Compared to January, it seems February really flew by quickly!
We have rounded up some of our favorite blog posts in sales, marketing and customer service that were published on the web in February. This month’s posts are brought to you by Clickz, MarketingProfs and Inc.
Sales
1. Is Your Sales Pipeline Healthy?
In a nutshell: For those experienced in sales, you know sales are a numbers game. But why do sales results vary even after you have defined your sales stage and calculated the conversions? Just how healthy is your sales pipeline? This post helps you answer that by asking yourself 5 key questions.
Written by: Urmas Purde @urmaspurde
In a nutshell: How much time do you spend during prospecting in trying to find and reach the decision maker? There's a good chance that it's probably not enough. Find out why it is important to reach the decision make early in the process and how to find them, with this visual slide deck.
Written by: Marius Fermi @MariusFermi
3.Why Thinking-Outside-the-Box is Harmful to Sales Productivity
In a nutshell: Do you think outside the box? Well, don't. Sales as a profession and as a process are complicated enough as they are. This post explains the best approach to take and why over-complicating the process is harmful to productivity.
Written by: Nancy Nardin @sellingtools
Marketing
4.Does Your Email Marketing Suffer From Multiple Personality Disorder?
In a nutshell: Healthy email marketing programs can manifest multiple personalities at any given time. Companies that are very successful at email marketing are those that learn to harness, control, and manage these personalities in productive ways and this post provides you with examples of three personas.
Written by: Kevin Miller @Salesfusion
5. Rethink Your Branding to Create Crazy Love From Customers
In a nutshell: Emotions are powerful, and your customers make buying decisions because of them. TO take your brand from good to powerful, focus your marketing efforts on building an emotion connection with your customers.
Written by: Tom Shapiro @TomShapiro
Customer service
6.Shouldn't You Know Your Super fans?
In a nutshell: Whether you have 500 fans on Facebook or 5 million fans, this post on Inc includes a five-point plan for identifying your strongest brand advocates, decoding their passions, and collaborating with them on meaningful offers.
Written by: Anni Rodgers @annirodgers
7.Five Tips to Turn Social Media Mistakes Into Customer Advocacy
In a nutshell: When using social media to communicate with your customers, there's always a chance things can go wrong, but if dealt with correctly you can turn an unhappy customer into a brand advocate. This post provides 5 great examples of brands that have made social media mistakes in the past and tips on how to fix them.
Written by: Ekaterina Walter @Ekaterina
Conclusion
Use the tips and examples provided in this post to help your sales team create a healthier pipeline and find the decision makers earlier in the process. And help your marketing team deliver a powerful customer experience through buyer personas and collaborating with super fans.
There was a lot of great content published on the web in February. And I know we didn’t manage to read them all.
What was your favorite post this month? Feel free to share and comment below.
