A/B testing is a traditional technique in direct marketing, and it’s common in digital marketing, too. People test alternate versions of landing pages, images, email subject lines, colors, offers, creative, and on and on. (In some cases when they have large volumes they may do multi-variate testing, too.)
But don’t necessarily assume that just because one option won that it’s always better. Continue reading
Many companies have a President’s Club to honor their top sales people. Sales reps who meet, or exceed, quota and other goals such as new business, year-over-year growth, or territory growth get a handshake from the President, CEO or chairman, and rewards can include cash bonuses, trips, and even cars, as well as the public recognition. Multiple President’s Club winners may reap even greater rewards. Continue reading
The amount of content (blogs, videos, infographics, webinars, market research, etc. etc.) being developed is increasing so rapidly that you could call it a tsunami. Unless you’re one of the fortunate few who’s in an industry where your competitors are not yet generating much content, it gets harder and harder every day to get your content noticed. Continue reading
You can use three types of marketing data to enhance your customer and prospect targeting:
Can people tell what your company does in just a few seconds after getting to your website? And why they should care? It’s important that they can.
The home pages of many websites suffer from diffuse messaging. This is often the result of internal political struggles over that most valuable of Internet real estate. Continue reading
As marketers we should be talking with customers ourselves and bringing research to sales. But whether it’s an enterprise sales rep closing $1 million deals or a retail salesperson in the clothes section helping people buy something that looks good on them, salespeople have orders of magnitude more customer contact than we ever will. So be close to your salespeople and learn from them about your customers. Continue reading
If the overnight success of Pokémon Go means anything, it’s that augmented reality has entered the mainstream and will be understood by many more people. And augmented reality (AR) has many applications in marketing.
For those who haven’t heard of AR, it’s adding data or images to images of the real world. While it can be done with a special headset it’s far more accessible if it’s done with a smartphone camera and app. Continue reading
People buy with emotion and justify with logic. Sales people have known this forever and good marketers do, too.
Bob Johnson at IDG Connect and Kim Wallace of Wallace & Washburn had done research into the behaviors of B2B buyers. They found that in 97% of cases vendors introduced in the first buying team meeting were the ones that made it to the short list, so if you weren’t a pre-favorite it was almost impossible to get in on the opportunity later. Marketing is critical for becoming a pre-favorite. Continue reading
Congratulations to HubSpot — yesterday they filed a $100 million IPO. Over the past 8 years the people at HubSpot have grown a company known for its terrific product and culture. That’s a real accomplishment. Continue reading
Today’s B2B business environment provides new and increasingly demanding revenue generation challenges, including rapid changes to our buyer’s journeys, an overwhelming proliferation of sales and marketing technologies, and the need for people in sales and marketing to have radically different skills than just a few years ago.