Shocking B2B Statistics...

Did you know...

• Around 40% of marketing campaigns are deemed ineffective by sales?
• Salespeople have to make significant edits to 90% of the marketing/sales materials that the marketing teams provide them
• B2B salespeople spend 30 hours a month searching for and creating their own selling materials

Imagine what would it be like if your marketing team was working only to the 60% of its capacity and your sales team spent only 75% of their time selling...while the rest was spent 'fixing' the stuff that came from marketing. That's what's happening in most B2B organizations right now!

These statistics are by no means surprising. Complaints of irrelevant marketing or sales materials and poor quality leads from marketing are all too common.

So, what happens when salespeople try to become marketers? Salespeople generally don't make good marketers, they don't have the skill to design that sophisticated marketing or sales material, so from the marketing perspective, the result is a poorly edited, unprofessional looking sales or marketing presentation or flyer or e-mail that sends the company's branding standards for a toss.

From the sales perspective, so much time is spent on fixing, editing and making the marketing collateral fit for use that salespersons are distracted from their core function. The collateral creation process robs them of the time they could use doing what they do best--selling.

Sales start to plummet and the blame game ensues. While sales criticizes marketing of  passing on poor quality leads, marketing accuses sales of poor lead-follow up.

What if this disconnect could be put to an end? What if marketing and sales functions were clearly aligned so that there's no gap between what's expected bys ales and delivered by marketing? What if sales could just concentrate on what's their job?

Stay tuned for answers to all these questions and more as we tell you how you can turn these what-ifs into reality.

Virtual Tours—A must-have marketing tool

Virtual Tours are becoming a favorite among Real Estate marketers today

Many real estate brokers are resorting to Virtual Tours to showcase their listings. We now tell you why Virtual Tours are fast becoming a part of the marketing strategy of real estate brokers.

Increasing number of internet users: Research states that about 90% of property-buyers use the web extensively when looking for a new property. By creating Virtual Tours of your property and making them available online, you will be able to reach out to that 90% of the target market.

Exposure:  Virtual Tour can provide your listing the kind of exposure that cannot be compared to any other medium. You can publish your listing’s virtual tour on the social media and thus share it will millions of people on the web.

Better Response: A Virtual Tour is a refreshing change from the mundane form of marketing materials such as brochures and property flyers. A virtual tour is more likely to capture prospect attention than regular 2 dimensional images as it is interactive and gives them a ‘real feel’ of what the property is like.

Flexibility: A Virtual Tour offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to showcasing the listing. You can focus on the areas in the property that you wish to highlight. You can even attach documents, links and images to a virtual tour using hotspotting tools.

Available 24X7: Virtual Tours provide the prospects with the convenience of being able to look at the property at anytime. Making the property available to the prospects for viewing 24X7 increases the chances of the property being sold.

Saves Time: A Virtual Tour saves time for both—buyer and the broker/seller. It allows the buyers to get a good view of the property without exposing them to the pressures of an open-house or physical property tour. Based on the virtual tour the buyer can decide which properties are worth a visit and which are not. It is also beneficial for the property owner/broker as it filters out a lot of prospects and only those who are genuinely interested in the listing are likely to pursue it further.

Virtual Tours can be a great addition to your marketing strategy in today’s highly competitive marketing environment. A well-crafted virtual tour can convince buyers to physically visit the property. You can make your virtual tour stand out by making them interactive. If you are using images make sure they are of good quality and high-definition, and if you are relying on a video, make sure it is tastefully shot so as to reflect the pizzazz of the property. You can make it more interesting by adding music or make it more informative by adding commentary or documents or links using hot-spotting tools. The ultimate aim of a virtual tour is same as that of any other marketing material—to close a deal and a well-designed virtual tour will be able to do just that.

8 Tips to Help You Blog Better

Blogging is a great way to build your brand and strengthen your online presence

Blogging is fast becoming a popular marketing tool. Businesses today are encouraging their employees to blog actively on professional/business-related matters in order to build a greater following for the business and its brand in the market. And why not? Blogs are a great way to showcase the business’s knowledge and expertise. If you are thinking of starting a blog, or looking for ways to improve one that you already have, the following tips may help.

1. Consistency: Be consistent when it comes to blogging. If you blog once a week, then make it a point to have a new post every week, if it’s every month, then make sure you don’t miss a single month. It doesn’t matter if your blog-posts are short, make sure you post consistently. That way your readers look upon your blog as an ‘active’ one.

2. Concise:  Remember that a blog is different from a whitepaper. While you may be tempted to show off your in-depth knowledge about a topic, refrain from doing so. Keep your blog posts short—ideally about 3 paragraphs long with introduction, the main body and a conclusion.

3. Spelling and Grammar:  Pay attention to spelling and grammar. If you are not sure of something, make sure to double check or leave it out. Poor spellings reflect badly on your brand.

4. Be Sure: Be sure of what you are writing. Assumptions may sometimes go wrong and this will again count against your brand’s credibility.

5. Respond: Respond to the comments you receive—whether good or bad. Start and participate actively in decisions. Keep your readers engrossed and engaged.  

6. Check out other blogs: Get in touch with other bloggers who blog on similar topics. Comment on their blogs, have a conversation with them, follow their blogs. This will enable you to get a fresh perspective on things, and widen your knowledge base. You could also provide links to these other blogs in your blog post, and vice-versa.

7. Spam: Blogs are often targeted by spammers. Make sure you identify spam comments and delete them. Having spam comments on your blog makes readers think that you don’t attend to reader comments, otherwise how would the spam comment still be live on your blog?

8. Share: Encourage your readers to share your post. Have ‘Share- bars’ that make sharing the post easy on popular Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Tell your readers what is acceptable in terms of content re-use. You can set different limits on content re-use such as permitting re-use only with permission, or permitting reuse with a reference to the original post or permitting only a line or two to be re-used verbatim. By allowing your readers to share your posts, you stand to gain a larger audience.

Five Ways to Improve your B2B Marketing

The current B2B marketing environment is all about having an interactive dialogue with the prospect. But, the challenge lies in trying to hold prospect interest. Here are a few pointers on how you can keep your prospects engaged and interested in your content…

Identify what’s bothering them: Before you pitch to your prospects, it is essential to understand their pain-points. And, to be able to do this, you need to know your prospect well. For example, things that worry a CMO would be very different from the things that the VP of sales would be concerned about.

Hit the target: Now that you know the key areas that are of interest to your prospects the next thing to do is, ‘Get There’. Any conversation you have with your prospects should be geared towards how you can solve their challenges. They know there’s a problem… they want to listen to you only if you have a solution.

Personalize: Prospects today are looking for relevant information. No one has the time or interest for general content. Your goal should be to pass on relevant, value adding content to your prospects. Personalize your interaction to the highest degree possible, and get the maximum level of engagement from your buyers.

Learn from your relationships: The success of your B2B relationships depends on how you adapt your marketing strategies to your prospect’s behavior. Study the results of your marketing efforts and incorporate changes accordingly. For example, if some prospects constantly seem to ignore your e-mails, try sending them an information packet via snail mail.

Keep it short…keep it simple: Your prospects shouldn't have to wade through pages of text before they find something in your content that’s of use to them. So, keep your content unambiguous but short—so that it’s something they can recall when needed. You can send short whitepapers; provide links to relevant articles, or better still post short videos on topics that would be of interest to your prospects. Accomplishing all of the above can get a little overwhelming without the help of technology, in which case you might want to consider investing in a good marketing automation tool that can simplify your challenges.

5 Ways to Retain your Customers

Did you know that you can save as much as 20% by holding on to your existing customers and cross-selling and up-selling your products and services to them. Think about it. Your company spends quite a bit on demand generation and lead-follow ups. What happens after the leads close as the prospect becomes a customer? Do they vouch for your brand? Here are 5 simple steps that will help you stay on good terms with your customers...

1. Know them:  Know your customers and their preferences. When your company launches a new product or service, this knowledge will come in handy. You can always score better with a prospect/customer when you know them.


2. Stay in touch: Keep in touch with your clients even after the sale. Send them e-mails occasionally inquiring about their experience with your product/service. Check in once in a while to see if you can help them use your services better.


3. Special treats: Make your customers feel special. For example: Give your customers a special discount or a sneak preview on your new products/services. Send them your greetings on holidays and special occasions.


4. Post-sales service: Don't forget your customers once the deal is done. Offer superior customer service and be there for your clients when they need you.


5. Feedback: Do ask your clients for feedback on your product/service. Not only that, you could also ask for feedback on your processes that have an impact on clients such as customer care, sales process etc

10 Great Content Ideas for Social Media

So your brand is on Facebook and Twitter, but you are at loss for fresh content consistently? Here are 10 solutions to your problem:

1. New Blog Post: You updated the business blog with a new post. Go ahead and share the link on social media sites. Give a brief description, that hooks people's interests and makes them want to click on your blog link. You gather more followers for your blog this way, and your social media participation increases.
2. Customer Appreciation: One of your customers wrote back to you saying they loved your product/service? Go ahead announce it to the world! Better still if that customer is on your social network, thank them online and provide a link to their testimonial. A positive word from peer will go a long way in convincing your prospects.
3. Employee Appreciation: Someone walked an extra mile for your customers/business? Put that up on your Facebook account. Not only will it motivate your employees, but your prospects and customers will feel good to be doing business with a company whose staff cares for them
4. Special offers: Social media is a great platform to announce your company's special offers. With millions of people around the world interacting on social media, your special offer is likely to get a great response.
5. Events: The idea is similar to that in case of offers. Announce to the world where you will be and what you will be doing. Putting up a company booth at the weekend exhibition? Key-note speaker at an event? Spell out the details on Social media and see the response!
6. Links: Share content that you think will be value adding to your prospects. This may be a video, an article or a whitepaper. Give them something that will hold and interest and add value by teaching something new.
7. Website updates: Company websites may be revamped or new content may be added time and again. Update your social media site with that information. For example, provide the link to the new white-paper you added to your resources section, or to the newly updated product page.
8. Policy changes that concern customers: Changed your return policy? Modified your pricing? Use the social media platform to announce it.Your customers and prospects alike will appreciate your company's transparency.
9. Product help/New launch: Launching a new product or service? Announce it on Facebook & Twitter! Launch a complete marketing campaign on social media! Also, if you come across Frequently Asked Questions that customers have about your product or service, post them on your social media account.
10. Pictures: Post pictures of your last company picnic or celebration or of any event that you attended. This will help your customers and prospects see the human side of your business and help create a warm and approachable image of your company.

4 Ways to Keep Up with Your Prospects

An article at Marketing Profs talks about a McKinsey Quarterly study that states that businesses are now in control of only one-third of the touch points in a buyer's evaluation process. So, how do you make the most of the one-third that you have some control over? Here are a few tips to doing that...

1. Content: Make sure your content is engaging. It should be fresh, simple and address the buyers pain-points. It should be value adding to the buyer. Buyers today don't have too much time or patience. Unless you get straight to the point, they are likely to move on.
   
   
2. Media: Buyers interact with businesses at various stages, through various channels. Make sure your marketing strategy reflects that. Use a healthy mix of different forms of marketing media such as videos, print, HTML e-mails, social media and so on.
   
   
3. Web presence: Buyers today do extensive web searches soliciting peer reviews and suggestions before making a purchase decision. Invest in good SEO practices to ensure that your business has a strong, positive web presence.
   
   
4. Track: Track the touch-points that you still have some control over. That includes your websites, digital marketing and sales collateral, e-mails, social media pages etc. Tracking the traffic and response to these touch-points will provide useful information that you can use to tweak your marketing and sales strategy.
   
   

You can read more about the study at ... http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/1301/the-funnel-sprung-a-leak