Sales and Marketing Alignment Requires Process Oriented Culture

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

You may have implemented Marketing Automation But Is Your Culture Ready for a Sales and Marketing “Process” Driven Culture?

In Part 1 of this series we discussed why as a  B2B outsourced sales and marketing company we felt that implementing a sales and technology stack focused on marketing automation is only the start of transforming your sales and marketing organization.   In that blog we share what a sales and marketing database technology stack looks like. In that blog we also posited the following four pillars:

  • Sales Content and Marketing Content that sells to the buyer the way they want to buy.
  • Training your sales in this new approach
  • Giving Sales and Marketing a Shared Sales Quota
  • Implementing the sales and marketing technology stack

All four pillars are ultimately process driven where the results need to anchored in data requiring the need for a marketing automation platform.

If you examine these pillars they point to the following game changers for sales and marketing organizations:

  • You can no longer function in silos when you create content.  Sales needs to talk to marketing and marketing needs to talk to sales.
  • You can no longer measure your success or failure in silos so your data needs to be integrated.
  • We all give lip service to being customer centric but you can no longer be successful unles you focus all your attention respecting where your customer is in their buying cycle or you will lose business to your competitors.

Unless you are launching your sales and marketing organization from scratch  all the points above may require a cultural shift:

  • You can’t expect bag carrying sales reps and executives understand the new paradigm because they are focused on growing revenue and closing deals this quarter.
  • You can’t expect a marketing organization  to embrace  having their B2B demand generation efforts be measured on closed business
  • With the buyers calling the shots now your marketing team may need to listen to the “Voice of the Sales Force” More than they are comfortable with.
  • Your executive team may need to be convinced that sales and marketing are both a marathon and a sprint.

So ultimately if you look at the challenges your organization faces in aligning sales and marketing — the challenge you may face is no different from the challenges most organizations face – you need to start with commitment to a sales and marketing “process” driven culture.

 

To make this shift ultimately starts with a shift in culture.  And the cultural shift needs to  start from the top down.   You either belive that the buyer now controls the sales process or you don’t.   If you do believe the buyer controls the process you neeed to decide if your organization willing to:

  • Evaluate the sales and marketing team and bring in talent that understand both the technology and processes so you can shift your culture?
  • Genuinely create an approach that puts the customer at the center of your sales and marketing process which starts with listening to the Voice of the Salesforce since they are closest to the customer?
  • Is your company convinced that long term success that you need to committ to nuturing and educating customers not ready to buy?

The final blog in this series will give you some current trends that you can explore internally to see if your company is throwing B2B Marketing and Lead Gen Budget down the drain. Are you losing because you will not commit.

If any of the facts and figures we are sharing hit a chord or to see if Sales and Marketing Outsourcing or some Sales and Marketing Process Consulting may be able to help you accelerate your B2B Demand Generation Engine please feel free to contact us for a free benchmark and 30 minute needs analysis.

Related Blog Posts:

Top 10 Strategies for B to B Demand Generation

How to Align Your Sales and Marketing Process

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Marketing Automation Insights from Sales and Marketing Outsourcing Firm

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

Sales and Marketing Alignment is More than Marketing Automation

As an outsourced sales and marketing company Gabriel Sales is now a staunch advocate of pulling together an integrated sales and marketing technology stack to align sales and marketing around the one goal of helping your buyer to buy the way your buyer wants to buy.  However the technology stack is only about 20% of the challenge we all now face.   Getting that technology stack to do what it was designed to do may require significant shifts in both sales process and overall company culture (often from the top of the organization).  This blog and  the following blogs addresses those challenges at a very high level  to arm you with some facts and figures to convince you to take a look at marketing automation and to help you understand that simply implementing a sales and marketing technology stack is no magic sales bullet.

First here is what a sales and marketing technology stack looks like:

 

Marketing Automation Software can tie together your inbound and outbound efforts data sets with your sales force database.

Second here are the challenges a sales and marketing stack will present for your business according to Gleanster:


As an outsourced sales and marketing company we understand that implementing a sales and marketing technology stack requires that you align sales and marketing  around the new rules of sales engagement that have the following five pillars:

  • Sales Content and Marketing Content designed for helping your buyers where they are in their decision making process.
  • Sales reps that are trained in the new rules of sales engagement and closing (hard closing no longer works) that is process driven.
  • Giving Sales and Marketing a Shared Sales Quota that rewards putting sales qualified leads in the pipe that close  that is metric driven
  • Implementing the right  technology stack for your sales and marketing organization to leverage as a team.

Success requires that you examine your sales and marketing process.   Technology doesn’t work unless your team has the incentive, desire, motivation and skill set  to make it work.

If any of these struggles or challenges hits a register that resonates for you and your organization it may make sense to consider working with a B2B outsourced sales and marketing organization.   For more specific tactics you can implement right now we invite you to explore the discrete tactics in our  Sell Smarter, Sell Faster White Paper of visit our B2B Demand Generation Knowledge Center.  If you would like to receive a benchmark feel free to contact us directly to schedule a quick discovery session.

In the next blog in this series we will comment on some additional research that discusses some of the cultural challenges you may face as reported by Marketing Sherpa and finally we will look at what this means in terms of closing business so you can evaluate if you may be blowing your budget by not implementing the right sales and marketing process.

Related Content:

Content Marketing Best Practices

B2B Demand Generation Engine How To Video

Posted in B2B Demand Generation, B2B Technology Sales, Outsourcing Sales?, Strategy and Execution | Leave a comment

B2B Demand Generation Tips – 7 Basic Tactics from a Top Outsourced B2B Demand Gen Team

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

Most people in sales are constantly looking for new ways to generate B2B leads.  B2B Demand Generation can be quite difficult at times, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.  This blog gives you seven simple methods to reach new B2B sales prospects. If this blog  is too basic for your needs we invite you to check out our B2B Demand Generation Blog Topic area or our B2B Demand Generation Knowledge Center.

Cold Calling

True, it is one of the oldest and most hated methods. However, when it is done properly, cold calling can be a highly effective means of reaching new prospects. As a B2B demand generation company we still believe that there is no better way to target specific decision makers.  It has been proven that making consistent calls produces consistent leads.  However it is now one of the most expensive investments.  For detailed ROI analysis and recent cold call benchmarking check out our Cold Calling is Not Dead but You Need To Be Smarter! blog.

Email Publications

With email publications and email newsletters, you can easily reach thousands of people at each publication time.  You can collect names and emails through your website, or a variety of other means. Business owners and sales representatives can (and should) create their own newsletters, which can include tips of the trade or news from your industry.  It is likely that you will eventually gain a few customers using this method simply by staying top of mind.

Mass Mailings

While most field reps do not fully grasp the benefits of this method, there is whole industry of people who sell like this, which is called direct marketing.  The success of using sales letters comes from sending a well-written letter to a number of high quality, or targeted, prospects.   We use this as an outsourced B2B demand generation tactic when there are just a handful of decision makers inside Fortune 2000 companies.  We have found that the often hold onto a brochure in a file and will reference at a later date.  However we do recommend you customize the intro letter.

Advertising/Internet Advertising

While this method can generate large numbers of leads, it must be done right.  Otherwise, you can spend tons of money with no results.  Start by looking for publications that already serve your specific audience, and use ads that motivate people to action.  Try to stay away from pushy, big company style image-based advertisements.

Internet advertising is more suited for independent professionals and smaller companies.  Search engines can generate leads by creating ads from within your website.  You are able to develop highly targeted and qualified leads by determining what keywords are most used by your prospects.    The longer the tail of the search and the more niche your solution the more we recommend Pay Per Click.

Live Seminars

This method allows you to find leads very early in their buying process.  It is important to pitch a solution to a problem that you know your targeted audience already has.  The cost for seminars is inexpensive (including equipment, promotion, room rental), and the price jumps down even further for teleseminars.  Having your top executive conduct the seminar can sometimes help pull in more prospects.

Trade Shows

This method is not always as successful as the others on this list, but can still be helpful if your company has the extra time and money to expend.  If you can find an event that coincides directly with the interests of your target audience, trade shows can produce leads.  However, the quality of leads may be lower because trade shows are more often attended by the influencers than the decision-makers of a company.

Complementary Partner Referrals

This method differs from industry to industry, but results in the highest quality leads.  It is important, for B2B sales, to build relationships with other companies who sell to the same people you do.  By partnering with other businesses who operate in the same industry, you can begin to share information and prospects, which makes everybody happy.

Want to explore B2B demand generation in greater depth?    CLICK HERE to go to for additional B2B demand generation resources.   CLICK HERE to view our How To Build a B2B Demand Generation video.  To schedule a free pipeline velocity and benchmark review please click here.

 

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Seven Basics Steps for Creating an Effective Landing Page – Outsourced B2B Demand Generation Tips

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

In a previous blog, we discussed the importance of landing pages in B2B Demand Generation.  Having a flashy layout or cool graphics can help grab your visitor’s attention, but what we have seen in the data as a top B2B demand Generation Company is that what the page actually says in much more important.  This blog outlines the basics of how to make the most of your B2B Demand Generation landing pages, by detailing specific content related issues.  If this content is a little too basic for your needs we invite you to check out our B2B Demand Generation Blog Topic area or our B2B Demand Generation Knowledge Center.

Here are seven B2B Demand Generation tips for creating effective and persuasive landing pages.

  1. Align content with keywords.  The reason for having landing pages, is that they are content-based.  This means that when a visitor clicks a link to “lead generation”, they should land on a lead generation landing page, not a home page.  Sending your visitors on a wild goose chase to find the information they are looking for is likely to fail, so make it as easy as you can for them.
  2. Have multiple landing pages for each of your products, services or campaigns.  Directing people to their specific interests makes it easier for them and gives you credibility.  You can use Pardot to create landing pages specific to each campaign, which has an easy-to-use drag and drop tool designed to generate multiple pages with no coding required.
  3. Know who you are talking to.  In addition to pages categorized by campaign, you should create audience-specific landing pages as well.  Different content appeals to different people, what appeals to IT personnel may not appeal to the marketing team.  If you take this into consideration and build your landing pages accordingly, your visitor will be much more likely to convert, as you are already speaking their language.
  4. Decide what you want.  You have to figure you what you want your visitors to do once they come to your landing page.  Are you satisfied with people reading certain content, or do you want email addresses as well?  You can get both by offering content as collateral for contact information.
  5. Make sure you have a clear goal.  Try not to overwhelm or confuse your visitor with many different options on the same landing page. Pick one specific action as the goal of each landing page, and make it obvious.   The goals should always be B2B Demand Generation of Sales Qualified Leads.
  6. Simplicity and transparency are key.  Be clear and concise with your language; using simple “if/then” statements work well.  For example, say something like, “If you fill out this form, then we will send you a white paper about a specific topic.”
  7. Remember to use the right keywords (the keyword for this page is B2B Demand Generation) to get a slight SEO lift for your overall website.

For more information on building effective landing pages, please visit our blog titled “The Importance of Landing Pages” or contact Gabriel Sales directly.

If you’d like look at B2B demand generation in a little more depth we invite you to check out our CLICK HERE for our Knowledge Center dedicated to B2B demand generation.  For a quick overview of how Gabriel Sales creates and integrated inbound and outbound machine CLICK HERE to view our How To Build a B2B demand generation engine.  To schedule an appointment for a free pipeline velocity review from Gabriel Sales, please click here.

Posted in B2B Demand Generation, Sales & Content Basics | Leave a comment

B2B Demand Generation Basics – Tips from B2B Lead Generation Company

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

This blog looks at the purpose and function of landing pages and their importance as a B2B lead generation tool and touches on how you can leverage landing pages to find new prospects and close deals.   If this content is a little too basic for your needs we invite you to check out our B2B Demand Generation Blog Topic area or our B2B Demand Generation Knowledge Center.

Anytime a visitor reaches your website from an outside link, they have found a landing page.  Recent market research has shown that improving the quality and function of landing pages can be a low cost way to help companies improve prospect conversion rates and B2B demand generation efforts lead generation.  However,  as a top B2B demand generation company we have found that only attention grabbing, well-designed landing pages effectively find prospects and qualify leads.

When it comes to any type of professional or personal relationship, we generally accept the importance of making a good first impression.  If you want someone to buy something from you, this becomes absolutely crucial.  In this sense, landing pages can be compared to the many entrances to a Macy’s department store.  Regardless of what entrance you choose to walk in, Macy’s has a colorful or stylish visual display waiting to greet you.  When creating a landing page, you want to create the same effect.  You want to find the right balance between showing off your newest and most impressive goods and offering something for everyone.  Borrowing another tactic from a Macy’s entrance, you can offer multiple incentives or enticements on your landing page, which are aimed at motivating people to buy something.

It is also helpful to think of the people visiting your landing page like Macy’s customers.  Some Macy’s shoppers are simply there to look around, and do not plan on purchasing anything.  Others will not be your target audience, and some will have entered the store by mistake.  A few will be genuinely interested in a purchase, but are not yet ready to buy.   These are not the people you want to target when it comes to your landing pages.  The type of customer you are looking for is the one who walked into the store knowing what they were looking for and already has an intention to buy.  These are the customers you are most likely to persuade, because you have already determined they have an interest in your offering.

Another way Macy’s strategy can be applied to landing pages is with upkeep and customer service.  Macy’s constantly updates their store displays and product offerings, and offers their customers new discounts and deals.  Landing pages should be treated with the same constant care and be updated frequently to keep current with market needs.

While creating an effective landing page is key step in quality lead generation, it is not the only method available (other ways to generate leads are discussed here).  However, we recommend as an outsourced B2B demand gen company that well designed landing pages should not be underestimated as an easy and effective way to transition prospects to leads to qualified leads to customers.

If you’d like look at B2B demand generation in a little more depth we invite you to check out our CLICK HERE for our Knowledge Center dedicated to B2B demand generation.  For a quick overview of how Gabriel Sales creates and integrated inbound and outbound machine CLICK HERE to view our How To Build a B2B demand generation engine.  To schedule an appointment for a free pipeline velocity review from Gabriel Sales, please click here.

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Sample Outsourced B2B Demand Generation Scorecard

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

As an outsourced B2B demand generation company we understand that shifting your culture is not easy.  Your sales team and your marketing team may not communicate fluidly.  Your B2B demand generation effort may be  focused on B2B lead generation and not closed deals.  This blog give you a simple B2B demand generation scorecard as a first step to give Sales and Marketing a shared quota.

As the first step to integrate and align sales and marketing we recommend that you create an agreement between sales and marketing that clearly defines the different stages of a lead and what makes a lead ready to be worked by sales.  As an outsourced B2B demand generation team we understand that to two organizations and even personalities within an organization will always agree what a sales qualified lead is so we recommend that this be done in writing.   As a second step we recommend that you craft a very simple scorecard so the team works together towards a single goal – Closed business. Once this is done the entire team will be focused on working as a “team” to move deals through your sales process.  Keeping the scorecard simple is essential.  As a B2B demand generation process consulting firm this is the best practice to frame that scorecard.


Touches to Interest – How many times do you need to attempt to reach them before they show interest.

Interest to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) – Interest in your information.

MQL to Sales Accepted Lead – Does it make sense for a Sales Representative to work the deal

Sales Qualified Lead to Proposal – Once a lead is an SQL you need to set benchmarks for how many buyers move to accepting a Proposal or Price Quote

Proposal to Closed Deal – There is no grey area to sales or marketing what the shared quota is all about.

For help,  B2B demand generation process consulting or facilitation of conversation between your sales and marketing teams or get some free B2B Demand Generation bench marks feel free to CONTACT US.

For more information on how a top outsourced B2B Demand Generation company approaches increasing velocity in the new economy we invite you to visit more of our blogs:

Top B2B Demand Generation Requires Sales Content Marketing

Top B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment

5 Steps to Launch or Turn Around a B to B Demand Gen Team

 

Posted in B2B Demand Generation, B2B Technology Sales, Strategy and Execution | Leave a comment

B2B Demand Generation – Cold Calling is Not Dead but You Need To Be Smarter!

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

We get asked all the time “Is cold calling dead?” for B2B demand generation and lead generation.    The answer is a definitive no!  However cold calling is not as cost effective as it once was.  So B2B cold calling in isolation is a risky bet.  This blog addresses how as a B2B Demand Generation company and sales process consulting firm we have had to shift our approach to outbound cold calling and B2B lead generation.  Here is what the numbers tell us:

  • On the down side…In 2011 our average call (time a rep picks up the phone)  to connect (times a decision maker picks up the phone) ratio was between 7% -16%  (depending on the Industry).  In 2008 it was between 12% – 21% (once again depending on the Industry).   Calls to connect are 30% to 50% less effective getting someone on the phone.   This is driven in part by better screening technology but it is primarily driven that with downsizing there are less decision makers, doing more work so they have less time to pick up the phone.
  • In 2011 our average call to meaning full conversation is unchanged and prospects willing to accept information has slightly increased 0.5%.  In 2011 our calls to conversions into a Sales Accepted Lead is only down 2%-4%.    Sales Accepted Lead to Sales Qualified Lead is virtually unchanged although they take about a month to a quarter longer to move.   What this tells us is that cold calling is still effective when your call is picked up. And once you connect you patiently stay on top of the lead systematically.

To our mind there is no better way to target your ideal customer if you are convinced your product or solution will meet their needs because you get to decide specifically who to target.   As a sales consulting firm that builds B2B demand generation

What to Do:

It all comes down to maximizing the efficiency of your more senior reps by being smart. Here are a handful of increasing the success of your outbound B2B demand generation efforts.

  • You need to build and ideal customer profile prior to purchasing a list.  Garbage in means garbage out.  Support your B2B lead gen reps.
  • Spend a little more money on your lists and spend time scrubbing your list.
  • Craft a solid voice mail pitch with a compelling offer for your B2B lead gen reps to push.
  • Put a junior resource on new lists to verify phone number and direct lines.  Leverage content as a surrogate for domain expertise and your senior sales reps.
  • Automate your sales follow up with a drip marketing campaign.  You are paying good money so nurture what you have. B2B demand generation requires nurturing to maximize your investment

What to Avoid:

  • Forget to follow up with your existing warm pipe
  • Not measuring the production or non-production of every cold call your B2B lead generation rep makes
  • Holding your B2B lead generation reps accountable for daily, weekly and monthly lead gen call volume targets
  • Rewarding your outbound lead gen team for anything but Sales Qualified Leads.
  • Not following up with additional educational content

If you have any questions or feel like a conversation makes sense to learn how Gabriel Sales can help you pull together a more effective demand generation program whether you are  mid cycle or building a new effort feel free to CONTACT US.

For a quick look at what a B2B demand generation engine looks like to get a sense if you could benefit from some quick sales and marketing automation process consulting we invite to CLICK HERE you to check out our short 4 minute video.

Posted in B2B Demand Generation, Underperforming Sales | Leave a comment

B2B Lead Generation Fundamentals – Soft vs. Hard Lead Generation

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

B2B sales companies have come up with a variety of ways to generate more leads, and building a successful campaign requires that companies carefully and strategically choose a method that addresses their specific goals.  As an outsourced sales,  outsourced lead generation company and outsourced marketing firm this is part of our series to educate customers not experienced in sales and marketing with some of the basics of lead generation to help them make an informed decision about lead generation outsourcing.  This blog discusses the differences between hard and soft lead generation methods, as well as when each is appropriate for use.

If you would like meatier content on B2B Lead Generation we invite you to visit our knowledge center devoted to B2B Demand Generation.

The first thing to do when coming up with a lead generation strategy is to clearly articulate you goals.  These should be both quantitative and qualitative.  How many leads are you trying to get?  What kind of sales to you need to generate?  Who is the audience you are trying to focus on?  How early or late in the sales cycle do you want your leads to be? What are you willing to pay for a lead?

These questions are important to ask because how you choose to generate leads will affect the number and quality of your leads.  Soft strategies tend to generate large numbers, while harder strategies tend to generate a higher quality.

The Soft Offer

Soft offers pull in high numbers with an incentive that has very little perceived risk.  If you use a sweepstakes type strategy, and offer free tickets to the Super Bowl, you are likely to get an unprecedented number of respondents.  However, most of these leads are likely to care more about football than your product or service, and few will convert to qualified leads.  One example of a soft offer that we have seen work is gift cards or a free iPad.  As an outsourced lead generation company we have found that this is sometimes a great way to generate a quick opt in database..

This method should be used when companies are looking to get leads earlier in the sales cycle.  It also requires more time to weed through the large numbers to find qualified leads.  This approach is best when trying to jump-start your sales or create a lot of activity.

The Hard Offer

Hard offers produce fewer respondents, but the leads that are generated are much more likely to be qualified.  By offering something that has a slightly higher risk, or involves some type of commitment, you are likely talking to someone much further along in his or her sales cycle.  Hard offers can include invitations to webinars, an audit, a consultation, etc.

Use hard offers when you want to target prospects further into the buying cycle, or do not have the time to weed through large numbers looking to qualify.  The leads you generate with hard offers are much more likely to convert to closed deals, so take this into consideration when engaging with them.

When it comes deciding which method will be most effective for your company, knowing who you are talking to is key — A hard offer is appropriate if trying to target buying executives, while you might want to try a soft offer if you want to talk to marketing teams.  Figure out the type of lead you want and determine what is valuable to this type of person. If you can make your offer appealing to your desired leads’ interests, your campaign is likely to be successful.

Gabriel Sales has over 12 years of experience as an outsourced lead generation company.   For more sales basics please feel free to visit our Blogs on Sales and Content Basics.

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Top 10 Strategies for B to B Demand Generation

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

We are calling this a Top 10 list, but as we went through the strategies, we felt the need to give your b to b demand gen amplifier one more notch and took it to 11.  This blog post is a quick reference for your company to build a successful b to b demand generation practice.

1. Don’t wait to follow up on leads.  You spend $15K, $30K, $100K plus on a trade show.  You spend money on inbound pay-per-click, or publishers etc. If the marketing department is in charge of sharing the leads they may score and then share with an internal team or an outside vendor.  If the sales team is in charge they will often prioritize by gut.  We understand the value of both approaches.  You want to call the best prospects first.  However, generally what occurs is that lag time of a few hours can turn into days and weeks.  That lag time hurts especially if your leads are in a highly competitive industry (getting there first improves your closing % by as much a 100%), your sales cycle is 90 days or less (first 3 get short listed), or your leads are driven by search engine marketing (could be a “just in time” need).  Many marketers we talk to will proudly say “we call on incoming leads within a week.”  Guaranteed they have never done a study on the effects of that delay.

2. Make those extra calls. Don’t give up on leads after 1 or 2 calls if you don’t connect.  This is especially challenging for sales reps that are not supported by a demand gen inside rep. A sales reps’ job is to close business.  If they have deals moving this quarter they don’t always have the time to make that third or fourth call.  As a b to b demand generation outsourced company and a sales outsourcing solution provider we have done countless studies that have shown that the 3rd, 4th and sometimes 5th attempt is where the payoff comes.  This is especially true the more senior the decision maker.  They are just tougher to reach.

3. Have an additional piece of content. Have a new offer after every call to keep the prospect engaged and give your rep “a reason to follow up” to ask them what they thought.  Bottom line is that content keeps a deal moving without needing to get your senior talent on the phone to educate the prospect.  It provides a reason for dialogue.   It allows you to keep asking “what else are you curious about or what can I share to help you”.   It allows you to talk about their needs while you share your position as well.  Selling is about the customer not you and this allows you to kill two birds with one stone.

4. Lead with more than just a demo as your initial offer.   As a sales outsourcing company we understand that clients want us to transact now but it doesn’t always work that way. Their strategy is often to get the prospect in that demo as quickly as possible and if the prospect is ready to do that great! However smart b to b demand generation requires that you also have an offer for prospects that aren’t ready to make that commitment.  The prospect is not unintelligent.  They know that getting into that demo starts them on the path towards committing to buy.   They may not be ready to make that decision yet and they don’t want to waste your time or theirs, so give them a way to engage that is a bit softer and slower.

5. Educate but keep the costs down. We live in competitive times so many businesses’ marketing efforts focus on the product and ignore the value of educating their prospects so that they realize the value they are offered.  To win deals and ensure you are receiving a top dollar for your product or service the customer needs to understand the value you are driving for their business. To explain that value the customer needs and wants understand that value. So you need to help your customer by helping your customers get what they want – which is fair, independent and “neutral” views that help them take informed and unbiased decisions.  This is quick content to create especially for your senior sales executives if you can get them blogging.  What is common sense for you as the expert, especially when it comes to competition and the “internal independent research” available,  is often very valuable new information for you customer.

6. Don’t forget about your existing customers.  They are the core of your business, without them you don’t exist.  So the core of your business is that successful relationship.  Keep building on that relationship and continue to share content with them to build even more trust.  This will organically turn them into advocates.  They tweet, they belong to Linked-In, Google +.  Don’t ask for them to do it.  Just make it easy for them.  Referrals work in new and unexpected ways so simply be surprised and especially grateful when they ask to contribute content for you.

7. Listen to your sales team and your prospects to generate your content strategy.  In many cases, the sales team understands what the customer needs before the customer does.   This is especially true if you have a disruptive solution moving into an existing market or an existing solution moving into new markets.   Creating a great deal of content quickly is not tough.  If you listen to your prospects objections and the same questions or concerns come up several times turn it into a blog post.  You can than take that sales conversation to address other prospects’ needs and, even more importantly to your b to b demand generation effort, take that “sales conversation” into the social media conversation.

8. Know your ROI inflection point when implementing a Marketing Automation Platform and Nurturing program.  A platform (as an outsourced sales company we recommend Pardot) cost $16K.  A 3 series webinar will cost you roughly $6K-$10K in house or external.  Basic blog content creation will cost about $12K.  And planning, database integration and implementation can range from$12K to $24K.  So all in you are looking at $72K if you are starting from scratch.  If you are following the best practices laid out above or you have implemented a sales outsourcing solution, or b to b demand generation solution with Gabriel Sales, you will already have a great deal of the content planning you need so an implementation is roughly $24K-$36K.  You can do the math from there (we have a back of the envelope chart below to help).  If your average deal size is $100K + the ability to track digital content and the time savings alone for the senior rep makes it an easy decision to pull the trigger. For smaller and shorter sales cycles it really comes down to how many leads you have in your database because countless studies have shown that if your product has legs you can expect to convert at least 1% to 3% of the leads that were initially just curious:

 

9. Create digital landing pages for your sales reps to use that are customer centric..  As your content grows create a resource page that is customer centric.  Design them to help the customer make decisions.  Give them educational content, evaluation content and verification content in one easy to find area.  Combine your general educational content (70%) with some vertical specific content (30%) so you are speaking directly to that particular need or pain area.  Don’t make the content just about you make it about them;  around the needs of your customer by decision maker type.  Make it easy for your customers to find what they need, and almost as important, make your brochure dynamic so you are not wasting your sales reps valuable phone time keeping up with new additions to your marketing mix.  Keep them focused on selling.  Gabriel Sales has developed a simple to implement landing page engine that can be up and running for you in a matter of weeks to jump start this process.

10. Re-purpose the digital land page to generate inbound traffic and remove barriers to engaging.  The “sales” conversation, the digital conversation and the “social media” conversation are the same conversation.  The objections your reps hear and address are the same that customers who haven’t found you yet have.  Make it easy for them to find you and maximize your sales content investment by driving traffic to that page with long tail SEO and PPC campaigns that keep your costs down.   Keep the language on the page focused on the customer using the language of “your” and “you” not “we” and “us”. And finally keep the requirements of your form down to the basics – customer name andemail address.  Keep  any other fields optional.

 

11. Lead Generation Reps and Demand Generation Reps have different tasks and need different skills sets.  The new rules of sales engagement require your demand generation reps and your sales reps to have different skill sets.   Lead gen reps are often calling cold.  Their scripts are different, their call volume is different and their personality is different from what is required by reps moving inbound leads forward.   Demand gen reps are there to facilitate.  Lead gen reps are there to put leads in the pipe.  Be conscious of the difference and either train your lead gen reps in the new rules of sales engagement (so they are not creepy or overly assertive) or hire a different rep to move deals from Marketing Qualified to Sales Qualified.

 

For a full overview of why we feel it makes strategic and executional sense  to have your sales team involved in your sales content marketing strategy, strategic approaches to team integration and a road map for fluid communication we invite you to read the following blogs:

Top B2B Demand Generation Requires Sales Content Marketing

Top B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment

5 Steps to Launch or Turn Around a B to B Demand Gen Team

If you have any questions or feel like a conversation makes sense to learn how Gabriel Sales can help you pull together a more effective demand generation program whether you are  mid cycle or building a new effort feel free to CONTACT US.

Posted in B2B Demand Generation, Developing B2B Content, Strategy and Execution | Leave a comment

B to B Demand Generation’s New Rules of Engagement

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Gabriel Sales

The rules of sales engagement have changed and so has b to b lead generation for three reasons:

1.      Over the past 18 months a wave of technology has hit the market that allows an in house marketing team or outsourced demand generation and marketing operations team take deals deeper and further through your sales funnel than ever before. Your buyers digest, on average, 10.7 pieces of collateral prior to buying.

2.      Marketing Automation Platforms allow you to nurture your customers not yet ready to buy with increased volume and increased efficiency.  The ability to track the consumption of that content saves your top producers and senior talent tons of time working with your customers to transact.

3.      A sales driven marketing team can create content that helps engage the customer, close business and generate leads simultaneously.

Your sales content is now an extension of your sales team.  The right approach to integrating inbound efforts and your sales teams outbound efforts anchored in a smart sales content strategy can meet your customer in their buying cycle with the right team, delivering the right message at the right time.  This allow you to:

  • close those “ready to buy” faster and cheaper
  • not lose customer “not ready to buy” or without budget and close them when they are ready

One of the tricks in making this all work is the right b to b sales content strategy.  It needs to be great and it needs to be driven by your sales team and supported by marketers.

Great b to b sales content is focused on moving deals forward to close.  Sales content requires that you:  listen to your customers, listen to your sales reps, listen to your product specialists, create content for specific stages in the customer buying cycle and then re-purpose and  repackage around a specific segments’ needs.  Your sales content needs to be:

  • Designed to move Marketing Qualified Leads to Sales Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads to Closed Business
  • Designed to be used by Inside Sales Reps and Senior Sales Reps in the Close
  • Designed to be “Authentic” dialogue…no CLIOs here
  • Not designed for Mass Market
  • Leveraged by Inside Reps to decrease the time Executives and Product Specialists spend in educational meetings to move deals forward
  • Able to train and support a sales “champion” to internally sell complex solutions or technologies within their organization.
  • Once created, re-purposed across multiple platforms.

This content can also be leveraged aggressively for long tail Pay per Click campaigns and long tail Search Engine Marketing.  Once proven, creative agencies can polish and take to mass market.

You need to never forget that the customer needs to remain front and center. Each piece needs to be designed for a specific stage in the customer’s buying cycle.  Below is our framework for creating sales content that gets the customer and the sales team what they need to transact.

 

For a full overview of why we feel it makes strategic and executional sense  to have your sales team involved in your sales content marketing strategy and a road map for fluid communication we invite you to read the following blogs:

Top B2B Demand Generation Requires Sales Content Marketing

Top B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment

5 Steps to Launch or Turn Around a B to B Demand Gen Team

If you have any questions or feel like a conversation makes sense to learn how Gabriel Sales can help you pull together a more effective demand generation program whether you are  mid cycle or building a new effort feel free to CONTACT US.

Posted in B2B Demand Generation, Developing B2B Content, Strategy and Execution, Underperforming Sales | Leave a comment