• Send only sales ready leads to Salesforce. Why? Your sales team doesn’t have to wade through hundreds of leads to find the ones they should be working. 
• Use explicit and implicit data to determine when leads are ready to pass to sales. But make sure that sales and marketing agree on the criteria before implementing it within Salesforce. 
• Use data your sales team enters in Salesforce to better inform marketing communications. Sales conversations will reveal information that will improve segmentation, lead scoring and personalized content.

• The Expeditor is the salesperson who sells fewer products and has customers who are limited by both budget and functionality. Forrester says, “This kind of salesperson must understand the value of the product or service and repeat a well-scripted message, tweaking it based on the situation of each buyer.”

• The Specialist handles the consultative sell and requires a significant depth of product understanding. Customers in this scenario are usually department heads so salespeople, “… need to know all the right questions to ask and information to provide to help the customer set the right parameters…” says Forrester.

• The Consolidator partners with their customer to quickly align many different needs with their multiple offerings. Forrester says, “This kind of sales is analytics driven, based on volume metrics, same-store sales and techniques, store placement, and similar analytics…”  Helping customers control costs is key to success.

• The Conductor must have “… the ability to understand their client’s business in depth and design essentially a fully custom, unique product or service to meet that customer’s business needs” says Forrester. Their buyers are typically senior managers or cross-functional teams solving core business problems. The salesperson’s focus here is on value-add.

Lead Quality. This is the crux of most sales and marketing disputes, isn't it? And, it is no wonder. Lead quality is possibly the most important element to sales success. Because, no matter how great your product, or sales skill, or tools, if the l...

• Every lead you eliminate from your list is a victory, because it means you won’t be wasting your time.  [For our perspective on this, check out Are Your Sales Prospects Playing Ball?]

• Listen carefully to what’s actually being said, rather than waiting for something to say that will give you hope of making a sale. [We wrote about the importance of listening in Sales Tip: Seriously, SHUT UP!]

• Once you’re in a conversation with a sales lead, your primary job is to eliminate the lead from your list. [At Go-To-Market Strategies, we can’t say enough on this topic. Check out our article, Lead Qualification: Getting to No.]

• The most experienced sales reps are the ones who know the 3 most important things to do with a sales lead are to qualify, qualify, qualify. [We couldn’t agree more and recommend you read our article Lead Qualification: 3 Steps to Success to help you create your own Lead Qualification Checklist.] 

• People won’t give you referrals unless you deserve them. [So true! Our article The Most Cost Effective Resource: Referrals offers 5 steps to building your own referral system.]

We just finished reading PR Newswire’s latest ebook called Unlocking Social Media for P.R. Their master blogger and social media expert, Sarah Skerik penned the ebook from a series of her compelling blog entries. The result is an excellent resource for any marketers looking to jump in (at last) to the social media pool.

• LISTEN first.  Don’t publish a single tweet, status update, or post until you have really listened to the conversation. Skerik recommends starting out by following your favorite brands and studying their social media technique for some time.
• Learn from the best. Skerik gives us three companies to watch on Facebook. Each has a presence that stimulates Wall conversation and offers shareworthy content in a way that is unique to their brand. Follow these companies to learn what works best and how to tweak your own approach.
• Be succinct. The tighter the message, the better the Tweet. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point and your Tweets will earn re-Tweeting. Scheduling Tweets is acceptable, says Skerik, but craft each with a different angle to ensure your coverage appeals across your entire audience.
• Don’t ignore LinkedIn. Skerik reminds us that LinkedIn is completely unique because it allows users to more specifically define their interests and align themselves with their professional peers. This is an invaluable resource for targeted PR.

If you have not yet started to build your mobile marketing strategy, what are you waiting for? The time is now. eMarketer reports by 2016 the growth of mobile social network users is expected to reach 1.7 billion users, a whopping 210% increase from 2011!

Vitrue recently took a more in-depth look at how mobile users are engaging with Facebook in their white paper, “Social Mobile User Engagement: Analysis and Strategies for Successful Mobile User Engagement on Social Media Networks.”

We recently downloaded a copy of the complimentary guide from Lyris called Email+Twitter+Facebook: 22 Tips to Cross Channel Success. What caught our attention right away were some mind-boggling statistics.

In a single day on Facebook, the site is viewed 700 million minutes, during which:

· 144 million friendship requests are accepted

· 216 million messages are sent

· 30 billion pieces of content are shared

And Twitter, while not as popular as Facebook, is adding nearly 500,000 new accounts per day. Experts agree that Twitter is a valuable resource for:

· Creating a more human, personal touch to your corporate brand

· Providing more responsive customer service

But it is email that remains the most successful tactic amongst the three. According to digital marketing researcher group Smart Insights in their 2011 Customer Engagement Report, 72 percent of marketers surveyed cite email newsletters as most likely to result in a tangible improvement to customer engagement.

This is backed up by how marketers are spending their money. According to Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, social media falls behind direct mail in marketing budget allocations, while email remains in the top three year after year.

Although marketers agree that email marketing is still more effective than social media, leveraging the strengths of both ensures that your marketing plan is built for maximum impact. And it isn’t too complicated to do.

Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report states that 61% of marketers indicated they were able to effectively grow their email list through a Facebook registration page, while 54% indicated adding social sharing buttons to their emails was also effective. Both of these are straightforward to implement.

As you integrate social media into your 2012 marketing plan, keep in mind some of our favorite tips from the Lyris guide:

1. Use your social media presence to drive email opt-ins. Social media is a smaller commitment for your audience, so savvy marketers should provide an opportunity to increase the level of engagement through an opt-in to your enewsletter.

2. Use social media to find out more about your customers and what motivates them to share content. What will drive more word-of-mouth for your organization? This information takes some time to acquire, but it will shape more effective marketing programs in the long run.

3. Determine how you will measure success of your integrated marketing effort. What are your key indicators? With a cross-channel marketing program, it is will be key to monitor list size, brand awareness, and revenue.

If you haven’t expanded into social media yet, now is the time. In fact, email marketers are primed for success with social media. Lyris sums it up well, “Marketers who are good at email head into social with a competitive advantage – they already understand the principles of audience acquisition, respect, empathy and relevance.”

We’ve come to depend on MarketingSherpa to provide the case studies and research to help us further refine how we market and shape our best practices. This year’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report is no exception to the Sherpa collection.

Over 1,700 B2B marketers were surveyed for this report that includes 157 charts and analytical commentary on how to “attract and convert the modern B2B buyer.”

Within its 188 pages, MarketingSherpa reveals the two biggest B2B marketing challenges we face: lead generation (74%) and lead qualification (49%). These results, along with Sherpa’s report that the average B2B deal size declined in 2011, show us that marketing to a lengthening sales cycle has led to more promotional pricing than ever to get the deals closed.

The impact is widespread. Across all industries and sizes (and regardless of process maturity) marketers continue to struggle to achieve the proper balance of lead quality and quantity. MarketingSherpa’s research shows that smaller the organization, the more challenging this becomes.

Other top B2B marketing challenges:

· Generating a perceived value in “cutting edge” products (41%)
· Competing in lead generation across multiple media (40%)
· Generating PR “buzz” (38%)

Further, marketers indicated that an overall lack of resources (time, staff and budget) is the greatest barrier to achieving their marketing goals. This would explain why marketers are struggling to gain maturity in lead conversion processes. There simply isn’t the time, money or manpower to focus on an initiative of this magnitude.

So, how is marketing leadership planning to address these challenges? MarketingSherpa’s data on CMO’s strategic priorities for 2012 includes:

· Gaining greater insight of customers and target audience (56%)
· Optimizing lead progression through the marketing-sales funnel (55%)
· Achieving or increasing measurable ROI from lead generation programs (54%)

What provides the best insight in this most recent report is how MarketingSherpa dissects the data: by industry, by maturity, and by size. These cross-sections illuminate the why’s and how’s of B2B marketing to help us evolve our own best practices.

Download your own copy of the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report today. With a wealth of industry-specific data, marketers everywhere must have this report to better inform their marketing strategy, improve best practices, and achieve more sales conversions.