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| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Inside the Buyer's Brain Lee W. Frederiksen, Sylvia S. Montgomery, Aaron E. Taylor, Elizabeth Harr, 2013-09 |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Lead Generation For Dummies Dayna Rothman, 2014-03-07 Learn how to get your message heard above the online noise The buying process is greatly changed. With the Internet, the buyer is in charge. If your product is going to compete, you need to master 21st century lead generation, and this book shows you how. It's packed with effective strategies for inbound and outbound marketing tactics that will generate leads in today's market. You'll learn the basics of lead generation, inbound and outbound marketing, lead nurturing, ways to track ROI, and how to score leads to know when one is hot. Follow the steps to create your own personalized lead generation plan and learn how to sidestep common pitfalls. Lead generation involves a strategy for generating consumer interest and inquiry into your product as well as a process for nurturing those leads until each is ready to buy Techniques include content marketing through websites, blogs, social media, and SEO as well as outbound marketing strategies such as e-mail, PPC ads, content syndication, direct mail, and events This book explores the basics of lead generation, inbound and outbound marketing, lead nurturing, tracking ROI on campaigns, lead scoring techniques, and ways to avoid many common pitfalls Provides steps you can follow to create your own personalized lead generation plan Lead Generation For Dummies is the extra edge you need to compete in today's technologically enhanced marketplace. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Aligned to Achieve Tracy Eiler, Andrea Austin, 2016-09-01 A smart, practical guide to rocket-powered business growth Aligned to Achieve puts sales and marketing on the same page, creating a revenue 'dream team' that will drive your organization to new heights. Smart, practical explanations, case studies, and tips guide you toward action over theory, and dozens of examples illustrate the tangible effects of these changes in action at business-to-business companies. Written by sales and marketing executives who have made alignment work, this book is directed toward practitioners and leaders seeking to crack the code of sales and marketing alignment. Contributions by industry thought leaders and B2B executives provide fresh perspective and nuanced direction, while thoughtful, strategic, and well-supported guidance throughout helps you remove the obstacles standing in the way of your organization's financial and strategic goals. Misalignment between sales and marketing is an age-old problem—frequently lamented, but seldom addressed. As this schism grows amidst the evolving marketplace, its effects on top and bottom line performance are being felt more than ever before. This book shows you how to bring sales and marketing together effectively once and for all, leveraging their strengths to build an unstoppable force for growth. Understand the cost of misalignment and the driving forces behind it Learn strategies for improving your culture, process, leadership, and technology to initiate and support alignment Identify the best places to modify your sales and marketing programs to kickstart collaboration and cooperation between your teams Discover how other companies are uniting their sales and marketing teams into a single force for growth Walk away with practical advice on how to apply recommendation in the real world Misalignment is frustrating for everyone in sales, marketing, and leadership. It's also detrimental to your organization's performance—but the problem is not insurmountable. In fact, most of the obstacles it creates are self-inflicted, and entirely within control of leadership. Aligned to Achieve helps you identify and remove those obstacles, and build a culture of sustainable growth. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Marketing Alignment Mac McKinley, 2002-10 Business executives must ensure that their corporate positioning, product positioning, value propositions, sales channel strategies, messaging, and targeting are all in true alignment with each other, as well as the expectations of a target market. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Saleshood Elay Cohen, 2014-04-15 A playbook that empowers sales managers to think like CEOs and act like entrepreneurs At Salesforce.com, Elay Cohen created and executed the sales productivity programs that accelerated the company’s growth to a $3 billion–plus enterprise. The innovation delivered over these years by Elay and his team resulted in unprecedented sales productivity excellence. Based on that experience, Elay embarked on a journey to help every company in the world grow like Salesforce.com. After working with many organizations and further reflecting on his time at Salesforce.com, it became apparent that one key player was best positioned to accelerate growth in organizations: the first-line sales manager. Empowering sales managers to own and execute their own sales programs, as entrepreneurs would, became the focus of this book and his technology company. First-line sales managers are the backbone of every sales organization. They make it happen. They’re where the rubber meets the road in pipeline generation, revenue growth, and customer success. These sales managers serve as the voice of salespeople to organizations, and as the organizational voice back to salespeople. In this accessible guide, Cohen shares how sales managers can build an inspired, engaged team, equipping them with the tools they need to drive up sales productivity and grow the business. He reveals, among many other lessons, how you can nurture a winning sales culture; build world-class training programs that encourage salespeople to learn from each other; and execute sales processes, playbooks, and deals in a way that gives your salespeople the winning edge. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: ABM Is B2B Sangram Vajre, Eric Spett, 2019-09-03 Instant Bestseller on Amazon in Marketing and Sales! FACT: Less than ONE percent of all leads become customers. As a business, how can you break that trend and achieve client fidelity? In this book we reveal the secrets behind the framework that will sell and retain your customers. Did you know that less than one percent of all leads become customers? It is a true and shocking stat, but there is a way to stop the waste and flip this around. In this highly anticipated book, we reveal the secrets behind our signature TEAM - Target, Engage, Activate, and Measure - framework to transform your approach to market, increase sales, and retain your ideal customers. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the new B2B. It's time to challenge the status quo of B2B Marketing and Sales, and transition to what the business arena already expects as the updated B2B model. A transformation like this can only happen through an account-based approach that unites marketing, sales, and customer success teams (go-to-market teams) as #OneTeam. In summary, the TEAM framework coupled with the account-based approach enables your company to focus on the target accounts, engage them in a meaningful way, activate the sales team with top tier accounts proactively, and finally measure success based on business outcomes over vanity metrics. It's time to take the lead and transition your business to ABM. The process is simple when you have the right book - ABM is B2B. What are you waiting for? |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Creating Effective Sales and Marketing Relationships Kenneth Le Meunier-Fitzhugh, Leslie Caroline Le Meunier-Fitzhugh, 2015-01-19 How should corporate sales and marketing teams operate collaboratively in a 21st Century to enhance performance in the marketplace? This publication provides insights into how and why con ict and/or separation has grown up between the sales and marketing functions in many organizations, and what senior managers can do to counter this. Sales and marketing functions have the capabilities required to assist the organization to adapt to rapidly changing environments by focusing on customer needs and the activities of competitors. To gain the maximum bene ts for the organization, sales and marketing need to interact effectively and communicate both formally and informally. Creating Effective Sales and Marketing Relationships will consider the resourcing of sales and marketing, and how innovative processes can reduce conflict and promote mutual understanding. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Achieving a Strategic Sales Focus Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh, Tony Douglas, 2016-09-05 The main aim of this book is to consider how the sales function informs business strategy. Although there are a number of books available that address how to manage the sales team tactically, this text addresses how sales can help organizations to become more customer oriented. Many organizations are facing escalating costs and a growth in customer power, which makes it necessary to allocate resources more strategically. The sales function can provide critical customer and market knowledge to help inform both innovation and marketing. Sales are responsible for building customer knowledge, networking both internally and externally to help create additional customer value, as well as the more traditional role of managing customer relationships and selling. The text considers how sales organizations are responding to increasing competition, more demanding customers and a more complex selling environment. We identify many of the challenges facing organisations today and offers discussions of some of the possible solutions. This book considers the changing nature of sales and how activities can be aligned within the organization, as well as marketing sensing, creating customer focus and the role of sales leadership. The text will include illustrations (short case studies) provided by a range of successful organizations operating in a number of industries. Sales and senior management play an important role in ensuring that the sales teams' activities are aligned to business strategy and in creating an environment to allow salespeople to be more successful in developing new business opportunities and building long-term profitable business relationships. One of the objectives of this book is to consider how conventional thinking has changed in the last five years and integrate it with examples from sales practice to provide a more complete picture of the role of sales within the modern organization. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Set Up to Win Karl Becker, 2021-05-05 Here's the hard truth: when your sales organization stalls, there's no single magic trick that can fix it. And when throwing money at digital lead generators, all-star sales recruits, and team-building retreats isn't boosting your sales, it's time to get back to basics. Set Up to Win shows you Three Frameworks that will stabilize and grow your company's revenue long term using the power of your greatest asset-your team. (And yes, it also gives you a short-term roadmap to get your sales out of the danger zone.)If you're ready to stop wasting your time, energy, and money, Set Up to Win is your guide to building a solid foundation for enduring sales success. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Effective Sales Enablement Pam Didner, 2018-10-03 Sales enablement is a proven system for increasing revenue and productivity by creating integrated content, training and coaching for the sales function. Written from a marketer's perspective, Effective Sales Enablement goes beyond sales training and development. Pam Didner presents fresh thinking and creative approaches to improve sales enablement strategies, processes and programmes. Using case studies and examples from well-known brands such as Cisco, Oracle and Google, she provides a blueprint for any organization wanting to create a sales enablement function which will, in turn, accelerate revenue growth. Effective Sales Enablement shows you how to: - Understand trends that impact sales professionals and how to take advantage of them - Become a better marketer with creative ideas on how to support sales - Integrate sales elements into select marketing programmes - and vice versa - Assemble a first-class sales enablement team - Leverage technology to better integrate sales and marketing |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Revenue Operations Stephen G. Diorio, Chris K. Hummel, 2022-04-19 Crush siloes by connecting teams, data, and technologies with a new systems-based approach to growth. Growing a business in the 21st Century has become a capital intensive and data-driven team sport. In Revenue Operations: A New Way to Align Sales and Marketing, Monetize Data, and Ignite Growth, an accomplished team of practitioners, academics, and experts provide a proven system for aligning revenue teams and unlocking growth. The book shows everyone how to connect the dots across an increasingly complex technology ecosystem to simplify selling and accelerate revenue expansion. With Revenue Operations, you’ll understand what it takes to successfully transition to the new system of growth without killing your existing business. This practical and executable approach can be used by virtually any business - large or small, regardless of history or industry - that wants to generate more growth and value. By reading this book you will find: Real-world case studies and personal experiences from executives across an array of high technology, commercial, industrial, services, consumer, and cloud-based businesses. The six core elements of a system for managing your commercial operations, digital selling infrastructure, and customer data assets. Nine building-blocks that connect the dots across your sales and marketing technology ecosystem to generate more consistent growth and a better customer experience at lower costs. The skills and tools that next generation growth leaders will need to chart the roadmap for a successful career in any growth discipline for the next 25 years. An indispensable resource for anyone who wants to get more from their business – board members, CEOs, business unit leaders, strategists, thought leaders, analysts, operations professionals, partners, and front-line doers in sales, marketing, and service - Revenue Operations is based on over one thousand surveys of and interviews with business professionals conducted during 2020 and 2021. It also includes a comprehensive analysis of the sales and marketing technology landscape. As a perfectly balanced combination of academic insight and data-driven application, this book belongs on the bookshelves of anyone responsible for driving revenue and growth. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Selling from Your Comfort Zone Stacey Hall, 2022-07-26 You don't have to betray yourself or your values to close stellar sales. This book introduces a simple formula for a personalized approach to building connections through alignment and problem-solving. So many salespeople believe that they have to push themselves out of their comfort zones and compromise their values to sell products. But, as Stacey Hall shows, the comfort zone can actually be a power zone that leads to sales, satisfaction, and success. Selling from Your Comfort Zone shifts away from pushy and spammy sales tactics and instead shows how you can bring meaning to your role as a salesperson. Hall teaches how to remain in alignment with your calling, with yourself, with what you are selling, with your prospects, and with what you are saying to your prospects. By being aligned with your core values and personality traits, you will have more confidence, energy, and courage to achieve your goals, which greatly increases the chances of success. Studies reveal that while men generally rely on improving and driving outcomes to close sales, women tend to emphasize building connections, shaping solutions, and collaborating. Hall's Alignment Marketing formula combines both skillsets in an easy-to-follow process for gently expanding your comfort zone to the edge of its safe boundaries. By adopting this approach, you can stay flexible and resilient in the face of problems and objections that all salespeople encounter along the way. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Innovative B2B Marketing Simon Hall, 2022-08-03 Navigate the B2B marketing sphere with this fully updated guide on how to better understand new customer habits, the digital era and how to shift away from outdated traditional practices. Innovative B2B Marketing is an essential guide for marketers looking for the latest approaches, models and solutions for B2B marketing. Written by one of the leading voices in the B2B marketing sphere who works with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and other major associations, this book features real-life examples from a diverse range of sectors including marine, information technology and pharmaceutical, plus topical discussion points and challenges from key B2B marketing forums and associations. Now fully updated, the second edition of Innovative B2B Marketing features new chapters on customer attrition, B2B partnership marketing and lead nurturing, as well as further content on influencer marketing and the behaviours of millennial customers. It is accompanied by online resources which consist of case studies, web links to insightful videos and articles, and presentation slides with practical models and templates. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Account-Based Marketing For Dummies Sangram Vajre, 2016-04-25 Grow your account list with an effective account-based marketing strategy Buyers have changed the B2B marketing game. Account-Based Marketing For Dummies is here to give you the tools to transform your current approach to find, reach, and engage with your potential customers on their terms to meet their ever-changing demands. Packed with expert tips and step-by-step instructions, this book shows you how to analyze current data to identify the accounts with the biggest ROI opportunities and execute effective, account-specific techniques that get results. This practical guide takes the intimidation out of account-based marketing in today's highly digitized world. You'll be armed with the knowledge you need to increase your reach in real time, giving you greater exposure to other decision-makers and influencers within an account. You'll discover how, through a combination of marketing technology and online advertising, your messages can be displayed where and when your customers already engage online. Align your sales and marketing teams for greater success in your ABM efforts Analyze data to identify key accounts Target your messages for real-time interaction Integrate your campaign with marketing automation software If you're a member of a sales or marketing team already using a CRM tool who's looking to increase your reach, Account-Based Marketing For Dummies has you covered! Account-Based Marketing For Dummies clears away the confusion surrounding this much-hyped topic. It offers simple, direct explanations of what account-based marketing is, why it's important, and how to do it. Any business marketing professional will benefit from a look at this book. —David Raab, Founder at Raab Associates If you're reading this book and just getting started with ABM, welcome to the future of what b-to-b marketing can be: insight-led, technology-enabled and, above all, customer focused. Our clients are delighted with the business impact they deliver using account-based marketing, and you will be, too. —Megan Heuer, Vice President and Group Director, SiriusDecisions Like a Hollywood agent, marketing's job is to get sales the 'audition,' not the part. Account-based marketing is the key to maximizing the number of the 'right' auditions for your sales team, and Account-Based Marketing For Dummies explains how. —Joe Chernov, VP of Marketing at InsightSquared Ever-advancing marketing technology is enabling a new generation of sales and marketing strategies to thrive, changing the playing field for companies of all sizes. This modern wave of account-based marketing has tremendous potential to improve your business, and Sangram Vajre is an insightful and enthusiastic guide to show you how. —Scott Brinker, Author of Hacking Marketing Account-based marketing is shifting how businesses use customer insights to capture more upmarket revenue. This book teaches a new wave of data-driven marketers how to embrace an enlightened quality-vs-quantity approach and execute a scalable ABM strategy that delivers real results. —Sean Zinsmeister, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Infer The book may be titled '...for dummies', but ABM is proving to be a smart approach for B2B marketers charged with generating sales pipeline and acquiring and delighting customers. Use this book to help you get started and advance your account-based marketing strategies and tactics that will thrill your sales colleagues, executive team and customers alike. —Scott Vaughan, CMO, Integrate |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: The Oxford Handbook of Strategic Sales and Sales Management David W. Cravens, Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh, Nigel F. Piercy, 2012-11-22 The Oxford Handbook of Strategic Sales and Sales Management is an unrivalled overview by leading academics in the field of sales and marketing management. Sales theory is experiencing a renaissance driven by a number of factors, including building profitable relationships, creating/delivering brand value, strategic customer management, sales and marketing relationships, global selling, and the change from transactional to customer relationship marketing. Escalating sales and selling costs require organisations to be more focused on results and highlight the shifting of resources from marketing to sales. Further the growth in customer power now requires a strategic sales response, and not just a tactical one. The positioning of sales within the organisation, the sales function and sales management are all discussed. The Handbook is not a general sales management text about managing a sales force, but will fill a gap in the existing literature through consolidating the current academic research in the sales area. The Handbook is structured around four key topics. The first section explores the strategic positioning of the sales function within the modern organisation. The second considers sales management and recent developments. The third section examines the sales relationship with the customer and highlights how sales is responding to the modern environment. Finally, the fourth section reviews the internal composition of sales within the organisation. The Handbook will provide a comprehensive introduction to the latest research in sales management, and is suitable for academics, professionals, and those taking professional qualifications in sales and marketing. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Killing Marketing: How Innovative Businesses Are Turning Marketing Cost Into Profit Joe Pulizzi, Robert Rose, 2017-09-08 Killing your current marketing structure may be the only way to save it! Two of the world’s top marketing experts reveal the next level of breakthrough success—transforming your marketing strategy into a standalone profit center. What if everything we currently know about marketing is what is holding us back? Over the last two decades, we’ve watched the entire world change the way it buys and stays loyal to brands. But, marketing departments are still operating in the same, campaign-centric, product-led operation that they have been following for 75 years. The most innovative companies around the world have achieved remarkable marketing results by fundamentally changing their approach. By creating value for customers through the use of owned media and the savvy use of content, these businesses have dramatically increased customer loyalty and revenue. Some of them have even taken it to the next step and developed a marketing function that actually pays for itself. Killing Marketing explores how these companies are ending the marketing as we know it—in favor of this new, exciting model. Killing Marketing provides the insight, approaches, and examples you need to understand these disruptive forces in ways that turn your marketing from cost center to revenue creator. This book builds the case for, literally, transforming the purpose of marketing within your organization. Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute show how leading companies are able sell the very content that propels their marketing strategy. You’ll learn how to: * Transform all or part of your marketing operation into a media company * Integrate this new operation into traditional marketing efforts * Develop best practices for attracting and retaining audiences * Build a strategy for competing against traditional media companies * Create a paid/earned media strategy fueled by an owned media strategy Red Bull, Johnson & Johnson, Disney and Arrow Electronics have succeeded in what ten years ago would have been deemed impossible. They continue to market their products as they always have, and, through their content-driven and audience-building initiatives, they drive value outside the day-to-day products they sell—and monetize it directly. Killing Marketing rewrites the rules of marketing—enabling you to make the kind of transition that turns average companies into industry legends. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Aligning the Stars Jay W. Lorsch, Thomas J. Tierney, 2002-04-26 Most businesses rely on talent to succeed, but none so much as professional service firms. Within this rapidly expanding, trillion-dollar industry, professionals--and how they're managed--are the primary source of competitive advantage. In fact, success in this sector is determined more by the people you pay than the people who pay you. This path-breaking book provides readers with a practical and integrated perspective on how to win in the unique and tumultuous world of professional services. From strategy to organization to culture, it offers customized insights for businesses in which professionals drive bottom-line results and long-term company success. Respected academic Jay W. Lorsch and accomplished practitioner Thomas J. Tierney apply their broad experience to the realities of Monday morning decision making. Their work reflects decades of personal experience, combined with a rigorous study of outstanding professional service firms in industries that include law, information technology, accounting, advertising, investment banking, executive search, and consulting. Aligning the Stars explains what differentiates the best of the best within professional services. By describing how to attract, retain, motivate, organize, and lead the stars that shape a company's destiny, this book provides valuable lessons for the current and future leaders of every talent-driven business. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Aligning Strategy and Sales Frank Cespedes, 2014-08-12 The best sales book of the year — strategy+business magazine That gap between your company’s sales efforts and strategy? It’s real—and a huge vulnerability. Addressing that gap, actionably and with attention to relevant research, is the focus of this book. In Aligning Strategy and Sales, Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes equips you to link your go-to-market initiatives with strategic goals. Cespedes offers a road map to articulate strategy in ways that people in the field can understand and that will fuel the behaviors required for profitable growth. Without that alignment, leaders will press for better execution when they need a better strategy, or change strategic direction with great cost and turmoil when they should focus on the basics of sales execution. With thoughtful, clear, and engaging examples, Aligning Strategy and Sales provides a framework for diagnosing and managing the core levers available for effective selling in any organization. It will give you the know-how and tools to move from ideas to action and build a sales effort linked to your firm’s unique goals, not a generic selling formula. Cespedes shows how sales efforts affect all elements of value creation in a business, whether you’re a start-up seeking to scale or an established firm looking to jump-start new growth. The book provides key insights to optimize your firm’s customer management activities and so improve selling and strategy. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Duct Tape Selling John Jantsch, 2014-05-15 Many of the areas that salespeople struggle with these days have long been the domain of marketers, according to bestselling author John Jantsch. The traditional business model dictates that marketers own the message while sellers own the relationships. But now, Jantsch flips the usual sales approach on its head. It’s no longer enough to view a salesperson’s job as closing. Today’s superstars must attract, teach, convert, serve, and measure while developing a personal brand that stands for trust and expertise. In Duct Tape Selling, Jantsch shows how to tackle a changing sales environment, whether you’re an individual or charged with leading a sales team. You will learn to think like a marketer as you: Create an expert platform Become an authority in your field Mine networks to create critical relationships within your company and among your clients Build and utilize your Sales Hourglass Finish the sale and stay connected Make referrals an automatic part of your process As Jantsch writes: “Most people already know that the days of knocking on doors and hard-selling are over. But as I travel around the world speaking to groups of business owners, marketers, and sales professionals, the number one question I’m asked is, ‘What do we do now?’ “I’ve written this book specifically to answer that question. At the heart of it, marketing and sales have become activities that no longer simply support each other so much as feed off of each other’s activity. Sales professionals must think and act like marketers in order to completely reframe their role in the mind of the customer.” |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: How to Sell Anything to Anybody Joe Girard, 2006-02-07 Joe Girard was an example of a young man with perseverance and determination. Joe began his working career as a shoeshine boy. He moved on to be a newsboy for the Detroit Free Press at nine years old, then a dishwasher, a delivery boy, stove assembler, and home building contractor. He was thrown out of high school, fired from more than forty jobs, and lasted only ninety-seven days in the U.S. Army. Some said that Joe was doomed for failure. He proved them wrong. When Joe started his job as a salesman with a Chevrolet agency in Eastpointe, Michigan, he finally found his niche. Before leaving Chevrolet, Joe sold enough cars to put him in the Guinness Book of World Records as 'the world's greatest salesman' for twelve consecutive years. Here, he shares his winning techniques in this step-by-step book, including how to: o Read a customer like a book and keep that customer for life o Convince people reluctant to buy by selling them the right way o Develop priceless information from a two-minute phone call o Make word-of-mouth your most successful tool Informative, entertaining, and inspiring, HOW TO SELL ANYTHING TO ANYBODY is a timeless classic and an indispensable tool for anyone new to the sales market. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Product-Led Growth Bush Wes, 2019-05 Product-Led Growth is about helping your customers experience the ongoing value your product provides. It is a critical step in successful product design and this book shows you how it's done. - Nir Eyal, Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of Hooked |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: They Ask, You Answer Marcus Sheridan, 2019-08-06 The revolutionary guide that challenged businesses around the world to stop selling to their buyers and start answering their questions to get results; revised and updated to address new technology, trends, the continuous evolution of the digital consumer, and much more In today’s digital age, the traditional sales funnel—marketing at the top, sales in the middle, customer service at the bottom—is no longer effective. To be successful, businesses must obsess over the questions, concerns, and problems their buyers have, and address them as honestly and as thoroughly as possible. Every day, buyers turn to search engines to ask billions of questions. Having the answers they need can attract thousands of potential buyers to your company—but only if your content strategy puts your answers at the top of those search results. It’s a simple and powerful equation that produces growth and success: They Ask, You Answer. Using these principles, author Marcus Sheridan led his struggling pool company from the bleak depths of the housing crash of 2008 to become one of the largest pool installers in the United States. Discover how his proven strategy can work for your business and master the principles of inbound and content marketing that have empowered thousands of companies to achieve exceptional growth. They Ask, You Answer is a straightforward guide filled with practical tactics and insights for transforming your marketing strategy. This new edition has been fully revised and updated to reflect the evolution of content marketing and the increasing demands of today’s internet-savvy buyers. New chapters explore the impact of technology, conversational marketing, the essential elements every business website should possess, the rise of video, and new stories from companies that have achieved remarkable results with They Ask, You Answer. Upon reading this book, you will know: How to build trust with buyers through content and video. How to turn your web presence into a magnet for qualified buyers. What works and what doesn’t through new case studies, featuring real-world results from companies that have embraced these principles. Why you need to think of your business as a media company, instead of relying on more traditional (and ineffective) ways of advertising and marketing. How to achieve buy-in at your company and truly embrace a culture of content and video. How to transform your current customer base into loyal brand advocates for your company. They Ask, You Answer is a must-have resource for companies that want a fresh approach to marketing and sales that is proven to generate more traffic, leads, and sales. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: The Joy of Selling Steve Chandler, 2010-01-01 The Joy of Selling introduces powerful thinking processes that will help the reader to develop a creative state of mind. Chandler believes this state is essential for achieving extraordinary sales success. At the same time, he shows the reader how to enjoy the sales process. His book captures the same joyful spirit that enlivens his seminars. In concise, reader-friendly chapters, best-selling author Steve Chandler delivers over 50 powerful ideas guaranteed to stimulate fantastic sales success. Drawing on his extensive experience in the field, and using the most up-to-date psychological tools available, Chandler illustrates ways for both the novice and the seasoned pro to reach new heights of business prosperity. The Joy of Selling invites readers to be extraordinary, not only in sales but in all areas of life by making a conscious commitment to innovation, adventure, and clear communication. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Managing Content Marketing: The Real-World Guide for Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand Robert Rose, Joe Pulizzi, 2011-08-01 Perhaps no function in the business organization has been as fundamentally revolutionized as marketing. The social and mobile Web has completely changed the speed, efficiency, and ease with which consumers can engage with each other and has had a tremendous impact on brands. This new engagement of the consumer with keen awareness of their relationships and emerging social networks now correlates to every single aspect of our business. So, yes, marketing has changed. The question is what are we going to do about it?Content and Subscription: The New Marketing OpportunityAs growth of the social and mobile Web changes the methods of communication, the old lines of hierarchical relationships between business and consumer blur substantially. As consumers publish and share their opinions (both good and bad) with increasing ease, they can become more persuasive than even the company's voice itself. Every one of these groups becomes a powerful ally or enemy depending on what we do. All of them will be constantly in flux developing levels of trust and requiring varying levels of transparency to filter content and determine buying decisions. They will expand and collapse with great velocity, and it will all happen with or without our participation.Content marketing has been around for hundreds of years. But the application of a specific strategic process around content marketing is still new. The amount of budget that is allotted for new content creation is going to become a significant part of your new media budget. And subject matter experts in the organization are going to have new responsibilities. It's a transformative new process and it won't happen overnight. But it can, and should, happen. Get Content Get Customers showed us the light but there's been no book to show us the way. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says a crisis is simply an opportunity riding the dangerous wind. As marketers we now have the opportunity to develop new processes with our marketing strategy, power them with content, and ultimately keep that wind at our back.Successful programs will focus on creating a thoughtful strategy and process to foster this content marketing. This book is a detailed how-to to build that successful content marketing process. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Marketing Strategy from the Masters (Collection) Philip Kotler, Nancy Lee, Paul W. Farris, Neil Bendle, Phillip Pfeifer, David Reibstein, Larry Light, Joan Kiddon, Monique Reece, 2010-10-19 Breakthrough marketing: revitalize brands, optimize investments, link marketing to performance, even apply winning marketing strategies in the public sector Three full books of proven marketing strategy principles and actionable solutions! Discover how to revitalize any brand, and drive it to unprecedented success… apply the right metrics to all your marketing investments, get accurate answers, and use them to systematically improve ROI... tightly link marketing with business performance… bring powerful marketing strategies to the public sector… and much more! From world-renowned leaders and experts, including Philip Kotler, Nancy R. Lee, Paul W. Farris, Neil T. Bendle, Phillip E. Pfeifer, David J. Reibstein, Larry Light, and Joan Kiddon |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: SPIN® -Selling Neil Rackham, 2020-04-28 True or false? In selling high-value products or services: 'closing' increases your chance of success; it is essential to describe the benefits of your product or service to the customer; objection handling is an important skill; open questions are more effective than closed questions. All false, says this provocative book. Neil Rackham and his team studied more than 35,000 sales calls made by 10,000 sales people in 23 countries over 12 years. Their findings revealed that many of the methods developed for selling low-value goods just don‘t work for major sales. Rackham went on to introduce his SPIN-Selling method. SPIN describes the whole selling process: Situation questions Problem questions Implication questions Need-payoff questions SPIN-Selling provides you with a set of simple and practical techniques which have been tried in many of today‘s leading companies with dramatic improvements to their sales performance. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Sales Enablement Byron Matthews, Tamara Schenk, 2018-05-01 Put buyer experience and selling resources front-and-center to boost revenue Sales Enablement is the essential guide to boosting revenue through smarter selling. A thorough, practical introduction to sales enablement best practices, this book provides step-by-step approaches for implementation alongside expert advice. In clarifying the sales enablement space and defining its practices, this invaluable guidance covers training, content, and coaching using a holistic approach that ensures optimal implementation with measureable results. Case studies show how enablement is used effectively in real-world companies, and highlight the essential steps leaders must take to achieve their desired sales results. Smarter buyers require smarter selling, and organizations who have implemented enablement programs attain revenue goals at a rate more than eight percent higher than those that do not. This book provides a 101 guide to sales enablement for any sales professional wanting to enhance sales and boost revenue in an era of consumer choice. Understand sales enablement and what it can do for your company Implement enablement using techniques that ensure sustainable, measureable performance impact Adopt proven best practices through step-by-step advice from experts Examine case studies that illustrate successful implementation and the impact of sales enablement on revenue Consumers are smarter, more connected, and more educated than ever before. Traditional sales strategies are falling by the wayside, becoming increasingly less effective amidst the current economic landscape. Companies who thrive in this sort of climate know how to speak to the customer in their own terms, and sales enablement keeps the customer front-and-center by providing sales people with the resources buyers want. Sales Enablement provides a scalable, sales-boosting framework with proven results. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: CustomerCentric Selling, Second Edition Michael T. Bosworth, John R. Holland, Frank Visgatis, 2010-01-08 The Web has changed the game for your customers—and, therefore, for you. Now, CustomerCentricSelling, already recognized as one of the premiermethodologies for managing the buyer-sellerrelationship, helps you level the playing field soyou can reach clients when they are ready to buyand create a superior customer experience. Your business and its people need to be“CustomerCentric”—willing and able to identifyand serve customers’ needs in a world wherecompetition waits just a mouse-click away.Traditional wisdom has long held that sellingmeans convincing and persuading buyers. Buttoday’s buyers no longer want or need to be soldin traditional ways. CustomerCentric Selling givesyou mastery of the crucial eight aspects ofcommunicating with today’s clients to achieveoptimal results: Having conversations instead ofmaking presentations Asking relevant questions insteadof offering opinions Focusing on solutions and notonly relationships Targeting businesspeople insteadof gravitating toward users Relating product usage instead ofrelying on features Competing to win—not just to stay busy Closing on the buyer’s timeline(instead of yours) Empowering buyers instead of tryingto “sell” them What’s more, CustomerCentric Selling teaches andreinforces key tactics that will make the most ofyour organization’s resources. Perhaps you feelyou don’t have the smartest internal systems inplace to ensure an ideal workflow. (Perhaps, asis all too common, you lack identifiable systemsalmost entirely.) From the basics—and beyond—ofstrategic budgeting and negotiation to assessingand developing the skills of your sales force, you’lllearn how to make sure that each step yourbusiness takes is the right one. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Digital and Social Media Marketing Nripendra P. Rana, Emma L. Slade, Ganesh P. Sahu, Hatice Kizgin, Nitish Singh, Bidit Dey, Anabel Gutierrez, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 2019-11-11 This book examines issues and implications of digital and social media marketing for emerging markets. These markets necessitate substantial adaptations of developed theories and approaches employed in the Western world. The book investigates problems specific to emerging markets, while identifying new theoretical constructs and practical applications of digital marketing. It addresses topics such as electronic word of mouth (eWOM), demographic differences in digital marketing, mobile marketing, search engine advertising, among others. A radical increase in both temporal and geographical reach is empowering consumers to exert influence on brands, products, and services. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and digital media are having a significant impact on the way people communicate and fulfil their socio-economic, emotional and material needs. These technologies are also being harnessed by businesses for various purposes including distribution and selling of goods, retailing of consumer services, customer relationship management, and influencing consumer behaviour by employing digital marketing practices. This book considers this, as it examines the practice and research related to digital and social media marketing. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services Anthony Ulwick, 2005-09-06 A world-renowned innovation guru explains practices that result in breakthrough innovations Ulwick's outcome-driven programs bring discipline and predictability to the often random process of innovation. -Clayton Christensen For years, companies have accepted the underlying principles that define the customer-driven paradigm--that is, using customer requirements to guide growth and innovation. But twenty years into this movement, breakthrough innovations are still rare, and most companies find that 50 to 90 percent of their innovation initiatives flop. The cost of these failures to U.S. companies alone is estimated to be well over $100 billion annually. In a book that challenges everything you have learned about being customer driven, internationally acclaimed innovation leader Anthony Ulwick reveals the secret weapon behind some of the most successful companies of recent years. Known as outcome-driven innovation, this revolutionary approach to new product and service creation transforms innovation from a nebulous art into a rigorous science from which randomness and uncertainty are eliminated. Based on more than 200 studies spanning more than seventy companies and twenty-five industries, Ulwick contends that, when it comes to innovation, the traditional methods companies use to communicate with customers are the root cause of chronic waste and missed opportunity. In What Customers Want, Ulwick demonstrates that all popular qualitative research methods yield well-intentioned but unfitting and dreadfully misleading information that serves to derail the innovation process. Rather than accepting customer inputs such as needs, benefits, specifications, and solutions, Ulwick argues that researchers should silence the literal voice of the customer and focus on the metrics that customers use to measure success when executing the jobs, tasks or activities they are trying to get done. Using these customer desired outcomes as inputs into the innovation process eliminates much of the chaos and variability that typically derails innovation initiatives. With the same profound insight, simplicity, and uncommon sense that propelled The Innovator's Solution to worldwide acclaim, this paradigm-changing book details an eight-step approach that uses outcome-driven thinking to dramatically improve every aspect of the innovation process--from segmenting markets and identifying opportunities to creating, evaluating, and positioning breakthrough concepts. Using case studies from Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, AIG, Pfizer, and other leading companies, What Customers Want shows companies how to: Obtain unique customer inputs that make predictable innovation possible Recognize opportunities for disruption, new market creation, and core market growth--well before competitors do Identify which ideas, technologies, and acquisitions have the greatest potential for creating customer value Systematically define breakthrough products and services concepts Innovation is fundamental to success and business growth. Offering a proven alternative to failed customer-driven thinking, this landmark book arms you with the tools to unleash innovation, lower costs, and reduce failure rates--and create the products and services customers really want. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Value-ology Simon Kelly, Paul Johnston, Stacey Danheiser, 2017-01-19 This book offers both marketing and sales professionals a rare combined insight into both worlds to continuously capture customer intelligence and create value, by blending detailed research with academic rigor and commercial experience of the authors in both Europe and North America. It has never been easier to produce great marketing content and sales collateral. And yet, 90% of the content that marketing produces is NEVER used by sales. Why not? Because it’s not relevant to the audience or the prospect doesn’t even know the content exists. Furthermore 58% of deals end up in “no decision” because Sales has not presented value effectively. Companies are creating lots of noise but failing to resonate with the customers. So what? The danger, aside from marketing wasting tens of millions of dollars on ineffective content and tools, is that customers will disengage. 94% of prospects say they have completely disengaged with vendors because of irrelevant content. In order to grow fast, the authors argue, Sales and Marketing teams need to slow down. They need to work together to truly understand their customers’ needs, wants, motivations and pain points so that they can offer customized “value”. The book sets out how to establish a formal program to continuously capture customer intelligence and insights – the shiny gems of understanding that help prospects to connect the dots – so that value can be consistently articulated in marketing and sales conversations. By integrating the best ideas and practice from commercial experience and academic research the authors show how to create value across the entire marketing and sales value chain – not only get a new customer, but to continue to create value for future purchases by creating “post-sales” value. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: The Innovative Seller Jake Dunlap, 2024-04-02 Practical and straightforward solutions to everyday sales challenges In The Innovative Seller: Keeping Pace In An AI and Customer-Centric World, veteran sales leader and trainer Jake Dunlap delivers an expert playbook for sales that offers out-of-the-box and creative answers for the problems and questions that salespeople face every day. Fun and motivational, the book walks you through effective strategies for dealing with common challenges, like LinkedIn prospecting, sales transparency, cold calling, and others. The author has included a comprehensive tactical appendix, so you can easily identify and locate the exact solution you need when you encounter a specific problem. You’ll also find: Proven, grounded, and actionable techniques you can apply immediately to improve your sales performance Instructive stories and anecdotes drawn from Dunlap’s decades of sales and sales training experience Insightful discussions of how the typical sales process and model has changed over the years and how to adapt to the new realities of the discipline An engaging and eye-opening resource for early- and mid-career sales professionals, as well as business development and customer success practitioners, The Innovative Seller will also prove invaluable to managers and executives at quickly growing companies who seek to optimize their firms’ sales processes and results. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Sales Management Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh, Kieran Sheahan, 2023-06-02 Sales are the lifeblood of the business world and therefore an area of fundamental importance for scholarly research. This concise book analyses current thoughts and emerging practices in sales management research. Organisations who are looking to increase revenues and add new customers to their portfolio will find it increasingly difficult to successfully do this without being aware of and adopting the appropriate, adaptive sales processes. Emergent themes such as agile sales management, digital selling, artificial intelligence and trust will be discussed in the book that also embraces the importance of customer relationship management, and how salespeople are aligning their interactions with the marketing function. The text will review recent research to identify how to grow and organise the sales pipeline, manage hybrid sales teams, and the effects of new technologies on selling processes. These discussions will be helpful in highlighting issues and providing some solutions to practitioners who are operating in new environments. This book will be invaluable to sales researchers as it summarises current knowledge about key sales and sales management topics and indicates possible future research directions. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Socialized! Mark Fidelman, 2016-10-21 Most companies today realize the imperative to connect with their customers, employees, and partners through social technologies -Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and elsewhere. But a huge challenge is still in the way: how to build programs and teams for accomplishing all that. While organizations have been fixated on how to use the latest social tool, they've lost sight of how to create a talent pool capable of adjusting to the next wave of technology around the corner. For corporations to successfully transform into social business enterprises they must shift the focus from computers and tools to developing skills and attitudes around technology. Socialized! represents a playbook on how to create such a high-performing social enterprise. Filled with clear strategies and real-life stories from visionaries and change makers, the book is designed to help leaders motivate employees throughout the organization to adopt a social mindset, ensuring success against the competition. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientations in a Dynamic Business World Colin L. Campbell, 2017-01-12 This volume includes the full proceedings from the 2011 World Marketing Congress held in Reims, France with the theme The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientations in a Dynamic Business World. The focus of the conference and the enclosed papers is on marketing thought and practices throughout the world. This volume resents papers on various topics including marketing management, marketing strategy, and consumer behavior. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complimenting the Academy’s flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Strategic Supply Chain Alignment John Gattorna, 1998 Supply chain performance will be a key indicator of overall corporate success into the next century. This book, edited by logistics and supply chain expert John Gattorna, and with international contributions, presents unpublished material on next generation thinking about the management of the supply chain. Based on the recently developed strategic alignment model it shows how external market dynamics, the company's strategic response, and internal capability must be aligned if competitive advantage is to be achieved. Supply chain management is a strategic challenge demanding top level management attention. This book tackles the subject at that strategic level to help companies reposition their supply chains successfully. The book then offers the vital link between strategy setting and implementation, providing comprehensive coverage of the main areas of execution, and making it an essential compendium on all aspects of the subject. With case studies from major organizations from around the world, it is a 'must' read for anyone wishing to be at the forefront of international supply chain management thinking. Strategic Supply Chain Alignment brings together for the first time the world's leading logistics professionals, management consultants and academics to offer their insights and experiences on the latest supply chain management techniques. This collection of previously unpublished material offers the reader a unique opportunity to identify the hot issues, discover emerging strategies and uncover key industry and market perspectives. Divided into five sections which reflect the important components of the strategic alignment model, the book covers: The market: Customer value creation and segmentation, and the rationale behind the integration of supply with demand. Strategic response: Considers channel strategy, supply chain configuration and operations and distribution management. Culture: Adopting organization options which focus on deliv |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: The Fundamentals of Retail Sales , Welcome to the forefront of knowledge with Cybellium, your trusted partner in mastering the cutting-edge fields of IT, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Business, Economics and Science. Designed for professionals, students, and enthusiasts alike, our comprehensive books empower you to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving digital world. * Expert Insights: Our books provide deep, actionable insights that bridge the gap between theory and practical application. * Up-to-Date Content: Stay current with the latest advancements, trends, and best practices in IT, Al, Cybersecurity, Business, Economics and Science. Each guide is regularly updated to reflect the newest developments and challenges. * Comprehensive Coverage: Whether you're a beginner or an advanced learner, Cybellium books cover a wide range of topics, from foundational principles to specialized knowledge, tailored to your level of expertise. Become part of a global network of learners and professionals who trust Cybellium to guide their educational journey. www.cybellium.com |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Sales and Marketing Optimization: Developing Competitive Value Propositions in Distribution , 2012 |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Revenue Growth Engine Darrell Amy, 2020-05-11 Would you like to grow revenue faster? Whether you own a company, lead a sales team, or work in marketing, we all share the same goal: revenue growth. Unfortunately, many companies are not growing as fast as they could be. You are running marketing campaigns. Your sales team is making calls. What's keeping you from growing faster? Every company has a Revenue Growth Engine. This is the sum of their sales and marketing efforts. The problem is that most engines are not firing on all cylinders. There may even be important cylinders missing. The good news is that when your Revenue Growth Engine is performing with all cylinders firing, you accelerate revenue growth! In this book, you will quickly discover which parts of your company's growth engine are not performing. You will find a big picture model for aligning marketing and sales to drive growth. Then, Darrell walks you step by step through how to improve each component of your growth engine. |
| benefits of sales and marketing alignment: Social Media Monetization Francisco J. Martínez-López, Yangchun Li, Susan M. Young, 2022-09-23 Social media initiatives, when effectively used and correctly monetized, can engage customers better and provide higher ROI rates than traditional marketing and sales initiatives. This book presents a selection of monetization strategies that can help companies benefit from social media initiatives and overcome the current challenges in connection with generating and growing revenues. Using cases and examples covering several social media platforms, the authors describe a variety of strategies and holistic solutions for companies. In addition, the book highlights the latest social media innovations, best business practices, successful monetization cases, and strategic trends in future social media monetization. Top executives need to read this book to have a big picture of corporate-wide “social strategy,” form a “social mindset,” and infuse a “social gene” into their company’s culture, strategy, and business processes. Armed with these social elements, companies can gain confidence, effectively introduce social media tools, and invest in major social media initiatives. Due to changing consumer behavior, social media is also ideal for building and sustaining quality relationships with customers – which is why it is becoming an indispensable element in today’s business. |
Sales and Marketing Alignment | Sprout Social
Jul 14, 2023 · In this guide, we will investigate the benefits and challenges of sales and marketing alignment. We will also discuss some of the best strategies and share success stories: What is …
9 Steps to Achieving Sales and Marketing Alignment - Salesforce
May 23, 2024 · Sales and marketing alignment is a strategic approach emphasising the collaborative efforts between sales and marketing teams to achieve a common business goal, …
The 7 Biggest Practical Benefits of Sales Marketing Alignment
Feb 13, 2018 · Sales marketing alignment delivers many strategic and practical benefits. Here's a look at the direct positive impact it can have for your business.
The 7 Biggest Benefits of Sales and Marketing ... - Avidly
Believe it or not, sales and marketing work a lot better when working closely as opposed to independently. One needs the other to succeed and overall, your business benefits greatly when …
Sales and marketing alignment — the why, what, and how - Marq
Sales and marketing alignment helps prevent this. 87% of sales and marketing leaders say collaboration between sales and marketing enables critical business growth, and 90% agree that …
The complete guide to sales and marketing alignment | Sopro
Sep 4, 2024 · Benefits of sales and marketing alignment. Increased revenue: Aligned sales and marketing departments can see higher conversion rates and shorter sales cycles. Improved …
10 Tried-and-True Tips for Sales and Marketing Alignment
Oct 7, 2022 · Often called “smarketing”, sales and marketing alignment is critical to ensure that these departments are working in tandem to target the right customer base, create more …
Sales and Marketing Alignment | Sprout Social
Jul 14, 2023 · In this guide, we will investigate the benefits and challenges of sales and marketing alignment. We will also discuss some of the best strategies and share success stories: What is …
9 Steps to Achieving Sales and Marketing Alignment - Salesforce
May 23, 2024 · Sales and marketing alignment is a strategic approach emphasising the collaborative efforts between sales and marketing teams to achieve a common business goal, …
The 7 Biggest Practical Benefits of Sales Marketing Alignment
Feb 13, 2018 · Sales marketing alignment delivers many strategic and practical benefits. Here's a look at the direct positive impact it can have for your business.
The 7 Biggest Benefits of Sales and Marketing ... - Avidly
Believe it or not, sales and marketing work a lot better when working closely as opposed to independently. One needs the other to succeed and overall, your business benefits greatly …
Sales and marketing alignment — the why, what, and how - Marq
Sales and marketing alignment helps prevent this. 87% of sales and marketing leaders say collaboration between sales and marketing enables critical business growth, and 90% agree …
The complete guide to sales and marketing alignment | Sopro
Sep 4, 2024 · Benefits of sales and marketing alignment. Increased revenue: Aligned sales and marketing departments can see higher conversion rates and shorter sales cycles. Improved …
10 Tried-and-True Tips for Sales and Marketing Alignment
Oct 7, 2022 · Often called “smarketing”, sales and marketing alignment is critical to ensure that these departments are working in tandem to target the right customer base, create more …
