Growth Strategies

/Tag:Growth Strategies

How To Position Your Startup To Grow In A Crowded Market

If the market for your product or service is taking off, you're likely experiencing an influx of new entrants. Customers, potential employees and investors—who in the early days didn't understand your product or were skeptical it would succeed—now tell you that "everyone's doing that" and want to know "what's different about you?" There are two key ways to differentiate yourself to grow in a crowded market. The first way to stand out is to refine your target market definition, which I wrote about in a post titled Sharpen Your Target Market to Build a Better Demand Generation Machine. The second way [...]

2016-11-18T11:23:36-05:00 By |Marketing|0 Comments
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5 Steps to Tune Up Your Revenue Engine and Increase B2B Sales

Whether you're in a start-up that's recently confirmed your product/market fit or in an established company that's ready to act on a new growth opportunity, to increase B2B sales you should periodically assess and tune your revenue engine. To make sure your sales and marketing processes are ready to help you accelerate your business, here are 5 steps you should take (or re-take) before you push the pedal to the floor. 1. Simplify and Document Your Existing B2B Sales Process If you're running a startup, you likely kept your sales process flexible while you were determining product/market fit. And if you recently [...]

2016-11-18T11:23:36-05:00 By |Analytics, Marketing, Sales|1 Comment
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Sharpen Your Target Market to Build a Better Demand Generation Machine

Target Market: A specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products and services. Your target customers are those who are most likely to buy from you. Resist the temptation to be too general in the hopes of getting a larger slice of the market. That's like firing 10 bullets in random directions instead of aiming just one dead center of the mark--expensive and dangerous. - Entrepreneur.com In my last post titled Start-up CEOs: When Should You Hire a CMO? I talked about several demand generation tactics start-up leaders should avoid. There is no 'free lunch' despite the allure of such [...]

2016-11-18T11:23:36-05:00 By |Marketing|3 Comments
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Start-up CEOs: When Should You Hire Your First CMO / VP Marketing?

I’m surprised by how many B2B start-up CEOs are still building their companies the old fashioned way:  First, they assemble a product team and build the product in stealth mode. Then, they hire a hot-shot direct salesperson to go out and sell it. They plan to build their marketing team after their revenue starts ramping and eventually hire a CMO / VP Marketing when they are more established. If you're thinking “What’s wrong with this approach? Many successful companies have used it” then keep on reading... Just Hiring a Rolodex® is Not the Answer By hiring a sales leader first, [...]

2016-11-18T11:23:36-05:00 By |Marketing, Sales|2 Comments
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Employ Predictive Analytics To Improve Sales and Marketing Alignment

Measurement is a key discipline for any modern marketer. Metrics that measure inbound, outbound, brand and other performance are all critical for understanding marketing effectiveness and its impact on sales. Yet, a Fournaise Marketing Group survey reported that 73% of CEOs think marketers lack business credibility, since they can't prove they generate business growth. So, how can CMOs leverage new tools, such as predictive analytics, to measure marketing’s impact on revenue and improve sales and marketing alignment? A New Generation of Marketing Analytics Tools Thanks to a new generation of marketing analytics tools, today's CMO has the ability to measure the impact [...]

2016-11-18T11:23:36-05:00 By |Analytics, Marketing, Sales|1 Comment
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