Mary Shea says, “Are your marketing and sales teams caught in that endless loop of finger pointing? B2B sellers who complain about lead quality/quantity and marketers who criticize sellers for poor follow up? After years of acknowledging their issues with each other, many B2B marketing and sales teams continue to be at odds. Just “google” marketing and sales relationships and see what you find. I did and I surfaced 98 million results! Titles such as: “The Rocky Road Between Sales and Marketing” and “How to Survive a Soured Sales and Marketing Relationship” show the dissonance... [...]

James Thomas says, “Each year, the marketing community confronts a few dominant themes. A couple of years ago, predictive analytics was all the rage. If you ask any B2B marketer what trends dominated in 2016, you’d likely hear “ABM,” “one-to-one relationships,” or “managing the customer journey”; marketers were investing more in an end-to-end experience, from awareness to advocacy. However, if you were to ask any of those marketers to put aside trends and instead identify what their continual focus has been, year after year, you would hear, overwhelmingly,... [...]

Jessica Cameron says, “It’s no small feat to be a successful B2B digital marketer in today’s complex, ever-changing environment. In this article, I offer several proven recommendations related to the domination of search engine results pages (SERPs), testing, attribution and ROI. Utilize these tips to jump-start your search results in the new year and start 2017 with a bang. New year, new opportunities 2016 was a year of incredible change. Google changed the SERP game by shifting visibility to paid advertising, while also changing the core organic algorithm to natively include Panda... [...]

Marc Wayshak says, “t’s no secret that selling to other businesses is tricky. You simply won’t succeed if you don’t take B2B selling for what it is: A high-stakes selling game that requires an entirely unique approach from direct-to-consumer selling. When done right, B2B sales have the potential to be both extremely lucrative and deeply rewarding. The following eight selling strategies are real-world tips from insiders who routinely close huge B2B sales. Implement these tips, and you’ll develop an approach that helps you close more B2B sales — right away. 1) Skip straight to... [...]

Danny Wong says, “All salespeople have heard the term “build rapport” more times than they can count, and for good reason: Rapport is a critical element of any sale. But if your competitors are already doing it, and well, you have to do it better to outsmart those competitors and win over those clients. How do you build rapport? Consider your closest friends. When you first met, what drew you to them? Were they outgoing, sincere? Quick to help? Honest? Did they show respect for your time and values? Alternately, consider people you’ve met who seemed off-putting. Which aspects... [...]

Casandra Campbell says, “As usual, we wrote a lot of articles in 2016. Whether you’re a new reader or you’ve been with us for a while, chances are, you’ve probably missed a few articles along the way. To make sure you get a chance to read all the best stuff, we created this list of 2016’s most popular articles. Top 10 Articles in 2016 Below, you’ll find a list of handy time management apps, tips for driving more sales with Facebook and Pinterest, step-by-step advice on importing or dropshipping products from China, and much much more. Everything you need to start... [...]

Jodi Harris says, “Love the fresh start you get after the holidays, but dread coming back to the office knowing just how much pressure you’ll be under to make up for all that lost time? The CMI editorial team feels your pain, so we put together a little seasonal present to help you hit the ground running – without undoing the stress-busting benefits of taking some well-deserved time off. We’ve collected some of our most popular strategy, planning, and measurement templates to help make your content marketing efforts easier to manage throughout the year. You can also access additional... [...]

Erik Matlick says, “The lull between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally a time for looking back at the best practices (and missteps) of the year gone by, in the hopes of getting a jump on the trends that will dominate the coming year. For B2B marketers, 2017 will be about three Cs: Consolidation, Convergence and the Collective. Consolidation of vendors and dashboards 2016 might best be described as the year Account-Based Marketing (ABM) took over B2B marketing. While the basic principles of ABM are not new, ad tech and martech providers worked hard in 2016 to make the process of... [...]

Caroline Robertson says, “As the number of days in 2016 winds down, my own days at Forrester are adding up. I recently joined Forrester as a new B2B marketing research director, working alongside Peter O’Neill. I appreciate how your appreciation of the insights and guidance from our team led to the need for more leadership, and I am thrilled to be here. So as I’ve been immersing myself in the team’s work, I thought that it would be as interesting to you as it was to me to see what our top 10 B2B marketing blogs of the year were. There were more than a quarter of a million reads of... [...]

Scott Salkin says, “In 2015, more than 70% of revenue generated in the US came through indirect sales and marketing channels. 70%! And that spans all vertical markets—from technology to finance and retail to real estate—and businesses of all sizes. Companies are no longer waiting until they’re multinational corporations; even early-stage companies that have their sights fixed on growing fast and far are developing indirect sales ecosystems, working with partners to expand their reach. Could a network of partners be your ticket to accelerated growth and market expansion? If so,... [...]