I just finished reading today’s Business Week special report on customer service and wanted to pass it along. It offers a rich look at companies who have excelled and stumbled in their service efforts. Though it focuses on consumer brands, its messages and lessons are relevant for B2B companies as well. Great weekend reading and inspirational ideas….Read More
I just ran across this post by Paul Allen “the lesser” and had to share it. Paul runs an internet business incubator called Provo Labs and has founded a number of successful companies including Ancestry.com. In this post, Paul talks about the long tail cumulative effect of guerilla marketing tactics. He explains that building website…Read More
Here’s the fourth and final post in our “shorten your sales cycle” series. In the first article we provided a general intro to the problem of growing sales cycles and identified three things you can do to solve the problem. Step one is to improve your lead quality. Step two is to improve your sales…Read More
Here’s the third post of four in this “Shorten Your Sales Cycle” series. In my last post I talked about the first step in shortening your sales cycle: Improve your lead qualification. Today I’ll focus on the second area of improvement: Executing your sales process. (New to the concept of “sales process?” These posts address…Read More
Yesterday I wrote about a common business problem — growing sales cycles. Today I’m continuing with the second post of four in this series, “Shorten your sales cycle.” So your sales cycle is getting longer and you’ve met with your sales and marketing teams. You escaped in one piece but heard a resounding “too many…Read More
Does it seem like it takes forever to close new business deals? You’re running strong campaigns, generating plenty of leads, seeing a flurry of sales activity. But even though your sales reps are consistently following up, prospects just aren’t ready to buy. Your sales cycle used to be 4 weeks, but now it’s 6, 8…Read More
Forrester Research recently released their “Best And Worst Of Email Marketing In 2006” report and the results were surprising. “Marketers trip over the basics,” they proclaimed after looking at 63 email marketing programs for companies in a variety of industries, both B2B and B2C. Of those 63 programs, they gave only one a “passing grade,” explaining…Read More
A friend of mine introduced me to a great book recently — Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game by Kevin Hogan and James Speakman. The book is about creating change in the mind of clients and customers without making them aware that the changes are occurring – “covert persuasion.” It offers great insights…Read More
Yesterday I was chatting with a young friend who was incredibly excited about a new marketing program she’d launched for her company. She’d spent about $65,000 and brought in almost $130,000 in new revenue. She proclaimed, “My campaign generated 100% ROI!” Whoops. I hated to rain on her parade, but she was making a major…Read More
The phrase “cold calling” sends chills down the spines of many business people. It’s often viewed as an intimidating, difficult, and boring process … and that means it doesn’t get done as often as it should. However, outbound telemarketing campaigns can be a great way to reach a group of targeted prospects or customers to…Read More
Today I’m continuing Thursday’s post about finding good marketing vendors. In that post I walked through the first few steps in the process: 1. Know what you need 2. Identify your prospects 3. Think carefully about your success criteria 4. Make your first cut At this point you should have a manageable list of companies…Read More
New website project on the horizon? Looking for a new printer or designer? A PR firm? Copywriter? CRM consultant? Whether you have a rolodex full of contacts or you’re beginning a totally new project in the dark, finding the right vendor for the job is a project in itself. You need to find the best…Read More
Let’s face it — for many companies, trade show marketing can be a nightmare. Here’s the scenario: You’re investing in an important industry trade show. Along with booth rental fees, you’re also investing in travel, food & lodging, insurance, event setup, sales materials, and booth production. Primed with freshly-printed marketing materials, your reps attend the…Read More
How do your prospects buy your product or service? Does a single decision maker buy on the spot, or does s/he go through many steps and approvals first? Or perhaps there are multiple departments involved over a very long period of time? A sales process is a defined series of steps you follow as you…Read More
I just launched two new paid search campaigns and decided to test a tool I’d recently learned about. It’s a bid and ad copy comparison tool available on the Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) site. If you’re running paid search campaigns and haven’t used this tool, it’s incredibly useful. It helps you Easily pull up…Read More
How often do you refer back to your marketing plan? Every week? Once a month? Never? If you’ve invested the time and energy into your marketing plans … great! You’ve taken the first step. Now to make your plan successful, turn it into a living, breathing part of your revenue generation process. To bring your…Read More
If you don’t already subscribe to Dave J’s B2Blog, I definitely recommend adding it to your reading list. Dave is a marketing manager at a major manufacturing firm in Grand Rapids, MI and offers tons of great insights on B2B marketing. This week he writes about a recent ThomasNet study that reinforces how critical a…Read More
If you’re looking for new marketing talent or a new opportunity, check out Monster.com’s new marketing channel designed specifically for marketing, advertising and PR positions. When you’re hiring, you can use the specialized search function and job postings to find candidates with the specific skills you need on your team. And if you’re a job-hunter,…Read More
Many B2B companies are just getting started with paid search marketing. If you’re one of them, you’ve discovered it can be a great vehicle for finding prospects when they’re searching for solutions. And hopefully you’re doing a great job of converting that traffic into qualified leads and sales. You’ve probably also discovered that converting traffic…Read More
While many B to B marketers have moved their budgets from direct mail to email campaigns, I’m a huge fan of direct mail. I use it for lead generation, lead nurturing, and customer promotions, and my campaigns run from simple sales letters to creative pieces with sizzle. A key challenge in making direct mail work…Read More