by gabriel_sales | Jun 14, 2013
This is Part 3 of a 4-part blog series discussing the need for expert solutions for B2B sales and marketing in 2013. For Part 1, please click here and for Part 2, please click here.
In the first two parts of this blog series, we explained how technological innovations have dramatically changed the way we communicate with one another as well as how we buy and sell things.
To briefly review, we explained that the internet and internet-based technologies have changed communication from a transmission model to a participation model. For B2B sales in 2013, this means that you can no longer simply ‘transmit’ sales material or sell hard upfront. This is because your buyer wants to ‘participate’ in the sales process every step of the way.
By creating digital marketing content and running content marketing campaigns using a marketing automation platform, you can simultaneously give your prospects something to participate in and monitor their buying behaviors.
Using the information you gather from your marketing automation solution, you can intuitively guess how each prospect would like to participate with your brand as they move down the sales/buying cycle. For example, if they have been reading all of your educational blog posts, they might also enjoy downloading a white paper. If they have been clicking on “pricing” or “comparison” type pages, they might be ready for a phone call.
Understanding how the new participatory communication model works, and integrating this information with B2B selling and buying cycles is not a simple task. It requires sales expertise, technological capabilities, the ability to produce a mountain of marketing content, a little bit of storytelling and some social intuition.
In light of this, many companies have realized they do not have the internal capacity to revamp their sales and marketing to fit the new communication model and buying cycle. Instead, they have turned to the experts.
In the last part of this blog series, we explain why trusting the experts makes sense for B2B sales and marketing outsourcing in 2013. Click here for Part 4.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
by Glen Springer | Jun 10, 2013
This week, we have received a lot of questions from our clients, potential customers and friends asking us two questions:
- How do we feel about the acquisition of ExactTarget by Salesforce.com?
- How did they get that kind of multiple? (Salesforce.com paid $2.5 billion with ExactTarget’s expected revenues of $120M for fiscal year 2014).
How do we feel about the acquisition?
As a company, we couldn’t be more pleased!
A year ago to date, we made the decision that we would no longer take clients on without a marketing automation implementation because of the productivity increase we witnessed with our first three implementations. We have done a dozen marketing automation implementations over the past 18 months for our clients. 100% have been with ExactTarget’s Pardot, and 90% have been with Pardot and Salesforce.com. So to pat ourselves on the back, we strategically picked the winners for our customers.
This acquisition is going to make our ability to serve our clients even more productive and powerful, especially as Pardot and Salesforce.com start to fold even more powerful Social Media and Analytics Tools into the mix over the coming years.
How did they get that kind of multiple?
Marketing is undergoing a radical and accelerating transformation where more and more products and services are bought and not sold. This is because self-directed B2B consumers can now leverage a broad variety of digital content instantly available to provide the information they need online.
As a company, this means you now need to fundamentally change how you engage with prospects and customers, which requires a new kind of technology solution – one that allows you to create ongoing dialogue with your buyers across channels. A technology solution that allows your sales team and your marketing team to focus on the needs of your buyers is critical. The combination of Pardot and Salesforce.com makes it easier for your teams to serve your buyers and to hold each other accountable with deep insights and analytics. The combination of Salesforce.com and ExactTarget and Pardot simply make serving this new buyer easier for your sales team, your marketing and your executives. ExactTarget got that multiple because the combination of Salesforce.com and Marketing Automation works for its customers.
Here are several supporting pieces of data:
Market Adoption of the integrated platforms (across both CRMs and Marketing Automation) is still somewhere between 14% to 18% depending on whose numbers you look at. Of those with the platforms (and this is anecdotal talking to other marketers, service firms etc. that we know), less than 25% of the companies using the platforms are pushing them hard and with focus, which means we are still early in market adoption.
It takes about a year to 18 months to have your engine humming, but once it is, we are seeing three significant jumps in conversion numbers.
- Leads properly nurtured convert to Sales Accepted Leads with far less outbound phone calls. With no nurturing, it would typically take 850 to 1000 phone calls to put the same percentage of Sales Accepted Leads you can now put in the pipe with only 120 to 200 phone calls. This makes for an 8X increase in the efficiency of the middle stage of your pipeline development.
- This also transfers to closing at the bottom part of the funnel. Well-nurtured leads are converting into 3X more closes. This doesn’t happen overnight, but when it does, teams are pumped.
- Combining the two points above – according to several studies we have seen, (and some of the numbers we are seeing internally) within 18 months, companies that have done solid implementation are seeing a 157% increase in sales and a lower cost of sales %.
Analysts are predicting that the CMO is expected to spend more on technology than the CIO by 2017. And, according to one analyst report we read in one fell swoop, “Salesforce did what it had to do so they now can call their solution the first Marketing Cloud.”
If you are struggling with your marketing automation implementation, struggling with getting your sales team fully integrated, or just curious and want to learn more, feel free to contact us for a quick consultation to learn more. You can also download our whitepaper Increase Revenue by 157% with Integrated Sales and Marketing . Or check out this quick video for more details about Why Did Salesforce Pay 2.5B for Exact Target?
Watch the video now
by gabriel_sales | Jun 5, 2013
This is Part 2 of a 4-part blog series discussing the need for expert solutions for B2B sales and marketing in 2013. For Part 1, please click here.
In the last blog, we explained that for B2B sales in 2013, buyers have control of the buying process and want to ‘particpate’ in every step of the sales cycle.
What all of this translates to for the B2B sales world is that your stellar salesmen are no longer enough to consistently close deals. When the buyer feels like he is in control; he is not about to let some smooth-talking stranger tell him what to do. He may end up making the same buying decision your salesman wants him to, but he wants to feel that he has been an active participant in reaching that decision.
So, how do you appease the buyer and let him revel in his newfound sense of buying power? You build a sales engine with digital content marketing and let the buyer interact with you digitally until he/she is ready to be sold to directly.
Because the new communication model is about participation rather than transmission, you need to build digital content that buyers can engage or “participate” in. Give prospects the value proposition they need to make an informed decision, but don’t be overtly sales-y about it. Give them educational blogs to read, quick videos to watch or invite them to attend live webinars.
By having participatory experiences with your brand, prospects will start to feel comfortable enough with you to actually want to be sold to. If you use a marketing automation platform along with a strategic content marketing campaign, the buyer’s digital behaviors will let you will know when to start selling.
For Part 3 of this blog series, please click here.
If you have any questions or would like to speak to a B2B sales and marketing outsourcing representative, please feel free to contact us.
by gabriel_sales | Jun 1, 2013
The changing world of B2b sales
In B2b sales in 2013, many companies are starting to catch on to the fact that sales and marketing have changed. Dramatically. This is mostly due to technological innovations that have severely altered the way we receive and interact with information.
In this four-part blog series, we explain how the ways we buy and sell things have changed and why it is no longer easy or effective to sell without the help of experts.
Throughout human history, we have seen time and time again that technological innovation changes the way we live. Inventions like electricity and the telephone played such a role in shaping the world we live in today that we could hardly imagine our lives without them.
So, why should we expect that the internet and internet-based technologies wouldn’t have the same revolutionizing effect on the economy, business and culture?
One of the more interesting changes resulting from the internet revolution is the way people buy and sell things. Before the internet, the mediums we used to get information about the products and services available to us worked on a transmission model, where a message goes from an active sender to a passive recipient. In this model the buyer has little control over the process; he or she basically sits there and waits to get sold to.
The new communication model is less about transmission and more about participation. The internet has allowed everyone to have a voice and created a two-way dialogue. This means that in terms of selling, the power is now in the hands of the buyer. The buyer can now choose what type of sales content to view, what type of medium or device to view it on and when to view it. And now that buyers have all of this power, you can be sure that they will use it.
The next part of this blog series discusses what these changes mean for the world of B2B sales and marketing. For Part 2, please click here.
If you have any questions or would like to speak to a B2B sales and marketing outsourcing representative, please feel free to contact us.
by Glen Springer | Apr 30, 2013
If you take a look around the forums for B2B sales these days, it seems marketers are all buzzing about the promise and potential of webcasts. Marketing Sherpa reported that 30% of B2B marketers are currently using webinars/webcasts as a part of their strategy and have found success with this method.
So, the question now is not whether or not to use webcasts as a part of your digital content marketing strategy, but how to come up with a sophisticated plan for your webcasts that will get you the most return for your investment.
In order to help you with this endeavor, here are 21 tips regarding using webcasts for B2B selling to generate more leads, improve ROI and ultimately, close more deals.
1. Get the word out.
a. Send email invitations and up to two email reminders for each webcast.
b. Promote the event on social media platforms, with increasing posts the week of the event (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google ).
c. Write and post a blog about the event with further details about what the webcast will cover.
d. Require attendees to provide an email address prior to registration (but once they have given their information to you, do not require it again for each subsequent webcast they register for).
e. Encourage participants to “share” that they are attending your event by posting it on their various social media networks.
2. Cultivate an online community.
a. Develop content for your webcasts based on research of your customers’ demographics and biggest business pains.
b. Create one webcast a month (or at least bimonthly) to establish a stable cadence and encourage loyal viewers.
c. Build lasting relationships with prospects using Q&A sessions during and after your webcasts (if your webcast host platform has this feature).
d. Position yourself as a thought-leader within your industry by inviting industry experts to “guest-host” a webcast.
e. Show valuable content in a series or along a planned trajectory so that attendees come back to hear the next part of the “story.”
3. Nurture & Repurpose.
a. If you host your webcasts using a live format, repurpose it afterwards into an On-Demand video so it can be viewed anytime.
b. Host your webcasts on popular hosting sites to optimize for SEO, but also embed them on your own landing pages with your own unique branding.
c. Offer additional pieces of content on webcast landing pages, so your prospects can take themselves further down the buying cycle without any work on your part.
d. Repurpose the main points of your webcast into different types of digital content like blogs, whitepapers, Facebook posts, tweets, etc. that can be used in nurturing campaigns.
4. Measure.
a. Using a marketing automation solution, track data regarding each prospect’s basic demographics and level of engagement.
b. Use the data you collect on prospects to determine their location in their buying cycle and feed them content focused on moving them to the next stage (i.e. if they go to your “About Us” page after viewing a webcast, they are likely earlier in terms of decision making whereas someone who clicks on a “Pricing” page is closer to closing).
c. Give all of the data you collect on your prospects to your sales team (i.e. how many minutes of the webcast they viewed, what webpages they clicked through afterward, etc.), so they can set up conversations based on each prospect’s unique behavior and predetermined needs.
Overall, you want to use webcasts to strengthen your brand story while at the same time providing genuinely valuable content to your prospects. If you take an informed and strategized approach to your webcasts, you can position yourself as an industry leader and simultaneously create a community where people come to solve their business problems. Webcasts allow your prospects to engage with your brand in a one-to-many format but lets them feel like they are having a personalized experience—making you the hero that finally gave them the answer they were looking for.
If you would like to know more about how webcasts help improve your digital content marketing strategy or want to speak to a sales and marketing outsourcing company about content marketing or marketing automation solutions, please contact us.
by Glen Springer | Jan 16, 2013
Many B2B companies try so hard to generate more leads that they do not come up with a clear strategy for how to do so most efficiently and effectively. What these companies do not understand is that a successful campaign requires clearly defined goals and a well-articulated strategy.
This blog is meant to educate those with less experience in B2B sales and marketing about the fundamentals of lead generation. Specifically, we will address the difference between soft vs. hard lead generation for B2B sales and when each is most appropriate to use.
The first step in creating a strategy for lead generation is to formulate your overall goals. You should ask the following questions:
• Who are you trying to target?
• What is the number of leads you want to generate?
• What do you want to achieve in terms of sales?
• Are you willing to pay for a lead? How much?
• Where do you want your leads to be in the sales cycle?
The answers to these questions become essential in determining which lead generation technique will be most effective for your business. Depending on what your goals are, you will usually choose either a soft or a hard lead generation strategy. Hard techniques usually generate a higher quality lead, while soft strategies tend to produce large numbers.
The soft offer:
Using an incentive with an apparently low risk factor, soft strategies will give you huge numbers of leads. For example, if you offer free tickets to the World Series, you are likely to get a massive number of responses. The downside of the soft lead, however, is that most of these respondents are more excited about baseball than learning about your business. So, while the soft lead may give you the numbers you want, most leads generated in this way do not progress any further in the sales cycle.
However, in our experience as an outsourced sales and marketing company, we have found that offering an iPad or a gift card can be quite effective, especially in terms of generating a quick opt-in database. We have also seen that the soft lead generation strategy is most effective for businesses trying to target leads early in their sales cycle. This method will take much more time because of having to sift through large numbers and so should be used primarily when attempting to generate activity or jump-start your sales.
The hard offer:
In a hard lead generation strategy, you offer something that is relatively higher risk than free tickets or an iPad. When you make this type of offer, which may require some type of commitment from your prospect, the leads you generate are usually going to be much further along in their sales cycle. Some things you can use as hard offer incentives are free consultations, preliminary audits, invites to webinars, etc.
When engaging with these types of leads, you should be aware they have a much greater chance of becoming closed deals. We have found that a hard lead generation method is most effective for businesses that have little time to weed through huge numbers of leads and are therefore looking to talk to leads much closer to making a purchase.
If you are still having trouble deciding between soft vs. hard lead generation for B2B sales, a good place to start is deciding who you are trying to target. If your goal is to reach marketing teams, a soft offer may be the most appropriate. On the other hand, if you are looking to speak to buying executives, you may want to go with the hard offer. Once you decide the kind of lead you desire and determine what will be of value to them, you will be able to come up with a successful strategy for generating leads.
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.
