A Leaders guide to optimising your technology, people, and supply chains

Over the past few years, the align.me team has been regularly holding events for leaders (both our clients and their guests) to share and collaboratively workshop growth insights. Our objective is to create new networks, refine best practice in B2B marketing and sales, and give a little thank you to those who have entrusted us with referrals over many years. When we brought this group together late in 2020, the global economy was climbing out from the depths to which it had plummeted. And, locally, we were dealing with the aftermath of the early lockdowns. At the READ MORE

5 tools you should be using for sales & marketing

They say a good tool improves the way you work, but a great tool improves the way you think. In the digital era, this has never been truer. Within the exciting world of sales and marketing, there is no shortage of tools, and the rate of which these tools are evolving is both intimidating and inspiring. It’s impossible to have them all and keep up – regardless of resources or budget. And it’s also completely unnecessary. If you can find the few that will have the most impact and add the most value, you’ll be setting yourself READ MORE

How CRM customisation affects your B2B sales and marketing success

When you make a sale, the details of that sale can be used to create more sales opportunities. You want to know who the buyer is and what they need, so you can upsell and cross sell. You want to know why they needed your product or service so you can sell to others like them. And you want to know how they found you so you can reach others in the same way. On the other hand, you also want to know the how’s and why’s of prospects that leak, so you can adjust your approach READ MORE

4x engagement from good customer onboarding for SaaS

Woo hoo! A hundred new trial users signed up to your application. Do you celebrate? Not yet. I want to explain the benefits of customer onboarding for SaaS (software as a service). Signing up for a trial is obviously a long way short of the finish line. Converting these trial users to paid subscribers is a clear next focus. But even paid users aren't over the line yet, either. The moment of purchase or trial is just the start of a mini journey. We need to get the user to the next incremental value as READ MORE

3 B2B sales trends that cannot be ignored

Forward from Brett Bonser: As a new member of our team, I am delighted to allow Claudia to share with you her findings - on key B2B sales trends that are shaping the future. Don’t let your sales be left behind. Read on, to prepare yourself for the changes ahead. As a business leader, you need to keep up with the rapidly evolving B2B selling environment. Your customers are continuing to change the way they engage and buy. To make things even harder, digitally aggressive new competitors will be entering into the market, intent on disrupting the READ MORE

How we produce our weekly video B2B Marketing blog

  If you are committed to a regular schedule of blogging, you'll know that the production needs to be efficient or the process can quickly become unaffordable. Video is a super engaging medium for blogging, but might appear unaffordable at first glance. Great corporate videos on your web site deserve a high quality production, but frequent video blogs need 'good enough' production only. At align.me, we're a long way from the efficiency we think we can achieve, but have mastered the art of good-enough quality video blog production and are pleased to let you under the covers READ MORE

Marketing automation delivers scale, but not confidence

  Want to receive more blogs like this? Subscribe to our twice weekly B2B marketing insights! Get your copy of our 2014 Sales and Marketing Alignment Report Is Marketing automation really worth the effort and expense? In this week's blog, Hugh delves into findings from the 2013 Sales and Alignment report to show how marketing automation delivers scale, but not always confidence. Even firms just planning to automate marketing have improved efficiencies in marketing's contribution to revenue and customer retention. That's got to be something to consider.

How much does content marketing actually cost?

Last year, content marketing spread like wildfire. Now, over 91% of B2B marketers are currently using content marketing, according to a survey by the Content Marketing Institute. And even more excitingly, content marketing has been proven to be one of the most effective tactics for lead generation. Despite this, businesses are somewhat lost when it comes to the numbers. Even now, business owners are still doubtful about their content marketing spend. Some common questions are: How much should I spend on content marketing? What portion of my marketing budget should be allocated to content marketing? How much READ MORE

Stand Out by Helping Out: How Customer Centricity Can Help you Win Business

Imagine for a minute that it is the 1920s and you have been doing the washing by hand your entire life. You have had to fetch water eight to ten times a day from a pump, well or spring to do your washing. Your mother did her washing by hand and so did her parents and everyone before them. Recently you’ve heard about machines in commercial plants that can do a lot of washing automatically and you know people are now buying these machines for their homes. You also, after some contemplation and discussion with friends and READ MORE

Why marketers are now your best salespeople

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but the research we read from many marketing research firms such as Forrester, Gartner and IDC tells the same story over and over again. Today's buyer OWNS the buying cycle more now than ever before. Salespeople are losing control and being pushed further and further down the buying decision process. Of course it varies greatly with product complexity and market maturity, but Forrester's research confirms that today’s buyers might be anywhere from two-thirds to 90% of the way through their journey before they contact the vendor. Similarly, READ MORE

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