Social media can be a huge contributor to a company's lead generation efforts in both B2B and B2C. But how efficient are the various different social channels in directly driving leads? In a recent study of over 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) 69%) and Facebook (.77%). LinkedIn's conversion rate also outranked social media as a channel overall. So what about B2C-focused businesses? How to Leverage Your Business' Top-Performing Social Network. MORE >>

Have you ever been called in to meet by a prospect that's all excited about making the change? They're busy meeting with vendors, looking at all their options. And, they want you to get a proposal to them right away -- or to do a presentation. Stop, stop, stop! If you don't fully understand the why behind all this activity, you may be spinning your wheels for nothing. Ask them, "Why, at this particular moment in time, did you decide that change was essential?" Find out what they say. Does it make sense? Ask them again, "What's the business case for the change?" Do they? And, so it's worth it MORE >>

This is a guest post by Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing. Read more on his Marketing blog. The fine folks at Focus.com let me do a Webinar on this topic several months ago, but I wanted to summarize what I consider to be 10 fundamental B2B sales & marketing metrics here as well. You can get an on-demand recording of the full Webinar here , but below (with some qualifying thoughts & questions) are the 10 metrics. Quick Disclaimer: Just because you can track it, doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can track it, doesn’t mean it’s important. So without further adieu…. Deal Size. MORE >>

Have you ever been called in to meet by a prospect that's all excited about making the change. They're busy meeting with vendors, looking at all their options. And, they want you to get a proposal to them right away -- or to do a presentation. Stop, stop, stop! If you don't fully understand they why behind all this activity, you may be spinning your wheels for nothing. Ask them, "Why, at this particular moment in time, did you decide that change was essential?" Find out what they say. Does it make sense? Ask them again, "What's the business case for the change?" Do they? And, so it's worth it MORE >>

In this week's guest post, Bob Scheier illustrates the value of buyer personas. Read on for inspiration! Like most folks new to content marketing (the use of content to nurture and drive prospects towards a sale) I was eager to dive right in. wanted to play with the marketing automation software and start blasting out content. The one thing I didn’t want to do was what every expert recommended: Develop personas (fictional representatives) for each of my target audiences. Did I really need to invent a fictional name for Mr. Chief Marketing Officer? And boy, did I get an education. MORE >>