funnel management

Marketing is on a mission to gain control of the Funnel – to effectively manage and predict demand, yet today’s research tells a different story. The story exposes prevailing tensions in every area amounting to a serious disconnect between the vision of what Marketing should be doing and what it is doing in reality.

Do you know what your ideal customer looks like and are you doing anything to help them find their way to you when the time comes to buy? John Sweeney and Ceri Jones teach you how to spot, track and engage ideal customers using lead scoring and nurturing programs at DemandCon 2012.

B2B marketers worship the Funnel. They spend their waking hours trying to design, control and influence its ability progress buyers but how many of us actually know the best to way manage it?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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 Social media has opened up an entirely new forum for B2B marketing, but many-a-marketer has dabbled and withdrawn from any serious use of these platforms.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?

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?

The way people search for products has drastically changed. B2B marketing plans seem to describe potential customers as if they are static up to a certain point, then all-of-a-sudden engaged. But buyers are seeking out information all the time through Google, blogs and social media. So how do you leverage this new buyer-behaviour in a B2B marketing plan that helps them move though your sales funnel?