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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

2019 Media Sales Report - Get Back to the Basics With Sales Enablement

Sales Enablement

Why is sales enablement important? Because buyers are more informed, and selling is more challenging than ever before. Our 2019 Media Sales Report found that some of the major challenges in sales today are that sales reps’ time is not actually spent selling and salespeople are simply not equipped with relevant materials.

Sales enablement is a strategy that aligns marketing, sales, and operations while lowering costs, increasing revenue, ensuring brand integrity, and ultimately closing more deals. Even the most talented sales reps can benefit from the right support, structure, and technology.

So, why did nearly 1 out of 4 sales managers feel that they don’t have the right sales collateral pieces to help their sellers in all stages of the sales process?

Topics: content marketing CRM sales enablement media sales report

How Inbound Marketing Can Create Raving Fans for Your Business

How Inbound Marketing Can Create Raving Fans for Your Business

Every business wants raving fans; consumers that are so overwhelmed with great customer service that they can't stop talking about your brand. This is particularly important if your business has a relatively long sales cycle. If prospects take their time to research different offerings, building brand awareness and trust is big.

And, businesses are catching on. Those using effective inbound marketing initiatives are producing sales leads and, at the same time, establishing expertise and thought leadership in their specific industry. Those experiencing this success will tell you that it's contagious, but requires the constant sharing of quality content, which attracts interested prospects to their companies.  

So how do you get consumers to not only know about your brand, but like your products and services enough to engage with your company frequently, and rave to others about you?

Topics: content marketing content strategy Digital Inbound Marketing

Prospecting is Dead… Long Live Prospecting

inbound marketing prospecting funnelDid you know that your chances of making a sale go up a gazillion percent when the prospect actually asks to be contacted by you? Of course you knew that! So how do you make this happen?

Topics: content marketing Lead Nurturing Inbound Marketing

6 Ways B2B Marketing And Sales Leaders Can Take Collaboration To The Next Level

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Effective marketing and sales alignment doesn’t happen without the dedication of determined leaders. When you consider that a lack of alignment between marketing and sales can cost companies up to 10% of their revenue each year, it puts the severity of the issue front and center. However, the importance of collaboration between the units isn’t limited to financial performance. It impacts the way your employees work with each other, and the way they demonstrate your value proposition to customers. Marketing and sales leaders must make a commitment to come together to better serve their customers, their team members, and the company stakeholders.

Topics: content marketing Sales marketing strategy B2B marketing

Avoid These 8 Common Business Blogging Mistakes

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Blogging is no longer just for personal use. Businesses, including B2B companies, use blogs as a platform to connect with their target audience and increase awareness about their brands. If you are running or managing the sales department of a B2B company and you don’t have a blog for your business yet, you may want to consider starting one due to its various benefits.

Topics: content marketing blog strategy

Get Serious about Lead Generation

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If you're blogging to generate leads, developing an effective lead generation strategy is something not to be taken lightly. If you are expecting your business blog to generate leads, rank higher on Google and increase traffic to your website, you probably want to spend as much time focusing on why you are blogging as you spend on what you are blogging about.

Topics: content marketing content strategy thought leadership Inbound Marketing

Increase Your Marketing ROI With Our Newest Online Course (free for a limited time!)

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I can remember it so well—sitting in the grass with a bunch of other sweaty 5th and 6th graders, out of breath from running laps and drills. We were the St. Joseph’s soccer team, and we were great at running around and yelling and kicking the ball in the general direction of the other team’s goal. We were pretty good at joking around and drinking the Gatorade, too.

But this practice was a little different. Today, Coach Freer had a big pad of paper and a sharpie. She proceeded to tell us this fabulous story involving fullbacks, and halfbacks, and forwards, and strikers. And those white lines on the grass? She told us what they meant, too. 

“Whoa!” I said to myself. “There’s a strategy here, and a structure!”

This memory came back so clear to me this week, as I finished building our latest online course, the Lead Gen What & Why: Inbound. In presenting the top 20 terms related to inbound marketing and lead generation, a real structure, based on strategy, started to come into focus.

Topics: content marketing Inbound Marketing Sales sales and marketing alignment

Your Communication Sales Strategy: Nice to Know vs. Need to Know

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My job includes constantly searching for industry and consumer trends, so I subscribe to a voluminous list of trade and news publications… more than I could possibly read thoroughly on any given day. However, I’ve taught myself to speed-scan the headlines rapidly, and separate the important stories that I need to know from the merely interesting stories that might be nice to know (if I had more time).

Chances are, you do precisely the same thing as you’re checking email, your Facebook page, or your Twitter feeds. At rapid-fire speed, you visually sift through hundreds of messages… “Junk, junk, junk, junk… Oh! This one looks like something I should read!”

I don’t raise this issue because I care about the way you prioritize the information you consume. I raise it so you’ll stop and think about the information you send.

When your client or prospect receives your message, logic tells us that it resides among hundreds—perhaps thousands—of other messages and issues that are screaming for that person’s attention.

Topics: email content marketing sales strategy Inbound Marketing

What You Need to Know About All This Google Encryption Talk

Google changes to your digital marketing strategyThere’s a good chance you’ve heard some things in the past few days about Google announcing changes to their keyword data. In case you haven’t heard, or if you’re just not sure what it all means, here’s an update: 

Topics: content marketing SEO Inbound Marketing

Digital Marketing: Social Media Can't Do These for Your Business

Top 3 Things Social Media Can't Do For A Business Or Brand"Things were so much simpler before Apple," says my 11 year old daughter after a recent panic attack over the thought of losing her Instagram followers and pictures. Her iPod Touch was a lemon and luckily under warranty, but the time between her device crashing and her logging back into her Instagram app was pure torture… for both of us!

Topics: Social Media content marketing content strategy digital marketing setting expectations Digital