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Aligning and Optimizing Sales & Marketing to Increase Conversions

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: When sales and marketing are aligned and optimized (lead emphasis on quality and sales emphasis on process), sales increase dramatically.

Aligning and Optimizing Sales & Marketing to Increase Conversions

Do you ever wonder how web pages help (or hinder) the sales effort? I do.

When salespeople follow up on leads their success has a great deal to do with the quality and freshness of the leads. When they fail they blame marketing for generating lousy leads!

On the other side of the coin, marketing looks at the NUMBER of leads generated for the sales force and how many of them convert to opportunities and business. When the salespeople are ineffective at converting, marketing blames it on the sales force.

When sales and marketing are aligned and optimized (lead emphasis on quality and sales emphasis on process), sales increase dramatically.

My blogging platform host, Hubspot, provides a lot of useful data on how our content performs, where readers come from, how many of them are back for repeat visits, the number of subscribers, most popular and discussed articles, number of landing page visits, conversions to leads, and much, much more. What we don't learn about is how all the "other stuff" on the page affects you, our visitor. If you are reading this article directly on my Blog at Understanding the Sales Force, would you share, with all of us, answers to just a few questions? If you are reading an RSS feed or you are on a site that has simply reposted it - well - never mind. Your answers could help everyone with the quality of their leads, conversion ratios and what, if anything, should appear in addition to content on the pages...

The questions are about the "other stuff", the non content, that appears in the left and right margins. The "other stuff" includes article series, most popular articles, options to subscribe to the Blog, awards, badges from other sites, upcoming events, one of my books, free tools, white papers, my radio show, more information, etc.

Do you ever scroll the page and look at that "other stuff"?

Does the appearance of all that "other stuff" diminish the quality or credibility of the content?

Did you ever click on or utilize any of that "other stuff"?

What, if any of the "other stuff" was/is most/least useful to you?

Thanks!

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Article Tags: conversions, sales and marketing



Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
niche forum categories - I think Kevin just touched on the point that I was going make... and that is developing 'categories' that stick. Sales and Marketing may be too broad for example. However I can almost guarantee you that you would see many more sign-ups if you tailored a category to 'internet marketing' for newbies. I've seen this work on other forums, however, [i:1i903wkn]it can get a little frantic[/i:1i903wkn]... Fine tuning the categories, or expanding the scope should be effective. I think a lot of IM folks are surfing right on by because they're not finding what they're looking for here... Just a few thoughts: Better Blogging Developing Info Products Internet Marketing Presentation Skills More How to's Another point is... a lot of people don't know that they can benefit from participating in forums. The signature links to their site - if they have one - can / should be motivation enough to get more involved. The more internet savvy members that have signatures seem to stick around more... Don't you think?
Different Hats - CEO Sales & Marketing & Leadership Development Company Strategic Vision 10 Alliances & Growth Strategies 10 Hiring & Managing People 8 Mentoring 8-9 Strategic Planning for Clients 10 Execution of Marketing Campaigns 9-10 (i have great people who do the nitty gritty) Financial Management 9 Bookkeeping 3 (outsourced as I really hate the fine details like GST0 Administrative Follow Up 6-7 (again have great staff) Writing & Publishing 9 (getting better all the time!) Speaking 10 (so I have been told) Self Promotion 9-10 Web development & Promotion 6-7 (learning more and have brought on players who are 10+) Babysitting Employees (1 - wont do it, that's why I work so hard to hire and motivate the people I have) Great topic Kevin!! Jude
Any ideas for potential partner sites? - Hi Everyone, I was wondering if any of you have any ideas on "potential partner sites" for our specific forum categories? For instance, is there a leading "Women Entrepreneur" or "Sales/Marketing" site you know of that doesn't have an existing online community of its own? This could be a great way to help us attract more traffic. Thanks


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