The prospect of artificial intelligence (AI) changing everything generated considerable buzz in marketing circles in 2017, and that will continue in 2018 and the years ahead. Innovations like Salesforce Einstein, the first comprehensive AI for CRM, will give sales professionals unprecedented insights into customer needs, help support agents solve problems before customers even perceive them and let marketing personalize experiences to a degree that wasn’t possible before. These developments are the leading edge of a
Sales and Marketing Alignment: Top Predictions for the Future
We recently had a fantastic interview with Giles House and one of the topics of the discussion was sales and marketing alignment. Fresh off that interview, InsideView recently published these predictions for sales and marketing alignment. They’re based on the new book, Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales and Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth, authored by InsideView’s CMO Tracy Eiler, and VP of Enterprise Sales Andrea Austin. The predictions were based on the results of
5 Misperceptions of Marketing and the Reality
We’re working on a proposal right now where the prospect stated they wanted to move quick. Most salespeople would salivate with the opportunity to get a quick signature, but I view it now as a warning sign. Moving quickly typically leads to an expectation of getting leads quickly. While that may be possible until we thoroughly analyze the client, the competition, and the opportunity, we’re not sure how quickly we can get the results. Is
Sales and Marketing: The Original Game of Thrones
This is a great infographic from the Pardot team on organizations where sales and marketing struggle to align themselves. As a marketing consultant, we’ve struggled with sales-driven organizations as well. One key issue is that sales-driven organizations often apply the same expectations they have for their sales team to the marketing team. We get hired by sales-driven organizations because they realize that their brand hasn’t built awareness, authority and trust online and that their sales
The 7 Keys to Small Business Sales and Marketing
While we assist large businesses with their sales and marketing efforts, we’re a small business ourself. That means that we have limited resources and as clients leave, it’s essential that we have other clients that take their place. This enables us to regulate our cashflow and keep the lights on! It’s a tough situation, though. We often only have a month or two to prepare for the departure of one client and onboarding of the
Accent Accelerator: Align Sales and Marketing Materials
According to the Aberdeen Group, companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. With content as a strategy, as much as 50% of your new wins can come from older, nurtured leads. Those are amazing stats and they point to one thing… make the information readily available to your audience when they need it, and you vastly improve your chances of turning a lead into a customer.