Derek Pando says, “A few years ago I started a new job where I was tasked with the sales enablement portion of a major product launch that was set to happen just a few months after my start date. Very quickly after starting my job I realized that the sales reps were in a state of panic. The reps did not know how the new product worked or how to sell it. The reps were reaching out to the support team, marketing and product team flooding them with questions. Each of these organization started having trouble working effectively because of the constant interruptions. Not only was this a drain... [...]

Dan Stelter says, “Just 30% of B2B marketers rated themselves as “effective” at content marketing in 2015. That’s down from 38% the previous year, according to Content Marketing Institute’s and MarketingProfs’ joint Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report. And the content output for brands increased 35% from its highest to lowest points in 2015, but engagement with that content fell, on average, 17%, TrackMaven found. So what gives? Why do you hear everyone trumpeting content as “king,” but just a few companies experience great results? It... [...]

AJ Wicox says, “All too often, I hear two complaints about LinkedIn Ads: It’s too expensive. It doesn’t work. Generally, when I hear this feedback, it’s from those who don’t have the right business to be advertising on LinkedIn. So I thought I’d share what types of businesses should be using LinkedIn, as well as those that should avoid the platform. Who should advertise on LinkedIn The three verticals that tend to work best are: high-value B2B products & services; recruiting efforts; and higher education. High-value B2B products & services Subscription services (like... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “Just like many other research groups at Forrester Research in the past weeks, our team has gotten together, discussed, and agreed on a series of predictions for 2017 that will affect business-to-business (B2B) marketing professionals’ work. Forrester’s clients can review these in full detail in the published report, but here are some of the highlights. We have grouped our predictions into three sections. Part 1: Account-Based Marketing Will Come Of Age In 2017 In 2016, vendors and consultants seriously hyped account-based marketing (ABM) — such that B2B marketing... [...]

Stela Yordanova says, “In my previous article, I discussed ways to measure and analyze website traffic, engagement and conversions. In this piece, I share seven of my favorite Google Analytics reports that help B2B marketers further analyze and understand website visitors. 1. Geographical report If you target certain regions or are running advertising campaigns in particular markets, the Geographical (Geo) report will help you analyze how users from these areas behave on your website. B2B marketers can use this data to determine advertising effectiveness and identify needed improvements (specific... [...]

Danny Wong says, “Writing a sales letter is not an easy task. If it was, everyone would easily score six-figure contracts in a snap. In order to make a sales letter effective as well as specially designed for a large contract, here are some considerations you need to keep in mind. Be appropriately brief The kids don’t use the phrase TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) for nothing. Your sales letter needs a similar approach. While there is an endless debate as to how long the ideal sales letter should be with no magic bullet solution, one thing that all sales experts agree on is that... [...]

Danny Wong says, “Writing a sales letter is not an easy task. If it was, everyone would easily score six-figure contracts in a snap. In order to make a sales letter effective as well as specially designed for a large contract, here are some considerations you need to keep in mind. Be appropriately brief  The kids don’t use the phrase TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) for nothing. Your sales letter needs a similar approach. While there is an endless debate as to how long the ideal sales letter should be with no magic bullet solution, one thing that all sales experts agree on is that... [...]

Peter O’Neille says, “Wow! It may have taken place seven days ago, but I am still exhausted — and exhilarated — from our inaugural B2B Marketing Forumin Miami last week. Here is a short recap of what we covered during the two days. Day 1: Obsess On Customers; Orchestrate A Relationship; Conduct An Engagement The opening main session began with Forrester’s James McQuivey, who inspired us all to understand both how to understand customer obsession and how to drive the necessary organizational, process, and even cultural change. Molly Murphy, from Eaton Industries, presented a best... [...]

Lori Wizdo says, “The explosion of interest in account-based marketing has created uncertainty for business-to-business (B2B) marketers who have invested in marketing automation to optimize their lead-to-revenue processes. It’s not surprising because the vendors that market ABM-badged wares – and many pundits — generate attention with controversial proclamations, like: “ABM is the death of demand generation”; “ABM replaces inbound marketing” and “Lead to Revenue Management (L2RM) is only a suitable strategy for selling products and services to small businesses”. While... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Last month, Microsoft boosted its Dynamics 365 customer relationship management (CRM) system through a new alliance with Adobe’s Marketing Cloud. This week, Microsoft and predictive analytics firm Versium are announcing a new integration that boosts the CRM’s ability to highlight which individuals and businesses are most likely to become customers. The Versium Predict integration enables Dynamics 365 for Sales to automatically — via a “single button push,” according to founder and CEO Chris Matty — generate a list of leads that can be marketed via email,... [...]