SMB Marketing Blog

A lot of press predicts the end of trade shows as B2B businesses gravitate to doing their research online and arrive at your web page for a fraction the cost of arriving at your trade show booth.  But trade shows have one huge win for exhibitors, the audience is already distilled and when one of them asks to be scanned for more information they are doing what is the holy grail of online marketing; they are “opting in”.

When someone asks for their badge to be scanned for more info at a trade show you can email nuture them for months and months always leading off with “you are receiving this because you visited our booth”.  Unsubscribe is much reduced.
But like a bucket of “inquiries” produced from your web page over time, knowing what to do with the bucket of inquiries from the trade show is the key.   I said earlier “you get to nurture them for months and months”, this is usually lots of hard work, lots of phone calls and emails and such.  Mostly we procrastinate about doing these activities by focusing on legitimate leads we have a good chance of getting business from.  The vast majority of leads we get from trade shows leak out of the sales funnel (at which time we promptly spend more money to find new ones).

The answer to this problem is a new breed of software called Marketing Automation software, it is a must have for companies that go to trade shows.   Bring home your big list, write three or four or six emails, an easy set up to schedule them out over one or three or six months, then fire and forget.  The software will notify you as to who is most receptive to your message and engaged with your website; it will tell you who to call.

If you plan to go to a trade show, or are thinking about going to a trade show, take a closer look at marketing automation software; put some very cheap and easy tools in your hands to get more biz out of that bucket you come home with.

One of the areas that we’re always watching, along with the industry in general, is the challenge of Sales and Marketing Alignment.   Very recently we at ActiveConversion came across a great article on the subject and wanted to ensure our readership were made aware of it.

A recent post by Christine Crandell entitled “Sales and Marketing Need to Sleep in the Same Bed” illustrates the need for alignment to improve sales while optimizing marketing spend – something that all CEOs and business owners are interested in!

Referenced early in the piece is the 2007 Aberdeen study where it was “found that 56 percent of Best-in-Class companies identified sales and marketing alignment as one of their top operational goals.  Yet, 60 percent of those same companies also ranked alignment as their top challenge”.  A clear sign of the ongoing struggle for alignment between Sales and Marketing.

Telltale signs of misalignment can be seen in the industry statistics: 80 percent of leads passed on to sales are dropped; 90 percent of collateral is unused; and the total cost of winning a net new enterprise customer via direct sales carries a hefty average price tag of $500,000. Even worse, fully 80 percent of deals won are not influenced by marketing, at all.  That means these sales are much harder won than they need to be. Why is this essential collaboration so elusive? And once established, why is it so hard to preserve?

Take the time to read the entire article, it’s a great read! … “Sales and Marketing Need to Sleep in the Same Bed”, Christine Crandell

Throughout my career and with the advice of many mentors along the way, I have watched a lot of old sales related movies which could be considered classics.  Thinking about these movies and their story lines more lead me to write this post today about how things were done back in the day.

Flickr: Jeremy Dent

Back in the day, and really not that long ago, business to business sales reps used to go into the office and start with a call list of 50-100 prospects they needed to reach out to.  The prospects the rep would be calling might have expressed interest in their company’s services at some point in time, or might just fit the customer profile as defined by the organization.   Each day the rep would painstakingly work through the list, leaving messages that usually went unanswered and constantly dealt with rejection.  This was the way of doing business.   Sales Reps usually made their numbers but it required a lot of effort, persistence and thick skin to complete this ‘unnatural act’.

Today, sales reps have the opportunity to spend their time calling on prospects that have expressed interest recently and are those that are more engaged and ready to buy.   Leads are automatically prioritized based on an interest level that is accurate and meaningful.  Lower priority leads are automatically nurtured until they are further along in their buying process.  Sales reps can spend less time on ‘painful’ opening activities and spend more time on the more important closing activities.  They’ll use their time more efficiently and be able to close more business, in a shorter amount of time through the use of  sales and marketing optimization tools.

These sales and marketing optimization tools exist today and fall into a class of solution called marketing automation. Surprisingly, many organizations are still doing things the ‘old fashioned’ way and are not using marketing automation tools to help their sales reps be more efficient, ultimately increasing sales and revenue.  Take some time to consider the value of saving your sales reps time and the impact it could have on the revenue and growth of your organization.

Is your organization living in the past?

Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic

Craig Rosenberg is  ‘The Funnelholic’ and writes a blog ” for those of us who live and work at the top end of the b2b funnel: Demand Generation, Lead Generation, Online Media, B2B Sales and Marketing, Marketing Automation, DRIP, Lead Nurturing, and Fun.”

Craig has been conducting a series of ‘Thought Leadership Interviews’ and recently sat down with our own Fred Yee, CEO and Founder @ ActiveConversion,  and conducted the next interview in the series, #17 to be exact.  The interview covers the impact of today’s tough economic times for SMB’s, through Web 2.0 considerations for today’s Marketer.

You can read the entire interview here @ The Funnelholic.