COURSE OVERVIEW:

There’s been a lot of buzz about adjusting sales and marketing techniques, tactics and alignment to meet the needs of the modern B2B and B2C buyer. But what are the needs of this new type of buyer as they search and move toward purchase? What is Modern Marketing and Sales?

Before the days of the internet, people became aware of products in the physical world – traveling to a tradeshow, answering calls from and engaging with a sales person to gather information and learn about a product or service. And if the sales person was knowledgeable about the solution features and benefits, then they bought it.

Obviously, those days are gone, and now the internet gives people the opportunity to self-educate about products and services before communicating with a sales person. Now, if the buyer can avoid a sales person completely, they will. If a buyer does need to work with a sales person to complete the transaction, the buyer now expects that sales person to understand their needs and to customise a solution that meets their needs.

The paradigm has shifted and now products are bought first – with digital content that proves you understand your buyers’ needs and pains – then sold by closers or sales reps who take orders, once buyers feel educated enough to engage in deeper discussions.

Modern marketing and sales bridges the gap between sales and marketing and aligns the sellers’ sales process with the buyers’ journey, to sell solutions, not features and benefits. The goal of modern sales and marketing is to map your sales process with the contemporary buyers’ journey to make it easy for the buyer to purchase at each stage of the process.

Today, a company that wants to succeed in the modern marketplace, must demand its sales and marketing departments work together collaboratively, get along and partner for one goal – increase the bottom line. With the multiple moving parts involved in the modern sales and marketing machine, both entities must work together to bring in an audience, educate that audience and move that audience towards a purchase decision.

Companies with an aligned sales and marketing strategy are better at closing deals. In order to align the two departments, sales must talk to marketing and clearly articulate the types of people (targets) who are most likely to buy and which ones are the right fit for the company. They also need to be able to clearly convey the problems these buyers need to solve. Then, marketing must take those items and craft a strategy, produce content (both educational and content that facilitates easier transactions) and distribute it in an organised, timely manner.

Normally, large companies are in a position to make the transition from traditional to modern marketing and sales. There are plenty of vendors willing to help, and although budgets are tight, they can be allocated to projects. It is mainly small and medium-sized businesses that do not have the budgets or the resources. So they are going to try it themselves. And that can lead to disappointment, because they lack guidance.

This course provides smart practices to help your organisation, transition from traditional to modern marketing and sales that will build customer loyalty and trust, as well as brand recognition.

The first part of this course deals with topics such as Content Management and Lead Management and provides an overview of relevant issues in these areas. The goal of Content Marketing is to supply the customer with relevant information so that he can at any time decide that he wants to do business with us. In Lead Management it is not only about generating as many leads as possible, but also nurturing those leads, so they don’t fall by the wayside.

The second part deals with Digital Marketing and Marketing Technology. Digital Marketing is the set of marketing activities in an online environment. Topics that are covered include: changing your marketing team, personalising your story to your audience and the need for marketing to work with Information Technology. In Marketing Technology, attention is paid to using Smart Data and Big Data, Marketing Automation to enhance productivity and insight and the connection between Marketing Automation and Customer Relationship Management.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:

• The changing world of marketing and sales
• The external and internal challenges in the marketing and sales domain
• The traditional sales and marketing
• The modern sales and marketing
• Content Marketing and Lead Generation
• How to produce content that both your users and search engines will love?
• The five main topics of Content Marketing
• How to win in today’s Content Marketing warfare?
• How to facilitate User-Generated Content by fans and followers?
• The SEO content
• How to create resources – teams and tools?
• The Content Marketing Strategy
• How to look for existing content and develop missing content?
• The Conversion Improving Content
• How to grow your customer base?
• The importance of Market Research
• What is Lead Scoring? And when does a Lead Scoring System become necessary?
• How to implement an effective Lead Scoring System?
• The importance of cooperation between Marketing and Sales
• The criteria for Explicit and Implicit Scoring
• How to connect Marketing Automation and CRM systems?
• How to achieve greater success with Lead Nurturing?
• The four phases of a typical buying process
• How Lead Nurturing determines what content is used and at what stage in the buying process?
• Digital Marketing and Marketing Technology
• How to change to Modern Marketing?
• What does the Marketing Team consist of?
• Small Data in Personality Marketing
• The need of marketing that respects a customer’s personality
• The different colours, images and speech patterns for different customer types in Personality Marketing
• How to address potential new customers in a smart way?
• Marketing without manipulation
• How Information Technology successfully adds value to marketing?
• How sales and marketing data together leads to Optimised Lead Management?
• The use of E-Mail Marketing
• How system integration increases Return on Relationship?
• The various Big Data opportunities in Product Management
• How to increase your supply through Big Data?
• The success factors with Big Data
• The improved Lead Generation by Marketing Automation
• Marketing and Sales as one single team
• How to overcome challenges connecting Marketing Automation with CRM?
• Why proprietary CRM systems need programming?
• The importance of Correct Data Content and Clear Data Structures in your CRM system

COURSE DURATION:

The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.

COURSE DELIVERY:

Purchase and download course content.

ASSESSMENT:

A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.

CERTIFICATION:

Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.