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Maybe it’s age or simply the accessibility of online information – but I feel like my memory isn’t nearly what it used to be. But why should it be? If I need to know something, I look it up online. If I need to remember something, I scroll through my pictures or social media. Heck, I don’t even need to type – I can just ask the virtual assistant that lives in my phone! I know I’m not the only one feeling this way – should we be concerned, or is this just evolution?

Give this song by Pearl Jam a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week.

Doing the Evolution: Dark Funnel

I first saw this article last year but thought it was worth discussing again. I’ve really started to hear my clients talk more and more about the ‘dark funnel’. So what is it, and how does it impact the B2B waterfall?

The key to aligning funnels with buyer journeys is to employ modern data science to illuminate what vendors like 6sense call the Dark Funnel.

Unless you’re the only provider of the solution you offer AND that category of solution is only discussed in your own digital properties (and what are the odds of that?), it’s likely that some or even most of your potential buyers will begin their buyer journeys elsewhere: on influencer sites, product review sites, competitors’ sites, social media, or one of many other places buyers can go in the digital realm. Taken together, all those places outside of your realm/control where buyers are searching for information make up the Dark Funnel.

But how do you track this? As a B2B organization, do you account for these activities in your analysis and funnel tracking? What about marketing attribution?

For many, it means that your sales cycles and funnel can be unpredictable. By tapping into the Dark Funnel, organizations can see and align their marketing and selling processes to the beginning of the buyer’s journey. By doing so, you’ll have a better chance of winning more deals, and you can bring consistency and predictability to the revenue generation process.

Doing the Evolution: Overusing Technology

I can’t attest to the seriousness of this study, but according to the authors, we will continue to evolve in a certain biological and physical way if we’re not careful. Given that North Americans are on their devices for at least seven hours a day, things could get weird!

Future evolutionary-induced traits may include:

• A hunched back and arched neck from looking down all the time
• A clawed hand from holding onto a phone constantly
• An elbow at a permanent 90° angle from holding our phones
• A thicker skull and smaller brain because of outsourcing knowledge and memories to the cloud
• A second eyelid (like camels!) to protect us from the blue light given off by our devices

What do you think? As you know, I’m already suffering from the smaller brain due to outsourcing knowledge to the cloud… maybe your prospects in the Dark Funnel are, too! So how do you take advantage to ensure their outsourced knowledge guides them to you?

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Doing the B2B Evolution appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

I couldn’t come up with an intro this week. Not sure why, but it was tough. And I feel like I need to make it good since my colleagues did such a great job of covering for me last week. However – admitting my writer’s block is, in essence, creating an intro. A compelling one? You tell me!

Give this song a listen with me, and see how this band got over their writer’s block by writing a song about writing the song! (Too ‘meta’ for you?) Plus… who hasn’t pulled an all-nighter to meet a deadline – am I right?

Staring Blindly into Space

Sometimes you need some hard facts to help centre you and get you focused. If you want to increase productivity and revenue at your organization, you have to focus on metrics that matter.

Revenue teams have become increasingly more data-driven, which makes it easy to get bogged down in tracking every little data point. B2B Marketing Zone provides a guide to help you stay data-driven while avoiding data overload by focusing on four categories:

• Sales enablement
• Sales effectiveness
• Sales readiness
• Sales engagement

I like how these are defined and some of the tactical examples. Some are pretty standard (such as win rate, churn rate, and time to close), while things like impact to discounting, lead velocity rate, and contact instances per demo are some metrics I’ve seen used much less frequently.

Many organizations simply accept that these are qualitative metrics and don’t measure them. But if you’re looking to scale your teams, you need to build a strong data-driven process.

How do you track these categories? DO you track them?

Searching for Something to Say

Sometimes, as a musical artist, it’s better to let the audience fill in the blanks. Who hasn’t been at a concert where the singer stops singing and lets the audience sing the chorus? Those can be magical moments at a show and really solidify the bond and engagement between the artist and the fans.

Now, how about songs where the audience creates their own lyrics to complement the song? A great example of this is the song “Mony Mony” – most notably, Billy Idol’s cover version. Being a high school student in the late ’80s, I can remember every time this song came on, and the lewd lyrics that were sung in response to Billy’s chorus vocals. How did they start? How did it spread across the world?

Interestingly, Alan Cross has been studying the origin of these ‘special lyrics,’ and shares his fascinating findings.

This shows how a little bit of myth and legend can make something bigger than it seems. It adds all sorts of magic and mystique to the song and increases audience engagement. And ultimately, helps sell more albums for the artist!

Should I try to do some more? Maybe there is some way – a little nudge – that you can get your customers to expand on your service offerings (hopefully in a positive way) and increase engagement.

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Make Your B2B Marketing the Stuff of Legends appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Here is what the experts are saying, and some takeaways from the past week:

Salesforce State of Sales Report

The 2020 State of Sales report was recently released by Saleforce.com. Not surprisingly, since the pandemic, 58% of sales reps think their job has changed forever.

Some high level results from the study:

• 85% of sales professionals agree that sales operations have become increasingly strategic
• 77% of sales leaders say that digital transformation has accelerated since 2019
• VPs are 1.3 times more likely to be confident in their organization’s ability to close deals compared to managers/directors. Is this because VPs/execs are too distanced from the day-to-day, or should we all be following suit and feeling confident in improving market conditions?

The early days of sales operations included forecasting, progress reports and financial outcomes. But as many sales become more complex in B2B, I find that sales operations are becoming more strategic by staying ahead of problems to help the team focus on selling. This offers more time for sales professionals to do the heavy lifting of closing.

How Many Target Accounts Do Reps Handle in ABM Programs?

We talk Account-Based Marketing (ABM) with our clients on a daily basis. A common question is, how many accounts should a sales representative be handling? According to a report from Demandbase:

• Companies claiming the best ROI from ABM tend to have their individual reps handling more accounts than the average company engaging in ABM
• Across all companies, the largest share (34%) reported 0-10 target accounts per rep, but among companies with the strongest ROI just 9% reported 0-10 accounts per rep
• The largest share (36%) of companies with the strongest ROI reported reps having 11-50 target accounts
• Companies with the strongest ROI were far more likely than average to report giving their reps 101-500 accounts each (18% vs. 8%)

Are you executing an ABM program? What is the right balance between quantity and quality?

Customer Engagement Lessons in Music

New research into how music was taught during lockdown found that almost two thirds of music teachers and tutors did not feel adequately prepared for the transition to online teaching. But despite the misgivings, the research found that “when students had access only to upload materials, engagement levels were 30-40%. This increased to 70% when students had access to audio-only. When audio and visual was available, this rose to 80-85%.”

Despite music teachers’ initial skepticism, online learning often resulted in higher engagement! How can you increase YOUR levels of engagement with your B2B customers? Have you been able to deepen your relationships?

I’m not so sure the sales role has changed forever. It’s still about helping customers solve their problems and building a trusted relationship. So we can ultimately close the sale and get to the Woo-hoo!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or ask how I can help.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat | President | Virtual Causeway | 519.866.1600 x622

P.S. “What Do B2B Marketers Do Now?” is an ongoing weekly email. Want to be the first to receive these weekly insights? Sign up now to join the mailing list!

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