Are you making the most of your marketing automation software?
By Adam Benson, Outsource Director
I’ve reviewed marketing automation implementations inside companies many times as part of our strategy work only to find the system has been relegated to a very expensive one-dimensional email delivery platform.
Email is the one function most people can make work relatively easily and there are some useful statistics to be gleaned, but all the other benefits are being missed, making the ROI horrific.
READ MORE ›
Marketing Development Funds
In 2013 and 2014 Outsource Channel Consulting Director, Kit Craig, lead the channel marketing team for IBM’s software business in Australia and New Zealand; a team with an annual MDF budget of around $1M supporting an overall channel business of just over $50M. Kit’s team was one of only three in IBM worldwide to fully utilise its MDF budget every quarter for those two years. While doing so, his team grew IBM’s software channel revenue derived from MDF by 85% in 2013 and 120% in 2014, and was recognised by IBM for leading two of the top three MDF campaigns worldwide.
In this blog he discusses the thorny problems many vendors and channel partners face in utilising vendor marketing development funds.
READ MORE ›
Is your marketing automation platform delivering good ROI?
By Adam Benson, Outsource Director
The rush to adopt marketing automation technology by B2B firms has delivered mixed results for many companies taking the plunge.
It’s not that the technology is necessarily lacking, it’s the additional knowledge and competencies required of marketers to make them perform at their peak.
READ MORE ›
The most commonly missed step in making your products and services channel ready
I love the excellent product quality today. We’re surrounded by technology that works well inside products that are generally well-designed. The vendors behind these technology products are mostly well-governed businesses that comply with our extensive consumer protection laws.
Perversely, that is often a problem when those same vendors want to sell their hardware, software and services through the indirect channel.
READ MORE ›
How do you know it’s time to hire a marketing manager?
By Adam Benson, Director
In the B2B sector it’s common to find businesses that have been successful without much focus on outbound marketing (by their own admission).
If you do a quick scan of their marketing there’s a ‘what we do’ kind of website, some designed company credentials documents, a PowerPoint deck for presenting to customers and prospects, maybe some data sheets that explain the range of services and a quoting or proposal template, possibly a customer newsletter and an on-again, off-again attempt at regular blogs or LinkedIn posts.
READ MORE ›
How selling your sofa could help with your B2B sales strategy
By Adam Benson, Outsource Director
My family recently moved house. We were packing up and trying to find a home for a few surplus items of furniture that won’t fit in the new place. As a result, I got the job of wrangling with eBay.
As I was trawling through my ‘selling’ list of larger, more costly items, it occurred to me that there are some good lessons to be learned when comparing this experience to lead generation for B2B companies.
READ MORE ›
Why is B2B content marketing important for your business?
Creating a content marketing strategy for your B2B business is easy and comes with many benefits. If you want to find out what content marketing is, the types of content marketing you can use, how you can use it in the B2B space, and the benefits you’ll reap from your efforts, read on.
READ MORE ›
What really drives your channel performance? A history lesson for IT vendors
By Kit Craig, Channel Consulting Director
Outsource regularly works with IT vendors struggling to maximise channel sales. Usually, according to the vendor, the technology they sell is red hot and should be flying out of their distributor’s warehouse (or the cloud, as the case may be).
READ MORE ›
How to choose the right marketing automation solution
By Adam Benson, CEO
I was at the SalesForce World Tour Sydney event this week and there were lots of delegates trying to make sense of what exactly was on offer, why they’d need it and whether they were the right fit for specific solutions. There were a lot of options to consider.
Why LinkedIn should be part of your B2B lead generation strategy
Thanks to business social networking channels like LinkedIn, it is easy to identify potential B2B prospects based on criteria such as industry, role, and seniority. Organisations that are not taking full advantage of this tool are missing out on the opportunity to generate more leads, often at a significantly lower cost than traditional outreach methods.
READ MORE ›