What is a marketing strategy?

Steal a Chapter from the Sales Strategy Playbook to Improve Marketing ROI

A few weeks ago, I wrote about ways to combine sales and marketing knowledge to improve lead generation. Let me be more specific about one strategy that the best sales organizations do that marketers should replicate in their demand-generation and lead-nurturing campaigns: Stratify resources as part of a coverage model. The idea is simple: The […]

Webinar Replay: Six Funnel Focal Points to Finish 2011 Strong – Part 2

For proven approaches to drive the highest return on the money you’ve invested in marketing and sales this year, watch the replay of the second half of our webinar presentation, “Six Funnel Focal Points to Finish 2011 Strong.” It’s chock full of immediately actionable advice, emerging from data-driven case studies and science-based research, to help […]

Webinar Replay: Six Funnel Focal Points to Finish 2011 Strong – Part I

If you attended our most recent B2B Lead Roundtable Webinar, Six Funnel Focal Points to Finish 2011 Strong – Part I, you found out that even though the end of the year is less than 125 days away, there’s plenty of time to drive more opportunity through your sales funnel and to the bottom line. […]

Get on the fast track to meet, exceed end-of-year goals

The graph at right, published in MarketingSherpa’s 2011 Benchmark Report, provides a snapshot of what marketers care about most. And it’s very telling, especially now. As we approach the fourth quarter, I am acutely aware of why marketers believe generating better leads is a higher priority than generating more leads. In an economy that’s more precarious than […]

How are B2B Marketers Optimizing their Funnel?

Learn the top 5 most effective demand generation tactics in this infographic and top 3 tactics for creating engaging content

Four Steps to Convince CEOs that Demand Generation Should be a Marketing, Not a Sales, Function

For most of us, the phrase “demand generation” conjures up things like campaigns, trade shows, and the corporate website. But what about sales prospecting? Despite all the newfangled marketing automation tools, most CEOs increase the funding for demand generation by authorizing the expansion of the sales organization. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Books like SNAP Selling, […]

Why Smart Marketers Think Like Manufacturers

Lead generation has a lot more to do with manufacturing than you might suspect. After all, marketers are “manufacturing” a conversation with customers and prospects. Some of that conversation is mass-customized through communication like personalized email and landing pages. Other parts of the conversation occur in sales or the teleprospecting operation. Thanks to more sophisticated […]

To Call or Email? That is the Question

When Brian Carroll and I present webinars on adding the human touch to lead nurturing, like the ones last month for the B2B Lead Roundtable and Marketo, we inevitably get these questions: “How often should we call? How often should we email? What should we do first?” The last question always guides me to the […]

Is Revenue Contribution the Best Executive Metric for Demand Generation Investments?

We’re almost halfway through the year, and before you know it, marketing management will be putting forth arguments for increased budgets for FY12. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of suspect revenue projections from marketing for the purpose of budget justification. The problem gets acute during budgeting cycles. Suddenly, all revenue is “incremental.” Quite […]

What Online Marketing Optimization Is and Isn’t

Last week, I attended the first-ever MarketingSherpa/MarketingExperiments Optimization Summit in Atlanta. It was an evidence-based marketer’s dream, three days chock full of real-world case studies and analyses that drilled down to the intricacies of what makes some online marketing campaigns convert better than others. What surprised me, however, was how little this has to do […]

How to Build a Quality List and Make Data Drive Leads

If you attended our most recent B2B Lead Roundtable webinar, you found out why Brandon Stamschror, Senior Director of Operations for MECLABS Leads Group, is passionate about investing in the very best data possible: it may cost more upfront, but the return is more than worth it. During the presentation, Brandon details an experiment with […]

Four Reasons Why Funnels Are a Marketer’s Best Friend

Funnels are like the central nervous system of the best sales organizations. Few marketing departments depend on funnels to run their business the way sales leaders do. Yes, messaging, segmentation, branding, and numerous other considerations are extremely important. But no tool can impact financial performance for marketing as much as a funnel. There are four […]

Webinar Replay: How CRM Revolutionized Marketing and Lead Generation at Volvo North America

This is a replay of the B2B Lead Roundtable webinar, How Volvo Construction Improved Leads, Increase Sales by Bridging the Sales-Marketing Gap

9 Reasons Why B2B Marketing Should Own Teleprospecting

Over the last several years, according to MarketingSherpa, marketing departments are increasingly taking responsibility for tele-prospecting. Why do you suppose that is happening? Let me be clear: teleprospecting is not selling something over the phone, a function that remains squarely in the sales organization. B2B companies use telesprospecting to follow up on and qualify marketing-generated responders, […]

The Smartest Marketers Never Stop Learning

How do you know what’s really working in marketing? By asking real marketers. MarketingSherpa just published three reports: 2011 B2B Advanced Practices Handbook, CMO Perspectives on B2B Marketing Automation, and CMO Perspectives on the Complex Sale. They are the result of in-depth research of more than 1,000 B2B marketers, including nearly 300 CMOs. They reveal what these front-line professionals have done in the past few months that have created real results.

The Future of Marketing: The Evolution from Demand Generation to Revenue Performance Management

Learn how the fastest-growing companies are using Revenue Performance Management to optimize return on marketing investment and achieve unprecedented competitive differentiation in this free webinar replay, and sign up for our next webinar, “How ECI Telecom Developed a Content-Marketing Program from Concept to Completion and the Surprising Results.”

Marketing Wisdom: In the end, it’s all about…

Daniel Burstein, MECLABS Director of Editorial Content, compiled powerful marketing wisdom when he requested top marketing bloggers write their last blog post. Look for blogs using #lastblog. Here are a few takeaways worth reading.

Moving from Demand Generation to Revenue Performance Management

Learn from the pioneers of revenue’s new frontier at the B2B Lead Generation Roundtable Webinar on February 1. Paul Teshima, Eloqua’s Senior Vice President of Customer Strategy and Success, and Hope Frank, Chief Marketing officer for Webtrends, will look at how they, and other top-performing organizations, have optimized the sales and marketing funnel with Revenue Performance Management.

Marketers Deserve Attention Too

Have you had some great marketing successes this year? Then you’ll want to let the folks at MarketingSherpa know. They’re compiling their ninth annual MarketSherpa 2011 Wisdom Report. Go to http://sherpa.wisdomreport2011.sgizmo.com/

The More B2B Marketing Changes, the More It Stays the Same

No matter where you are in the world or in your career, no matter how many marketing toys you have to play with, marketing all boils down to the challenge of having relevant conversations with the right people in the right companies and building the kind of relationship that ultimately results in sales.

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