Sales Prospecting Perspectives

If you’re a content marketer, you know how important it is to produce interesting and relevant content.

If you’re a content marketer for the B2B space, you know how important it is to produce content that’s also fact-driven and referral-worthy.

Many of the potentials buyers we’re writing for don’t want to read fluff; they want clear initiatives and numbers in a format that’s easy to share. This is especially true for Directors of Sales and CIOs; they see numbers every day, and they are used to these numbers telling the truth. That’s why B2B content with statistics in headlines often perform better.

The problem? Many B2B companies producing content on a regular basis simply don’t have time to produce their own facts and figures. So, with attribution in mind, they hunt down the best reports from their peers.

In the world of teleprospecting, many thought leaders are debating the efficacy of new and old techniques. With more and more sales leaders implementing new strategies, it's important for inside sales rep to keep up with the trends. However, don't feel you have to choose one technique and stick to it. Instead, learn to balance your techniques and manage your lists. Social selling is time-consuming, and it cuts out the ability to speak to prospects for a lengthy amount of time about their pains and needs, but it could lead to stronger opportunities. You may find that your team has more activity from the smile and dial method, but without some social intelligence behind these calls, those leads could be dead ends. Below are three things to consider when using commonly used prospecting techniques to find the balance that works right for you.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Russel Cooke, journalist and business consultant. 

The rollout of Google Plus in the summer of 2011 was nothing short of mighty. What started as an invitation-only “field test” spawned millions of users desperate for the next big thing in social media. Three long years later, and there is finally tangible proof that concludes that Google Plus, for all the hoopla it aroused, and the subsequent drop-off that it experienced, is the social media of the future.

What makes Google Plus so special is the visibility it affords its users. This, for businesses in particular, works particularly well. The fact that Google Plus matters so much when it comes to search engine results also drives businesses to use the medium, as they experience better search engine optimization as a result. This infographic describes why Google Plus is the future of B2B Marketing, and why businesses need to stop neglecting its presence.

As an inside sales rep, your call plans most likely include effective email prospecting strategies. You’re giving out your email to everyone you talk to in case they want to contact you later. You’re sending reports to your superiors and asking for advice from your managers, all within your inbox. You’re inundated daily by messages from clients, prospects, marketing, and more. It’s no surprise that email takes up 28% of the average workers’ time, according to McKinsey & Company. To put things into perspective, that’s one-fourth of your day spent in your inbox.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest blog from Sharmin Kent, Marketing Content Specialist at TinderBox. 

Now that the average B2B buyer is more than halfway through her purchase decision before engaging with a sales rep, it's critical that the content propelling a prospect through the pipeline is informative and relevant. An organization's marketing team is usually responsible for creating sales content, and communication and collaboration between the two departments can be rare.

AG Salesworks is pleased to present you with a guest blog post from Brian Serino, SVP of Sales and Business Development at NetProspex. 

We’re all familiar with the deep-rooted battle between sales and marketing. It goes something like this: sales blames marketing for their inability to produce quality leads, while marketers fault sales for their lack of lead management skills. In this battle, however, there is no winner, because when sales and marketing teams work individually, poor lead management results on both sides.

As you may already know, AG Salesworks is an active user on Twitter. We share insights and posts from many sales and marketing thought leaders and tweet sales prospecting best practices every day. Today, we’re excited to be hosting our very own Twitter chat, #ProspectingChat, at 1:30 PM EST / 10:30 AM PST!

AG Salesworks is pleased to bring you a guest post from Janelle Johnson, Director of Demand Generation at Act-On Software. 

In B2B marketing, sales and marketing emails play different but equally important roles in a successful communication strategy. Marketing emails lure the leads, and sales reels them in. But if nobody ever opens your messages, they won’t do your organization much good. Getting a prospect to open an email can be extremely challenging in today’s crowded marketplace. Many of us get hundreds of emails every day. Which ones make you click? Which ones make you hit delete?

Many companies aren’t utilizing the full potential of their lead nurturing campaigns.

They’re passing all lead nurturing responsibilities to marketing.

They’re separating the lead nurturing cycle from the sales funnel.

And they’re not aligning their departments for better conversions.

According to a study by CSO Insights, underwritten by Velocify, 42.3% of companies nurture leads by handing them off to marketing, who then engages and remains active with them through lead nurturing campaigns until they’re ready to buy.

Beginning a career in B2B inside sales is a great way to build job experience and fine-tune your professional skills. If you are a recent graduate with a background in sales or marketing and are looking to get your foot in the door of the business world, inside sales may be the career for you.