The Pipeline

JANUARY 2, 2013

As we make our way back to work from time spent with family, friends and credit cards, we are about to besieged by a wave of articles, blog posts, tweets, and other sources touting the (new) trends for 2013. I have been approached by a half dozen or so outlets asking for my input. Trends by definition are short term: noun. style or vogue; 3.

Trends 273

Trends Fashion Promotion Social Selling 273

Score More Sales

MAY 30, 2013

The annual “State of Marketing” Global Survey of Marketers has again been completed, and results were announced at the Smarter Commerce Global Summit last week. You can download the complete results from the IBM State of Marketing 2013 Global Survey. Optimizing marketing performance.

Marketing 241

Marketing Lead Rank Lead Scoring Survey 241

SBI Growth

APRIL 1, 2013

If you missed Q1, you need a monster Q2 to save 2013. This offer expires on April 30 th , 2013. We publish an un-gated sales and marketing best practice daily. 41% of b2b sales organizations missed the Q1 revenue target. Historically, 90% of companies who miss the first half, miss the year. 365 days per year.

Scale 317

Scale Quota B2B Negotiation 317

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

Can you count on your current Sales Rep behaviors to “Make the Number” in 2013? Sign up for our Make the Number tour to learn more about how top performing companies will change Sales in 2013. These are the behaviors to change among Sales Reps for 2013 followed by actions HR should take to help make this happen. Call to Action.

Education 303

Education Penetration Customer Service Sales Qualified Lead 303

SBI Growth

DECEMBER 1, 2012

Do you want to increase sales and meet your 2013 goals? Encourage sales and marketing to build personas and build a plan to operationalize them immediately. Marketing is frustrated because of the time, money and effort exerted to build them. Buyer personas should be built by marketing in collaboration with sales.

Meeting 288

Meeting Ideal Customer Profile Buyer Persona Forecasting 288

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

This year is no different than years prior in that every VP of Sales is getting ready for the annual 2013 sales planning season. Translation: Even if the CEO/CFO allocate more money to you (the CSO), you should allocate some of those dollars to Marketing. Never before has the linkage between Marketing and Sales become more important.

Top of Funnel 267

Top of Funnel Funnel Demand Generation Demand Generation Targets 267

SBI Growth

NOVEMBER 16, 2012

Teams of Lead Development Reps (LDRs) are being built in Marketing to help fill the Sales pipeline with qualified leads. Typically, LDR compensation comes from one of these methods: Marketing reallocates budgeted funds. For example, Marketing may take money from ineffective trade show spending. This is an emerging best practice.

Compensation 267

Compensation Hiring Marketing Trade Show 267

SBI Growth

JANUARY 9, 2013

Our 2012 sales leader research finds it is still a big fear for 2013. Here are five steps for HR to build a sales leadership pipeline in 2013: 1. Integrating with Marketing functions. The top fear of HR leaders for 2012 was finding or developing leaders. If your company isn’t looking for sales leadership today, just wait.

Sales Leadership 310

Sales Leadership Buyer Persona Exercises Course 310

SBI Growth

JANUARY 18, 2013

During the interview, I was surprised to hear the biggest HR challenge for 2013. It is to align the talent to where the market will be in 2014. The sales force is tentative - 2013 will be a repeat of 2012. It also complemented the Go To Market strategy by adding a new way to reach customers. 2014 and Beyond.

Compensation 292

Compensation Retention Ideal Customer Profile Territories 292

SBI Growth

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

In the Future of Content Marketing survey, 39% of nearly 60 respondents indicated they did not have a defined content marketing strategy. If you have read my past three articles on content marketing ( article 1 , article 2 , and article 3 ), then this percentage number is strikingly similar. Effectiveness.

Marketing 314

Marketing Hiring Strategy Buyer Persona 314

Understanding the Sales Force

JULY 24, 2013

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan On the heels of The Top 5 Sales Leadership Articles of 2013 comes the Top 10 Sales Leadership Tips of 2013. Each of these tips are excerpts from articles I wrote during the first six months of 2013. c) Copyright 2013 Dave Kurlan' Read Article. Read Article. Read Article.

Sales Leadership 250

Sales Leadership Cold Calling Sales Qualified Lead Guarantee 250

Sales and Marketing Management

MAY 1, 2013

Issue Date: 2013-04-30. Author: Renato Beninatto, Chief Marketing Officer, Moravia. Teaser: If you want to do business internationally, you’ve got to communicate in the language of your target market. And no matter how small you are, you can be successful in foreign markets if you plan well and avoid five common mistakes.

Marketing 326

Marketing 326

Jeffrey Gitomer

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

We''ve Moved! Update your Reader Now. This feed has moved to: [link] Update your reader now with this changed subscription address to get your latest updates from us. Leadership Sales Social Media Jeffrey Gitomer Blog jeffrey gitomer sales blog sales blog'

Influencer 263

Influencer Social Media Marketing Media 263

SBI Growth

MARCH 17, 2013

To get to the position of CMO or VP of Marketing, you are a top talent. Marketing as a skill is no different. Download the marketing leader assessment to identify your blind spots. Reaching the most senior marketing position requires A-Player talent. Now that you’re on top, your marketing skills may be eroding.

Marketing 314

Marketing Social Media Lead Generation Campaigns 314

Sales and Marketing Management

SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

Issue Date: 2013-09-01. Author: Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer, Corporate Visions. Teaser: What will a marketer say if you ask, “What is the most important contribution you make to driving profitable growth?” Will the answers be the same? Will the answers be the same? read more'

Marketing 280

Marketing Survey Exact Sales 280

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

2013 is the year Social Selling became Mission Critical. Social Selling training budgets increased 48% in 2013. Social Selling’s ‘Lead-to-Close’ conversion rate is 5x marketing sourced leads. This post will address what Marketing can do to promote, enable and optimize social selling within the organization.

Social Selling 321

Social Selling Top of Funnel Ideal Customer Profile Marketing 321

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

Interviewed VP of Sales, Product Leaders, and Sales Manager to understand what they were seeing in the market. But what they are doing is gathering data from an inward-out perspective when they should be looking at the market from an outward-in perspective. Marketing is making the buying decision 90% of the time.

Data 267

Data Analysis Sales Operations Buying Cycle 267

The Pipeline

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

Using content marketing to drive sales will certainly only continue to grow exponentially in 2014. If you look back on content marketing, you’ll come across examples that predate the Internet. Content marketing is certainly not a new strategy, but it is one that has been made easier by technology.

Marketing 276

Marketing Small Business Small Business Survey 276

SBI Growth

AUGUST 8, 2012

Marketing, do you have a sales quota tied to Lead Generation ? Sign up for our Make the Number Tour if you would like to see how your peers are allocating people, money and time in 2013. B2B companies are assigning their Marketing teams with lead quotas tied directly to a percentage of the corporate sales goal. What to do?”

Quota 276

Quota Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Demand Generation 276

SBI Growth

OCTOBER 1, 2013

The Holy Grail of 2014 Planning: Marketing Contribution as a % of Total Revenue. 2013 is the last year executives accepted activity-level results from marketing. Expectations of marketing accountability have increased to the level expected of sales performance. Executive marketing leaders need to push the debris aside.

B2B 331

B2B Sales Qualified Lead Marketing Lead Generation 331

Sales and Marketing Management

FEBRUARY 17, 2013

Issue Date: 2013-02-16. Teaser: "Marketing automation" is one of the hottest terms going for growth-minded companies. The question can be answered from both a sales and a marketing perspective. "Marketing automation" is one of the hottest terms going for growth-minded companies. Author: Debbie Qaqish.

Marketing 258

Marketing Revenue Sales Company 258

SBI Growth

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

More often than not, sales and marketing live in siloes. Reps wonder what marketing does and contributes; marketing complains reps ignore their efforts. For a company to survive these days, sales and marketing must work in concert. The best marketing leaders know how to overcome the divide and gain credibility with sales.

Buyer Persona 310

Buyer Persona Marketing How To Lead Rank 310

SBI Growth

APRIL 3, 2013

You are counting on your product marketing manager for a successful launch. World-class companies are adopting new content marketing processes. Content Marketing is in the process of a major transformation. Marketers have literally cracked the code on what to communicate to their prospective buyers. No worries.

Campaigns 300

Campaigns How To Energy Demand Generation 300

SBI Growth

OCTOBER 31, 2012

Then he spent a year in Marketing. He rose from junior sales associate to become his division’s top rep. Then, as sales manager, he turned around a struggling team. He promoted 5 reps in 6 years. He was a rising star. In Robert’s company, Sales VPs reported to the CSO. Their counterparts were the VPs of Operations, who reported to the COO.

Influencer 282

Influencer Strategy Policies Lead Gen 282

Sales and Marketing Management

DECEMBER 16, 2013

Issue Date: 2013-12-13. Proof that most customer communication (content and sales conversations) is ineffective can be seen in over a decade of research that reveals less than 50% of companies' marketing and sales communications are relevant to their customers and less than 30% of marketing content is relevant to customer-facing teams.

Face-to-face 245

Face-to-face Marketing Research Conversion 245

SBI Growth

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Over the past year, there have been many great Marketing & Lead Generation blog posts. I offer you an executive summary of key takeaways from SBI’s marketing related posts. I have compiled the top 15 questions to evaluate your performance against best-in-class marketing operations. I created Buyer Personas ?

Marketing 297

Marketing Face-to-face Buyer Persona Lead Rank 297

SBI Growth

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

I’ve heard a lot of talk about “ Content Marketing.” It gets great reviews from C-Level executives, marketers and even sales managers. But how does Content Marketing help the Sales Rep? Today’s post outlines the benefits of Content Marketing from the Sales Rep’s perspective. What exactly is content marketing?

Marketing 300

Marketing Sales Qualified Lead Face-to-face Buyer 300

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

Change your marketing focus from “ inside-out ” to “ outside-in ”. Marketing inside-out versus Marketing outside-in should be common terms and concepts for B2B marketing and sales organizations. A marketing outside-in approach starts with the buyer and stays focused on the buyer. Their focus is inside-out.

Marketing 282

Marketing Buyer Demographics Social Media 282

SBI Growth

JANUARY 22, 2013

Few marketing teams of $100M+ companies are built for modern demand generation. Marketing team structures too often are remnants from the days of print ad dominance. Marketing teams advanced effectively with this approach in the past. In-house marketing technology is a lynch pin of success. Evolving your Marketing Team.

Demand Generation 322

Demand Generation Demand Generation Targets Marketing Customer 322

SBI Growth

DECEMBER 6, 2012

This is an executive-level overview of the Internal Content Marketing Agency (ICMA). What is an Internal Content Marketing Agency? It can be located within your Sales or Marketing organizations. It produces content of sufficient quantity and quality to meet the needs of the Marketing and Sales departments. I thought so.

Demand Generation Agencies 267

Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Hiring Demand Generation 267

SBI Growth

AUGUST 22, 2012

In addition, you are probably using a marketing automation system that tracks leads and viewing history. Guide your team to build reports to measure the effectiveness of your Content Marketing and Demand Generation campaigns at driving leads. Is your content marketing strategy working? These foundations provide rich data input.

ROI 306

ROI Omniture Data Demand Generation 306

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

In a preview of the 2013 Content Marketing Benchmark Report by Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute , only 36% of businesses believed their content marketing is effective. After a few years of hyper-growth content marketing adoption, it is easy to think this number should be higher. What is this number?

Buyer Persona 267

Buyer Persona Marketing Education Vendor 267

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

We recently surveyed hundreds of marketing leaders in small to medium size businesses. In our research, we found that marketers are feeling the growing pressure to prove their marketing spend is generating results. And in a growing number of cases, CEOs have given their marketing leader a “new business” quota.

Face-to-face 288

Face-to-face Marketing Hiring Social Media 288

SBI Growth

OCTOBER 24, 2012

The ability to demonstrate marketing's return on investment is at the top of every CMO's plan for 2013. The ROI picture has been elusive as marketers struggle to capture the full impact of marketing’s contribution. We know that marketing plays a vital role in building preference and driving interactions.

Demand Generation Agencies 293

Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Demand Generation Demand Generation Targets 293

No More Cold Calling

NOVEMBER 21, 2013

You can’t depend on your marketing department to generate real leads. Do you really think marketing can qualify your leads? Consider this example from Dan McDade, president and CEO of PointClear: The marketing department for one unnamed company generated more than 9,000 “sales leads” in a year, but only 1.28

Sales Qualified Lead 263

Sales Qualified Lead Lead Rank Lead Scoring Leads 263

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 16, 2013

Picture this: we opened the presentation with this question: “Are you going to make your 2013 revenue number?” This article will provide you with insights and strategies for still making the number in 2013. To assist you further, sign-up for SBI’s Sales & Marketing Research Review here. 5 Keys to Closing Strong in 2013.

Pipeline 306

Pipeline ACT Competition Top of Funnel 306

SBI Growth

AUGUST 6, 2012

The Sales Leader is about to receive the 2013 Revenue Number. Have you conducted growth opportunity analyses in your market? Here is a typical conversation with Oliver ( a fictional Sales Ops Leader) : Dan : “Do you believe there is enough opportunity for growth in your market?” What is wrong with this picture?

Opportunity 316

Opportunity Strategy Banking Territories 316