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 […]

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