What’s all the buzz about Inbound Marketing?

Rand and I just gave a very well-attended webinar to the Cornell Entrepreneur Network titled, “The Birth of Customer 2.0 and the Death of Marketing as we know it”. One of the primary trends we discussed is the emergence of Inbound Marketing – and given the tremendous interest, I wanted to talk a bit more about it here on our blog.

It is clear to all of us that online marketing and social media have dramatically changed the marketing practice over the past decade. They have certainly made it a lot more measurable and accountable – much more of a science. They have also made it a lot more interactive and collaborative with the target customer.

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Which came first: Sales 2.0 or Customer 2.0?

It sounds like one of those chicken or the egg questions…and given all the buzz about Sales 2.0 technologies and methodologies, you might be tempted to answer “Sales 2.0”.  But I think Sales 2.0 is really the sales organizations response to the “evolve or die” mandate they face, given the smarter and more informed buyer they have to sell to: Customer 2.0.   I do believe the customer has evolved faster than the sales guy…and I believe this is – at least in part – due to how B2B trends typically follow B2C.  Prospects who are looking to make B2B purchase decisions are also consumers, and have been making B2C decisions for a long time.  Access to online reviews, comparison shopping engines, Facebook or Twitter “conversations” on products and services they are evaluating has turned them into much wiser B2C buyers…So, why not transfer that same process, powered by “social intelligence”, to the B2B buying cycle?  Read the rest of this entry »

Creativity Without Conversion = 0

The ZiegenBock beer is going down smooth. Austin airport is a great place to wait for a flight. And, Ray’s Chuck Wagon at Asleep at the Wheel surely serves the finest briquette of beef in any airport. Dry and spicy. Country rock, courtesy of a SXSW (the locals say “South – By”) band helps me collect my thoughts about the day here.

This is the first time for me attending the show. And it will no doubt be the first of many. Austin is Portland meets Texas – hip, clean, smart and technology enabled with a little barbeque sauce. SXSW takes over town attracting (perhaps) hundreds of thousands to the festival.

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Moving from a Culture of Accountability to a Culture of Predictability

This past week I moderated the Forecasting, Analytics and Compensation Management Panel at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco (good event by the way – probably the best one yet!).  My diverse panel included sales execs from ArcSight, LaCrosse Footwear, and GuardianEdge who deployed Sales 2.0-powered sales management solutions from Xactly, Right 90 and Cloud 9 Analytics, respectively. 

Given my marketing analytics background (or DNA as some might say ), I’ve always been focused on making marketing more accountable to and aligned with sales. My personal edict is “You Cannot Improve What You Cannot Measure”, and I practice it religiously to ensure my clients drive the most revenue possible with their marketing dollars, great or small.  What was thrilling about my pre-conference conversations with the panelists was how the Sales 2.0 movement is enabling sales organizations to adopt a similar culture of measurement, bringing in much needed accountability.  Actually according to my panel, it is moving beyond accountability – and shifting sales into a culture of predictability.  Here is how: Sales management solutions, such as forecasting, business analytics and compensation management tools, improve visibility into sales performance with objective, dynamic data.  Better visibility in turn exposes volatility at the aggregate level as well as gives us the ability to drill down to pinpoint and act on the problem areas – whether product line, geo, sales rep, lead source – resulting in overall sales performance predictability.

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A Transformative Culture of Measurement

I’m fascinated by change, as change is the only constant. And change is good for ADA (attention-deficit advantaged) people like me – which is probably the reason I’ve spent so my much time in the tech biz. However, it seems the rate of change is accelerating. Gordon Moore surely had it right.

Next week I’ll be in Austin at the huge international music, film and interactive confab, SXSW addressing the question, Has Math Killed Marketing Creativity? I’m debating the topic with classic ad guys who think it has (at least that’s the position they take for a good show). Guess what side I’ll take? Math is key to marketing in the future. Move over finance dept, as it’s now critical to build an entire “Culture of Measurement” because we now can. I list some lowest hanging fruit below.

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Bridging the Sales and Marketing Chasm with Smarketing

We market and sell in a brave new world where prospects are equipped with near x-ray vision into companies, products and people they are considering doing business with. Attention span crunch has become pandemic, and we now have the mandate of ensuring every customer engagement is targeted and relevant to synchronize buying and selling cycles – or risk being left behind to join the multitude of businesses that simply didn’t make the necessary transformations in time.

It wasn’t too long ago where the norm was for marketing and sales teams to shout insults and pass blame on for not reaching revenue goals: “The leads are worthless!”…”No, it’s the sales reps who just cannot close!!” Fast forward a decade and the rules have changed. Marketing is now measured and compensated more like sales reps on attainment of goals; and our friends in sales are having to think more marketing-like and segment and target prospects with the right messages at the right time to increase conversions. Welcome to the world of sales and marketing 2.0 or “Smarketing”!

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