Recently, Marketo — a marketing automation company with an extremely popular blog called Modern B2B Marketing contacted me and invited me to share my expertise in B2B demand generation with their readers.  Here are the questions Marketo asked, along with my answers: (Marketo) How did you first get started with online B2B Marketing and what do you like best about it? decided to pen the white paper, How to Find New Customers , which Marketo generously sponsored. Jeff) Today, buying cycles are growing longer and decision making processes are growing more complex.  MORE >>

This critical marketing asset sits idle even as the company spends new money to generate new contacts, perpetuating the inefficient process. True lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy. Unlike the popular perception, however, it is not a process but a conversation. At Marketo, when we nurture leads that are not immediately sales ready, they are three times more likely to become a sales lead in a given month than if they are not nurtured. Match your content to buying stages. MORE >>

B2B lead generation and lead management is a complicated process that can’t be detailed all in one book.  If you’ve toured the NuSpark Marketing website, it’s evident that proper funnel optimization and lead management approaches must focus on the specific micro elements of the funnel in order for the entire lead generation process to work seamlessly.  The original book from Hubspot that started the transition from outbound marketing and push advertising to inbound marketing; the process of making prospects find you. Makes complicated processes easy to understand. MORE >>

Unfortunately, not enough time… Last week I received a copy of Marketo’s Lead Nurturing workbook. that is one of the great suggestions in Marketo’s book). Silverpop’s book is a little more high-level and written in magazine style, while Marketo’s offers more practical advice on how to set up your nurturing campaigns. By the way: on August 19th Marketo has a webinar about lead nurturing and on August 20th Silverpop has a webinar about lead scoring (hopefully a recording will be available afterwards). Heck, why not nurture customers too? MORE >>

tough assignment for B2B marketers today is getting a handle on how buyers progress through the buying and selling cycles.    As Sirius Decision and CSO Insights have reported on often, buyers are progressing through 70-80% of the buying and sales cycle before engaging directly with sales.    Understanding what buyers are doing in the lead generation to sales cycle gap is proving to be a competitive difference maker.   This makes buyer personas, mapping of the buying process, and qualitative research even more important! MORE >>