Jesse Noyes

B2B sales is by no means easy. It requires not only skill, but panache.

But that doesn’t mean everything about sales is hard. Some tips can be shockingly simple, yet very effective.

Today, we highlight eight B2B sales tips that are easy to put into practice, but deliver results.

1. Let Leads Market to You

When it comes to B2B sales and marketing, nothing beats relevance. One way to remain relevant is to sign up for your leads’ own newsletters, email campaigns and other marketing materials. If you understand how your leads conduct their own sales and marketing, you’ll be better suited to market to them.

2. Leverage the Written Word

There are several ways to establish thought leadership including blogs, social media, newsletters, etc. But few things command trust and respect quite like a book. Has your organization’s executives crafted a book around your space? If so, make sure you get this in the hands of...

General Motors made big news this week when they said – just ahead of Facebook’s big IPO – that they were taking their $10 million budget for Facebook ads elsewhere.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Ford captured the marketing world by surprise when it announced it would dump the Super Bowl for more social media.

Interestingly, these moves seem to capture the attention of both B2C and B2B marketers. Whether your trips to the water cooler are inside the walls of a consumer-oriented brand or a company that mainly sells to other businesses, there’s a good chance the marketing tactics of Ford, GM, Toyota and car-makers come up.

An obvious reason for this is the sheer size of the automakers budgets. (GM is the number three advertisers in the U.S., for instance.)

But there’s...

Big happenings in the social media world today as a giant star collided with a smaller, but powerful, cousin. LinkedIn has decided to purchase SlideShare for $119 million in cash and stock.

It’s not a deal I can say I saw coming, but it makes total sense. For those of you uninitiated with SlideShare, it’s a platform where you can upload and spread professional presentations. Or what I like to call, the backbone of buying and selling these days.

If you’re scratching your head on just why LinkedIn would spend all that dough on SlideShare, let me offer five big reasons.

1. It’s Like Pinterest for Business

We’re all hearing about Pinterest lately, the visually sticky social network for sharing your favorite links to things like wedding plans, Etsy projects and, yes, even content marketing. What makes Pinterest compelling is the way it strips sharing down to visuals.

Well, SlideShare...

Reporters and editors face a 24-hour news cycle. They are constantly, urgently, in need of quotes, quirky anecdotes, data. Yet, many marketers struggle to make it into the story.

Why is that?

According to David Meerman Scott, author of Real-Time Marketing & PR and Newsjacking, it’s because many marketers are not taking advantage of the second paragraph. The press is constantly looking for a unique angle to insert into breaking news coverage. With the right amount of quick thinking and creativity, marketers can create angles that the media will jump on. It’s part of David’s continued admonishment to market “right now.”

David shares how to make this happen below and will offer even more advice on marketing in real time as the keynote speaker at Eloqua Experience Europe. Check it out...