It may be cold outside, but don’t rest on your laurels…

In today’s Telegraph the Centre for Economics and Business Research has suggested that the snow disruption will cost Britain's economy £1 billion for every day that the icy conditions disrupt travel and business operations such as retail.

With the cold weather continuing, many have decided to write off this period and look ahead to the New Year, but in terms of sales it’s worth being proactive. Despite the impact the snow has had on business operations, many people are still in the office planning and budgeting for 2011, so take advantage of what may be a quiet time to follow up warm leads and start building opportunities for the new year.

The leads are out there, and marketing automation software through Profunnel can help you nurture them for the future, so don’t rest on your laurels while the cold continues to bite – make the most of this time so you’re in a prime position for 2011.

2011 – Make It A Year of Growth

According to a survey by Deloitte more than 90% of businesses in the UK have predicted growth in revenue in the New Year.

Deloitte’s annual Entrepreneurship UK report revealed that over 50% of business leaders that were surveyed forecast that there will be at least 10% revenue growth in 2011. This figure highlights the positive shift in UK business compared with 2009, when 20% of entrepreneurs predicted declining revenues in the oncoming year.

With more companies predicting growth this is a great opportunity for businesses to boost their sales effort and increase revenue. There are many different ways to achieve this, from implementing new approaches to lead generation, more effective online strategies, next generation email marketing and social media campaigns, to strengthening customer relationships through more targeted communications.

With the business outlook for 2011 looking more positive, why not find out more about how new approaches to lead generation can help grow your business and increase your revenue?

How will the ‘digital hub’ affect business?

As the Government unveils its plans to create a ‘digital hub’ in every community in the country, as part of an £830 million strategy to make sure the UK has the best broadband network in Europe by 2015, the new plans are set to have a huge impact on business.

Faster broadband will mean increased Internet usage for both consumers and business, enabling people to more easily research their options, make an informed choice and buy online. As a result, it is even more important for businesses in both the B2B and B2C sectors to build their customer understanding and use online marketing to maximum effect.

With more potential customers surfing the web, you need to interact with them and nurture them from the start to help win their business - and this is where the latest marketing technology can really help such as marketing automation. The boost in broadband is set to help us all, but as a business you need to capitalise early on the opportunities out there.

Visit the BBC article for more information on the Government’s broadband plans.

SEO is Only the Beginning

Web activity and maximising online visibility through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has become a critical component in lead generation for businesses in all sectors. But strong SEO is only the beginning for companies.

While SEO is an important marketing tool, it cannot be solely relied upon to increase sales. Attracting visitors to your website is the first step of the new business chain – but once they are there, how do you make sure they keep on returning and ultimately purchase your product or service? The key to this is building understanding of these visitors – where they have come from, what they are interested in on your website, where they are in the buying cycle and more.

So how can you achieve this? Next generation web forensics (tagging & tracking individual activity) enables companies to really understand potential business, nurture it, communicate more effectively with individuals, and manage those relationships. Not all web forensics offers this ability, so now’s the time to get ahead of the competition, find out more about improving your Lead Generation

Getting to Grips with Multi-Channel Marketing

The number of marketing channels continues to grow, meaning marketers have to become adept at co-ordinating, and juggling, a mix of activities - from direct marketing to pay-per-click, social media, email and more.

Companies big and small are quickly moving to a multi-channel approach, but those that are seeing a real improvement in their ROI are using the latest technology to co-ordinate their campaigns and maximise the impact of the work they do. Only by brining everything together and gaining insight into what works and when, can each channel be developed to reinforce the others, improving the success of the overall marketing activity.

Technology such as Profunnel’s demand generation platform delivers incredible visibility over campaigns, together with the ability to enhance both tactical and strategic marketing activity. By integrating with the CRM system it means companies can create, control and manage campaigns across key media, while giving insight into why, when and how your customers are most likely to buy.

For more information on multi-channel marketing click here

‘Digital Finger Printing’ Now Core for Sales Success

Over the last decade the growth of the Internet has seen the customer buying process change dramatically. Now businesses that fail to capture, tag and track vital information about the many elusive visitors to their website are unlikely to survive.

Understanding who these visitors are, what motivates them, where they are in the buying cycle and more – the technology,such as demand generation, is now available to build this into an in-depth profile of your prospects – their ‘digital finger prints’ – that gives sales people the edge they need to win the business.

This ability to tag and track website visitors opens up a new world of opportunity, providing insight into prospects’ buying motivations and behaviour throughout the sales cycle. Rather than giving just an overview of the website’s performance, it builds knowledge of who wants to buy and when – creating the digital fingerprint, or DNA, that is crucial to sales success.

For more information the Profunnel White Paper on the importance of digital fingerprinting is available for free download here.

Taking Advantage of Social Media

The growth of social media in recent years has been phenomenal, not only for individuals but also for companies and brands. So how can companies take full advantage of this opportunity to develop their business?

Firstly plan your social media activity as part of the overall company marketing strategy, taking in appropriate channels such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Once you become actively involved in social media you’ll need to track and respond to numerous tweets and posts. This can be very time consuming for companies, but it’s vital to maximise the impact. Fortunately there are now social media tagging and tracking solutions that make the process a lot easier.

By allowing these software solutions to analyse your social media activity, companies can quickly respond to potential interest, helping develop business and increase sales. Any leads generated can be tracked and monitored, creating demonstrable ROI on your social media activities and supporting future planning.

Click here for more information on social media tracking

Email Marketing Continues to Grow

According to new research by Econsultancy, the email marketing industry has increased by 15 per cent year-on-year. The research revealed that email marketing is worth £336 million to date this year.

There are many reasons for this increase in email marketing, but one of the most fundamental is that companies are now finding that email marketing can be successfully, easily and cost-effectively integrated into their overall marketing activity. From big business to SMEs, companies are embracing email to support both tactical and strategic marketing campaigns.

Add to this the latest tracking and tagging technology, which allows companies to monitor customer response and action on every element of an e-shot, and now we are seeing email marketing becoming far more targeted and personalised. The result is increased lead generation for companies and improved ROI – elements no company should turn their back on.

Click here for more information on email marketing software

UK Economic Growth Positive for Business

This week’s news that the UK economy has grown at 0.8% between July and September, faster than expected by analysts, is a welcome boost for business of all size. Positive news such as this gives us all a feel good factor.

But no one can sit back and expect this announcement to mean new business will simply land in their laps. If a company is going to grow and flourish, you need to be targeting new opportunities and taking advantage of the boost this economic announcement offers.

For marketing and sales this means taking advantage of the customer knowledge they have -targeting the right people, at the right time, to win business. Building a more in-depth understanding of each customer is key – from their reactions to e-letters, social media activity, historical data and more. This is where lead generation technology comes into its own, delivering a more powerful insight into what motivates your customers and achieving far higher conversion rates.

With a more positive feeling about the economy, why not find out more about how marketing automation technology can help grow your business?

How to move forward when the B2B sales environment changes

The B2B sales environment has changed drastically in recent years and marketing teams are now seeking out new ways to generate business in difficult economic times.

When money is tight, people are less inclined to buy, which can result in companies finding it difficult to reach potential prospects. Many organisations are now altering their sales and marketing tactics to reflect this change and many are choosing to integrate marketing automation systems into their strategy.

How can marketing automation help your business? By addressing situations such as decreased sales engagement, the lead generation technology allows marketing to turn cold prospects into warm prospects before passing these to sales - ensuring a more efficient and intelligent solution.

Why is it more successful? The importance of relationship building is not to be undervalued. By creating campaigns and nurturing leads, users are able to build relationships and develop trust with potential buyers, which in turn leads to more successful outcomes.

Marketing automation takes e-marketing to the next level and helps companies to adjust to the new sales environment. For more information on marketing automation solutions and how they can help your business visit www.profunnel.co.uk.

CRM and Social Media

With the rapid rise of social media, technology has been developed to help use this to a competitive advantage. Social media is now integral to nurturing customer relationships, and gaining a competitive edge to win sales.

The technology has developed to allow users to maximise the potential of social media and integrate with their CRM activity, providing a far greater insight and understanding into their customers’ activities, motivations and touchpoints. The results allow sales and marketing to deliver a more co-ordinated communication programme to generate sales, which in today’s competitive market can be crucial in winning business.

For example, many of our customers, through our system, now create social site-specific links (tracking URLs) back to homepages or landing pages with in-depth tracking and reporting capabilities. This means clients can now publish content on social networking sites through our system, while tracking and monitoring responses, which enables better understanding of potential business and drives enhanced future marketing from the best performing social media sources.

Predicted Increase Of Digital Marketing For 2011

Over two thirds of marketers believe that there will be an increase in digital marketing budgets in 2011 (according to research by LinkShare), resulting in greater scope for more targeted, creative and measured campaigns in the coming year.

Add to this the growth of the Internet and social media and it means that there are a growing number of options available for maximising your business potential online. The speed at which the online arena is developing is incredible, giving sales people the ability to target and highly personalise communication to achieve a demonstrable return on their investment. With marketing automation technology companies will be able to identify, track and nurture customers, building stronger relationships and strengthening the brand.

With online marketing playing an increasing role in business success, take a look at the latest lead generation technology - it can achieve far more than you may ever expect.

Natural Selection – Survival of the Fittest

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection highlights the importance of survival of the fittest – this iconic theory can also be applied to the world of business.

Businesses that do not constantly evolve and adapt to changing external environments cannot excel and with a variety of competitors snapping at their heels survival is unlikely. The need for new and innovative sales and marketing techniques is vital for organisational success.

Organisations need to stay ahead of the competition, bringing in new business and building customer relationships for the long term. Gone are the days when cold calling was the only option for sales, the landscape has now changed and decision makers are looking for new sales and marketing techniques to drive forward new business.

So how do companies flourish in competitive times?

Why not download our latest white paper - Natural Selection – Survival of the Fittest

There's no business like new business

The Bank of England has reported that business lending contracted for the fifth month running in July - so how can organisations help themselves grow in the current economic climate? The key lies in generating a strong stream of new business.

In a tough market it’s not enough for companies to rely on existing clients - bringing in new business and revenue streams is essential to success. But how do you do this effectively and achieve a positive return on your sales investment?

It’s all about creating warm prospects, rather than cold calling to win business. Nurturing potential new clients – building your understanding of their motivations, touchpoints, timelines and more - so that you can communicate with them effectively at the right time, when they are ready to buy.

Marketing automation can achieve this, with technology that helps build customer relationships, and demonstrates clear ROI, helping companies grow through new business wins.

EU Forecasts Growth

Amid all the talk of spending cuts, the latest news that the European Commission has raised its forecast for growth in the EU this year is a shot of positivity.

After what has been referred to as "particularly strong" growth in the second quarter, the Commission is now predicting growth in 2010 of 1.8% in the EU, up from an earlier estimate of 1%. For the UK it is now projecting expansion of 1.7%, up from 1.2%.

For British business this should boost optimism for the future, and encourage business to look for the sales opportunities – both in the UK and overseas – that exist. Having an effective lead generation system is crucial to support this, enabling companies to gain an enviable insight into the motivations of potential customers, and communicate with them when they are actually ready to buy.

With the future looking brighter, why not make the most of the latest lead generation technology and be part of the growth?

Cold calling becomes warm calling

A study by Which? has found that British consumers receive an average of six cold calls a month, with three-quarters of people wanting cold calling to be banned for good.

B2B sales is a little different but while we’re advocates of picking up the phone and being proactive, why call 200 people a week who have no interest in your company or services when you can call 200 who are interested in what you offer?

Targeted marketing programs and increased understanding of customer motivations and requirements hold the key. This is where marketing automation comes into its own, enabling an organisation to optimise every visitor to its website, establishing who the visitor is, when they return to the website, where their interests lie and, crucially, when they are ready to buy.

The result gives sales people the knowledge to target their calls far more effectively, builds a complete picture of the customer journey and develops the relationship – resulting in higher conversions and improved ROI. What company wouldn’t want that?

Summer's Over....

With the summer holidays coming to an end many businesses are ready to take decisions, make investments and implement new activity to support them through the coming months. Areas that seemed to be on hold can suddenly come to life as key decision makers return from the beach to the office.

It’s now that sales communication and knowledge is key – getting your message and credentials in front of the right people at the right time. Make sure your sales team plans their activity carefully – making use of the latest technology to understand what makes visitors to your website tick and alerts you to follow up those contacts who are coming up to a review.

As businesses swing back into the fast lane, it’s vital to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities, but you’ll only be able to do this if you know about them. Marketing automation technology can be the key to unlock this sales potential – for a demonstration of how it can help you click here.

Strong Turnout for Webinar as Businesses Look to Support Sales Activity

Last week saw the running of Profunnel’s latest Webinar, hosted by MD Matthew Hall and Kevin Miller – a leading US authority on lead generation for businesses.

Over 120 business people took part, attracted by the opportunity to discover more about the latest technology and the support it offers for their sales and marketing activity.

Kevin spoke about his experience and how Profunnel’s approach can help nurture customer relationships, enabling a more personal, targeted approach for sales. Co-ordinating with CRM systems, sales calls, on and offline marketing activity and more, Profunnel’s technology offers a far stronger and more integrated process that is proven to build revenue streams.

The response from participants was extremely positive, with a Q&A session allowing them to find out more about how Profunnel can help their sales teams, particularly in the current market.

More Webinars are planned for the future, but if you’d like to register to find out more click here.

The Next Generation

With A level results due this week, thousands of young people across the UK will be deciding on their next steps and future careers. For many, sales and marketing will be a popular choice - offering career progression and good earning potential.

Key to success in this field is the ability to co-ordinate sales and marketing activity, working with the latest on- and offline channels to maximise business potential. Increasingly influential is the marketing automation technology available, providing a far greater insight into customer behaviour, sales patterns and communication than ever before.

The next generation of sales professionals will benefit from the new approach of ‘nurturing’ customers – something that we are already seeing deliver results. The future will see customer contact, relationships and understanding develop even more, giving sales people a far greater influence in business operations and growth.

Free Profunnel Webinar on Latest Demand Generation Technology – 19th August at 1pm

We’ll be joining forces with US e-marketing specialist SalesFUSION next week to host a free webinar to discuss the cutting edge technology now available to sales and marketing teams in the UK.


Set to take place on 19th August at 1pm, the webinar will see Profunnel’s Managing Director Matthew Hall host the event alongside Kevin Miller, Executive Vice President Marketing & Sales of SalesFUSION, with the 45 minute discussion set to be followed by a live Q&A session to enable further analysis of the topics covered.


Areas that will be covered during the free webinar include insight into the latest advancements in web forensics (tagging & tracking individual activity); marketing automation; social media and pay-per-click tracking; email marketing; and CRM integration, allowing companies to identify, track and nurture website visitors, while delivering more effective online marketing and clearer ROI.


To find out more about how demand generation technology can help boost your sales, register for your webinar free place here.

Big Brother Watching?

It may seem a bit Orwellian, but the new era of web forensics can give you an incredible insight and understanding of your customers - and in the current market that knowledge may be just the edge you need to win business.

Web forensics is all about getting to grips with the ‘journey’ your customer makes through your website – how they are interacting and using the site to meet their requirements. It now goes way beyond the basics and instead allows you to tag individual visitors, tracking them through their activity and the sales process. This information is invaluable to sales people and marketeers, helping them understand individual motivations, target communication and increase conversion rates.

The key to success is to make sure your forensics solution gives the control and analysis your team needs to improve customer communication and sales – not just the basic analytics, but something much more powerful. You may feel like Big Brother watching visitors to your site, but the truth is that you will be able to deliver a better, more tailored service to each and every visitor.

The Email Conundrum

Email is quick and cost-effective to marketeers, but with many of us receiving hundreds – if not thousands - of emails every week, is it really able to get results?

While email technology now offers incredible control, targeting and creativity, some companies stick their heads in the sand and continue with their email ‘blastings’ to all and sundry. Then they complain that e-marketing is getting no results. No surprises there. In the current market you need to be more targeted, more creative and more co-ordinated - it’s about nurturing contacts rather than bombarding them.

Effective email marketing is focused on improving communication, allowing powerful segmentation and generating solid leads for your business. Communication can now be carefully targeted and highly relevant, with a tailored approach completely missed by the poor mass mailings still used by many. Get it right and you’ll give your sales team opportunities that they can really work with.

The leads are out there, and the business can be yours for the taking, but don’t let poor email marketing hold you back and turn potential clients off.

The Sales and Marketing Coalition

Be honest have you ever seen sales and marketing really working together? I am sure that you may have seen marketing sending marketing campaigns out only to blame sales for not following them up and then sales blaming marketing for sending poor leads.

Doesn't this sound like recent election debates where Cameron hits Brown with a "budget deficit" and Brown retorts with an "endangering the recovery." Meanwhile Clegg has a pop at both of them in the pre-coalition Punch and Judy show.

How funny now that we see the Consertives in bed with the Lib Dems. They are going to have to make it work if they want to make the difference we are all hoping.

So how do you bring sales and marketing together more closely? Could the advent of marketing automation software signal a similar shift in the politics of the sales and marketing departments?

Why not download our latest white paper - The Sales and Marketing Coalition

Catching Sparks and Lighting Fires

Website visitors are like those sparks you see when Ray Mears try's to light his fire in the wilderness, they come and they go. One minute they are there and the next they disappear. The key is to know how to catch these sparks and add them to fuel to create a roaring fire or in the case of a website a purchase or enquiry, marketing automation can help you with this.

Most website owners see huge amount of website visitors disappearing. Now is the time we need to catch more sparks learn how to do this with Profunnels new white paper - Catching Sparks and Lighting Fires

Hot Dates and Hot Prospects OR Blind Dates and Cold Calling - Your Call !!!

Generating leads is like dating - you need interest, intelligence and rapport; marketing automation may not save your love life but it will grow your sales revenues. Profunnel has just launched its new white paper download it today.

Profunnel Launches

We are delighted to announce that Profunnel has launched in the UK. Working alongside our key partner SalesFUSION our aim is to bring a new approach to generating business.

Most sales people, marketers, and business owners will recognise the need in a competitive market that new business and lead generation is essential to the growth or survival of a business.

Therefore understanding how, why, when and what your website traffic is doing on your site is essential. However much more more importantly is the ability to utilise all of this information to understand where your website traffic sits in terms of their buying cycle. Then to use a marketing system that will communicate to an audience when they are ready to be spoken to rather than simply cold calling or monthly newsletter blasts. This is where our marketing automation solution can help your business.

Profunnel online marketing automation solution offers the complete solution which enables improved lead generation and higher conversions for a very small cost.

This blog will be for those who want to join us on this new approach in the UK. It will be full of innovative and informative information, tips and thoughts on the world of marketing automation and lead generation for the online community.