Accelerate Sales
PR Doesn’t Stand for Press Release
February 2, 2012
What do you think of when you think PR? Is it just pitches and press releases? If so, we’re a little offended – but with a lot of firms not talking sales and marketing, we understand why media outreach and releases may be the first two things that come to mind.
Of course, they’re part of life for any PR pro, including newbies like me. But since joining the Corporate Ink team last summer, I’ve seen infographics, lead gen campaigns, social media programs and customer intimacy campaigns built and launched – and I’ve actually been a part of some of those.
PR is changing. Releases and media are More >
How Customer Satisfaction Surveys Tell the Future
January 23, 2012
It’s funny – just asking customers what they want more of is one of the best ways to see where the market is heading, and where the pressure is strongest.
We’ve been surveying our customers via Net Promoter® for about five years, and each year, we ask three key questions:
- How likely are you to recommend Corporate Ink to a friend or colleague?
- What’s your primary reason for scoring this way?
- What’s the one thing we could do to improve this score?
Then we ask a few spontaneous questions – to get a better understanding of where our clients are feeling the most pressure (which typically More >
Mike Volpe: HubSpot’s CMO on Linking Marketing and Sales
January 19, 2012
Every quarter, we bring together marketing executives to swap stories, share experiences and create some best practices. Mike, the CMO of HubSpot, spoke to the group earlier this week.
At a start-up, stopping isn’t really in the playbook. But six years in, I got a chance to think – and talk – at Corporate Ink’s recent breakfast for local tech marketing experts about what worked in our inbound marketing strategy, and what didn’t. So, 1,780 or so days into it – here’s a little bit of what stood out, what worked, and what’s worth doing more of.
Blogging We were early, and it really worked. There More >
Guest Post: The Challenge of Selling in the New Normal… And What To Do About It
September 30, 2011
by Guest Post
in Accelerate Sales
Scott Willard is CEO of BroadReach Partners, Inc. (broadreachpartnersinc.com), a sales consultancy specializing in accelerating measurable top-line growth
Ah, the bliss of yesterday’s sales cycle. We didn’t know how good we had it. Find a lead, make a call, get a meeting, close the deal.
That was then. In the New Normal economy, the sales environment has changed radically. And it’s certainly longer, often taking months, even years, from first call to close. You have to work harder to find the right people to talk to. You have to work harder to get them to talk to you. You need to talk to More >
Guest Post: Selling to a Universe of One
September 29, 2011
by Guest Post
in Accelerate Sales
Earlier this week, Mike Braatz spoke at our quarterly networking breakfast on what it took to turn Memento Security into the go-to resource for insight about banking fraud. The below blog post was contributed by Mike, detailing the key takeaways from his talk.
I’ve led marketing for a number of early stage B2B technology companies. Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot, from both successes and failures. When I first arrived at my current company, Memento, we faced all the usual challenges, and then some.
On the positive side, we knew we had a great solution to a real problem: bank fraud. More >