What velocity do you need? And what does your current velocity tell you about what you should change?

B2B marketing that reaches executives

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Is there a failsafe way to engage executives as prospects in B2B marketing strategies? We talked about selling to crazy-busy people when we reviewed Jill Konrath’s presentation titled to that effect, but it’s definitely a topic that B2B marketing professionals are drawn too. This is why I’m confident that Adrian Ott’s presentation will be a welcome addition to the DemandCon agenda. So what will Adrian have to say about the matter? Adrian has promised to cover the “new rules for engaging today’s 24-Hour Executive”: How much time executive decision-makers READ MORE ›

By |Strategy, Velocity|
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Nurturing you and your leads will love: segmenting and automation to give B2B marketing leads a personalised experience

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Surely this is a goal for most B2B marketing teams. But of course personalisation often reads as almost synonymous with difficult, so it sets the alarm bells start ring for many of us. The trouble is you will get better results with personalised B2B marketing tactics. At align.me we certainly believe in clear, specific tactics for carrying-out optimised B2B marketing and sales solutions. So is there any way to take the difficulty out of personalisation? Just after my own heart, Kim Albee believes a nurturing attitude to prospects will READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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B2B Marketing Nirvana – targeting emails

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... We’ve had a social media Mecca and now we’ve got a B2B marketing nirvana. Dictionary.com defines nirvana as, “a place or state characterised by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world”. So if there is a B2B marketing ‘nirvana’, in what sense can you achieve it? Firstly, you would need to cut-out marketing tactics that are all worry and no results. People are almost immune to mass marketing efforts these days, so B2B marketing professionals need to be all-the-more savvy. To do this they need to READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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Using a Metrics-Based Process for Generating Sales-Worthy Leads

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Metrics for every stage of the lead-conditioning process? B2B marketing professionals will know that proving their worth to the rest of the organisation can prove painful at times. But when metrics are in place, they can serve to facilitate better planning, lead-readiness and maximise ROI. What you need is a solid set of metrics to align with your B2B marketing processes. So what are they? Laurie Beasley, President Beasley Direct, and Tom Judge, VP of Strategy at Direct Marketing Partners, will talk about creating a metrics-based B2B marketing process READ MORE ›

By |Strategy, Velocity|
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Marketing Operations of the Future

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Marketing Automation doesn’t happen overnight. There is a transition process involved. B2B marketing organisations will need to work through this process and respond to new ways of doing things as they go. B2B marketing delivery, user tracking, scoring and strategy all come into play. So what does this mean for the whole B2B marketing team? It means exactly that – the whole B2B marketing team needs to facilitate changes. And what’s more, B2B sales teams need to be on board to ensure full Marketing Automation roll-out. Ryan Abreo, Vice READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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Virtual events for B2B marketing

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... The internet is no longer an optional B2B marketing channel, but a key platform to almost every campaign executed. If we consider the huge changes that we’ve witnessed in the last decade, it’s logical to think that the virtual landscape will only continue to move to the centre of every B2B marketing professional’s world. The best approach is to embrace what you can of the digital world to avoid being left in the dust! Has your company started conducting virtual events? In this presentation at DemandCon, Dennis Shiao will READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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After the funnel – translating marketing activity into CEO and Board level impact

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Does your CEO know what an MQL is? What about an SQL and SAL? B2B marketing and sales professionals use this language on a day-to-day basis, so they can be forgiven for forgetting that other parts of the organisation may find it difficult to understand them as they reel off acronyms and abbreviations. The problem is that these ‘proprietary’ terms are key to understanding B2B marketing reports. So how do you communicate B2B marketing metric results without these concept-defining terms? We in marketing live in a great new industry READ MORE ›

By |Velocity|
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Stop warm leads leaking from the middle of your B2B marketing Funnel

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Both demand generation and closing a sale are often a strong focus in B2B marketing strategies. But there is much to be said for what happens in between. This is where leakage can occur, and if your B2B marketing strategy doesn’t include a plug for leakage in the middle of the funnel, then those leads that you nurtured at the top will have been a waste of time. Does your company have a plan for the middle of the Funnel? Carlos Hidalgo, CEO Annuitas Group, has helped clients identify READ MORE ›

By |Strategy, Velocity|
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Science at the top of the B2B marketing Funnel

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Do you know how to use the internet to find B2B marketing leads? If you’re reading a B2B marketing blog, then your answer is likely a yes. But then comes the other obvious question: are the leads you find via your internet searches of the right quality? There are some great technology solutions designed to help you scour the information on the web for leads, but the biggest costs are incurred by the sales force well after the leads is landed. So how do you get a quality list READ MORE ›

By |Strategy, Tactics, Velocity|
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What to do with a B2B Marketing lead: Best practices for turning leads into sales opportunities

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... We’ve talked before about the importance of handling a B2B marketing lead quickly and well in the sales follow-up process. What happens to a B2B marketing-generated lead in the process of being handed over to the sales department is crucial to the successful conversion of that lead. The wrong processes chew up time, fail to generate revenue, and send the two camps retreating to their respective corners.  So what are best practices to help you determine the best process for your company? According to Craig Rosenberg, Leader of Focus Expert READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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