marketing plans

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?

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?

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?

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?

MathMarketing Director, Brett Bonser, writes... Motor-enthusiasts know that March in Melbourne means cars. Really expensive, really loud, really fast cars. From my desk, I will be able to hear the sound of engines and virtually smell the petrol and rubber burning. In motorsport, the top drivers know that, “the farther you look, the faster you go.”[1] Even before the season begins, a common set of objectives are defined.  Driver and support crew will have agreed how fast they want the car to go – race by race, corner by corner, straight by straight. So why is it useful for businesses to consider the activities of elite motorsport crews?