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Tag Archives: Lead Generation
Aligning Sales and Marketing – It’s Not Just About Metrics, It’s Culture
Having just re-read sales and marketing blogger Adam Needle’s 4 part series on the “Unspoken ‘Real State’ of Modern B2B Demand Generation,” I once again cannot commend enough the value of the data and analysis he presents. If you have
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View Comments (4) SEO – A Bad Web Offer Can Kill Sales Before They Start
Can you lose a sale simply by having a bad Web offer?
I think we’ve all had the experience of following a link someone sent us on Twitter or Facebook only to discover that it’s just another poorly disguised attempt at hucksterism.
You land on the page and get bombarded by a long, endless page of marketing drivel, punctuated with flashing neon sign graphics, and a late-night infomercial vibe.
While most B2B Web marketers are much more professional in their approach than this, it doesn’t mean that the concept of “the Bad Offer” can’t apply.
No matter the context, a Bad Web Conversion Offer slows down the sale, gives potential buyers a bad taste, puts them off, or even sends a good buyer to a competitor.
So what makes a Bad Web Offer?
- It doesn’t provide any value to the visitor.
- The process to get the perceived value (the whitepaper, webinar, free trial) takes too long, or requires too much user input.
- There’s no compelling difference between your offer and what they could get elsewhere.
- The presentation is sub-par, unprofessional, difficult to navigate, or just plain boring . . . .
Inside Sales Tip: Treat a Sales Appointment Like a Corporate Meeting, Part II
In yesterday’s blog post, we discussed the idea of considering a sales appointment as an extension of a regular corporate meeting. We looked at understanding the type of meeting you should engage in and the purpose for it, and the first of two critical components, having an agenda.
Today’s post will cover the need for a meeting to have an effective referee, and the culture you should establish for your sales appointments with your prospects.
In Review:
Part I
1. Decide whether an appointment is about alignment or creation.
2.1. “A meeting has two critical components: [one of them is] an agenda.”
Part II
First, let’s be clear: the onus always falls on you, the sales rep, to be the referee of a meeting, because you control the flow of information . . . .
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Inside Sales Tip: Treat a Sales Appointment Like a Corporate Meeting, Part I
Author Michael Lopp, blogging under the pseudonym “Rands in Repose,” presented an outstanding treatise this morning on how to run a meeting that brilliantly captures the essence of your average corporate pow-wow—but also contains some striking parallels to sales appointment setting.
What is a “sales cycle” after all, if nothing more than a series of “mini-meetings,” each designed to progress the sale and provide value for both parties?
Not every process works the same obviously, but as Lopp states, a good corporate meeting should decide whether it is about alignment or creation, should have both an agenda and a referee, and should avoid creating a culture of “having meetings for having a meeting’s sake.”
And all three ideas are eminently applicable to sales appointments . . . .
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Inside Sales Best Practices – The Web Marketing “Mass Disconnect” Continues
Sales industry researchers CSOInsights stated recently that after a “flat” budget year in 2009, marketing budgets are increasing in 2010 and beyond, and that the top three items for additional budget allocations were: Web site design/content (65% stated they were
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The #1 Priority of B2B SEO Content
Lots of great resources have addressed the question,”What, if any differences exist between the style and content of an SEO versus a PPC landing page?”
SEO.com states that a typical SEO and PPC landing page should serve the appropriate purpose, contain the right mix between content and call-to-action, and provide links to outside information and to the main home page of your Web site.
SEOBook.com says the only major difference between an SEO and PPC page is that the call to action should come early, and much more often on a PPC page— but that otherwise the concept is the same.
But how does this formula change from a B2C site, where the goal is typically an instant transaction, to a B2B company site, where a prospect’s buying decision may still be weeks or months away?
An outstanding article by Proteus B2B states that B2B decisions are “driven by risk and the avoidance thereof.” As a result, a B2B landing page must be more complete, holistically-oriented, and must present a clear, competitive, consistent message through content, style, and feel . . . .
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SEO and Lead Conversion – Hubspot’s Fatal 6 Web Design Flaws
I’m going to share a little secret about a mistake we made about a year and a half ago when we redesigned our Web site.
On the surface it was a beautiful redesign. Oh, so very beautiful.
Slick, shiny, “the new hotness,” slick, and slick (did I mention it was slick?).
And it killed our Web site conversion rate.
After two months of awful performance, we finally bit the bullet and furiously rolled the old site back out, and started from scratch . . . .
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Inside Sales: Two Hidden Metrics of Prospecting That are Hurting Your Sales
Most of the common marketing and sales and metrics—click-throughs, impressions, sales cycle, revenue per deal—don’t really need an explanation. But there are two metrics where a lot of companies we’ve worked with have holes in their sales process.
How soon after a new Web lead comes in does a sales rep make the first contact attempt, and how long after it came in did they actually make contact? Every single piece of data we’ve ever researched shows that for Web-generated leads, immediate response is crucial . . . .
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5 Things the iPhone G4 Antenna Fiasco Can Teach Us About Customer Service and PR
A few thoughts about Apple’s recent PR problems: When your client has a real problem, simply telling them “You’re holding it wrong” isn’t a real solution. Even if it’s the truth, clients and prospects rarely want to hear that their
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Inside Sales Top Method for Lead Generation in 2009 according to Forrester and MarketingProfs
Laura Ramos is perhaps the most recognized expert in lead generation research for B2B. She is a Vice President and Principal Analyst for Forrester. Laura has been studying what she calls the “Marketing Effectiveness Index” which are the most effective methods used
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