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Would you bet your paycheck on the accuracy of the local weather forecast for tomorrow? Surely you would not. But, when you put all of your company’s eggs in the basket of a bad sales forecast, you’re doing just that.

Blog #3 of 5 in our Peter Ostrow guest blog series

What Do You Mean, “Margin Matters”?

A long time ago, in companies far, far away, B2B marketers marketed and their sellers sold.

The former were responsible for guarding the integrity of the corporate logo and generating tons of leads; the sales team was left to their own devices, and expense accounts, if they sold enough stuff. Obviously, times have changed. Contemporary marketers have, for a decade or more, been held accountable less for how many bodies, clicks, and downloads they generate, and more around ROMI - return on marketing investment. Considering the well-publicized analyst predictions that by 2017 the CMO's budget will out-pace that of the CIO, ROI had better be part of the equation for marketing leaders hoping to keep their jobs secure.

Blog #2 of 5 in our Peter Ostrow guest blog series

Traditionally, the B2B customer acquisition process is perceived as a two-dimensional, linear workflow: the mad scientists in product development cook up a brand-new iteration of the solution in their dark laboratory; product marketing launches a revolutionary messaging campaign in the newest, coolest medium; field marketing runs ads, events, and promotions to develop a pile of net-new leads; and then the sales team…closes the deals the same-old, same-old way they always have. Just like that - as if the proper order of things dictates that all content-based creativity and flexibility ceases to exist, once the white-hot leads are passed to sales, whose reps merely have to collect another signature in order to generate the revenue stream. If, however, enterprise sales reps are only expected to perform repetitious, uncreative, end-of-cycle tasks, why do we pay them so much?

The inherent problem with this model is obvious to all of us who have carried a bag, and a quota, but less so to the persona of the "celebrity CMO" who too often rides their white horse into town to fix things, but doesn't spend enough time interacting with real prospects or customers to truly understand whether their content is resonating where it counts. In reality, B2B sales leads are becoming an anachronism.

As hard as it might be for some of us old-timers to believe, 2015 represents the exact 30-year mark referenced in Back to the Future Part II.  Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?  

The concept of time, beyond Hollywood's interpretations of traveling through it, is a core currency among modern B2B marketers and sellers: product developers are under constant pressure to reduce speed-to-market. Marketers are tasked with refreshing – and controlling – the brand more frequently than ever before, and delivering more quality leads, and faster than a DeLorean. Sales leaders are pulled in a million directions, and never have enough space on their calendar to ride along with their reps in order to provide proper coaching. Reps themselves are now required to act like micro-marketers, adding the stress of delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right person, to their already-metered selling time. And even clients are required to become smarter buyers, distilling terabytes of user-generated and Googled data into just-in-time, lean purchasing behaviors that minimize face time with traditional B2B sales reps who cherish that 1:1 encounter more than anything else.

Originally Posted in FierceCMO: http://www.fiercecmo.com/story/top-5-b2b-marketing-predictions-2015/2014-12-16

OVERVIEW:

With the acceleration of mobile and cloud computing technologies, business is increasingly on-the-go. Mobility plays a crucial role in differentiating best-in-class sales teams from their competitors. According to a recent study conducted by Aberdeen Research, sales representatives of 40% of best-in-class companies use mobile devices regularly during client interactions. A company can invest in a fleet of tablets for their sales teams, but how do they ensure sales teams are optimizing mobile technology? To ensure ROI in the hardware, a company must make strategic decisions on the right apps, platforms, processes, and leadership.

When it comes to modern business, no one seriously suggests bringing back the telegraph or the slide rule. They’ve gone extinct, replaced by email and Excel spreadsheets. Yet many companies continue to use outdated and inefficient tools, hampering their sales force and weakening their potential revenue. Here are three relics of the business world that should be gathering dust—and here’s how deploying an adaptive sales enablement app can help you thrive.

Successful organizations often function like a well-oiled machine. Typically, there has to be a general understanding of what it will produce at any given time under a set of circumstances. This is almost like science, black and white, but ready to adjust for new conditions, able to adapt and improve with technological advancement.

Your marketing team works like a well-oiled machine, using strategy to churn out relevant digital content for multi-channel selling. They keep up with the latest and greatest of the constantly changing digital sphere. They track the efforts of their campaigns, and know which platforms work for your product and they use them properly. They analyze results and adjust efforts accordingly. And it’s working! You’re raking in heightened buzz, leads, brand awareness and traffic. But your sales numbers aren’t necessarily matching up. How do you go from customer awareness to customer purchase, loyalty and advocacy? The sales team has to be prepared to give the customer the old one-two. 

1. Reinforce Marketing Message

The Content Marketing Institute compiled 50 of it's best quotes from various professionals to bring us this SlideShare presentation. These predictions include actionable advice that is relevant to content marketing in 2014.