified are your leads?
The sales department wants the marketing department to provide more leads. But they want them to be “better qualified”. The real question is, “qualified according to whom?”
Tailoring your sales pipeline for superior prospecting (hunting)
It costs seven times the blood, sweat, tears and dollars to win a brand new client than it does to maintain an existing client. Heard that one before? A million times, I bet. This old adage has become so oft trotted out that most of us no longer even know where or who started it.
How to align your sales process to your buyer's journey
The buyer’s journey describes the process for typical business buyers as they move through the sales funnel. The journey is not an administrative process, but a cognitive one. How, though, can you more fully acknowledge buyers when shaping your sales process?
How B2B firms can use LinkedIn for effective lead generation
When I ask Australian B2B firms if social media and LinkedIn in particular has a place in their communications and marketing strategy I generally get a look that could best be described as worried or hesitant and occasionally dismissive.
How to build a great business (from a good one)
Standing out from the crowd is tough when your competitors are also working towards the same end. Occasionally, though, a business that has been doing 'fine' suddenly starts doing better than fine. In fact, it goes from being good to great.
How to create real value for your buyers
We invest a lot of effort into building great sales teams. We pay our sellers generous amounts of money, invest in solid training programs, and ensure that our team is effective at what they do. So, despite our best efforts, why do we get the impression that our sellers just aren’t adding value in their interactions with prospects?
How to find a needle in the haystack
Mature marketplaces provide clear targets for new growth – the firm demographics have already been mapped. But how can you segment or target for growth in the virgin territories where little is known of who's buying what and why?
Does my bum look big in these jeans?
There are some questions that simply shouldn’t be answered. Consider the fear cast into the hearts of men the world over when they get asked this prickly question: “Does my bum look big in these jeans?”
How many leads do you need per campaign?
Calculating the number of leads needed for a campaign seems simple. You can do it on the back of an envelope: Firstly, work out the real target: Consider your revenue target, reduce this by any annuity revenue to get your “sales target”.
Align to Buyer’s Journey then Flip the Switch for Marketing Automation
I recently read another great post on the Marketing Automation Software Guide. The article entitled, Close the Gaps to Close More Sales with Marketing Automation, was written by Sharon Drew Morgan who has written and spoken passionately about the need for new sales models and processes.
Do face-to-face meeting quotas work?
Salespeople have a reputation for avoiding paperwork and administration. They are also traditionally resistant to the idea of working to a meeting quota. But getting busy and recording the results is precisely the path to sales success.
To market, to market, to buy a fat pig...
The term “market” must be just about the most over bandied term in...ironically...marketing. As Sales and Marketers, we use the term occasionally when we mean market. Accidentally or with educated intent.
How to align your B2B marketing to your buyer's journey
A common lament of marketing teams is that they often find themselves acting as a service desk to the sales team. In b2b marketing, it is a consistent dilemma.
Are you suffering from “Top of Funnel Myopia”?
Bob Apollo recently launched a poll on LinkedIn asking: “Which one of the following initiatives has the greatest potential to boost your organisation's sales performance ?”
a) Finding more qualified opportunities
b) Shortening our average sales cycle
c) Increasing average sales win rates
d) Qualifying bad deals out earlier
e) Improving sales & marketing co-operation
Protecting client relationships
Your existing client base is the most important asset in your business. Protecting and building on your key relationships is essential to both your immediate and long-term success.
How to select tactics that move buyers
We often accuse salespeople of pitching too early: “I’m ready to sell – I hope you’re ready to buy”. But it’s much the same with Marketing. We make offers designed for buyers who are ready to choose between options, but many buyers aren’t there yet…
Why are sales and marketing not aligned?
At two different speaking engagements I asked the audiences of marketers if they thought lack of sales and marketing alignment was the biggest obstacle in their company to achieving revenue growth. At both events the results were similar. Over 60% agreed that the leading nemesis to greater revenue performance was the lack of alignment between their department and Sales.
How to dominate a market
Many businesses do their b2b marketing strategy in the rear-vision mirror. That is, they slide into a space by accident, and then seek to justify their position with a retro-fitted "strategy"!
What happened to the real CMO?
Once upon a time not so long ago in a kingdom not so far away, Marketing asked for a seat at the big boy’s table. Determined to lose the tag of being purely a communications role, CMO’s insisted that it was marketing that held the key to improving the bottom line - and therefore, must be included in all strategic business decisions...
Striking the right balance of sales and service
A good sales professional not only finds new win-win opportunities to sell additional products or services to meet the customer’s evolving needs, but also takes personal accountability as the “go to” point of reference for all issues relating to ordering and delivery of the customer’s requirements.
How measurement can align Marketing and Sales
According to our benchmark study of 1,400 businesses, one in three of them places alignment between the sales department and the marketing department as the No. 1 priority. Measurement makes a surprising contribution.
B2B marketers should be sadists
Are you a sadist B2B marketer? You should be...and here's why! You should want your targeted buyer to be in pain, real pain. Pain, in business terms, is the impact of severe problems that are without a solution. Your buyers should be in so much pain that they are desperate to stop the agony.
How to understand buyers
Nothing is more frustrating for a salesperson than a potential buyer who, after acknowledging they need your product or service, decides not to buy. Why do they do this, and what can you do about it? Remember that businesses buy products and services, in essence, to solve problems. They may have too much of something that is undesirable, or too little of something that is good.
Selling skills for a changing market
With greater demands now being placed on salespeople, the need for improved selling skills has never been higher. Typically, as organisations look for ways to remain commercially competitive, many try to strip costs out of their business. Overheads are usually the first place they start, and unfortunately, the inclusion of selling costs within this category means that sales resources are often the first to feel the pinch...
How to play right
Strategy is about deciding what to do and what not to do. In the same vein, choosing how to play is inextricably linked with choosing where to play. For a business, it comes down to choice – that is, assessing which markets are attractive and which the business is best placed to target.
Do marketers have the right stuff to be revenue marketers?
In the past few months a cool new term has appeared on my radar. That term is, “revenue marketer”. Wish I had thought of it first. It defines a new level of marketing professional. While I’m energized by the term, sadly, I’m concerned that too many B2B marketers don’t have the right perspective and skills to play in this new league...
How to really upset your buyers
We live in a world where customer service and satisfaction is everything. Marketers build programs to reward regular customers and to make them feel special, and invest in satisfaction surveys to measure their success. So why are we saying you should upset your customers?
The surprising math of cities and corporation
B2B marketing may have universal properties. Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations. Enjoy the video, then our views on how this phenomenon plays out in the world of the funnel.
Getting the right people on the bus sometimes means losing others
B2B marketing can be a tough grind, sometimes. We’re big believers in Jim Collins’ findings from his Good to Great research (and book), and one of the keys to the success of high growth businesses is about getting the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus.
Ask 'why' five times
This is the method Taiichi Ohno, pioneer of Toyota production systems, recommended to get to the root cause of a problem. My thought was that this principle could serve well in sales. In specific, it can be used to find out whether an opportunity exists and if it is real and worth your while to win.
How to size your resource load
If a face-to-face sales call is the most effective tactic to progress buyers from one stage in their journey to the next, should you simply load up the top of your funnel to ensure your sales force is fully occupied?
Featured Workshop: Hugh Macfarlane presents at ADMA: The Science of Marketing
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder and CEO of MathMarketing will lead a high-impact half-day workshop at the 2011 ADMA Multi-Channel forum. Hugh will provide you with a framework for B2B marketing strategy; from planning to execution including:
Morning seminar: Learn how to generate marketing qualified leads
I’m pleased to be joining Jonathon Calver, CEO of StrategyMix, to host a seminar that offers simple steps for your marketing to generate more qualified leads more consistently. The format of this event will be a blend of strategic discussion and very practical “how to” advice.
Add Calls To Action (CTAs) to drive lead conversion
Calls To Action (CTAs) are relatively simple devices that are so often overlooked by b2b marketers in their inbound marketing campaigns. Getting quality traffic to your site can be hard work so you should spend some effort to keep them there, nurturing the lead, engaging with them further and pulling them down the funnel towards making a purchasing decision...
Seeking graduate marketer / writer ready for business
Do you want to use your brilliant writing skills to develop content for world's best companies? Do you want to be trained and mentored by Australia's leading B2B marketers? Do you want to take the fast-track to marketing communications success?
How to measure lead effectiveness
Some businesses change their tactics with the same amount of science as they used to choose them in the first place - none. Others get themselves into such a state about how to decide whether to change or not, that they analyse themselves to death.
Improve your propose to close ratio and get the John Hancock on the dotted line
It’s July 4th in Australia and so, as well as being my wedding anniversary (tip to the males like me who have problem remembering dates, pick a wedding date you can remember), it’s the American Independence Day.
Regardless of your origin, I’m sure you will recognise the date and its significance but like many things in history there is a twist. And it’s the subject of this week’s blog - reducing propose to close sales leakage. Interested in the connection? Read on...
How to profit from buyers' problems
Businesses pay money to have their problems solved. Sometimes they will pay a lot, and sometimes they won’t. As a consequence, some problems are more ‘attractive’ than others to sales-oriented businesses that are offering solutions.
The Best Time to Align Marketing and Sales
If you sense that your revenue engine is under-performing and believe that aligning Marketing and Sales will lead to the necessary transformation you might next ask when is the best time to launch an alignment initiative...
How to earn more profit than your competitors
What do you do when a tough competitor enters your space? Many businesses cut their prices, starting a 'race to the bottom' as their previously unassailed niche becomes just another commodity product or service...
Maximising CRM investment to drive productivity and return
(Too) Many sales organisations undertake a CRM strategy and associated hefty investment, and then when the software vendors come on site to undertake their (too) often “generic customisation”, the purchasing sales organisation is jolted into a process that forces them to retro-think about the functionality and the process support that can be derived from their investment.
How to position in the category
All businesses seek “brand awareness” in order to position themselves prominently in a given category. Salespeople often complain about how poor the marketing department is at positioning the qualities of their products and services relative to competitors.
Is VC Funding the Best Strategy? A Look at Marketing Automation
Marketing automation software is still considered a relative newcomer in the enterprise software space. However, there are new entrants popping up regularly, leading to a lot of activity and buzz in the market. With the growth in this space, the topic of venture capital comes up fairly often. Some vendors are taking on new rounds from top tier VCs, while others are pursuing what they perceive to be the more sustainable method of bootstrapping...
Why lead generation is a waste of time for B2B Marketers
Those of us who provide marketing services and solutions for B2B Marketers get to speak with many, many marketers and organisations during the course of a year. Its one of the best parts of my job. I have had four prospect meetings this week. It was a week of extremes. On one end of the spectrum I met with a gargantuan international Telco and at the opposite extreme a classic smart, entrepreneurial small software business. What I found interesting was despite almost every facet of their businesses being so different, they had the same issue...
Equipping your sales team for success
Eddie Smith, Founder of Sales Schematics Australia, writes...
We’re often asked by clients: “How can we replicate the results that are being achieved by our top sales performers?” In other words, they want to know what they have to do to get their whole team performing at the same level...
Sales Quota Attainment: Whose Performance is Measured?
Christian Maurer, a Paris-based Consultant, Trainer and Coach, writes...
When companies approach the end of their fiscal year, their sales leaders start thinking about the next year. One of the key parameters to figure out is the sales quota to be assigned to salespeople...
Account Ownership as an Alignment Indicator
Charles Besondy, President of Besondy Consulting & Interim Management, writes...
The attitude your company has and the processes your company employs for its strategic accounts can be an indicator of the degree of alignment between Sales and the rest of the organization...
How to define a B2B marketing strategy the team understands
In business, there is endless debate about 'strategy'. Yet the term is often confusing or misunderstood. In many businesses, strategy refers to anything ranging from business goals and target markets to specifics such as website management. A scattergun approach often ensues.
B2B marketing secrets of high-growth companies
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
B2B marketing professionals know that nurturing a prospect is a fine art. So if there was a demonstrated way to master this art, we would all want to know about it, right? Well at DemandCon Jon Miller (VP of Marketing, Marketo) is aiming to teach us how we can reach 1000 customers in three years by telling us the ‘secrets’ of a certain company.
Kicking B2B marketing insights into action
At the end of day 2 at DemandCon, B2B marketing attendees should have all the advice you need to create a truly excellent Funnel Plan. The trick will be applying what you have learnt when you return to your B2B marketing company, and you are faced with the same problems that were there when you left for the conference. Whether its resource-shortages, process faults or a lack of alignment, your team will only be as strong as the processes that underlie it. You need to be confident that these processes are in order, and that the whole team understands them. So how do you turn all the good advice from DemandCon into an actionable plan?
B2B marketing and sales alignment: behind the scenes, the making of Concur
B2B marketing and sales professionals often hear about how they need to align themselves for successful business outcomes. As simple as it is to say, the reality is that it is often quite a difficult thing to achieve, and in some cases a seemingly insurmountable task. So it helps to be able to learn from companies that have succeeded in achieving alignment.
B2B marketing that reaches executives
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Is there a failsafe way to engage executives as prospects in B2B marketing strategies? We talked about selling to crazy-busy people when we reviewed Jill Konrath’s presentation titled to that effect, but it’s definitely a topic that B2B marketing professionals are drawn too. This is why I’m confident that Adrian Ott’s presentation will be a welcome addition to the DemandCon agenda. So what will Adrian have to say about the matter?
Nurturing you and your leads will love: segmenting and automation to give B2B marketing leads a personalised experience
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Surely this is a goal for most B2B marketing teams. But of course personalisation often reads as almost synonymous with difficult, so it sets the alarm bells start ring for many of us. The trouble is you will get better results with personalised B2B marketing tactics. At MathMarketing we certainly believe in clear, specific tactics for carrying-out optimised B2B marketing and sales solutions. So is there any way to take the difficulty out of personalisation?
B2B Marketing Nirvana – targeting emails
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
We’ve had a social media Mecca and now we’ve got a B2B marketing nirvana. Dictionary.com defines nirvana as, “a place or state characterised by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world”. So if there is a B2B marketing ‘nirvana’, in what sense can you achieve it?
Using a Metrics-Based Process for Generating Sales-Worthy Leads
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Metrics for every stage of the lead-conditioning process? B2B marketing professionals will know that proving their worth to the rest of the organisation can prove painful at times. But when metrics are in place, they can serve to facilitate better planning, lead-readiness and maximise ROI. What you need is a solid set of metrics to align with your B2B marketing processes. So what are they?
Marketing Operations of the Future
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Marketing Automation doesn’t happen overnight. There is a transition process involved. B2B marketing organisations will need to work through this process and respond to new ways of doing things as they go. B2B marketing delivery, user tracking, scoring and strategy all come into play. So what does this mean for the whole B2B marketing team?
B2B marketing and phone selling experts at work
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. B2B marketing is nothing without a strong sales team to work with on the same set of goals. The crucial thing for B2B marketing teams to pre-empt, is that their sales counterparts will likely have more talk-time with prospects, and so that time needs to be spent wisely. So how can B2B marketing teams help sales develop this wisdom?
Is Bargain Basement Data Really a Bargain?
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
You need names to fill your Funnel. There are lists available for B2B marketing companies that give you names. But whether these lists offer quality leads is another matter. B2B marketing professional can find themselves torn between the idea of a quick-fix, and using up valuable resources trawling through data to find names of their own accord. This may seem like a catch-22 to some, which is why gaining an expert’s insights on the topic is valuable.
Social media panel for B2B marketing
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
The Mecca for social media in B2B marketing is at DemandCon on May 19th. If you’ve ever thought to yourself – ‘how does social media work in B2B marketing’ – but never quite received all the answers you needed, then I would pay close attention to what happens at the ‘Intra Funnel – Social Media Panel’ presentation on day 2 of DemandCon. So why do I believe this presentation to be so significant for B2B marketing professionals?
Virtual events for B2B marketing
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
The internet is no longer an optional B2B marketing channel, but a key platform to almost every campaign executed. If we consider the huge changes that we’ve witnessed in the last decade, it’s logical to think that the virtual landscape will only continue to move to the centre of every B2B marketing professional’s world. The best approach is to embrace what you can of the digital world to avoid being left in the dust! Has your company started conducting virtual events?
B2B marking needs to embrace social media tactics to drive attendance, revenue and buzz around your content
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Social media has opened up an entirely new forum for B2B marketing, but many-a-marketer has dabbled and withdrawn from any serious use of these platforms. Even so, best practice for B2B marketing using web 2.0 functionalities has become a serious and sophisticated element to many Funnel Plans. So how do B2B marketing professionals create the ‘right buzz’ around what they’re doing?
Why B2B marketing needs an element of ‘boy meets girl...’
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Who tells the stories in your company? Most of you will answer that your CEO or Director of Sales or Marketing is the default raconteur. This quality makes this ‘talent attractive to B2B marketing professionals, prospects, clients, and probably their friends and family too. It’s simple – people enjoy stories. And good nurturing involves an element of storytelling (in B2B marketing, and in general!). So why isn’t the B2B marketing team fine-tuning their ability to tell a good story?
After the funnel – translating marketing activity into CEO and Board level impact
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Does your CEO know what an MQL is? What about an SQL and SAL? B2B marketing and sales professionals use this language on a day-to-day basis, so they can be forgiven for forgetting that other parts of the organisation may find it difficult to understand them as they reel off acronyms and abbreviations. The problem is that these ‘proprietary’ terms are key to understanding B2B marketing reports. So how do you communicate B2B marketing metric results without these concept-defining terms?
The power of B2B marketing metrics: demonstrate your value
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Does B2B marketing receive the recognition and support that it deserves in your company? Some B2B marketing professionals find themselves having to justify what they do to the rest of their organisation, when they could be making more headway with their marketing campaigns. One way of gaining back this time is to implement an effective process for measuring what you do. To do this, you first need to know what it is exactly that you should to be measuring. So, as Laura Patterson asks, “Does your marketing plan and metrics pass the “so what” test?”
Stop warm leads leaking from the middle of your B2B marketing Funnel
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Both demand generation and closing a sale are often a strong focus in B2B marketing strategies. But there is much to be said for what happens in between. This is where leakage can occur, and if your B2B marketing strategy doesn’t include a plug for leakage in the middle of the funnel, then those leads that you nurtured at the top will have been a waste of time. Does your company have a plan for the middle of the Funnel?
B2B marketing leads: born from opportunity or relationship?
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
While it is the stuff of frequent debates between Sales and B2B marketing professionals, this is a bit of a chicken and egg argument, because of course they’re interdependent. In B2B marketing, this means figuring out how to optimise leads regardless. Sales relationships require human contact, so even if B2B marketing automation techniques are generating a healthy flow of leads to your company – the process doesn’t stop there, (and probably didn’t start there either). So how do you know you’re doing enough chicken and enough egg?
Science at the top of the B2B marketing Funnel
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
Do you know how to use the internet to find B2B marketing leads? If you’re reading a B2B marketing blog, then your answer is likely a yes. But then comes the other obvious question: are the leads you find via your internet searches of the right quality? There are some great technology solutions designed to help you scour the information on the web for leads, but the biggest costs are incurred by the sales force well after the leads is landed. So how do you get a quality list of leads in the first instance?
What to do with a B2B Marketing lead: Best practices for turning leads into sales opportunities
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
We’ve talked before about the importance of handling a B2B marketing lead quickly and well in the sales follow-up process. What happens to a B2B marketing-generated lead in the process of being handed over to the sales department is crucial to the successful conversion of that lead. The wrong processes chew up time, fail to generate revenue, and send the two camps retreating to their respective corners. So what are best practices to help you determine the best process for your company?
How to build a revenue playbook for B2B marketing
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
In B2B marketing it pays to have a plan. The problem is that often companies recycle ineffective plans based on traditional B2B marketing, rather than revenue marketing. A successful transition from one way of doing things to another depends on having the right information to guide you. Even better, if you can follow a proven, well-worn path, you will get to the main road a lot faster than you would alone. If one path is growing revenue and the other isn’t, you need to know which one is which, and why. So does your company have a Revenue Playbook?Top of Funnel data strategies for B2B marketing - choosing demand generation technology
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
What value does demand generation technology add to B2B marketing? There are so many complex technology solutions out there that it can become overwhelming to think about which fit your needs well (and that’s once you know what you need). B2B marketing professionals can be forgiven for holding back, but risk seeing their competitors stride ahead, taking early advantage from new technologies. So how do you choose the right platforms for your company?
B2B Marketing in the Lower Funnel - Sales Readiness
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
What use is a B2B Marketing lead that isn’t followed up? Or worse, one that is followed up badly? B2B Marketing professionals rely on sales representatives to turn leads into opportunities, and ultimately into clients, but all-too-often the expectations between marketing and sales is blocked. The effect is to reinforce the stock response from both departments. So sales people must know how to handle leads well, which means their companies need to be able to prepare them. But how?
B2B marketing nirvana might just be the DemandCon Expert Panel
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
I’m a self-confessed B2B marketing geek, so naturally I can’t wait to hear the luminaries of B2B marketing share their experiences at DemandCon in just a few short weeks. I’m giving a keynote on aligning the whole team (See far, Go fast), and am joined by no fewer than 60 top notch speakers sharing their wisdom. So how do you make sure you get answers to your questions while these B2B marketers are all available in the one spot?
B2B marketing levers: Using revenue performance management to grow your business
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
If it’s the customers who are in control in B2B marketing, who’s watching them? With all the free information available, and all the savvy buyers sorting through it, B2B marketers need the right business processes to create behaviour (and track it) if they want to drive revenue. Today’s B2B marketer needs a strategy to manage how companies interact with buyers. This strategy must follow the customer through their entire purchase-process. Get this right and you will see dramatic changes: more predictable, rapid and profitable revenue growth. So what kind of B2B marketing strategies work best?
Will B2B Marketing ever align with Sales? Quelling the Clash of the Titans
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
In B2B marketing, goal-setting is used to incite progressive behaviour. B2B Marketing 101 teaches us to:
Know what’s happening in the market; and
Set the right goals to keep on top of (or lead) market trends.
Piece of cake, right? Well, actually, it’s only one piece in the bigger B2B cake, which is precisely why fellow DemandCon keynote Christine Crandell believes B2B marketing departments disconnect with their cousins from Sales. So why are Sales and Marketing agendas often so disparate, and how can you use this understanding to broach alignment?
B2B marketing keynote - See Far, Go Fast!
Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of MathMarketing, writes...
B2B marketing is my passion, and one of the biggest challenges for B2B marketers is alignment. While we're all busy trying to get Sales and Marketing on the same page, the goals often go and shift on us. And this can be even before most of us have reached the half-way mark! The crucial thing is that the need for alignment has broadened. It's now about getting the whole business and your partners pointing in the same direction. Sounds logical. So how do you do it? Creating Convergence between sales and B2B marketing using Social Media
B2B marketing can be a thankless task. There is a moment in every business where marketing hands off to sales. Planned or not, B2B marketing has created an opportunity, and sales is getting its chance to create a customer.
At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen.
Did marketing create enough interest? Can sales create enough curiosity and trust? Did they both do their part in getting the prospect to “tell me more?”
