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

Summer’s here!

Wow – can you believe we’re halfway through the year already? Feels like just yesterday we were working through our 2023 sales and marketing plans! Are you sailing into the summer with confidence, or are you constantly under pressure?

Give this song by Queen (and David Bowie) a listen as we hear what the experts are saying this week.

Stats/Trends – Knowing what this world is about

Q2 is almost wrapped. How are your sales and marketing activities trending?

As you know, I started this weekly email/blog during the pandemic to share stats, successes, and trends during turbulent times. I feel like it’s been too long since I’ve shared some actionable and tactical sales and marketing stats from my sources.

So here are some quick data points that you may find useful:

• The most effective channel for RDR (Revenue Development Rep) to engage a B2B buyer? Phone – 53%. Email – 36%. InMail, Social Media, and Website Chat all under 5%. Text (SMS) still under 1%.
• B2B buyer’s journey continues to stretch out. More than half of B2B purchases take longer than four months, and buyers engage in an average of 17 interaction types. Compared to just a year ago, 67% of B2B marketers say buyers are taking longer to commit to a purchase!
• Only 53% of sales professionals said that their organization’s sales tech stack aids productivity and positively impacts results. WOW! That’s a depressing statistic – with all the marketing and sales tech out there, how is this possible?

(Thanks to #forrb2bsummit and my awesome colleagues here at Virtual Causeway for sharing their data.)

Do these surprise you? What are you finding in your organization? Longer buying cycles, more buyer interactions, under-appreciated tech stacks… That’s a lot of pressure on people – how are you coping?

More Catalog Sales – Never rains but it pours

I’ve been closely following artists as they’ve sold their song catalogues over the past few years – seems like a way for many (aging?) artists to capitalize on the revenue potential of their songs as their touring and recording years dwindle.

Looks like Queen is in talks to sell their catalogue for the largest sum yet! As of now, Bruce Springsteen is the leader, having sold his song catalogue for around $500 million last year. If the rumours are true, Queen could sell their catalogue for over $1 billion!

Are these valuations getting ridiculous, or is there really that much value in their catalogues? In B2B, we see company valuations (especially in tech) that sometimes make us shake our heads, but if someone is willing to pay…

Many artists and bands might be feeling pressure pushin’ down to sell their catalogues. But with this price tag? Seems like a pretty easy choice!

Want to see the whole list of artists who have sold all or some of their catalogue? Here’s the running list compiled by fellow Canadian Alan Cross.

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 B2B Trends: When it Rains, it Pours! 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!

Who advises you? Do you have an advisory board? Mentors? Colleagues that help you with your day-to-day decisions? What about in your personal life? I hope you get value out of our relationship, and every once in a while you get something real and helpful! Why? Just because…

Give this song by Jane’s Addiction a listen with me and kick the week off right as we see what the experts are saying…

When Was the Last Time…

… you checked out the HubSpot CRM data?

It seems like things are picking up! Normally when reviewing this data, I pick out a few notable statistics that I think will be of interest. But this time, let me summarize it: all activity has improved!

Since the end of summer, just about all measured activity – deals created and closed, sales emails and calls, contact growth, conversations – have been increasing month over month. Not only that, but with the exception of sales email responses, they’re all performing WELL over the January 2020 benchmark.

This bodes well for the rest of Q4! Tracked on a pre-COVID benchmark (that was a long time ago), we’re seeing that many companies were resilient and are feeling fit coming out on the other side, and are looking to finish 2021 strong! Are you there with them?

If I Were You…

… I’d look at TikTok as a channel.

We’ve discussed TikTok’s presence in the social media space, and how it’s an integral part of any new artist’s success. It’s not only survived, but it’s challenging the big boys of social media. If you’re an artist and you don’t have your music available to TikTokers, you’re missing out on a LOT of cash.

As of this week, Led Zeppelin (@ledzeppelin) has made its music available to TikTok users and has shared all sorts of other content. Heck – even the Beatles (@TheBeatles) have an account now!

And speaking of Zep – you’ll remember that this week is the 50th anniversary of their fourth album. They’ve released a cool video series focused on the anniversary – check it out!

Are you on TikTok? Do you feel that this channel can help you out in the B2B world? And if you think it’s just a fad – are you running the risk of everyone telling you, Oh, you really should have known?

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 Who are Your Sources for Advice? 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!

Monday mornings can be challenging at the best of times. Cranking this song by Lenny Kravitz is bound to get you moving and motivated for a brand new month! Listen with me as we explore some takeaways from the past week:

Sales vs. Marketing – Are You Gonna Go My Way?

According to HubSpot, fewer than half of marketers would describe their sales and marketing teams as “generally aligned.” Is that a problem? Heck yeah it is!

Sales and marketing alignment has been a topic in B2B for many, many years. And there are research firms that have had incredible success helping companies align their sales and marketing functions. (Hint: See webinar promo at the end of this post.) So why is this still an issue within organizations?

I find that a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between sales and marketing can be an effective way to bridge this gap. Traditionally, an SLA defines exactly what a customer will receive from a service provider. But SLAs can serve internal operations as well, and sales and marketing agreements are among the most crucial.

HubSpot tells us that a successful SLA should include the following elements:

1. Summary of agreement
2. Goals of both parties
3. What’s needed by both parties
4. Points of contact
5. If goals are not met
6. Conditions of cancellation

Feel like you spend most of your time engaging and re-arranging? Download their template and see if it can help you in your organization!

“Pivoting with Urgency” – Music Instrument Sales

As we can all imagine, online music instrument sales skyrocketed last year. Seems like everyone picked up an instrument or re-ignited their love of playing music at home in 2020. In this article, music retailers explain how they were able to quickly pivot to address the online needs of their customers.

And of course, guitar manufacturers are also claiming their strongest sales in recent history. Makes sense, right?

But what about those other ‘adjacent’ industries and products? Sure – online retailers have thrived, and instrument manufacturers have had a banner year. But what about the other ‘stuff’ that’s not as glamorous? Guitar picks, cases, strings, drum sticks, tuners? We don’t really think about them as much (and they don’t get the same press attention) but it stands to reason that all of these other products will also have a successful year based on the pandemic.

So, what lessons are here for B2B?

Even if you’re not able to pivot and take full advantage of current trends, perhaps you are ‘adjacent’ to an industry that’s thriving. Is there a product or service you have that can help to support those industries as they pivot and grow? Perhaps being the guitar manufacturer isn’t the ideal situation – maybe you want to be the guitar string manufacturer! Would you rather sell the guitar, or sell the strings to ALL the guitar brands? It’s all about perspective.

Webinar – Speaking of Sales and Marketing Alignment…

We’re hosting another What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? event this month! Join me and Forrester SiriusDecisions as we discuss sales and marketing alignment and the best marketing strategies to hit your 2021 numbers!

But what I really wanna know is… are you gonna register?

Looking forward,
Rick

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

The post Aligning Sales and Marketing appeared first on Virtual Causeway.