Just returned from a industry summit, and it was a blast. Yet, it highlighted a persistent challenge: the critical need for teamwork in sales and marketing teamwork. The familiar narrative of misaligned marketing and sales teams swapping complaints is all too common, and frankly, it’s a narrative we need to change. Addressing the Problem The ..read more

When you think of word optimization, you might think of writing keyword-optimized posts for search engine optimization or running AB split tests to increase conversion rate. But, in reality, any marketing process can be optimized from demand generation, account-based marketing, and lead generation. I’ll review the basics of reviewing your demand generation funnel. Then, we’ll provide a few back-to-the-basics tactics to consider as you plan your campaigns and budgets. We’ll take an introductory look at conducting a lead generation analysis to help you optimize your lead generation process, camp ..read more

Lead nurturing is one of those things that’s easy to talk about but hard to do. In this post, I will share how to apply lead nurturing to help advance leads through three stages of your demand generation funnel to get more sales-qualified opportunities. Remember this: Our customers don’t see our funnels. They only have the aggregate experience of what they see, hear, and feel from us. Yet, it’s helpful to notice that all customer buying cycles fit into three distinct funnel stages. Let me explain. Three Lead Generation Stages You Need to Nurture Top of the Funnel (TOFU): People at this stage ..read more

Proactively building relationships with influencers and industry experts is a powerful way to generate demand and leads, and positive word of mouth (WOM). Most of us know this as influencer marketing or influencer development. Influencer development is the practice of building relationships with key individuals who influence your buyers’ decisions. There are multiple opportunities that come with influencer development, which include: Getting more opportunities with people and companies, you may have not otherwise engaged with Increasing your close rate and reducing sales cycle time by earning ..read more

Marketing can take you on a long hike. The one thing I can guarantee you about the journey is that getting more leads is not better if you don’t know how to nurture them. The goal of lead nurturing is to help potential customers on their buying journey. It’s not just about converting leads to becoming “marketing qualified.”  It’s about helping them progress along the way to get more sales. Can you think about a time that you saw lead nurturing being forgotten about? I’ve seen companies spend too much time getting people to raise their hands (i.e., leads) but not enough towards progression ..read more

Are you using empathy in your marketing? Why? Because marketing isn’t something you do to people; it’s something you do with people. You might be wondering: why am I saying this? The problem with modern sales and marketing I see with marketing (and sales) this: we get clinical and treat our customers as objects to convert rather than people who need help. Our thinking can get off track in thinking about, “How do I get what I want?” (revenue, leads, opportunities, etc.) I recently met with a group of sales and marketing influencers and we discussed trends and our projects. We shared what t ..read more

Customers care more about the values of the companies they buy than ever before. It’s more than your purpose. It’s more than what you sell. They want to know what kind of company you are and what do you care about. Does a company want to do more than drive profits? That’s why I interviewed Dr. Philip Kotler, who is known as the “father of modern marketing.”  He is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and co-author of Brand Activism: From Purpose to Action. In this interview, you wi ..read more

I’m happy to announce that the B2B Lead Blog moved to the markempa blog (where marketing meets empathy). In this update, I want to share what you can expect and what’s next to move forward. So, why change? You might be wondering why you would change a good thing? I’ll admit that moving the B2B lead blog into markempa wasn’t a decision made right away—nor was it made easily. I still had a bit of the nostalgia factor with the B2B blog as I remember writing my first blog post one night in the Fall of 2003. At the time, there were not a lot of blogs of its kind. I would almost say that I “grew up ..read more

Only a quarter of marketing professionals believe their B2B content marketing strategy is effective. Most B2B content is missing the mark, according to a January research study by Heinz Marketing and ON24. The study polled more than 150 B2B marketing professionals across various roles, industries, and organization sizes. Just one in four respondents believe that their content marketing strategy is effective. One in five reported feeling very or extremely confident that they’re creating relevant content. The report found a majority of B2B content isn’t driving results and marketers la ..read more

Things can get emotional in sales, especially B2B, where the stakes are high. You’re trying to meet your quota, and figure out the new normal with COVID-19. It’s no wonder we’re all a little on edge. That’s why it’s helpful to be able to read other people’s emotions. Because – a lot of times – people don’t say what they’re really feeling or thinking. This is how we can develop our emotional intelligence. Developing emotional intelligence To get better at reading emotions, we need to overcome the chemicals in our brains. A few ways to do that: 1) Feel your heartbeat. I might sound a little cra ..read more