Tag: b2b
B2B Marketing Automation Software: The Case For & Against
Thanks to aggressive sales reps from HubSpot, Pardot, Act-On, Marketo, SharpSpring, and others, many businesses get excited about B2B marketing automation software. It’s the definition of the proverbial “shiny object.”
However, the vast majority of businesses, especially SMBs, are not ready to take advantage of marketing automation software and its myriad features. Why?
When Marketing Automation Makes Perfect Sense
- You have a written marketing plan at least for this year that connects the dots between your financial goals and marketing activities
- You have a website that already generates good search engine rankings for keywords and subsequent lead generation
- You have good website content and some higher level marketing collateral (e.g.
B2B Storytelling that Cuts Through the Clutter
In a world full of countless, noisy marketing messages vying for our attention from a multiplying list of platforms, many companies mistakenly try to compete with messaging that is louder. HEY! LOOK AT US, LOOK AT WHAT WE CAN DO!
Meanwhile, your prospects are struggling to figure out whether you are a good fit for helping them do what they do. Hey, look over here! Look at what we need…
Brand Story marketing, adapted from sources like Donald Miller’s book, Building a StoryBrand and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, reframes the traditional view of marketing, placing the customer at the center of the message rather than the company.
… Continue Reading >>Innovaxis Named to List of Chicago’s Top Marketing Consultants
As a B2B-focused digital marketing firm with a track record of creating lead-generating marketing content and strategy for a wide variety of businesses, we are proud to have been named to a list of the top marketing and consulting firms serving Chicago.
The ranking, created by Seattle-based research firm Expertise, used 25 variables across five categories that include reputation, credibility, experience, availability and professionalism to establish its list. The agencies on the list were culled from a starting point of more than 600 marketing consultants serving Chicago.
B2B Expertise that Drives Lead Generation
Our president Sean Parnell said the ranking reflects the hard work and specialized expertise that the Innovaxis Marketing team brings to its B2B clients both in Chicago and across the United States.
… Continue Reading >>A Better Way to Market Your Brand & Accelerate B2B Sales Growth
So many companies make the same mistake: they lead with what they sell and why they’re good at it. While this may sound counterintuitive, leading with who you serve and what problems you solve resonates with prospects and customers in a far more powerful way – especially when you craft a compelling story around the needs of your clients.
Messaging that Doesn’t Put the Solution Before the Problem
The problem with the traditional approach to messaging is that it only works if the products, services and solutions you sell align exactly with what your prospects think they need. What if they don’t know what they want? What if they’re wrong?
… Continue Reading >>Farewell, Adobe Business Catalyst – What’s Next?
At this time two years ago, we encouraged B2B companies to use Adobe Business Catalyst – our website content management system (WCMS) of choice.
Sadly and unexpectedly, Business Catalyst announced that they will end-of-life the platform by March 26, 2020. Adobe originally wanted to pull the plug in 2018, but pushed the date back as torches were lit and pitchforks were being sharpened. This leaves more than 700,000 websites currently hosted on Adobe with the daunting task of migrating to another platform.
Choosing a WCMS for your B2B website can be a struggle. There are so many – trendy platforms entice you with promises of do-it-yourself website designs and minimal prices.
… Continue Reading >>The Stock Market Is Booming, So Why Isn’t Your Business?
The stock market is at all-time highs. The economy is in the seventh year of expansion since the Great Recession. Big business has never been more
profitable, even before proposed cuts to lower the corporate tax rate.
So why aren’t small and mid-sized businesses growing at the same rate? Why is it so difficult to generate new business? How can SMBs compete against
big business?
If the answers were clear, SMBs would be growing along with the rest of the economy. Instead, they suffer from many hidden barriers to growth. One
of the most common, and most damaging, is a misalignment between sales and marketing.
Buyerlytics Plus is the product of 30 years of combined sales and marketing best practice experience between Innovaxis and Infinity,
… Continue Reading >>Buyerlytics® Plus Creates a New Opportunity for Businesses to Achieve 10X Growth
Innovaxis & Infinity Partner to Help Businesses Achieve B2B Sales & Marketing Alignment for Midwest Companies with Digital Sales Models
Chicago & Cedar Rapids – October 30, 2017 – Infinity, Inc., a Cedar Rapids-based sales and service agency, today announces the launch of Buyerlytics Plus: a new way for business-to-business (B2B) technology and service companies to achieve 10X sales growth by aligning sales and marketing.
Buyerlytics Plus provides integrated sales and marketing through Infinity’s strategic partnership with Innovaxis, a Chicago-based marketing consultancy
and managed services firm.
The Case for Sales & Marketing Alignment Best Practices
While markets have rebounded since the Great Recession, many organizations between $25 and $100 million in annual revenues are still experiencing a
lack of growth.
Sales & Marketing Alignment: Strategy vs. Tactics
If there is anyone who hasn’t weighed in by now on the concept of sales and marketing alignment, it’s hard to imagine who it could be.
Getting everyone on the same page, in the same boat, on the same planet, holding hands and having a beer together, is, apparently, a goal upon which we all agree and a topic that generates no end of strategies for how to reach it.
Can there possibly be anything left to say? If not, then why isn’t your sales and marketing aligned?
Misalignment
The idea of sales and marketing professionals locked in endless disagreement over how to grow a business seems a little dated at this point.
… Continue Reading >>Adobe Business Catalyst: Far Better than WordPress for B2B Small Business
Update: Adobe has announced the end of life for Adobe Business Catalyst as of March 25, 2021. Contact us to learn the best options to migrate your website.
As an Adobe Business Catalyst partner for over five years, I’m often asked why this web content management software (WCMS) is so effective for business-to-business (B2B) marketing for small and mid-sized (SMB) businesses. Having worked with WordPress for numerous years, as well as Joomla, Drupal, Modx, Umbraco, Miva, Adobe Muse, American Eagle, Ruby on Rails, Tridion, HubSpot, and good ol’ straight HTML, here’s why Adobe Business Catalyst continues to make so much sense for our clients and for us (this is an Adobe Business Catalyst website).
… Continue Reading >>Interview with Our Founder Sean Parnell
Our founder, Sean Parnell, was recently approached by a casting company seeking entrepreneurs in Chicago to take part in a commercial for a major credit card company. They asked some good questions, so we thought we’d share his answers. Enjoy…
Q: Tell us a little about yourself. What do you like to do for fun? Passions? Hobbies?
A: By night, many know me as Chicago’s historic bar expert by night: I wrote Historic Bars of Chicago and Created the Chicago Bar Project. By day, I run a marketing consulting agency that I founded 10 years ago. My wife is from Colombia, so we travel there often with our 7-year-old son.
… Continue Reading >>