Dan Steiner says, “To bring in deals, sales teams need a pool of potential clients to call or email. That pool must be regularly refreshed with new promising leads that fit a company’s ideal customer profile. Businesses spend a lot of money and effort acquiring contact information for targeted customers. However, the dirty secret is that businesses often actually have to spend even more resources researching, appending, and validating customer records once they have them in their database than actually acquiring them. Modern marketing and sales teams rely heavily on automation. Software... [...]

Billy Cripe says, “It’s no secret that social media is emerging as a significant tool in the development of online success and web presence. According to studies, approximately 58 percent of marketers using social media for three years or longer report that it has helped them boost sales. One of the most significant misconceptions regarding social media advertising is that it doesn’t drive quality visitors. In comparison to outbound marketing, social media has a lead-to-close rate approximately 100% higher. Even HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Report has discovered that social... [...]

Bill Cates says, “I want to talk about having fun with referrals. Yes, you read that right. You can actually have fun in the process of generating sales referrals. And when you make it fun, everything gets very easy and feels very natural. Let me give you a few examples. 1) Oh, I’ll Take About 100 People. Art is a financial professional in Baltimore. When he’s asking for referrals he says to his clients, “You know, I’m looking for about a hundred people,” and of course his clients laugh and say, “Art, I don’t even know a hundred people.” He replies, “Okay, okay,... [...]

Justin McGill says, “Being the founder of a company that specializes in cold email, we have seen everything that works and all that doesn’t. By “works,” I mean emails that generate responses and leads. We have several different formulas for cold emails, but one in particular we call the “QVC” formula. Q = Question V = Value prop C = Call to action (CTA)”. A Cold Email Formula That Gets Responses and Generates Leads Business.com  [...]

Kevin McGirl says, “There are many characteristics of a good sales person. According to research from Harvard Business Review, the key factors are a drive to succeed and empathy, and according to research that we compiled last year, being social, competitive and driven is what separates a good sales person from a great one. In truth, a sales pro will possess some or all of these characteristics, but no matter how good they are, it doesn’t make them psychic. With hundreds of customers to manage across thousands of product lines, maintaining a close relationship with each and every one of... [...]

Business.com Editorial Staff says, “Great news! Marketing has a shiny new lead for you. But not so fast—blink those dollar signs out of your eyes. It’s not time to seal the deal yet; you need to get to know each other first. Lead nurturing is the vital middleman between sales and marketing; it helps you build a relationship and gain the trust of your lead. By providing the information they need to make an educated purchase decision, you establish a relationship based on service and helping them achieve their goals as opposed to just selling them something. Oracle says it best: Lead nurturing... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Product brochures are the most common content type created by B2B marketers, but whitepapers deliver the highest-quality leads, according to a recent report from the CMO Council and the NetLine Corporation. The report was based on data from a survey of 213 senior B2B marketing leaders (primarily located in North America), with 46% working at brands earning more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Some 84% of respondents say their company creates product brochures; the next most-commonly created content type is slide presentations (79%), followed by whitepapers (78%), and... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Marketing, sales, and business professionals say email is the most effective digital tactic they use to generate leads, according to a recent report from Ascend2. The report was based on data from a July 2015 survey of 300 professionals from around the world (80% working at B2B-focused companies; 20%, B2C). Some 48% of respondents say email is among the most effective tactics they use to generate sales leads; creating websites/landing pages ranked second (cited by 44% of respondents), followed by content marketing (43%) and search engine optimization (37%)“. The Top... [...]

Michael Litt says, “As much as we’d like to create videos just to entertain people and make them laugh, at some point, your boss is going to ask what your videos are doing to help the company. You do work in the marketing department, after all, and your sales team has an insatiable appetite for leads. Fortunately, you shouldn’t have to search too hard for an answer because video offers amazing opportunities to engage audiences and generate new and better leads. The data you can collect about how each individual person watches your videos will help you prioritize your follow-up. For example,... [...]

Joey Taravella says, ““The conversion sequence is actually a function of understanding the offer. We are not optimizing the product, we are optimizing the offer. As such, we are focused on two aspects: the content and the presentation.” — Flint McGlaughlin, On Improving the Conversion Sequence The goal for most marketers is conversion. Often other metrics, like open rate and clickthrough, are tossed by the wayside for the “all-powerful” conversion. I recently came across a test in the MECLABS research library that spoke to the idea of optimizing an offer through content and presentation.... [...]