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In B2B marketing, Marketing tactics early in the journey have more effect on closure rates than sales tactics later in the journey (which is why search beats social, blogging beats traditional, and it doesn’t matter what tactics the sales team uses).
What affect do various tactics have on closure rates at each stage of the buyer’s journey?
If you have listened to some of my recent blogs, you know that in 2005 we published the first of our landmark reports into alignment. What we learned then has shaped much of the debate on the topic of alignment ever since. In 2014 we published the 2013 refresh of the landmark alignment research. What we learned about training, process, automation, structure, tactics, demand generation, measurement and location is going to get the debate started all over again.
In this blog I am going to focus on just one chapter from that report. Chapter 9 looks at the effect marketing tactics used at different stages of the buyer’s journey have on closure rates. I’ll also show you how to get the whole report, for free, at the end of this video
- Search Beats Social for Finding New Names.
Those who use SEO and referrals have the highest MQL closure rates (30% and 27%).
Those who use list purchase and social media have the lowest (21% and 19%) - Blogging Beats Traditional Positioning Tactics by 40%
Those who use blogging and social media have the best MQL closure rates (26% and 25%)
Those who use trade shows and advertising have the worst (19% and 18%) - Marketers use a wide array of tactics to help potential buyers acknowledge the problem they solve, and Sales carries some of this load.
So we’ve held Marketing under the microscope. Let’s now do the same with Sales. What tactics do they use and which generate the best results?
In a moment or two I’ll show you how to get a full copy of the alignment report. First I’m going to do two things:
- I’m going to show you what Sales people do to to lift the probability of closure
- I’m going to invite you to receive more blogs like this.
Let’s get to the conclusion first. What tactics do they use and which generate the best results?
Salespeople use an inconsistent array of tactics to help buyers to clarify their needs. We hold that there is significant opportunity for improvement in closure effectiveness, but could find no data to support this view. Either we are wrong, or few sales practitioners are navigating this stage with great certainty.
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OK, so here’s how to get a copy of the alignment report. Go to align.me/sales-and-marketing-alignment/
We’ll show you there how you can access the 2014 report, or a webinar I did with the key conclusions
a more-recent webinar my partner Brett Bonser did with one of our Funnel Coaches – Charles Besondy or have a complete feast and enjoy them all
If you’d like to see if MM’s go-to-market planning workshops known as ‘Funnel Camp’ and ‘Funnel Mastery Workshop’ would help you to lift the performance of your Sales and Marketing systems, why not speak to your Funnel Coach today? Contact details on the web site.
I’ll show you how closure rates vary by country next week. But for now, may your funnel be full, and always flowing.
