Marketing Funnel
The ultimate resource for lead nurturing, whether you're just starting to think about lead nurturing in your business or are looking for ways to enhance and optimize your existing programs.
In today’s B2B marketplace, revenue cycle management is all about the sales funnel. But if yours is less than streamlined, you may be leaking more leads than you convert. An effective funnel operating with sales and marketing alignment can create the magical mix of leads and effectively convert them to sales. However, one that misses that collaborative equation can cost dollars, time and effort with less than stellar ROI.
Understanding that the contemporary buyer drives today’s sales…
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I recently received this email from a colleague who runs marketing for a security software company:
I’m getting some pushback from my CFO on the size of my proposed total marketing budget as % of forecasted revenue… Do you have any sources with basic credibility with this info that I can cite?
Selling your marketing budget to other executives is a common problem faced by B2B marketers, and looking at marketing spend as a percent of revenue (i.e. the Marketing Budget Ratio) is the most…
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In Earn a Seat at the Revenue Table – Part 1, I asked how can marketers take more control over the revenue process, build the respect of their organizational peers, and earn a seat at the revenue table.
The key is to act more like Sales (at least when it comes to driving revenue). Sales and revenue just seem to go together. Some people even use the words as synonyms (e.g. "last quarter’s sales grew 10%"). Sales does not suffer from the same credibility problems as marketing, and…
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Who is in charge of revenue at your company?
In most B2B companies, the Sales Department owns the revenue pipeline. Marketing may play a supporting role by supplying leads (that probably get ignored). But in these companies, Sales controls the revenue process and is accountable for top-line growth. As a result, Sales holds the most political power of any function.
In contrast, Marketing too often gets left out of the revenue process. I’ve seen companies where sales holds a weekly…
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Strategy+Business had a great article in their summer issue by Edward Landry, Andrew Tipping, and Jay Kumar from the consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton.
The authors argue that marketers can no longer be measured by brand management, creativity, or promotional expertise – instead, they argue that “In an era of unlimited opportunities but constrained resources, the only marketing metric that matters is growth.”
The authors categorize marketing departments into six basic categories:
…
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