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How to Use Games to Build Relationships with Your Customers

Harvard Business

Organizations are still learning how to think about games as media for marketing. Games aren’t typically covered in marketing classes in business schools, and they are often still seen as fundamentally different from other media.

How To 212
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84% of B2B Sales Start with a Referral — Not a Salesperson

Harvard Business

Outbound B2B sales are becoming less and less effective. In fact, a recent survey found that connecting with a prospect now takes 18 or more phone calls, callback rates are below 1%, and only 24% of outbound sales emails are ever opened. Why are more and more buyers avoiding salespeople during the buying process?

B2B 191
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The Basic Social Media Mistakes Companies Still Make

Harvard Business

Over 90% of medium and large businesses have used social media in their marketing for five years or longer. Yet the CMO Survey reveals that nearly half of marketers are unable to show the impact of their social media investments. ” But countless businesses have done just that with social media. Evan Smogor/Unsplash.

Media 135
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Replacing the Sales Funnel with the Sales Flywheel

Harvard Business

I’ve been using the sales funnel for 28 years, my whole career. For one thing, in an era when trust in traditional sources has eroded — in government, media, and in companies and the marketing they employ — word-of-mouth from trusted peers wields greater clout than ever. .” It was the right thing to do.

Sales 132
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Why You Need to Use Case Studies in Sales and Marketing (and How to Start Now)

In sales, case studies are crucial pieces of content that can be tailored to prospects' pain points and used throughout the buyer's journey. In marketing, case studies are versatile assets for generating business, providing reusable elements for ad and social media content, website material, and marketing campaigns.

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Are Sales Incentives Becoming Obsolete?

Harvard Business

To motivate, manage, and reward B2B salespeople, many companies use sales incentive plans that link large commissions or bonuses to individual results metrics, such as territory quota achievement. The right sales incentive plan creates a double win. This made it easy to measure individual sales results.

Sales 135
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Using Analytics to Align Sales and Marketing Teams

Harvard Business

At the same time, the software company has wasted time and resources on duplicate, uncoordinated, and ineffective marketing and sales outreach. Companies need an orchestrator to ensure marketing and sales outreach is well-coordinated and aligned with customer buying needs. The buying process is no longer linear or consistent.

Sales 129