Demand Generation Machine

Now if there is one thing peculiar to technology sales and marketing within the B2B space is that some technology can be complicated to explain. Trying to explain or pitch a solution that can scan and analyze living tissues while transferring data gathered in real time can be a mean task. So can explaining a tracking system which uses radio frequency technology to locate your company’s fixed assets and value the net worth of your capital investment. Whether you use emails, talk to a prospect over the phone or do a sales presentation of your technology for the first example you are most likely going to explain to them how your analysis algorithms enable rapid and objective quantitation of tissue samples and while this message may really contain the core benefit of your technology and value proposition it’s only relevant if your message is going to a technical decision maker who understands your technology and its benefits. Now a research head at a biotechnology lab may see the value powerful analysis algorithms but if you were talking to an investor who has privately funded this lab and you want to win his vote with that you are better off sticking to explaining him how your solution can save lives by delivering reports quicker than conventional systems and give your lab an edge over the others.

Technical details are important but provided they are reaching the right ears or eyes. While getting a message out to non technical decision makers simplify your message and offering. Now many will argue “how can we do that, our product or offering is technical in nature” or “there is no easy way to explain this to someone who does not understand technology”. Thats not entirely true and you know it. Technology is used to simplify things. The means to the end maybe hard to explain in a simple way but the end itself is always to simplify something or do something better using technology. In this particular example it was simply to provide a quick way of scanning and analyzing tissue samples quicker so patients health problems can be diagnosed quicker and more lives can be saved.

Having worked with technology companies who deal with some very specific requirements and having to pitch those products to both technical and non technical decision makers we know that technology can be complicated and not everyone may understand technical terms but if you start looking at what it helps you do rather than what it is, you will find it a lot simpler. A good technology sales person need not be the one who can pitch a complex product to the CIO or Director of Technology but one who can do that and just as easily explain it to his/her ten year old, the person behind the drive in counter at McDonalds or the guy walking his dog across the street. Complicated? Just simplify it!

 
Just as gatekeepers can be a tele-marketers nightmare, the spam filter can be the email marketers boogeyman. Millions of carefully crafted B2B email messages sit in the spam boxes of executives laptops and machines every single day and fail to fulfill its purpose. Most of you would agree that spam filters are a necessary evil and personally I don’t believe I would be able to live without one. With the volume of junk emails that pour into our inboxes everyday it only makes sense that these spam filters tighten the criteria and handle incoming mail more strictly even if it means that one or two legitimate emails are sacrificed in the process.
 
B2B email marketing campaigns still play a crucial role in B2B lead generation strategies and that is not going to change anytime soon. They can be expensive, require careful consideration and thought to execute well and [...] Continue Reading…

 
The thing about closing deals and getting contracts signed in B2B selling is no matter how good you are, there can always be unpredictability and its not over till its over. How many times have you been so sure that a deal was going to close when the day before the contract was to be signed, the company who was buying got acquired, the person whom you negotiated with moved to another company or decided they may have to wait since something has just come up which may change things?
 
Just when you think you are done with your sales quota just before the end of the quarter and you think its time to take it easy now and all of a sudden something changes, the pipeline of closures that were supposed to fall through don’t and you are left high and dry without much time left to set things [...] Continue Reading…

 
Well going by by the image, thats one corporate hierarchy that you don’t want to be going through to reach the top Selling into large organizations that have a deeper hierarchy can be a navigational nightmare for sales teams but lets face the facts. CIO’s, CTO’s and other C-Level or Vice President level are not the easiest guys to connect with especially in larger companies. There are the voice mailboxes, the spam filters and and the Knights-in-Armor also known as assistant to the VP to shield them from sales pitches and they do a good job at it. A C-Level decision maker maybe the only one who can give you the final nod for your product or service but may not always be the best person to talk to at length when you need to do your groundwork, understand the company’s requirements and discuss the base level aspects [...] Continue Reading…

 
If you have ever launched an email campaign on a a list that hasn’t been updated very recently and starred in horror with eyes wide open as your inbox starts filling up with email bounce replies, then you’ll be able to relate to the aborigine launching a boomerang in the picture above. It’s another part of the ReadyContacts.com landing page campaign we will be running with focussed messages around the B2B list building service. This one comes straight out of personal experience and I’m sure we have all sent out an email campaign on an unreliable list at some point or the other and seen you’re hopes of a good response drop when you see those mails you sent coming back at you. Running an email verification process and having the data updated before launching a campaign can save a lot of money as well as effort and thats [...] Continue Reading…