Feature Articles

As BtoB buyers demand a more engaging experience, sales and marketing executives  are being challenged to leverage new tactics to deliver a competitive advantage at every touch point. According to Gartner Research, companies lose 10% of sales due to lack of insight into their target market.

A recent webinar titled “Sales 2.0 Tactics for 2011: Accelerate Revenue & Improve ROI,” brought the need to master customer information to the forefront, and advised marketers to make the customer a bigger part of the value chain.

“There are still a lot of companies stuck in 1.0 mode, they’re still cold calling, using the traditional sales funnel (not a lifecycle funnel) and dialing phone numbers sequentially,” said Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder & CEO of Selling Power magazine.

After many marketers underestimated the importance of data management in the early phases of rolling out marketing automation, data and reporting are expected to top the list of priorities in 2011. As demand generation practices continue to evolve and mature, industry analysts suggest people, processes and data will become top priorities.

“Even the best technologies available will fail to provide the needed insight if the data isn’t in order to support it,” points out Chris Parisi, VP of Technology at Bulldog Solutions. “There’s just no escaping the importance of clean, normalized, reliable data to drive success in online marketing. Data management is a necessity, and it shakes out in many ways. It’s critical not only for all of the revenue-driving activities marketers want and need to do, such as lead scoring, segmentation, lead nurturing — but also to reporting and business intelligence tools.”