September, 2011

The Point

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Forget About Hot Leads. It’s Cold Leads that Make the Difference.

The Point

When sales teams need marketing to help them make their numbers, the natural response is to go fishing for hot leads. However, as I wrote previously in a white paper on “Lead Recycling,” focusing demand generation activity exclusively on acquiring net new, qualified leads is an expensive proposition for a number of reasons: • many products, particularly in the tech category, are first of breed solutions and/or of a complexity that demands a more long term, consultative selling process.

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Why Salespeople Hate Most White Paper Leads

The Point

How is it that a quality white paper on a hot topic can still generate bad leads? It’s got to be the media, right? Wrong. It’s the offer. Even a well-written white paper, by a respected author, on a hot topic of vital interest to your target audience, can still generate leads your salespeople will consider “junk.” In my experience, the problem in these situations is invariably that the content on offer did not align with the types of leads the company was trying to generate.

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Segmentation, Social Media Drive Lead Nurturing Success for iDirect

The Point

When marketers embark on a formal lead nurturing strategy, opportunities for process improvement can arise in unexpected ways. That was the experience for iDirect , a leading provider of satellite IP communications based in Herndon, Virginia. Using satellite technology for internet connectivity has particular appeal for companies with operations in remote, hard-to-reach locations, so it’s no surprise that iDirect’s market is heavily segmented, focused on key sectors such as oil & gas, marit