Educating your salespeople about the new B2B sales cycle. I spent most of my career in B2B marketing, although for four years I was in B2B sales.
So I've seen both sides. Back in the mid 1990's it was hard to find evidence of love between marketing and sales. At many business-to-business companies the relationship was downright adversarial. Often, the tension extends all the way up to senior management. It all stemmed from the sales process involving a "handoff. " Like a marriage gone bad, the circa 1994 dialog was an endless tape loop. Sales says, “Get me some good leads! That's so 1994 We're in a world now where sales and marketing coexist throughout the entire sales process. Savvy marketing and sales professionals understand that sales and marketing must work together to move prospects through the sales cycle. Smart marketers need to educate the salespeople so they understand that we're in this together.
And you've got to make sure sales knows it's not about "leads" as the primary measurement. Is that happening at your company? The Lord of the Leads. 10 Sources For Better Conversion. I went searching around inside Delicious.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to research, but wanted to know if I could find something of interest, and whether I could make a post out of it. What I looked up ended up being conversion, as in getting your site or blog to give you better results. If conversion matters, here are 10 sources for information on better conversion: 21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites 21 Case Studies on Conversion Lessons learned from 21 case studies in conversion rate optimization eCommerce Platforms A beginners guide to ecommerce shopping carts. 15 best free open source ecommerce platforms WordPress simple shopping cart (documentation) (for a plugin). Google Analytics ecommerce tracking (part 1). More on Conversion 8 Tips to help your website convert. 101 Google Website Optimizer Tips 50 ways your website is discouraging conversion Call-to-Action buttons: examples and best practices Easy as That Thoughts?
ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Genesis Framework Become a StudioPress Affiliate. 3 Ways to Handle the Unpredictable Behavior of the B2B Buyer. You know who gives me the best business advice without trying?
My two-and-a-half-year old daughter. Lately, I can’t help but be struck at how similar she is to a typical B2B buyer. They’re independent. My daughter’s favorite sentence is, “I do it myself.” No longer does she want my help . . . unless she wants my help NOW! Sounds like your B2B buyers, doesn’t it? Approach: It should go without saying that you need to be present where your audience is looking. You also need to be are accessible when buyers need you. They’re easily distracted.
As much as her short attention span frustrates me, I understand. Approach: Accept that people have short attention spans, and make your content as engaging as possible: Make the topic ultra-relevant to your prospects.Keep things short when you can. Another key is to build feedback into your process, and really make a commitment to listen to and use that feedback to make improvements. No one has all of the answers about B2B marketing (or parenting!)
Simplify and Package the Sale. In a lot of ways, it’s all in how we present our solution.
This whole social media thing has its ups and downs. It takes a lot of time. It’s mercurial. There are many ways to “do it wrong.” And for business people, it’s still just too murky whether they get something from it. Meanwhile, the number of people taking their business online is rising and growing all the time. People need your help. Simplify the Language People don’t need to hear all the blah-di-blah under the hood, at least not right off.
Simple wins. It’s in the Packaging If you go to a business and tell them they need to get on Twitter and get a Facebook page setup, and they need to get plugged into Foursquare or Gowalla, what are they hearing? “Blah blah new thing new thing blah scary blah new thing cost.” We could package it so much better: “I can build a simple system to make it easier for people to buy from you over the web.” “I can increase your sales via your online channel.” That’s easy enough, right? Ease Their Mind. Publications Social Media As A Sales Tool 02/19/2010.