Tweet If your organization’s marketing and public relations teams aren’t working hand in glove, you’re missing a key lead generation opportunity. That’s the word from three experts in B2B PR and marketing: Wendy Marx, president of Marx Communications , a B2B public relations firm; she blogs about B2B communications for Fast Company. Laura Sturaitis, Executive Vice President of Media Services and Product Strategy, Business Wire , a press release distribution company. Tom Becktold, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Business Wire. Journalists don’t have a monopoly on news. Audit your website. MORE >>

Tweet CSO Insights , which interviews thousands of chief sales officers to benchmark B2B sales best practices, has tracked an alarming trend. Over the past six years, forecast deals are closing at a lower and lower rate, and a dramatically higher percentage are ending up with the prospect making no decision at all. In the technology industry, for example, “no decisions” have jumped from 17% in 2006 to a whopping 26% today. That’s more than one in every four deals! Jim Dickie, CSO Insight’s managing partner, says this should make any sales leader cringe. No deal = broken sales cycle. Sales MORE >>

Tweet In the MarketingSherpa 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report , we asked 1,915 marketers about traffic volume and traffic that converts. Here’s what the data revealed …. Q: Which of the following sources generates the GREATEST VOLUME of traffic coming to your site? Q: Which of the following sources generates traffic with the greatest CONVERSION RATES on your site? Click to enlarge. In the chart above, the darker bar on the left shows response to the “greatest volume” survey question, while the lighter bar on the right shows response to the “conversion rate” question. Industry breakdown. MORE >>

Tweet Tellabs is a global communications equipment company supporting telecom leaders such as AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and Telefonica, and it’s able to hold its own in a cut-throat marketplace with competition up to 30 times its size. Tellabs is playing a David and Goliath game,” admits George Stenitzer, Vice President of Communications, Tellabs. And content marketing is the slingshot that gives us a fair advantage.”. The rock in that slingshot is controversy. He cited the company’s study, The End of Profitability. They got in my face and said to me, ‘Look, your reports are all wrong. MORE >>

Tweet I just arrived at the Pre- Optimization Summit workshop in Denver and caught the end of Dr. Flint McGlaughlin’s Value Proposition Session. In this Landing Page Optimization Workshop , Dr. McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, taught the live audience here at the Denver Marriott Tech Center about a simple case study drawn from the MarketingExperiments research library. In the case study, Dr. McGlaughlin revealed how one company clarified the value proposition of a landing page for a 201% increase in captured leads. The goal of the page was to capture a lead. Click to enlarge. MORE >>