To grow a business these days, one needs to understand why traditional sales and marketing strategies are failing and how to develop a sales marketing strategy that works.

What is Sales Marketing?

A well-crafted combination of sales and marketing is necessary for successful business growth. Sales entail the direct one-on-one interactions, those interpersonal connections that directly add revenue to the bank accounts. Telephone calls, networking, and meetings are all part of the direct sales process.

Marketing, on the other hand, involves all those actions that a business takes to reach and recruit prospects. Examples include direct mail campaigns, advertising, public relations, and television or radio commercials.

Direct sales marketing embodies all of these strategies. The number of ‘touches’ a prospect requires to convert into a sale varies, though research suggests anywhere between three and twelve touch points. More important than quantity, then, is following and maximizing each contact so that the time, cost, and effort put into each sale decreases.

What Isn’t Working?

Some of the most tried-and-true methods of marketing still work. People still love video advertising, for instance. In fact, video accounts for 69 percent of all consumer Internet traffic, according to Cisco Visual Networking. However, many other marketing strategies are falling flat. To be sure, Sirius Decisions reports the average sales cycle has increased by 22 percent over the past five years since more decision-makers are being involved in the buying process.

• According to the 2016 DMA Response Rate Report, direct mail is expected to experience a 19% decline over the next 12 months;
• A mere 13% of people who read print publications report ever looking at the ads;
• 44% of direct mail is never opened;
• 70% to 80% of online users don’t look at online ads, preferring to focus only on organic search results;
• 86% of people ignore television commercials.

Effective Sales Marketing Ideas

As buyers become increasingly over-saturated with advertising gimmicks, it becomes even more important for business owners and marketers to devise innovative ways to target potential customers. It is the role of a business owner, then, to ensure that information is delivered to prospective customers at the right time, in the right format, and on the right platforms. This is where an inbound marketing strategy becomes crucial.

Research

There’s no need to spend copious amounts of time drudging up case studies. Instead, ‘research’ refers to time spent understanding the company and its goals, understanding the industry, and understanding the customers. This is where business owners focus on attracting customers rather than seeking leads and customers.

1. Clarify what the business is and ask:

• What does it mean to ‘grow the business?’
• How will someone know if they’re successful?
• What are the long and short-term goals?
• What is the sales process?

2. Check out the industry

Whether a person has been in the industry for two, ten, or twenty years, chances are pretty high that the industry will keep on changing. As innovations come up or new expectations are established, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve. This is where industry research comes in.

Whether a person has been in the industry for two, ten, or twenty years, chances are pretty high that the industry will keep on changing. As innovations come up or new expectations are established, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve. This is where industry research comes in.

• How do other businesses fare against meeting (or exceeding) the goals?
• What marketing strategies are other businesses in that industry doing to attract clients or customers?
• What current events and news is impacting that industry?
• Is there a business to business marketplace a business owner can access?
• Are there any leaders that a business owner can speak to within the industry?

3. Figure out your customer base

Speak to the people on the ground—those who directly communicate with customers—to better understand the customer base. These are the people who can provide the most insight into what customers want. When talking to them, here are some worthwhile questions to ask:

• Which marketing tactics are most effective?
• Are customers complaining about any current strategies, such as too many emails or obnoxious ads?
• What are the customer demographics?
• What questions are the sales teams answering most?
• What pain point/s does the product or service help alleviate?

Create Effective Content

No longer is it sufficient to leave a website dormant while expecting customers to magically discover its presence. Instead, business owners should update its content consistently. Over 70 percent of marketers say relevant content is the most effective search engine optimization (SEO) tactic, while companies that blog 16 times or more per month enjoy four times more leads than those who publish blog content less than five times a month.

The most effective content is that which focuses on helping customers reach their goals and/or solve their problems. While content on the Internet often grows stale within weeks after publication, it’s best to make sure content is as evergreen as possible so that it can retain its value for years to come.

Recognizing the importance of having an efficient, skilled copywriter either on staff or freelance is imperative. Doing so can increase the company’s revenue substantially, double its customer retention rate, and create brand recognition.

Pay attention to SEO

In the world of marketing, SEO is the latest buzzphrase—and with good reason. SEO consists of all the factors that influence search engine ranking. It is like turning on a spotlight so that customers know where to find a business. After discovering what a company’s customers are looking for (see above), it’s important to weave those keywords onto every page of the website.

To optimize a website for SEO, Entrepreneur magazine suggests that business owners:

• Create a priority list of targeted search terms that pertain to the customer base and market segment;
• Review pertinent industry sources and competitive lists to determine what keywords should be used;
• If users frequently misspell a word, include that in the webpages as well;
• Track the site’s rankings every 30 to 45 days to ensure the keywords remain effective;
• Determine goals ahead of time and make sure they are measurable so that it’s possible to note the return on investment regularly;
• Create page titles;
• Develop new sitemaps for Google and Bing;
• Place strategic words and phrases throughout the content on every page;
• Continually test and measure the business’s success using objective tools to do so.

Develop Podcasts

People love to receive something for nothing. In the world of marketing, the most valuable asset is knowledge. Offer this to customers through an effective use of Podcasts. Podcast listening increased by 23 percent between 2015 and 2016.

Become social media savvy

The effectiveness of social media marketing is contentious. While some people say it’s a complete waste of time, the numbers suggest otherwise. After all, the breadth of audience participation is unparalleled.

• 72 percent of adult Internet users utilize Facebook;
• During the past two years, content consumption on Facebook has increased by 57 percent;
• Instagram has 500 million active monthly users;
• LinkedIn has 450 million members, with a reported 25 percent active on a monthly basis;
• Thirty percent of U.S. millennial internet users use Snapchat regularly.

Stay in contact

Depending on the product or service offered, it may be that the company is on the customer’s mind daily, such as the case with a food product, or only occasionally, as is the case with expensive beauty treatments. Regardless, it’s critical to be in the customer’s thoughts as soon as they are ready to buy. The way to do that is to maintain constant and consistent communication.

1. Collect the customer’s information at every opportunity;
2. Craft email or text campaigns to stay in contact with prospects and previous customers;
3. Be sure the business is listed in local directories and search engines.

Effective marketing means more than relying on direct mail advertising or television commercials. It has evolved into a multi-dimensional, multi-sensory process. Keep up with industry trends, as well as the new technology available to assist marketing efforts using these suggestions.

Source: Tenfold

Long gone are the days when a single radio ad would send customers rushing to a store. Instead, companies must compete with a million distractions before they can direct customers to their products. Luckily, companies also have more ways to contact customers. Often called ‘channels’ in marketing, these ways to contact customers have grown over the years. In addition to television and radio marketing, companies can now take advantage of ways to contact people online, such as email and messaging via social media. 

Rather than focusing on a specific ad campaign in a specific location (such as a billboard), marketers now work to contact customers multiple times. Multi-channel marketing includes a variety of different approaches. Channels to include would be billboards, bus ads, emails, phone calls, TV ads, Google Adwords, Facebook, Twitter, websites and so forth. Any way to reach out to customers to sell a product can be included as a channel.

These repetitions or ‘contact points’ are considered essential. The customer is likely to remember the product when needed and visit the company’s store or website to purchase it; contact points enable the customer to continue the buyer’s journey toward an eventual purchase.

Developing a Multi-Channel Strategy

With so many channel options, businesses need to develop a multi-channel strategy. Without a careful strategy, companies attempt a ‘do-it-all’ approach—which Entrepreneur warns can be ineffective. A ‘focused’ approach is better by far. A 2006 article in the Journal of Service Research highlights these five challenges companies face when developing a multi-channel campaign:

• Integrating data
• Understanding customer behavior
• Evaluating channels
• Allocating resources across channels
• Coordinating strategies

These challenges and ways to successfully circumvent them are explained below.

Integrating Data

The only way to gauge the effectiveness of a multi-channel approach is to track customer responses. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Many channels do have excellent means of tracking customers. Facebook and Twitter have extensive analytics available. Google Analytics can track movement of every customer through the site. However, these bits of data do not integrate easily. Did the customer that came through Facebook initially see the advertisement on Twitter? It’s almost impossible to say. While each channel has data on customer behavior, these discrete snippets do not provide the whole picture.

To counter this challenge, companies can build robust data tracking systems. Many customer relationship management (CRM) software services work to integrate customer data from social media outlets with website visits. Businesses can also be better informed of customer traffic through the site by signing up for Google Analytics which can usually display what channel the customer used to reach the company’s website. These tools provide a better overview of customer behavior across channels so that companies can make adjustments to their multi-channel approach. Thus, if no customers are accessing the website via Twitter, it may be time to divert resources from Twitter to another channel.

Understanding Customer Behavior

If the data shows how customers are contacting the business, marketing managers can begin to understand how the customers behave. For example, they may start to see patterns. It may take four points of contact through multiple channels before most customers visit the website. This could imply that more points of contact may make customers more likely to visit the website. While such insights can help multi-channel campaigns be more successful, the challenge is that these conclusions are often guesswork.

To obviate this, marketing managers should constantly experiment and use the data to see what’s working. If Facebook is sending a bunch of customers to the company website, but no one can figure out exactly why, that’s okay. While it’s better to understand why a strategy is working, sometimes it’s just not possible. The alternative is to rely on data that shows what is working and stick with it for a successful multi-channel campaign.

Evaluating Channels

Data and insights into customer behavior help marketing managers decide what channels to keep and which to remove—but some customers may come through entirely unique channels too. It’s also hard to know which channel finally convinced the customer to buy. Since the data and behavior insights won’t have all the answers, companies need to continue experimenting. A flood of customers will signal that the multi-channel strategy is working.

Allocating Resources Across Channels

Another challenge that companies face is how to allocate time and money to each channel. Without knowing which channels are the highest performers, it’s difficult to know where to send resources. If a company sees a lot of traffic from Facebook, it’s tempting to adjust the multi-channel approach to direct more funding to Facebook ads. However, this may or may not increase the number of customers visiting via Facebook. It depends on many factors that may not be visible to the company or in the data.

To address this, companies should work on finding a balance of resources across multiple channels. It’s an art to find the right allocation to each channel, but the science shows that having more than one channel is a good option.

Coordinating Channel Strategies

Multi-channel approaches are inherently more complicated than selling through a single channel. A Facebook ad may highlight a certain sale. If the person clicks on the ad and lands on the main page of the company site instead of the sale item, a sale may be lost because the customer decides its not worth searching for it. Channels often have to be carefully aligned with each other for maximum benefit. Each ad for each channel may need its own landing page for the customer to make sense of the buying process. More channels usually add more complexity.

The best way to address this challenge is through careful planning. Each pathway to purchase should be analyzed to make sure it is clear and makes sense. A person that sees an online ad and goes to a brick-and-mortar store should be able to buy the item for the same price. As companies have improved at integrating channels, a new marketing approach has been developed: omni-channel marketing.

The Future of Marketing? The Omni-Channel Approach

The purpose of omni-channel marketing is to provide customers with a seamless buyer’s experience. It’s the next step in multi-channel coordination–every channel works together seamlessly. An example provided by Forbes provides insight into a successful omni-channel marketing strategy:

• Channel 1 (Smartphone): The customer decides to buy a pair of shoes via his smartphone, but he’s not quite ready to go through with it. He puts the shoes in his cart.
• Channel 2 (Desktop): He goes to his desktop to show the shoes to his daughter. She doesn’t like the color. He puts a new pair into his cart and waits to get his wife’s coupons before buying.
• Channel 3 (Email): The customer forgets about the purchase. However, an email arrives reminding him of the item in his cart.
• Channel 4 (Desktop): He purchases the shoes via the desktop.

The cart provides a seamless experience for the customer. No matter what channel he uses, he is able to continue the journey towards his purchase.

While this level of integration may seem difficult, omni-channel solutions are available to businesses. CRM software solutions can integrate various channels. For example, a CRM system may respond to a Facebook message with a reminder email a week later. These software solutions help companies develop more seamless buying experiences for customers.

Connecting with customers through multiple points of contact is an effective marketing strategy. However, the multi-channel approach should be monitored via integrated data. Combined with an understanding of customer behavior, this data guides the implementation of further strategies. The complexity of a multi-channel approach can make it difficult to make clear strategic decisions. However, close monitoring and experimentation help marketers home in on the best strategies for each company. Finally, careful coordination of each channel makes a multi-channel approach more likely to be successful. The goal of coordination is likely to be an omni-channel approach which provides a seamless customer experience, no matter what channels the customer uses.

Source: Tenfold

Market qualification (MQ) representatives, sometimes also known as lead qualification or lead qual reps, are highly specialized agents whose role in inside sales transactions is to qualify an inbound lead. Compared to lead development specialists who engage a sourced outbound lead, MQ reps are the ones who research a client who proactively engaged the service to see if there is a possible sale that can be made.

Marketing qualification reps: The tasks

While market qualification is similar to lead development, MQ is much easier to carry out due to a much lower level of research needed to qualify the client. Additionally, since the initiative is with the customer, MQ reps generally need a shorter engagement time to qualify a lead.

The only potential issue is that it’s possible to acquire leads that are not really the target of a service. This can be detrimental as the MQ rep can lose time that could have been used to qualify other incoming leads. A silver lining is that it could still open up good opportunities due to the number of potential clients who are interested in the service.

Tools of the Pre-Trade

Market qualification reps definitely need CRM tools when they engage their leads, moreso than their outbound lead counterparts. This is mostly because MQ reps have less targeted groups of customers to address, whereas outbound lead development specialists are already aware of the specific consumer group they are targeting (i.e. sourced from lead generation, etc.). Specific  CRM functions like the ability to record information, track the customer life cycle, and remind the team to follow up on a lead at specific stages—even after handing off to sales—are very important in market qualification. Even the circumstances of a customer who do not continue with the sales process is a rich source of market intelligence data and can further help MQ reps in improving their qualification process.

In line with having a strong CRM foundation, another good tool is marketing automation software. Because some leads can be qualified immediately based on social media, transaction and payment histories, or even based on their credit rating (if involving financial information), market automation software can help an MQ rep identify and prioritize strong leads. This will increase the velocity of lead hand-overs to the sales team, which allows them to work down their leads immediately and get back quickly to leads that need more research and identification.

Source: Tenfold

It’s long been conventional wisdom that trying to reach a wide audience is usually beneficial in business, but far too many companies spend needless resources chasing leads that aren’t likely to pay off in the long run. As an alternative strategy, many B2B-focused companies have discovered that account-based marketing has the potential to revolutionize their sales.

By making the simple change of allowing marketing and sales professionals to focus their resources on a specific client, companies are learning that it’s possible to create additional value for their customers and reach the untapped potential of their accounts. A recent study found that 60% of organizations that had been using account-based marketing for one year experienced at least a 10% bump in revenue.

The origins of account-based marketing

So if account-based marketing has suddenly become de rigueur for so many innovative B2B organizations, how did we get to this point? Most experts believe that simple forms of account-based marketing emerged in the world of 1960’s advertising agencies, where the agencies would pull out all of the stops in order to keep big clients happy. Most agencies relied heavily on the support from these power-player accounts, who would not only make up a substantial portion of their billings, but would also lead to headline-grabbing press that would keep the names of the partners in the news.

Later, it became clear to many B2B sales and marketing leaders that the specificity that was inherent in an account-based marketing strategy could do wonders for their companies. Most B2B-focused organizations target very specific customers, and they discovered that if they created a strategy that took advantage of this in unique ways they could better service their clients and grow revenue from existing accounts. The challenge was to take the very informal practice that emerged from the advertising industry and incorporate the principles into a concrete plan of action that could be replicated, measured, and improved upon.

Deciding if account-based marketing is right for your business

There are many different kinds of companies who can benefit from implementing account-based marketing techniques, but there are a few characteristics that make some organizations particularly well-suited to the process. Your company may be a good candidate for account-based marketing if:

• You’ve noticed a disconnect between your marketing and sales functions

One of the key benefits of account-based marketing is that it helps to better integrate your sales and marketing strategies, creating a seamless handoff that results in more conversions.

• You specialize in targeting a smaller volume of high-value accounts

If your company is already in the business of serving a smaller number of customers that have a potential for significant revenue growth per account, then you will likely benefit greatly from account-based marketing.

• Your average revenue per account is currently underperforming

In most cases, acquiring new customers is demonstrably more expensive than growing existing accounts. You may be wasting resources by constantly pursuing new revenue when there may be areas where you can provide additional value to your existing customers.

How account-based marketing benefits your customers, employees, and organization

Account-based marketing doesn’t exist to wring additional revenue from your customers, it creates an opportunity for your sales and marketing professionals to provide a highly-specialized level of service and discover new ways to provide value for existing clients. It’s great for the customers, because research shows that approximately 75% of buyers desire more personalized offers.

Your sales and marketing team members will likely benefit from the strategy as well. Account-based marketing techniques give them the chance to perform targeted research about their clients and industries, gathering knowledge that can help them improve the customer experience and earn exceptional accolades for their services.

Account-based marketing strategies also help to reduce the drain on your resources. You’ll spend less time and resources courting leads and prospects that may never convert, and you may also be able to reduce your client churn percentage; a serious concern for most growing B2B organizations.

Guidelines for implementing an account-based marketing strategy

Once you’re ready to start reaping the rewards of an account-based marketing strategy, it’s important to understand how to optimize the execution and get the most value out of your effort. Initially, your primary focus should be on identifying which accounts and personnel are high-value and how you need to allocate your resources accordingly. Then you can get down to the business of developing overall messaging and creating content that is relevant, valuable, and personalized. This is the stage where robust data analysis truly shines as it allows you to dig deep into what your most valuable customers truly need from your organization. Finally, you can determine the best marketing and sales channels for your specific clients and put your strategy into play.

Source: Tenfold

At best, sales and marketing teams are acquaintances. At worst, they’re enemies. At least, that’s the situation at most organizations. While a healthy bit of sibling rivalry typically doesn’t hurt, the sales and marketing relationship often suffers from miscommunication—or a complete lack of communication—as well as occasional animosity. This is remarkable, especially considering that the two teams typically have the same goal: increasing business revenue.

There is a point in the history of sales and marketing in which it may have made sense for these teams to display more competition than camaraderie. John Wanamaker—a marketer active in the 1800s who is often called the pioneer of advertising—is quoted as saying: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

It is easy to understand why salespeople didn’t appreciate marketing efforts in that time. There was no accountability to business results, and salespeople could find themselves wondering whether the marketing team was contributing at all to their work, even while marketers took some of the credit for business success.

Those days are over, though. With the rise of digital marketing and the advent of marketing technology, marketing accountability is at an all-time high. Furthermore, these advances have allowed marketers to take more responsibility in not just catching the attention of ideal clients, but also in nurturing them down the sales funnel to ensure a perfect hand off to sales.

Explaining The Definition of Sales and Marketing: Strategic Sales and Marketing and International Marketing 

What is Sales?

The sales team is responsible for moving products or services to customers. They are also responsible for upselling current customers and clients. While sales teams may practice some form of outreach through cold calling, they typically deal with leads that are brought to them by the marketing team. Salespeople develop relationships with these individuals, determine what their needs are, and determine the proper products and services to fill those needs.

What is Marketing?

The marketing team is responsible for everything from increasing brand awareness to delivering high quality leads to the sales team. From a higher level, the marketing team identifies and defines ideal customers, communicates with them on relevant online and offline platforms, and primes them for a relationship with a salesperson.

Strategic Sales and Marketing and International Sales and Marketing

While these two teams often operate on their own, strategic sales and marketing is the ideal state.  Strategic sales and marketing requires two important elements:

1. Working together in a separate but equal capacity that relies on great communication.
2. Looking to the future by highlighting trends in consumer behavior and pipeline growth as well as keeping a foot in the present by addressing customer’s needs in the day-to-day.

When it comes to international sales and marketing efforts, these elements are doubly important, given the expanded range and larger customer database.

7 Steps for Strategic Sales and Marketing

1. Create Personas in a Joint Sales & Marketing Effort 

Personas are generally considered the responsibility of the marketing team, and they are sometimes ignored by the sales team. Considering that each of these teams is speaking to the same ideal customers, though, this is a huge missed opportunity and an effort that should be worked on together. In the end, this work will benefit both teams.

While the marketing team may still be tasked with the work of creating these influential strategy pieces, sales should be heavily involved in the effort. Getting the input of salespeople up front, interviewing them throughout, and seeking their approval at the end will help marketers create personas that serve both teams and result in vital buy-in from salespeople.

2. Make an Effort to Document the Buyers’ Journey for Each Persona 

The buyer’s journey should be the basis of all sales and marketing efforts. Unfortunately, this step is often skipped. Even more unfortunate is the fact that sales and marketing rarely collaborate on this vital piece of strategy, despite the fact that they each are responsible for significant parts of it.

Sales and marketing leaders should work through each persona in joint sales and marketing sessions, examining how each persona becomes aware of their company, how they become a lead, and how they eventually become a sale. As the teams work through these stages, leaders should keep a list of the various needs and questions each persona will have. This process will help with the next step, which should address what assets are already available to answer these questions and to move each persona through to the next step.

3. Audit Sales and Marketing Assets and Document Gaps Along the Buyer’s Journey 

Now that both sales and marketing know what each persona’s journey to purchase looks like, it’s time to examine whether or not they have assets to speak to audience needs along each step of the process.

In this stage, both sales and marketing need to spend some time collecting everything that both the sales and marketing teams have created, including whitepapers, infographics, interactive quizzes, e-books, case studies, assessments, email streams, and more.

Once this is compiled, marketers and salespeople should organize these content pieces along each step of the funnel identifying where they have appropriate assets, and where they are lacking.

4. Establish a Content Marketing Plan Across the Buyers’ Journey 

Content marketing is often regarded as a brand awareness tactic, and one with questionable impact on revenue. While some sing the praises of content marketing, those who are focused on quantifiable business results may not be sold on the concept.

What many don’t know, though, is that content marketing is an ideal method for connecting sales and marketing as well as building a strong strategy that will move interested buyers through the sales process.

When creating a sales and marketing content strategy, make sure to get both sales and marketing leaders in the room to discuss what audience needs they’d like to address, and how content assets can support throughout the different stages of the funnel.

5. Develop a Joint Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategy 

While a content marketing strategy may seem to favor the marketing team, an account-based marketing strategy will focus on the needs of the sales team. Still, these efforts should be worked on together. Marketing and sales leaders can choose to create an organic ABM strategy or to adopt a more expensive—but very effective—ABM technology solution that will allow for sales and marketing automation.

While the sales team may be more in tune with the accounts they want to target, the marketing team should be brought in at every level. This is especially true when it comes to content creation for the ABM ads or for dynamic, account-focused content on websites.

6. Implement Regular Sales and Marketing Communication Efforts

One of the simplest steps for ensuring a great sales and marketing strategy that creates and maintains alignment of the teams is creating a regular cadence for communication. This could be as simple as a weekly email or as complex as a quarterly offsite. It’s best practice, though, to ensure that both teams are completely on the same page in terms of regular sales and marketing efforts as well as long term business goals.

7. Repeat Steps 1-6 on a Quarterly or Annual Basis

Finally, the last step for a successful sales and marketing strategy is revisiting and refining the steps above. The work of creating successful sales and marketing strategy is never finished. Instead, sales and marketing leaders should make it a priority to track progress, evolve their tactics, and stay abreast of both industry changes as well as client and consumer behavior changes.

Whether marketers are looking to bolster their international sales and marketing or simply start taking steps towards more strategic sales and marketing efforts, the 7 useful tips above will help to create a sales and marketing strategy that drives organizational success.

What’s most important is that marketing teams and sales teams are aggressively working together with an understanding of shared goals and responsibilities. Ultimately, as the roles of sales teams and marketing teams grow closer and the lines of accountability continue to blur, it is in everyone’s best interest to start working together.

The best part is, the more sales and marketing connect on personas, buyers’ processes, strategies, and results, the more refined the efforts will become and the better business results will be. In other words—everyone wins.

Source: Tenfold

Lead generation, the art of attracting potential customers to your business and converting them into buyers, has seen a rapid development in the last decades. Although it is still common to a certain degree to generate leads through conventional channels like personal referrals or telemarketing, the internet has clearly established itself as the preferred lead generation channel. Even the modern field of online marketing is changing at unmeasurable velocities. One clear sign is that lead generation techniques are shifting from an outbound perspective, to an inbound marketing strategy.

It is estimated that only 17% of marketers last year considered outbound marketing practices to provide the highest quality leads.  Sure, traditional techniques such as social media to generate awareness and email marketing to nurture captured leads are still commonly used in the sales funnel, but for the actual lead generation process of converting visitors into prospects, inbound is king. Naturally, traffic plays a key role in this process, and HubSpot estimates that at least 80% of the companies not meeting their revenue goals have less than 10 000 visitors. Nonetheless, no inbound strategy is complete without proper lead generation techniques.

There are hundreds of diverse lead generation strategies being implemented, some more successful than others. Among all the noise in the market, there are some clear trends that apply for this year and keeping up-to-date with the latest technologies and tactics will ensure that your company doesn’t miss valuable conversions out of your inbound visitors. Here are the five most promising trends in online lead generation for 2017.

1. No single channel, no unique device

Diversity is the name of the game in 2017. The time where lead generation channels were limited to a few alternatives, like the telephone or email, are long gone. Today you not only have a great deal of channels which you can choose from, even within a channel you have hundreds of options. Think of social media: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, the list goes on… Great opportunities exist within this huge diversity. The key lies in leveraging the most important ones for your desired target group and combining them with adequate strategies. Nonetheless, one thing is certain: just a few channels, let alone a single one, will not suffice for a successful lead generation strategy.

The same applies to devices: limit your online business to a single device and you are almost certainly doomed to fail. With the increased usage of mobile devices, an online marketing campaign can no longer be focused on desktop computers and laptops alone. Last year there were 2.6 billion smartphone users globally and it is estimated that this number will grow to 6.1 billion by 2020. In the USA, at least two thirds of the population use a smartphone to access the internet. Thus, mobile friendliness is vital for every single online business nowadays. From display to functionality, SEO to traffic measurement, online businesses need to provide not only a UX that is adapted to mobile needs, but they also need to focus on the adequate lead generation tactics and technologies.

2. Quality-driven content marketing = quality lead generation 

In the inbound community, it is popularly stated that content is king. Studies show that per dollar spent, content marketing generates at least 3 times more leads than conventional marketing techniques. It is a great strategy to attract traffic through SEO techniques and also guide a customer along the Buyer’s Journey with proper educational information. However, there is a popular belief that although this technique does help increase audience numbers, it does not ensure high-quality lead generation. This is something that is bound to change and has already been changing for a while.

The immense amount of content offer available at the web is increasing with every single day. This has resulted in large content offer which usually consists of a huge portion of mediocre content published towards SEO goals and a small portion of valuable content. The second one is extremely important from an inbound marketing perspective and will see an increase in the next years. Companies will start focusing in acquiring content professionals and aiming towards content quality instead of quantity and frequency. Moreover, content will be tailored towards specific audiences and customers along specific phases of the Buyer’s Journey, instead of looking to attract a more general public based on virality.

3. Customized lead generation tools 

Just as with high-quality content, lead generation tools are starting to be customized so that they better fit the lead’s requirements, provide a more engaging user experience and thus generate more contacts for your business. A study by Econsultancy and Adobe showed that B2B marketers considered customer experience and personalization to be the most promising marketing trends in the next years along big data. One fourth of them even mentioned customer experience as the single most important opportunity. Engaging content will ensure that the inbound traffic that a business experiences can more effectively be converted towards potential customers. Moreover, personalized experiences from the earliest interaction phases between your leads and your business will give potential buyers a further reason to hang around.

Boring contact forms on a separate page are starting to appear less attractive than customized, gated content in online presentations or videos. Other great examples are quizzes and calculators, which have a much more appealing effect than a regular contact form or newsletter subscription and thus provide a more interesting variant to convert visitors into leads. Even integrated microsites that allow you to track specific user engagement are gaining large popularity.

Which tools you implement depend on the public you address with your content and combining different strategies with diverse tools can help find the adequate approach. And if you’re dubious about the success of adapting your lead forms towards your customer experience, remember that Expedia generated an extra $12 million a year just by removing one field from their regular contact form. Image if they introduced interactive lead generation tools…

4. Data-driven lead generation 

In the age of information, data is essential. It is estimated that 42% of marketers consider that lack of quality data is their largest obstacle towards quality lead generation. Detailed information on the behavior of prospects provide valuable insights on his journey along the sales funnels and helps sales reps take more accurate decisions based on specific data analysis. From tools like Google Analytics, to lead scoring systems, tracking the behavior of leads and registering it in large databases that can be analyzed will be essential. This trend in data analysis is reflected in three main aspects:

• Big data professionals: The increased need for professionals in analyzing large amounts of data on lead and customer behavior.

• Data Analytics Tools: From Google Analytics to CRM solutions such as HubSpot or Salesforce, there is a clear increase in the usage of tools that provide a statistical analysis of customer and lead behavior.

• Machine Learning: Although still on its infancy, machine learning is bound to be large in the following years, with lead scoring systems and other smart data being managed by artificial intelligence.

5. Automated prospecting 

The term marketing automation is probably more popular in the business environment nowadays, than Napoleon Bonaparte was at the beginning of the 19th century in France. It is a trend that is changing the way marketing and sales are done online. Over 70% of businesses are currently using or implementing a marketing automation solution and it is estimated that at the overall investments of companies in marketing technologies has surpassed that of advertising and that a company’s CMO on average invests more in automation technologies than a CIO in IT.

There is no question that marketing automation is big. However, CRM tools and automated lead nurturing have been around for a while, so what is the actual innovative trend here? Two words: automated prospecting. Automated lead generation has been introduced by diverse tools that not only generate lead data and capture contact details from inbound traffic, they also automate or semi-automate activities such as lead scoring and even follow-ups. This on the other hand gives marketers and sales reps more time to concentrate in other key activities along the sales funnels, such as closing main deals. Prospecting is usually one of the most resource-intensive activities of a company, and thus the possibility of automating most of this steps with technologies is bound to have a brilliant future for both, sales and marketing.

AS the VP of marketing from Google Cloud Alison Wagonfeld brilliantly pointed out:

“Marketing still needs art to go with the science.”

No matter how effective the new marketing and sales technologies are and how significantly the are improving the way business is done, we should never lose track of the human side of business. A healthy balance between both will ensure great success for your business in the years to come.

Source: Tenfold

Increasing B2B sales isn’t simply a matter of putting out your shingle and hoping that more customers will come your way. Businesses who purchase from you want to believe they have the right vendor at the right time for the right price. Because there are more people involved and there are higher price points, it can sometimes take months to close a B2B sale.

As a business who markets to other businesses, how can you ‘tilt the playing field’ and make sure that when the customer is ready to buy, YOUR company is the only one that comes to mind?

1. Collect Honest Feedback

Feedback, whether received through surveys, in-person interactions, or email, is vital for both technical improvements to your site and funnels and your customer-facing work. Because in-depth and useful feedback from clients is hard to come by, it’s important that you take steps to automate the process and encourage your clients to provide you with more.

Talk with your clients. Find out what they liked and what they didn’t like. Talk about the number of steps that they took to get to the sale and the process that they went through. Ask them what about your company caught their attention.

Your customer’s needs are constantly evolving. By listening to what they are saying and keeping your ‘finger on the pulse’ you can stay ahead of the competition, making more sales for your company.

2. Try video

There are compelling reasons to have video on your site, but the biggest reason is that it’s one of the most effective means of selling your company’s product.  Customers and clients engage with video, often watching and engaging with the shorter ones for the entirety of the clip.

Here are some noteworthy statistics about video marketing.

• 43% of customers want to see more video from marketers
• 9% of marketers name video as the type of content with the highest ROI
• 4x as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it
• Shoppers who view video are 1.81x more likely to purchase than non-video viewers
• 4 in 5 customers believe that demo videos are helpful

Depending on your products, your videos can have many purposes.

• How-to videos explaining a single part of your product.
• Explainer videos that outline what your company does and how it does it.
• Funny videos designed to get others to think about your product.
• Video testimonials from your clients to persuade others.

3. Upselling and cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling have increased sales of B2B and B2C companies for ages. Upselling simply offers a higher version of the product itself. Cross-selling offers related products to your clients.

Upselling

Amazon has this tactic down cold. For instance, If you place an order for a laptop, you will inevitably be asked whether you want to upgrade the memory card or get a better one. While it might seem like a logical thing to do but shown to billions of people every day can really boost your sales. The intent behind this is showing the customers that he could get a better product by spending a little extra.

Cross-Selling

The McDonald’s sales force are also pros at this tactic.  Cross-selling offers your client something different but related to the first product. For instance, you’ll most likely be asked the famous question, ‘would you like fries with that?’ or the less leading, ‘will that complete your order?’ with every order. This gives McDonald’s customers to look at the menu for another few moments, pondering their next tasty treat.

Cross-selling and upselling tactics can be applied to nearly any business who wants to improve its bottom line and increase B2B sales. By offering multiple versions of the same service or related services, you can create a selling juggernaut with your already ‘warm’ clients.

4. Events

Local events can boost your bottom line like nothing else because they allow you to put a face to the name of the client. Savvy businesses regularly hold events to keep their brand at the top of mind for their customers.  Here are some statistics about event marketing for your reading pleasure. Certain has gathered over 75 statistics for a larger view of the event marketing picture. Here are a few:

• 84% of consumers repurchase the product promoted at the event, after their first purchase (EventTrack Study)
• 51% of marketers surveyed believe that events strengthen existing customer relationships (Marketing Charts)
• 60% of marketers use tradeshows and events for face-to-face customer meetings (Marketing Charts)
• 58% of marketers believe that events and conferences are important ways to improve customer experiences of their services or products (E-Strategy Trends)
• 31% of event marketers believe that trade shows, conferences, conventions, and channel events are essential to doing business in their target customer markets (Marketing Charts)
• 69% of B2B marketers consider in-person events effective (Sensible Marketing)
• The top 5 B2B content marketing tactics: Social Media Content (92%); eNewletters (83%); Articles on your Web Site (81%); Blogs (80%); In-Person Events (77%). (IMN Inc.)

The event that you hold doesn’t have to be something incredibly formal. You can set up something on Meetup for your clients to attend.  By offering your clients something different to get them in the door, you are getting your brand to stand out and receive more sales. 

5. Case studies

Whether Your business constantly generates data and whether you have hired a marketing agency or you are the one doing all the SEO, leveraging that data into the creation of case studies is crucial for your business. Case studies generate fuel for the fire to get more clients interested in your product or service because it’s measurable proof of what your company does.

73% of buyers used case studies in B2B purchasing decisions (2016 DemandGen Report).  Fortunately, developing a case study mostly involves the collation of materials rather than the creation of new materials. Look at your customer successes.  Are there ways that you can parlay that into viable case studies?

These 5 marketing tactics to increase B2B sales are by no means the only way to capture the attention from customers and get more money from each of them. Each of them has their pros and cons, but all of them have the chance to increase your bottom line. What can you do to increase your company’s bottom line?

Source: Tenfold

As digital engagement continues to grow, companies are turning to avenues like social selling, and the next “big thing” that will launch them into the monetary stratosphere. While it’s always proactive to be on the lookout for new technologies and strategies that can increase the productivity and success of your business, it’s equally important to stay committed to practices that are still working; namely, email marketing.

The practice began in 1978, “when Gary Thurek, a marketing manager for the now-defunct computer company Digital Equipment Corporation, sent out an unsolicited mass email promoting his firm’s computer products.” While Thurek was ultimately scolded for his unauthorized email outreach, it’s hard to argue against his efforts.

As a direct result of his mass email, DEC “sold $13 million or $14 million worth” of their products. Of course, what Thurek really did was create the first spam email; although it was certainly the beginning of what we now affectionately call email marketing.

Since that time, email marketing has become more advanced, and less intrusive. Rather than collect a random sampling of contact information and fire away, companies now target specific users who have already shown an interest in their product, been flagged due to their browsing patterns, or who at the very least have visited their website. Incidentally, this is where the email marketing journey begins; collecting the right data.

Getting access  

In today’s age, it’s impossible to conduct a successful email marketing campaign without a populated list of users. The best (and most moral) way to accomplish this is to build a permission-based list.

“Permission-based email marketing is used effectively everyday by hundreds of thousands of organizations to build their brands, increase sales, and strengthen relationships with their client and members. Permission-based email marketing is sending messages to people who have asked to receive them.”

Lists like this can be built by offering something to individuals. Exclusive access to sales, marketing, or technical advice; a download code to an eBook; or invitations to “members only” events. If your business offers a service, you can also offer free-demos in order to attract interested users.

There are other ways to acquire a populated email marketing list; namely through purchasing them. While you can go about email marketing this way, it’s important to note that it’s always a terrible idea to do so.

For starters, a number of “reputable email marketing vendors don’t let you send emails to lists you’ve bought.” A marketing software like Hubspot simply won’t allow it, as they require that you “use opt-in email lists.” Moreover, even if you choose to use a less reputable software vendor, it’s not guaranteed that the list will work. “One customer’s ill-gotten email address list can poison the deliverability of the other customers on that shared IP address.”

Put more simply, you don’t want to take shortcuts when it comes to building an email marketing list. Take the time and effort to building a permission-based list. Not only will you be targeting a better group of consumers, but there’s also no chance of your campaign being infected by a poisonous email address.

Selecting an email marketing provider 

Depending on how many users you want to reach, how you want to talk to them, and how much creative control you’d like to have for your email marketing campaigns, trying to find the perfect provider can be just as difficult as actually putting together your list.

Fortunately, Business News Daily has already done a significant amount of legwork and provided detailed reviews for a number of software systems. They’ve reviewed more than 50 platforms, which should undoubtedly be more than enough for you to start the process with.

It’s also important to ask yourself the right questions to ensure you land on the right email marketing solution.

The answers to these questions will ultimately direct you to the tailored solution. While this may be time-consuming, and potentially delay the start date for your email marketing campaigns, it’s vital that you put forth the time and care that these questions require. If you speed through them and wind up with the wrong platform, you’ll need to start back at square one.

Don’t rely solely on software to track your email marketing success

Once your email marketing campaign has been set up, it’s time to monitor the results. Unfortunately, this is where a number of people begin to lose a grasp on what’s really going on with their data. Too often do email marketing users rely only on email open rates, and take the results at face value; but it’s vital to dig deeper, as Chris Woodard explains.

“What most don’t know is that the mail open rates that your email automation reports is never 100% accurate. And whether you use Streak…SugarCRM, SalesLoft, MailChimp, or any other solution, this is still the case.

Why? Because every time you send an email, these software solutions place a code snippet that gets triggered when an email gets opened. No big deal, right? Not exactly”

Ultimately, this data can be misleading due to an issue with the code snippets that are embedded.“If someone has HTML email disabled in their email client, your email automation will not register it as an ‘opened’ email.”

Fortunately, thanks to echogravity, there’s a workaround that can be used in these situations.

This simple formula “takes into account bounced emails and also eliminates the margin of error that can occur when going solely off of the ‘open rate’ numbers from other automation platforms. “

While you may prefer to simply stick with the data being returned by your specific platform, it’s important to remember that the results may not be 100 percent accurate. Don’t take them as gospel, and make sure to continually ask yourself “do these results make sense.”

To compare your open and clickthrough rates with other businesses, Smart Insights has this link: a compilation of Email open and clickthrough rates from different sources.

With email marketing, it’s crucial that you don’t take any shortcuts. While that’s generally true for most things in life, it’s especially true for this business practice. Cutting corners and accepting data without fact-checking can lead to disastrous results. Before getting an email marketing campaign up and running, make sure that you’ve built a permission-based list to target, and that you’ve asked yourself the necessary questions to determine which platform to use.

Source: Tenfold

The business development representative’s job is critical to the success of an organization. In fact, there is no role in a company that more directly impacts future prosperity, growth, and overall stability.  After all, without sales, a company is quickly out of business. For this reason, it is vital to find a BDR that has the personality traits to thrive in this role.

The Right Fit

There are many important elements to consider before hiring a business development executive. It’s important to have realistic expectations for the role itself, and for the person who is hired. Every manager wants a BDR professional that knows everyone and has an easy affability that instantly endears long-term customers and prospects. This person would also be able to write killer proposals that net huge margins, build the company’s market share, bring in lots of leads, command the respect of the in-house team, and put out account fires when and if required. Does this sound like far too much for one person to handle? It can easily be if the wrong person is selected for the job, or if they do not have adequate support.

Intelligence and natural curiosity: They must be smart and passionate about learning. To effectively sell, they need to know the products or services well and be the company’s most vocal cheerleader.

Persistence: Obviously, taking the first ‘no’ for an answer is not the best sign of a closer. Successful BDR’s know that it is a numbers game, and every ‘no’ gets them closer to ‘yes’. For this reason, they won’t get discouraged; they’ll get creative instead.

They understand people: Marketers know that today’s buyers are well into the decision-making process before they contact a business. Lots of information is available online, and buyers are extremely educated. A BDR needs to be one step ahead, and take on the role of advisor that personalizes solutions to their challenges. Consultative selling is key in this environment.

They’re an integral part of the inbound marketing team: Inbound marketing is the way of the business world today, and a business development representative that buys into inbound and seizes the opportunities it offers can multiply successes. Owners and executives who understand how important connecting inbound marketing with their BDR is, will provide added tools to increase the growth of the entire company. A well-known statistic from a CMO study is often quoted by Michael Gass, the founder of Fuel Lines. He says that 80% of CMOs surveyed found their vendors, rather than vendors finding customers.

Good Internet abilities: Savvy sales development representatives know their way around the Internet; they understand Social Media and how it works like word of mouth on steroids. They also know that marketing online gains them a larger audience and a venue to craft a solid brand for the company. Communicating what is different and better about the company is what sets apart the average BDR and the star business representative.

Quick on their feet: Top-tier business development professionals ask the right questions and follow-up consistently. Through natural relationship-building skills, they can ferret out the information needed to provide the right solution for a client’s purposes.

Goal setters: – Although setting goals is often seen as the company’s job, the best BDR sales representatives set goals for themselves, as well as planning how to get there.  

Overall, the new business development representative organization hires can make or break the future success for that company. This is not a position that should be filled by a timid person or one that is not willing to think outside the box. They need to be creative in their work. Times have changed drastically, and the way people go about making purchases today is very different. Having a sales development representative that understands what it takes to get the job done is key. Hiring the person with compatible personality traits and arming them with all the tools they need to overcome any challenges, help clients solve business problems, and meet lofty financial metrics for maximum success, is equally vital. 

This article is originally published at Tenfold.

All businesses share a measure of complexity. The activities of a company can never be said to be a simple and smooth ride from point A to point B; activities should rather be regarded as an intricate web of processes. These processes fall under the collective term ‘business operations, ‘ and as such, these can differ from company to company.

What Exactly is Business Operations?

Operations start as words on a piece of paper. They are—for all intents and purposes—essential to any business endeavor. At first, they are inserted into the business plan to function as a rough roadmap. Both investors and founders can easily access them and gain a better grasp on all the moving parts of a company, such as personnel, equipment and the processes needed to increase the organization’s value.

While the broad definition of the term is set in stone, the operations themselves are not. They are meant to allow an overview and provide oversight in regards to the organization’s activity.  They help with assigning clear-cut roles and responsibilities, with the management of risk, resources, and allocation as well as with revealing the best course of action at all times. They are both a guide and a failsafe, ensuring that a company stays within its budget and that departments cooperate effectively. Here is where theory ends and practice starts; a point where variables must be taken into consideration.

Perhaps the business in question is a product manufacturer. Depending on what it produces, the supply chain can be longer or shorter. Depending on how many processes are automated, the number of employees can differ. If the company sells its products through brick-and-mortar stores, it’ll need the proper location—to maximize sales but also respect regulations—while if involved in eCommerce, the business will require suitable software. These are only a few factors that can influence business operations within a company.

Operations are also subjected to change as the business grows. While it’s common practice in a small company for a single person to have more responsibilities, the same is hardly ideal in a larger one. Business operations should evolve alongside the organization, or glitches in the system will soon make their presence felt. If there’s too much pressure or too many responsibilities resting on the shoulders of one individual, here will be errors and omissions almost inevitably. This, in turn, tends to become cumulative and will lead to more of the same, creating a destructive domino effect.  It’s up to all departments to continually adapt and tweak business operations to keep up with the company’s growth.

What Are Business Operations Within a Company?

While strategies and processes can always change, certain guidelines remain true for almost any business that wishes to grow. Here are some guidelines that all companies should consider adhering to:

• Building the right foundation from the start. A close-knit team that shares the same goals and is dedicated to achieving those goals can make a huge difference down the line;
• Aiming for transparency within and between departments. The more information travels from one team to another, the lower the risk of errors and mishaps;
• Choosing the right person for the job. Different individuals have different qualities. It’s important to delegate with this in mind;
• Making use of data for decision-making. Caution is advised when planning for the future. Data collection and interpreting can eliminate a number of variables and increase the chances of smooth-sailing;
• Receiving team feedback. Founders and stakeholders can easily lose track of core operations, which impedes their decision-making capabilities. Having constant communication with employees can eliminate this;
• Focusing on customer service. Whether a manufacturer or a service provider, a business relies on its customers. They should never be ignored or even underestimated;
• Having a long-term plan. Constant change in external factors can topple companies lacking foresight. Good adaptability and planning can ensure both the survival and growth of an organization.

Business Operations: Meaning and Purpose

A company’s success or failure relies heavily on the efficiency of operations. But what are these processes for? What can stakeholders expect from the right plan and the proper steps? For one, they can expect to increase their company’s value. This is done by making a profit. The value increase is affected by just how well a business performs financially, i.e. through dividends, interest and all income that comes back to it. If this return is larger than the investment, profit is registered. If a company manages to turn its profit into a constant over an extended period, its value increases exponentially.

To register a profit, a company has to assess the market properly. Often, the business with the superior product or service will be the one that outshines its competitors. The company’s investment in its product or service must also be taken into consideration. If the demand is high, if it can afford the investment, if the productivity is on par with the demand, then a business can be truly successful.

Business Operations Functions

Operational functions, much like the operations themselves, are often subjected to change. Company founders and stakeholders have a decisive hand in how these functions will be performed. There are also other factors for change, like human capital inventory, departmental responsibilities, level of streamlining and effectiveness of leaders in charge of overseeing and adapting business operations. Still, some of these functions remain common across the board, such as:

• Maintaining effective communications and striving for consensus;
• Providing senior level management with the right amount of coaching, tutoring and mentoring;
• Auditing and re-engineering business processes;
• Maximising performance by establishing a balance between departments and groups;
• Managing both the budget and planning processes, at a strategic and departmental level;
• Monitoring and guiding third party cooperations with due diligence;
• Performing contract reviews to ensure compliance.

There are many other functions to take into account but these are some of the most common. They are found in all companies that prioritise business operations, proper planning, and execution.

In the final analysis, the human factor is as decisive as the business operations themselves. The proper assessment of personnel, the company’s goals and object of activity, the size and subsequent growth of the business, the external factors—like supply and demand and competitors—all shape the operational functions. Still, the efficiency of processes is brought by the right people for the job. A competent operational team with the right leader can make the difference between what works on paper and what gives great results.

This article is originally published at Tenfold.