Fall of the Wall between Sales and Marketing?

The relationship between sales and marketing is fraught with distrust and misunderstanding. Sales people are reluctant to share any information about their sales activity and funnel, while marketers are blindly messaging market segments without direct feedback from sales teams and their prospects.

This situation may be changing.

The deployment of powerful cloud based tools to sales teams, like Salesforce, and to marketing teams, like Hubspot, have allowed companies to break down these silos and foster trust and communication.

The opportunity now is to build a transparent data-based funnel from lead to close to referral and track how, where and when your sales and marketing dollars are working...and not.

Want to learn more about how Honeycomb works with our clients to build this kind of sales and marketing infrastructure? Email me to learn more.

What caught my eye in the past month?

1. How to Write Engaging B2B Headlines: Analysis of 10 Million Articles Shared on LinkedIn, BuzzSumo
2. How to Write Marketing Blogs Your Clients Will Actually Read, Jeff Bullas
3. 5 Psychological Principles of High Converting Websites, KissMetrics
4. B2B marketing budget planning tips, FierceCMO
5. Learning to Learn: You, Too, Can Rewire Your Brain, The New York Times

Fall of the Wall Dividing Sales and Marketing?

Traditionally, the relationship between sales and marketing was fraught with distrust and misunderstanding. Sales people were reluctant to share any information about their sales activity and funnel, while marketers were blindly messaging market segments without direct feedback from sales teams and their prospects.

Over the past 5-6 years, this situation has changed. The deployment of powerful cloud based tools to sales teams, like Salesforce, and to marketing teams, like Hubspot, have allowed companies to break down these silos. The goal is to build a transparent data-based funnel from lead to close to referral and track how, where and when your sales and marketing dollars are working...and not.

Want to learn more about how Honeycomb works with our clients to build this kind of sales and marketing infrastructure? Click here and schedule a call to learn more about how long it takes to set up these programs and how to use them to increase conversion rates and grow revenue.

As far as must-read marketing articles, what caught my eye in the past month?

1. LinkedIn launches conversion tracking capabilities, Fierce CMO
2. 27 SaaS Products for the Marketing Department, David Cummings
3. 19 content marketing ideas that aren’t blog posts, 500 Startups
4. B2B marketing budget planning tips for 2017, Fierce CMO
5. 5 Psychological Principles of High Converting Websites (+ 20 Case Studies), Kissmetrics

Do You Know the Number One Objection in Your Sales Funnel?

What's the one objection that's preventing your leads from turning into clients?

No idea? Then you should probably read this article:

The Number One Objection In The Sales Funnel, Tomasz Tunguz

The One Article You Have to Read Today

OK, there may be more than one, but for my money this is it.


Content Plays Critical Role Throughout Tech-Buying Cycle, MarketingProfs

From the article:

When making a major technology or security solution purchase, information technology decision-makers (ITDMs) download an average of nine content assets throughout the buying cycle, according to a report by IDG.
ITDMs rely on various types of content as they advance through the buying cycle:

• Early in the purchase process, when determining business need and technical requirements, ITDMs rank content such as feature articles, technology news stories, how-to articles, and whitepapers as most important.

• Midway through the process, when ITDMs are evaluating products and selecting vendors, content such as reviews/recommendations and third-party research (e.g., IDC, Gartner) plays a more important role.

• In the latter part of the buying cycle, when ITDMs are focusing on getting internal buy-in and final approval, content such as assessment tools (e.g., ROI calculators), product demos, and demo literature becomes more important.