Tag Archives: Sales and Marketing Alignment
Summit 2013: Day 3 Recap
- 10th May 2013
Summit 2013 finished big, with the unveiling of two new SiriusDecisions frameworks and presentations by two winners of the Return on Integration (ROI) Awards. The day’s events began with the Summit’s traditional highlight video showing the sights and sounds of the participants enjoying the event, including last night’s tour and dinner aboard the USS Midway.
Continue Reading....Summit 2013: Day 2 Recap
- 9th May 2013
Today’s Summit proceedings included a full day of presentations on b-to-b sales, marketing and product strategies and best practices. Here are some of the highlights.
Continue Reading....Summit 2013 Highlights: Apply Productivity Analysis to Improve B-to-B Sales Results
- 9th May 2013
Time is the most valuable resource a sales rep has: “A salesperson has, typically, 50 hours in the week in which to work. It’s the job of both marketing and sales to ensure that those 50 hours are spent as productively as possible,” said Jim Ninivaggi, service director of Sales Enablement Strategies at SiriusDecisions, who spoke at Summit 2013 this morning. B-to-b organizations often struggle to keep reps focused on higher-yield activities that lead to closing deals and bringing in revenue. This was borne out by the results of an instant poll of the Summit 2013 audience: Only 1 percent of participants polled felt very confident that their reps are fully productive vs. 41 percent who are very confident that their reps are not fully productive.
Continue Reading....Managing the Matrix: An Essential Part of Every Marketing Role
- 19th November 2012
Too often, it’s the last thing a deadline-driven marketing team thinks of or wants to do: seek involvement and input from other groups in the company. The usual reasons given – “I don’t have time”; “It will complicate things”; “I know what needs to be done” – only touch the surface of why. Inevitably, further down the execution path, the piper gets his due when sales doesn’t embrace a product launch plan or buyers become confused by competing marketing campaigns. This begs the question: Why is it that we usually find the time to do something over, rather than get it right the first time?
Continue Reading....FYI: Terminology Alert
- 16th November 2012
When communicating with peers and partners, always pause to consider: Do they use the same terminology and acronyms? Be sure to spell out or clarify any terms that might not be readily understood.
Continue Reading....Sales and Marketing Measurement: Aligned, Not Identical
- 8th November 2012
Most of the marketers I work with have gotten the message: Sales and marketing alignment matters. They’ve accepted the evidence showing that well-aligned organizations perform better. They understand that sales and marketing alignment means that sales and marketing are moving in the same direction and working toward the same end in a coordinated way. But what’s harder for many is making peace with this reality: Sales and marketing reporting should not be identical – even when each is intended to drive aligned contributions.
Continue Reading....Account-Based Marketers: Five Make-or-Break Skills
- 6th November 2012
Delivering impact in account-based marketing (ABM) takes a different set of skills compared with traditional, broad-based marketing. Sadly, marketers are often placed in ABM roles without tools or training to help them adapt to what is a very different model. ABM effectiveness depends largely on a change in expectation. SiriusDecisions benchmark data shows that marketers who focus on large enterprise accounts can expect to source, on average, less than 10 percent of the sales pipeline. The same data shows that they’ll influence more than 75 percent of it. Marketers must understand that ABM success comes from influencing the right contacts, in the right accounts, at the right time, to support specific objectives, not all of which will be about selling. It’s easy to end up on a less productive path that pleases sales and generates activity, but ultimately won’t deliver growth. The following are five critical capabilities that define the ABM marketer’s potential.
Continue Reading....Marketers, Go on Some Sales Calls
- 17th October 2012
At several recent SiriusDecisions customer forums, we had great groups of marketing and sales folks talking about their work with strategic accounts. At one point, a question was asked of the b-to-b marketers in the room: Do you go on sales calls? Very few said they did this regularly. My sense is that marketers in general don’t join salespeople for customer or prospect calls very often. That is a terrible shame. On the bright side, it’s not often as an analyst that I get to offer a “magic bullet” that solves lots of problems in a simple way. Now I do. Here it is: Marketers, go on some sales calls.
Continue Reading....The Five Things That B-to-B Marketers Must Know
- 25th September 2012
From the many ways buyers can easily access information, to more sophisticated data and the seemingly endless rollout of new technology enhancements, the challenges facing b-to-b marketers have never been greater. With this change has come a need for marketers to keep their skills and knowledge current. Here are five key requirements that we see as imperative for all b-to-b marketers.
Continue Reading....Two Areas for Improving Efficiency in Marketing and Sales Operations
- 21st September 2012
Sales operations and marketing operations tend to work separately, each focusing on their own priorities. It is not unusual to find missed opportunities to share insight, information and experience that could result in improved sales productivity (which is everyone’s objective) Here are two areas where marketing and sales operations professionals can improve performance.
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