The Confident B2B Marketer

It’s 9:32 at night and I just heard it…

We’ve all heard of the smell of money, but what about the sound? Sales people that live life at the end of a Blackberry or iPhone driven by EchoQuote know what I’m talking about. A hot prospect is actively researching on the corporate website. He sees a strange link, one he does not expect. Since it is exactly what he is thinking about, he clicks on it and seconds later…the sound.

There’s an email waiting…
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Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // Add Comment »

Floods and fires are everywhere in the news. For small and medium size businesses, these natural phenomenon can spell disaster for corporate data. Four out of Five businesses that experience a catastrophic data loss never recover. Unfortunately, most small companies can’t afford a complete off-site disaster recovery service and have to “roll the dice” that nothing will happen.

A Solution…

One of our clients, KL Security, carries a “hot” product (actually it is a very cool product, especially when the building is on fire). They are the top reseller for ioSafe, a deskside device that contains fire-proof hard drives. The Network Attached Storage (NAS) device simply plugs into a company’s network infrastructure to provide fireproof/waterproof protection. Once the ioSafe device is attached and data is backed up, corporate data is protected up to 1500 degrees and 30 feet of water. Customers often refer to it as “the hardest pillow you’ll ever love” because it will help you sleep at night.

They have a cool video of an actual fire demonstration where they loaded data on a device, engulfed it in flames, cooled it off and recovered the data.

There are several sizes and models to choose from and of course you can get a Self-Service Price for each model with no hassle.

From paper to electronic information, KL Security has the products to protect your data.

Tags: B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // Add Comment »

Have you noticed all of the “free trial” offers in the B2B space lately? Since most of my work is in the Information Technology space, I see dozens of websites daily that aggressively push both software and hardware trials; even for six figure data center type products. My favorite is the “30 day software” trial with no guaranteed results.

The problem is, trials take a potential customer’s time and effort. Time is money.  Effort is lots of money.  Figure out a way to make your trial compelling by focusing on results the client will achieve with the trial.

How about this: you can try our XYZ product for 30 days AND until you generate N results.  If they customer has used the product for 30 days but has not achieved the desired results, the trial continues.  This limits the customer’s resistance to entering into the trial because if they expect to be busy for the next couple of weeks they will opt out.

Have you created a successful trial offer (non-consumer only)? Let us know

Tags: B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // 1 Comment »

In Part 1 of this discussion we were trying to define a Sales Ready Lead.  My contention is that it is anyone who may purchase your product or service now, or in the future.  Our dilemma is how we filter out those that may possibly buy (nothing is certain).  Here is a technique that served me well during my years as a sales person in the IT hardware/software business.

Ask the Golden Question

Yes, there is a Golden Question that you (or your nurturing flow process) can ask to determine if the prospect should be pushed to sales.  The question, however needs to appear as a personal note to the prospect, not a computer generated message.  Ideally, it should come from the sales team themselves (or an inside rep) and should be delivered within minutes of the initial contact. [Read more →]

Tags: B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // Add Comment »

I saw a funny Farside comic that described the disconnect between what people say to their pets and what their pets actually hear.  After a long conversation the dog only hears his name “Spot” while the cat doesn’t even acknowledge its name.  Here’s how the same disconnect occurs during those sales/marketing status meetings:

What Marketing Says:

“In January we completed 2 email campaigns, 1 trade show and 3 press releases.  Of the [Read more →]

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It dawned on me this morning while writing the previous post (Defining a B2B Sales Ready Lead) that a lot of the anxiety B2B marketers feel is rooted in a lack of confidence.  I’ve mentioned this before but some organizations put marketing in a no-win situation.  If the company has a great quarter, sales gets the credit.  If the numbers stink, marketing gets the blame.  It’s hard to be confident if you don’t get some credit when good things happen. 

Maybe it’s time for a different approach.  Figure out specifically what you can do that directly impacts the sales team and join them in victory!

I would love to hear how others have bridged this gap.

Tags: B2B Marketing // Add Comment »

I’ve heard the term “sales ready lead” along with “nurturing” and “drip” marketing” mentioned many times over the past few months in B2B marketing circles and decided to figure out exactly what they mean.  As a B2B sales person myself for 20 years I know what works and what doesn’t and I’m skeptical of anything that sounds “slow”.  What I’ve found is that there is often a disparity between a sales and marketing definition of sales ready lead (which I’ve also seen discussed at length and seems to be at the core of the issue).

A sales person’s definition of a sales ready lead:

“A sales ready lead is any prospect that has a business problem your company can solve at a price it can afford, now or in the future.”

A marketer’s definition (from my observation, please correct me):

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Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // 1 Comment »

Have you heard about MarketingProfs’ virtual B2B Expo: “What’s new in Finding + Keeping Customers”?  EchoQuote is sponsorinig a virtual booth because the theme fits perfectly with EchoQuote’s goal of helping B2B companies find customers.

The conference is being held virtually on Wednesday, March 5 at 10:30 am EST.  It’s free to sign up and if you did not participate last year you are in for a real treat.

Simply go to http://www.marketingprofs.com/ to sign up and then begin enjoying the conference on the 5th.  One of the best features is that it will run in “on-demand” mode for 3 months following the conference so if you miss the LIVE version, view whenever you wish.

Stop by our “booth” and ”chat”.  Look for our logo:

Tags: B2B Marketing // Add Comment »

What is with all this measuring and justifying in B2B Marketing?  Complaints from the sales team, that’s what.

Marketers are  sometimes in a no-win situation; if the company has a great quarter the Sales group gets the credit.  If sales are down, marketing gets the blame.  Sound familiar?

Want to know how to fix it?

[Read more →]

Tags: Lead Generation, B2B Marketing // 4 Comments »

I saw an interesting story Thursday night on CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.  Joe Antley, the founder of Rednumbat, has created a B2C self-service pricing tool for car dealerships.  The idea is based on the assumption that consumers want to get a price for cars quickly, from their website.  Although most people would say this is already possible, what Joe’s system seems to do is take the base pricing and put it into a form that customer can actually use.  Instead of waiting for the dealership’s internet sales team to respond with a proposal, a customer gets it emailed instantly and the sales team is also included in the email.

On the surface it sounds somewhat like EchoQuote.  Both services’ primary goal is to drive new business for clients but they operate in 2 totally different sales environments.  Rednumbat is designed for consumers (B2C) while EchoQuote is designed strictly for Business to Business (B2B).

Automatic versus Approval Based

[Read more →]

Tags: B2B Marketing, B2B Sales // 1 Comment »