Marketing Loves Sales, The Sales Focused Conference

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1516227167412{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]The Marketing Loves Sales conferences was right smack in the middle of my 2017 conference blitz, but I had an opportunity to go and I knew I had to take it.

There’s a wealth of knowledge out there and you can take so many of the practical elements shared and turn them into your own integrated sales and marketing strategy. The lineup was solid and intermingled with some heavy-hitters like the Wizard of Moz.

The conference was comprised of several tracks so the notes below are from the talks I was able to attend.

(bolded items are ones I found super helpful)

Machine Learning and Advertising – Daniel – Google

• Machine learning crawls the image and pulls the data correlations like: a white male, facial hair, etc.
• Google Lens turns your camera into a scanning device.
• Adaptive device for search purposes.
• AI – the science of making machines intelligent.
• Machine Learning – the science of getting machines to learn.
• Processing power has increased now.
• 90% of the world’s data was created in the last 2 years.
• Neural Networks – 40yrs ago machine learning started. In a position where we can have billions of layers of neural networks.
• Learn – collecting all the data.
• Profit – using Google signals to eliminate some of the human element to drive sales.
• Optimization frequency and precision for ads and advanced machine learning. Google is crawling images and deciphering the contents of those images to help drive the appropriate search result.
• Move beyond cost per acquisition.
• Google Cloud Platform to build campaigns.
• Vision API – Takes images and use machine learning to understand and train the algorithm.
• Speech API – Google Voice, pronunciation and how you say things is getting adapted to you specifically by the API.
• Translation API – Using tools and voice to help translate data.
• Natural Language API – Learning about how people speak, to get the information you expect.
• Vision API – being used to determine which cucumbers should go to retail.
• 5% of your workforce should be trained on machine learning.
• 25% of core business functions powered by ML.
• 50% of digital marketing powered by ML.
• Google Insights is data learning; machine learning.

The State of B2B SEO – Rand Fishkin – Moz

• 10 searches per day on Google is the average. Many people 30 searches per day.
• Many people worry that the Click Thru rates are dropping. Not much opportunity left in organic search.
• Facebook looks like a major traffic driver.
• Google drives about 62% of all website traffic.
• Google is growing their dominance in image search.
• Facebook drives traffic to the top.
• Mobile CTR is about 2% on paid.
• Desktop CTR 2.8% paid and 62.2% on organic.
• Videos in Search are now YouTube and Vimeo only. Wistia doesn’t get found in search results, but they upload the same content later to YouTube (three months).
• Should prioritize your work based on the results not by straight up search volume.
• Google still wants to see links pointing to specific pages.
• Query Satisfaction is using Machine Learning.
• Google looks at search history, geography and other things to deliver relevant search results.
• 6 tactics for B2B SEO:
  • Low KW Demand Rank Twice.
  • Rank for Queries BEFORE the Query.
  • Publish on Platforms that Easily Rank – Quota, Slideshare and LinkedIn.
  • Offer Your Lead Capture Content Without Barriers.
  • Need Links? Get Proven Contributors
  • Plan 6 months of Investment with likely no ROI. Extremely low-cost acquisition. High lifetime value.

Solid from Start to Finish: The Future of Events – Kristin Alexander – Certain, Inc.

• Making an event happen is both manual work and extremely stressful.
• The registration drive requires you to know how many people are gonna go and breaking even for your event.
• Get to meet people and do work.
• Follow up with everyone from an event in a meaningful way. The event doesn’t end when the last session has closed and the lights go out.
• Events are channels that deliver.
• 50% of Microsoft demand generated by events.
• Top budget items are in-person events. They are really expensive.
• Only 50% of marketers connect physical and digital experiences.
• Event data is siloed and specific to a certain type of audience. Targeted data is very useful.
• Are you thinking about generic data or are building something to bring people in using real purpose.
• 42% higher attendance when using audience segmentation.
• Apply ABM – connecting marketing and sales together to get results and registrations.
• A tailored approach to event strategy can build leads.
• One email drove 70 registrations. Cost about $5 dollars per person to actually get people into the event.
• 70% of marketers say that it takes over 4 days to follow up with people after an event…and as long as 14 days. Next day follow up is powerful!

MQL’s – Dave – Oracle

• There’s a difference between engagement and intent.
• On the Sales side, they are paid for efficiency,
• “I don’t want any more of your MQL’s”.
• Build on marketing sales techniques.

Funnel Wise – Matt

• MQL conversion opportunities and how those are optimized over time.
• MQL vs Non-MQL win rate.
• Opportunity win rate variation < 10%.
• Opportunity process inconsistency < 10%.
• Calculate the variance of opportunity vs MQL vs close to really understand their win rate variances.
• Identify areas for deeper analysis, quantify impact, set priorities, ask why.
• Why do people get better MQL results? It’s more about running the right plays with the right audience. Funnel Playbooks are a set of actions.
• Way of translating high-level aspects into actions.
• Creating correlations for success and determining the probability of MQL based on the number of campaign touches.
• “Live events” create a higher probability of closing a lead.
• Each lead at least 4 campaigns, one live event = 50% increase to success.
• Probability of Scheduling an initial meeting…shrinks as each day passes.
• Probability of getting projects based on someone’s title.
• Hitting an MQL a few times means there’s a higher chance to close…”we know that, based on X that Y is likely.”
• Breaking down the time spent in Sales Qualified Stages. After 60 days people drop off.
• Number of contacts on an account go UP over time. 4 people on an account increases closing odds by 42%.
• 3 or more new campaign touches resulted in 31.4% increase in sales/closes.
• Have 20 or more sales activities in progress within the first 30 days in the Sales Qualified stage. This equals 70% or more activity on active opportunities.
• Will talk you through the process.

Intelligent Quote to Cash

• Digitally empowered customers have changed the game.
• ABM (Account Based Marketing) which is sometimes hope and hype.
• Marketing includes all kinds of types of content.
• Need to define sales activities.
• High design > Informational > Co-created
• Personalized video used in the sales or customer process to help acquisition.

The Framework for a Successful Account Based Strategy – Craig Rosenberg

• Playbooks, a customized owner manual for sales.
• A targeted approach to high-value accounts. All of your marketing focuses on one effort at a time.
• What is the pipeline we’re generating for a targeted account.
• Everything is about NET new acquisition.
• ICP – ideal customer profile and identify accounts you want to go after.
• Qualitative, sales rep feedback.
• Internal, closed-won by segment.
• External, predictive analytics.
• CAC – customer acquisition cost.
• A, High Value and Highly Custom
• B, High, Value and Semi-Custom
• C, Targeted Velocity
• CEO”s usually want the high-value accounts brought into the business.
• How are people coming into your leads and where do they go through the process. Determine where spending more on marketing makes sense. Certain categories of clients aren’t profitable.
• Design High-Value Campaigns – Strategic Imaging Assessments and an over for you to come in and do a demo meeting or something like that.

Product Marketing Loves SEO – Noah Brimhall

• Example on Jive.
• Easy to work in SEO and they ask people to change things before launching websites. Lot of time and approvals go into a launch.
• Blue Ocean keywords, are KWP that people aren’t ranking for.
• SEO attracts higher value quality leads.
• SEO might understand needs of the prospect.

Secret Sauce to LinkedIn B2B

• We’re talking about the LinkedIn mindset and how to post content to the platform. Features of the platform.
• Always be testing strategy. Testing done over the years.
• The largest gathering of professionals in the world. All on LinkedIn.
• They acquired Linda.com. Coming for education and additional information.
• 80% B2B leads coming from social are coming from LinkedIn.
• People consume about ten pieces of content before they reach out to sales.
• 13 million company pages on LinkedIn.
• LinkedIn sponsored content used to drive leads.
• Most people reading content are millennial.
• Visuals are the new headline. Always use rich media.
• New tool, website demographics. Add a tag to your website and build persona’s based on who is visiting you from LinkedIn. Sounds similar to FB pixel.
• A/B testing content posts via sponsored content.

Should to Shoulder – Show Me the Money – Adam Miller

• Marketing is an epic opportunity for everyone.
• Perception = Reality is an assumption.
• 80% of all Chief Executives are unimpressed or don’t trust marketing. Not always the fault of CMO.
• It’s all about perception.
• Act on empathy for Sales teams and marketing teams.
• The job of marketing is to slam sales. Sales works through the formal processes.
• CEO should drive revenue. Your one job. Sales solves everything.
• People buy people, they don’t buy technology.
• Create the human connection before the leads hit the sales team. People like talking to each other.
• Need to create a connection. It takes 11.8 times to get a response from someone. Need to get on the phone and qualify these people.
  • What’s your interest and time scales?
  • Put a meeting on a calendar with a time and date.

5 Ways to Align Sales & Marketing to Maximize ROI – Maria Bruno Sr.

• Event success requires planning.
• Can physically be up front of people.
• Mentioning Adobes annual conference.
• Marketing and Sales Game Plan
  • Collaborate
    • Build the world of people before an event.
    • Pre-event list, previous booth scans.
  • Share Goals
  • Coordinate Outreach
  • Measure ‘ Modify
  • Carry Momentum

That’s everything I have! If you’d like to add anything here or make a change please let me know on Twitter at @thewrightjason. Thanks so much![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

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