John Hayes posted on April 21, 2011 |
I had the pleasure to speak with Achinta Mitra this week. His company, Tiecas Inc. specializes in B2B Industrial marketing.
Achinta eloquently explained the dilemma of most marketers in industrial companies. The customer and prospect databases are controlled by the sales team. The sales team is compensated for sales. Accordingly, their only interest in marketing is in short term highly qualified leads.
That means that if you (the marketer) want access to the sales database of prospects and leads, then you need the permission of the sales force. To do your job of nurturing prospects at the top of the sales funnel, you need access that you may be denied. And so many marketers are stuck doing what they know has low returns - trolling for new leads in industry publications or going to trade shows.
Achinta's tip to overcome this resistance is to describe all lead nurturing and content marketing activities in terms of lead generation. For example, if you want to send a monthly newsletter with interesting content for your prospects, you may have to include a promotional call to action in that newsletter to get the buy-in from the sales team.
You can read more insights from Achina at his blog: http://industrialmarketingtoday.com/content-is-the-foundation-of-good-relationship-marketing/