Is lead nature — who the prospect is — that matters in B2B marketing?

Or what I do to keep in touch and build a relationship — lead nurture — that predicts lead value and conversion to sales opportunity?

CMOs, how do we make a difference when the available pool of paying customers has shrunk?
In a B2B company of not-unlimited means, it is easy to spend a lot of money on marketing without seeing value for the spend. Here are 4 spends that are limited, scalable, and accountable. Each can drive [...]

In a world of limited time, finite means, and pressure for results, what not to do?
When marketing is under-resourced, it tends to stop listening to the customer (if it ever did), because listening requires a cessation of action. What happens next? Recycling whatever you said and did in the last campaign. Talking to all [...]

It’s book review time again. Perhaps you’ve heard that sales people have a rant about marketing people (and others) who don’t understand what sales people do. Today’s book is a nice little vaccine against Complete Sales Ignorance.
The Elevator Summary: Most books about selling are of little use in understanding the psychological world of selling. Sandler [...]

The real beauty of Kevin’s article When will CMO heads roll? isn’t the observation that corporate marketing budgets are broken and that change is amazingly slow in coming.
That’s an easy target.
What I like is his description of who is changing.
He describes an actual target market that a marketer can begin to get [...]

This is the part where we admit that your customers can’t predict their own behavior.
What people tell you they like or think or want to do is different from what they’re actually going to do.
Especially if your business objective involves parting customers from their money for any reason.
The answer?
Test.
Create a situation where a couple of [...]

Widget makers have it easy. Plaster photos on the website. We.Are.Selling.This.Thing.  It.Looks.Like.This.  (Do you want it painted in Autumn Glory, Technicolor Stainless, or Urban Soot?)
For those of us who sell things whose souls cannot be captured in a photograph, it’s not quite so literal.
Here are six reasons why your erstwhile customer can’t figure out what [...]

People ask this all the time. (Which is fantastic, by the way!)
“Why Invisible Marketing? Isn’t marketing about getting visibility?”
Well, here’s how I think about it.
I have enjoyed, talked about, and experienced deep emotional connections with super-cool Superbowl ads for products I’ve never bought and companies with whom I won’t do business.
But I earn a living [...]