I’m surprised how many companies take their databases for granted.
They did a good job at one point collecting leads from purchased lists, trade show badge swipes, web hits and referrals. But then the data starts to suffer from a lack of attention, no new investment of resources or energy and just some poor data management. A lot of companies never clean the data and most companies just copy the data from a hodge podge of lists randomly into their CRM system or their email marketing program.
But a lot of the literature shows that companies who invest time and money into deduping their lists and segmenting their prospects into groups like industry verticals, job titles, job functions (which are often different than titles), associations and the like see much better response rates.
Customer surveys are hard to implement and if you do it wrong, you don’t end up with actionable data. Sure, it may be nice from a PR perspective that 95% of your customers get what they expect out of your support line; however, that doesn’t mean they feel any loyalty toward you at all. Giving them what they expect just means you didn’t upset them enough to leave.
Surveys fail for any number of reasons.
Synchronicity.
For some reason, I’ve had five conversations in the last few weeks with clients about marketing as a percentage of X, where X might be revenue, EBITDA, new sales, or another measure.
So if you’re wondering about this, I thought I’d share my rules of thumb.
You’ve seen me mention our 8-step process for developing more prospects while increasing sales productivity–this is kind of a “cheat sheet” we use at the Boston Turner Group to explain all of the key elements of a marketing automation process to our clients. It helps us make sure we’ve covered all the bases in a leak-proof pipeline building process.
This infographic shows how we combine strategy, technology, creative and experience to engage your prospects and alert your reps with predetermined buying signals and behavioral triggers.
You can download the infographic at:
Are you tired of all those prospects sneaking around on your website without the courtesy to even fill out a landing page conversion form? What exactly are those anonymous visitors from domains like “sbcglobal” and “roadrunner” and “verizon” doing on your site? Who are these mysterious e-vagrants?
Our Nuturama process includes a new process that identifies prospects on your website even if they don’t fill out a prospecting form. Here is a taste of what our program can do to reveal your prospects’ hidden site-surfing secrets.
Sales and marketing can be dangerous business.
One of the biggest challenges sales and marketing teams have faced during the recent economic downturn has been with deals stalling during the later stages of the sales funnel. Based on our research and 20 years of technology marketing experience, we’ve invented “Nurturama,” an innovative process that will help your organization progress and accelerate prospects through the buying cycle.
There’s an interesting opportunity that you may want to explore.
During my time at Accellos and over the last decade, I saw the market for software solutions change dramatically. We’re seeing new competition, new solutions, new buying patterns and most importantly new growth for the first time in years.
That is why I’m posting this today.