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Don’t believe the hype! Despite the bad rap cold calling has been getting in the media lately, cold calling is still a valid, if not crucial, sales function, whether you’re the sales professional doing the dialing or the sales prospect with a want or need for the product or service that a company provides. Below, Vendere Partners dispels four common cold calling myths.

There’s no doubt that e-mail marketing will remain one of the most cost-effective and useful tools for B2B marketers in 2013. In 2012, a dizzying number of new studies appeared on the Internet that proved the overall success of B2B e-mail marketing campaigns. The most successful B2B e-mail campaigns in 2012 appeared to be driven by two things: data/metrics analysis and strategic content.

Across the board, research shows that offering guarantees is a great way to increase sales and encourage brand loyalty. Sales prospects and customers like guarantees because they instill trust in a company and its products and solutions. However, there are downsides to offering certain types of guarantees.

E-mail or Web-based surveys and polls can be highly effective tools for introducing your existing customers or sales leads to a product or solution. To compel people to take part in your survey or poll, offer a free, small gift like a $5 gift card, or the chance to win a quality, high-end gift. You may even offer people more chances to win a high-end gift for every colleague that they refer to your survey or poll.

Last week’s blog post explained the purposes of the situation and challenge sections of a case study, and how to keep from putting information that should be in one section into the other. This week, Vendere Partners reviews the differences between the solution and results sections of a case study.

The two most common mistakes companies make during the development of case studies are confusing the situation and the challenge sections and confusing the solution and results sections. This week, Vendere Partners reviews the differences between the situation and challenge sections of a case study.

Things like testimonials and case studies can be great content marketing tools, but when you’re on the phone with a prospect or sales lead, it usually doesn’t make sense to recite a customer testimonial or attempt to tell a complicated story of your successful dealings with a similar customer. If you’ve ever tried reciting something from one of your company’s content marketing pieces while on the phone with lead, you probably know how ineffective it can be. It can be downright awkward. Worst-case scenario, it can make you seem absolutely nonsensical.

Most company leaders that aren’t in the position to launch or revamp a full-scale sales department do one of three things. They either pull some of their best innovators and business strategists away from innovating and strategizing and into sales, put employees who aren’t excelling in any particular area into sales, or hire a couple of new sales reps and hope and pray that they deliver, even in the absence of well-established training, rewards, and monitoring processes. They think, Hey, if the new guys can’t hack it, we’ll just fire them and hire guys that can hack it.

A major challenge that emerging and even established technology companies face when it comes to selling and marketing their products is developing messaging that speaks directly to purchasers without giving away too much or offering too little information.

The biggest mistakes that companies make when it comes to post-event follow-up are not doing it at all or not preparing to do it prior to the actual event.