eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale

E-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, the new book by Ardath Albee, offers fresh perspectives and lots of meaty how-to advice on how to:

• Catch your prospect’s attention
• Amplify your e-messaging
• Increase urgency, and
• Build a relationship online.

I highly recommend this much-needed book! It's totally aligned with my Selling to Big Companies strategies, so I know you'll get a ton out of it. Read 2 chapters right now. 

Here's what I wrote as the foreward ...

______________

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Sales is really tough in today’s business environment. This isn’t a complaint; it’s simply a statement of reality.

Many salespeople are really struggling. I know because as a sales strategist, I work with them every single day to improve their sales effectiveness. And I’ve personally faced some big sales challenges myself.

Several years ago, my two biggest clients came under pressure from Wall Street to deliver better earnings. Virtually all external consultants were let go in one fell swoop. My business teetered on the brink of extinction for way too long as I sought to redefine my offering and rebuild my client base.

I’d always been someone who excelled at prospecting. It was easy for me to quickly establish a personal connection with a decision maker at the same time I provided a valid business reason for meeting.

But what worked for me in the past was no longer effective. People rarely answered their phones, all calls rolled to voice mail, and no one wanted to talk to a dreaded salesperson.

Why should they? All the information they needed was available on the Internet with a simple Google search. And, as far as they were concerned, salespeople ate up their precious time—which had become their most precious commodity.

Yes, the game definitely had changed, and salespeople had to learn new ways to crack into corporate accounts. It was now taking salespeople between 8 and 12 contacts (via e-mail, direct mail, voice mail, or phone) before they reached a decision maker. In addition, every contact had to focus on the prospect’s critical issues, strategic imperatives, or business objectives.

This was the new price of admission for sellers to get their foot in the door. It meant they needed to invest significant time in researching companies, crafting messaging, and implementing numerous account-entry campaigns simultaneously.

But was that the best use of their time? As a sales purist, I’d love to say that it was just plain good selling. And personally, I’d love to be out their speaking to sales organizations about how to do it more effectively. Yet, hard as I try, too many sellers will never be able to master the high-level skills required to make this happen or have the discipline to do it on a regular basis.

In the past few years, it’s become blatantly obvious to me that

1. Traditional methods of sales prospecting are grossly inefficient.

2. New strategies were needed to shorten sales cycles and improve seller productivity.

3. By embracing new technologies and a thought-leadership mind-set, companies could transform sales results.

These things aren’t easy for me to admit. But the truth is that no matter how hard I work with my corporate clients to improve sales effectiveness, it’s just not enough anymore.

Download 2 chapters right now.

In the past few years, a number of new marketing automation companies (e.g., Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, and HubSpot) have appeared on the horizon. From the moment I saw their technology and their own implementation of it, I knew this was the solution I was looking for.

Marketers now can drive the lead-generation initiative with their  ability to attract the online seekers, provide them with high-quality information that addressed the challenges they were facing, and nurture the relationship until the prospects were ready to meet with a salesperson. Marketing even could tell the seller what the prospect had read on the Web site or in an e-mail, how long they’d spent reading it, and if they’d forwarded the piece to others.

I was drooling! This was exactly what sales needed. This perfect care and feeding of potential customers eliminated the time-consuming task from the sales force at the same time that it ensured the consistency and quality of the messaging. It freed the salespeople to do what they do best!

But there was still a missing link! Technology was only the enabler. Contagious content was the key. I’m not talking self-serving marketing pablum, now. Prospective customers want answers to their problems, ideas for achieving their goals, and information on how others are addressing the same challenges they face. If you give the “state-of-the-art, leading-edge” blather, they’ll delete your message in no time flat.

There’s only one person I know who understands this implicitly—Ardath Albee. I first met her about five years ago when she was the president of a young technology company that was struggling to go to market the “old-fashioned way.” After hiring (and firing) three salespeople, she knew it was time to try something different.

Download 2 chapters right now.

That’s when she started blogging as a way to demonstrate thought leadership in her market space. Ultimately, her passion for “getting inside the customer’s head” and crafting customer-enticing content led her to set up her own consultancy in this emerging field—one in which she is the clear leader.

E-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale offers fresh perspectives and lots of meaty how-to advice on how to catch your prospect’s attention, amplify your e-messaging, increase urgency, and build a relationship online. It’s exactly what marketing needs to focus on today in order to help the struggling sales organization.

Sales desperately needs marketing to take the lead and up the ante. No more “same old, same old.” It’s time for marketing to make a radical impact—and this book shows you how.

Get your copy of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale today.

Comments

[Marketing Plan]

Hi,
Thanks a lot for your beautiful post. I feel very happy to visit this site. Your site is completely informative. I even pass this site to my friends. Please keep posting such fantastic articles as soon as possible.

Business Plan