I want to quickly talk about using social media for prospecting and outreach, because for certain businesses, this can be an amazing method of lead generation.

3 Takeaways for Evolving Your Account-Based Sales Strategy with AI

Consider replacing lead capture forms with intelligent chat bots.
Set up personalized welcome messages for target accounts.
Include links that trigger chat bot conversations in your outbound emails.

What are the best indicators that a B2B target is in the market for new technology or products?

Skidmore: The greatest predictor of a company’s next technology purchase is the tech they own today. That idea is true of most industries. Prior experience is the greatest predictor of future actions. So, you can segment those [variables] and then look for signals from target customers as to whether they are in [the buying cycle]. That’s one of the things about overwhelming amounts of information—you need to be able to identify which pieces of information are the most valuable to your company now. We create scores of likelihood to purchase based on a wide range of variables.

Created by Process Street in partnership with PersistIQ, this study uses an archive of over 1,000 sales emails and voicemail transcripts from some of the world…

Hubspot says that cost per lead in financial services is $272. That can't be right.

In 2015, BrightFunnel released a host of statistics that show marketing must work harder than ever and that its efforts span the entire buyer’s journey, from lead to sale.

It takes 52% more marketing touches to close a deal.
The total number of touches are evenly split between pre-sales (53%) and the sales cycle (47%).
The average path to sale for “high growth” tech companies is 512 days from lead to revenue.

Today’s best reps use predictive analytics, a form of AI that optimizes decision making around sales efforts. Salesforce and Microsoft have AI-driven tools and investment in AI startups is at an all-time high. This type of software uses techniques that gather customer and prospect data from multiple sources, run it through machine learning models to predict which leads are most likely to convert, and present the findings to a sales team, in the form of best prospects and accounts. AI-driven software can eliminate a great deal of manual work, helping sales reps make decisions about how to approach prospects, personalize conversations, and most importantly, focus on the leads that deserve follow-up.
Here are a few data points which can be taken into consideration by an AI-based platform: size of company; location; recent ventures; length of sales cycle; revenue; growth rate; financial health; recruitments; relocations; funding rounds; installed technologies; intent to buy; social media activity.

Multi-touch prospecting campaigns are not new, and they have been driving real results for the fastest growing companies in the world. There are 5 key factors in the multi-channel prospecting campaign:
1. Prospecting is a campaign. 
2. Email is the core channel for outreach. 
3. The phone isn’t dead, but it is used differently. 
4. A social touch (LinkedIn) increases overall conversion. 
5. Campaigns should be delivered over time.  

"The Recipe for Better Sales Prospecting

Create a concept for a group of companies.
eg: Fortune 500 industrials, companies hiring Software Engineers in Chicago, companies that recently raised $10M+

Build a list of those companies – with their web domain.
Hint: you can pay an upworker to do this!

Run that list of companies through a prospecting tool – Such as Clearbit, Zenprospect, or Lead Genius to identify the right prospects."

Top of the Funnel Tweaks
1. Use a Pre-Signup Form
2. A/B Test Content Hierarchies
3. Use Remarketing Alongside Your Content Marketing
4. Use Behavioral and Exit-Intent Popups


Middle of the Funnel
5. Create Separate Auto-Responder Campaigns Based on User Stage
6. Offer a Free Trial Only If a Visitor Doesn’t Subscribe to Your Service
7. Send Summary Reports


Bottom of the Funnel
8. Consider Support Chat Widgets

When Brian Anderson first messaged Charlie Liang from Engagio to ask for a meeting, he couldn’t predict that his email would go viral. Brian, Co-Founder of Captuvate, had heavily tailored the message…

Your Calls To Action Are Not Streamlined

You Don’t Have Consistent Messaging

You Didn’t Implement Cross Platform Design

You’re Not Analyzing The Data Or Split Testing

You’re Not Retargeting

Offline information sources remain important, supplemented by new online sources High-value B2B purchase decisions are typically complex, involving multipl. Marketing topic(s):B2B strategy. Advice by Dave Chaffey.

First, social intelligence and the consumer insights drawn from social data can inform marketing content, brand positioning, and even your product and company value propositions. How?

A useful approach to lead generation on social is through highly specific and targeted audience segmentation. Social audience analytics can give you a fantastic way to identify and collect those online leads.

This third and crucial last element is all about relationship building and nurturing. Social demand generation is great for building and addressing market demand — and for increasing leads in a highly targeted manner. Yet, at the end of the day, it all comes down to taking that vital next step: engaging with prospects.