The Point

OCTOBER 15, 2019

If your organization is generating plenty of leads but those initial inquiries aren’t converting to sales qualified leads, meetings, or pipeline, a myriad of things could be at fault: 1) sales follow-up may be sub-standard in either cadence, frequency, or message. 2) lead nurturing. 2) lead nurturing. Better Content.

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Sales Qualified Leads Work Management Marketing Management Account Based Marketing 138

The Point

OCTOBER 29, 2021

However, chat is also a powerful tool that can integrate into virtually any type of B2B demand generation program, campaign or initiative. And now that chat is becoming a staple of the B2B tech stack, creative marketers are finding ever more innovative ways for leveraging their investment to drive engagement throughout the lead lifecycle.

Account Based Marketing 350

Account Based Marketing B2B Marketing Automation Services Demand Generation Agencies 350

The Point

JANUARY 13, 2012

There’s a lot to like about the email campaign I received (image below) recently from Infusionsoft , a maker of sales and marketing automation software for small businesses. Fulfill your offer via email. As I wrote previously in this space , sending the prospect the offer via email (vs. Make the offer look like an offer.

Email Campaigns 100

Email Campaigns Campaigns Practices Fulfillment 100

The Point

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

If there’s one key element of demand generation copy that distinguishes it most from, let’s say: product collateral, or PR, or even social media, it’s this: a demand generation campaign is designed to drive action. Remember: your campaign has one aim – getting people to respond.

Email Campaigns 100

Email Campaigns Campaigns Demand Generation Broadcasting 100

The Point

APRIL 23, 2013

Two email campaigns that arrived in my inbox recently serve as useful illustrations of how best to promote informational content. The other, from email marketing software provider ExactTarget , drives action by communicating the value of the content in concise, compelling language. Using email to promote content?

Email Campaigns 100

Email Campaigns Campaigns Copywriting Demand Generation 100

The Point

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

We have a debate between our marketing and sales teams on whether the best approach is marketing emails, sales outreach, or something else. Avoid product- or brand-centric emails that simply tout your product and will only ever appeal to a small subset of active buyers. Curious as to your opinion?”.

Purchase 162

Purchase Paid Search Agency Paid Social Agency Outreach 162

The Point

DECEMBER 5, 2023

A client asks: “We recently purchased a list of email addresses from a reputable vendor for use in a campaign targeting competitive installations. How should we approach the campaign differently?” Senders who don’t adhere to the new regulations may get blocked, meaning their emails won’t reach Google or Yahoo users.

Deliverability 162

Deliverability Rules Purchase Marketing Automation Services 162

The Point

DECEMBER 15, 2016

Form abandonment and cart abandonment campaigns are standard practice for B2C and ecommerce marketers, less so for those of us B2B types who deal in leads vs. transactions. Below is just such an email I received recently from Virgin America , the company that is now part of Alaska Airlines. Call to Action. Learn more about what?

Leads 100

Leads Lead Marketing Qualified Leads Landing Pages 100

The Point

JUNE 14, 2011

Case in point: the email to the right, which arrived in my inbox a few days ago. Is this an email design to make art directors swoon? Yet altogether, it’s a terrific campaign, and one that delivers its message with a remarkable efficiency that many marketers would do well to emulate. What would I change?

Marketo 100

Marketo Email Campaigns Campaigns Advertising Agencies 100

The Point

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Granted, I’m already sold on the value of Web conferencing, but even then, the email below from Citrix (makers of GoToMeeting ) leaves me thoroughly underwhelmed. First, there’s the leading candidate for Most Frequently Used Email Opening of 2009: “In these challenging economic times …”. This email does neither.

Email Campaigns 100

Email Campaigns Demand Generation Agencies Campaigns Demand Generation 100

The Point

JUNE 8, 2016

Email may still be the workhorse in how B2B companies build relationships, maintain awareness, qualify leads and nudge prospects along the sales cycle, but these days, it pays to think about “lead nurturing” as more just an email campaign. That’s not because email is going away any time soon.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Sales Qualified Leads Account Based Marketing Leads 100

The Point

APRIL 29, 2011

Can a campaign about how to improve email design be a prime example of how NOT to design an email? If it’s the campaign below, received this week from Lyris , an email marketing software company, the answer is (in the view of this blogger): yes. Now to the email itself.

Email Campaigns 100

Email Campaigns Campaigns Bandwidth Fulfillment 100

The Point

OCTOBER 30, 2013

A client asks: “I notice that you’re recommending we gate our offer content behind landing pages as part of the lead nurturing campaign. It’s why click-to-lead conversion rates are never 100%, no matter how good your landing page. Why is that necessary when we already know who these people are? Here’s why: 1.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Landing Pages 100

The Point

JANUARY 27, 2016

Demand Gen Report just published “ Top B2B Marketers Measure Lead Nurturing Effectiveness to Boost Performance ,” a special report in which they address the whys, whats, and how tos of measuring lead nurturing’s true impact. That, ultimately, is what lead nurturing is designed to do – move leads towards opportunity and close.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads 100

The Point

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

Weaving that story into content, ads, and other campaign assets will help your company stand out. Approval cycles on partner-related campaigns can be complex, so it’s wise to have agreement up front on who needs to review what, and how quickly. Don’t let last-minute security protocols prevent you from getting a campaign in market. *

Demand Generation Agencies 147

Demand Generation Agencies Advertising Agencies CMS Development Work Management 147

The Point

OCTOBER 8, 2015

Bear with me as I relate a quick story about lead nurturing: A few months back I became a sales lead. I sent an email to a marketing technology firm, one with whom I was vaguely familiar, about a client campaign for which I thought their technology might be useful. A question: at this point, what kind of lead am I?

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Qualified Leads Lead Scoring 100

The Point

OCTOBER 20, 2011

There’s a lot to like about the email below received last week from Radian6 , makers of social media monitoring tools (and recently acquired by Salesforce.com.) Even with images turned off, the only things missing in this email are the illustration and the company logo at top left.). This is content marketing, pure and simple.

Email Campaigns 100

Email Campaigns Salesforce.com Campaigns Demand Generation 100

The Point

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Sungard AS runs a highly successful demand generation program, an integrated mix of both online and offline campaigns, to generate a consistent flow of leads to the company’s sales force. Improve deliverability and overall email performance as measured by open and click rates.

Conversion Rate 100

Conversion Rate Marketing Qualified Leads Demand Generation Agencies Lead Ranking 100

The Point

APRIL 1, 2014

One of the reasons for this under-utilization, and the inability of some marketers to deploy, for example, automated lead nurturing at every stage of the selling process, is resistance from the sales organization, and in particular, Inside Sales. Marketo sends first follow-up email. Marketo sends second follow-up email.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Sales Qualified Leads Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 100

The Point

JULY 13, 2012

In my last post , I talked about creative campaign ideas for when you have no content to offer. Which leads to another question: do certain types of campaigns even need an offer in the first place? Take lead nurturing : is it strictly essential that every lead nurturing touch include a specific, gated, call to action?

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Campaigns 100

The Point

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Do I need it in order to do lead nurturing?”. My answer: “It depends how you define “ lead nurturing ,” but technically: no, you don’t need marketing automation in order to nurture leads. Can a regularly scheduled calendar of batch campaigns serve to maintain brand awareness and keep your company top of mind?

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Automation Services Sales Qualified Leads 100

The Point

AUGUST 27, 2019

At our demand generation agency , LinkedIn advertising is a staple of most client campaigns, and yet when we propose LinkedIn to clients, we often hear comments to the effect of: “We tried and couldn’t make it work.” Or opt for LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms, which generate a pre-populated contact form inside the app. Non-Content Offers.

Paid Content 241

Paid Content Advertising Agencies Linkedin Advertisements 241

The Point

AUGUST 1, 2013

Lead scoring has quickly become an integral part of a demand generation marketer’s arsenal. A well-planned, well-designed, and optimized lead scoring schema can be a key contributor to sales productivity, sales engagement, and the rate at which inbound leads convert to Sales Qualified Leads, opportunities, and deals.

Lead Scoring 100

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Leads 100

The Point

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

The report, however, goes further – ranking trade shows as far and away the most effective demand gen channel in their “BtoB Channel Effectiveness Quadrant,” surpassing (by some margin) even demand gen workhorses like email marketing and PPC. Clearly, what’s being interpreted as “quality” in this context is in fact “qualified”.

Trade Show 100

Trade Show Demand Generation Agencies BtoB Lead Scoring 100

The Point

OCTOBER 20, 2014

Highlighted by the launch of Salesforce’s own analytics cloud , the current trend in marketing technology is clearly focused on helping marketers make smart decisions and build smarter campaigns. The simple act of generating leads – primarily through online means – has never been easier.

Demand Generation Agencies 100

Demand Generation Agencies Lead Gen Marketing Report Research 100

The Point

MARCH 8, 2018

Sure, they’re expensive to license, but they’re instant fodder for all sorts of content marketing, they bring credibility and name recognition to a campaign, and – bonus – they say nice things about your product. Technology marketers love analyst reports. However, in my experience, most tech companies don’t know how to market them.

Marketing Report 216

Marketing Report Planning Gartner Demand Generation Agencies 216

The Point

MARCH 24, 2021

As someone who’s had a hand in developing hundreds, if not thousands, of B2B ads, emails, creative content and campaigns over 25+ years, I can honestly say that not once has story arc, soundtrack, or emotion played a role in determining the success of that creative. ” To which I say: rubbish. I guess you can.

Advertising Agencies 312

Advertising Agencies Advertisements Advertising Paid Search Agency 312

The Point

MARCH 23, 2023

Increasingly, however, it’s being leveraged as an effective, affordable way to maximize campaign performance across a range of different demand generation channels. Diligently applied, CRO can increase conversion rates over time by up to 2-10x and dramatically impact the ROI from campaigns and media spend.

Demand 130

Demand Landing Pages Conversion Rate Paid Social Agency 130

The Point

MARCH 29, 2017

Though the marketing team was doing a great job generating raw inquiries at the top of the funnel, the sales reps weren’t receiving the number of “sales ready” leads they needed to hit their pipeline targets. The lead funnel is obsolete. Think about it: most companies have no problem generating leads at the top of the funnel.

Sales Qualified Leads 50

Sales Qualified Leads Top of Funnel High Quality Lead Marketing Qualified Leads 50

The Point

AUGUST 8, 2013

When a client says “We set up lead scoring but sales doesn’t pay any attention,” it’s a sure sign that something is amiss – and more likely the problem doesn’t rest with sales. Here’s Part 2 of our discussion of the most common B2B lead scoring mistakes. For Part 1 of this post, click here.).

Lead Scoring 100

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Marketo 100

The Point

OCTOBER 22, 2019

Congratulations: your last email campaign generated a really high click-through rate. Email bots. Acting as a spam filter, email bots prevent malicious emails from infiltrating mail servers by auto-clicking the links in incoming emails. and email campaigns become more pronounced. The culprit?

Marketing Automation Services 127

Marketing Automation Services CAN-SPAM Click Rate Trigger Marketing 127

The Point

AUGUST 15, 2012

You know that monthly newsletter you blast to your entire database under the guise of “lead nurturing”? And those Webinar invitations that you broadcast to every trade show lead you’ve generated since 2005? There was a time when lead nurturing was synonymous with simply staying in front of prospects. Campaigns based on behavior.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Sales Qualified Leads Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 100

The Point

JANUARY 14, 2014

In my experience, most of the mental energy and strategic thinking around the practice of lead nurturing and lead management is usually applied to the goal of accelerating prospects through the sales process – from MQL to SQL, from SQL to Opportunity, and so on. And that lack of focus can be a big mistake.

Lead Ranking 100

Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services Marketing Qualified Leads Sales Leads 100

The Point

DECEMBER 16, 2013

The point being made by the article’s author, Jill Stanek, was that Marketo’s acquisition enables that company to extend dynamic, personalized marketing conversations from their current domain (email campaigns) all the way to the Website. Want to guess how many of those leads arrive via our clients’ Websites? Fair enough.

Demand Generation Agencies 100

Demand Generation Agencies B2B Sales Sales Leads Microsite 100

The Point

JANUARY 24, 2013

Key to designing an effective lead nurturing program is taking stock of your current lead management process. Giving sales a voice in the process will help ensure that, as an organization, they feel they have a stake in the new lead management program and won’t feel it’s being foisted upon them by marketing.

Lead Management 100

Lead Management Process Work Management Sales Qualified Leads 100

The Point

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

In the early stages of a recent client engagement, it became apparent that the schema already in place to determine and assign lead scores was, well: broken. The basic lead scoring recipe is typically a variation on the following: * assign positive scores for desired behavior or demographics (e.g.

Lead Scoring 100

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Sales Qualified Leads Leads 100

The Point

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

In an exclusive online event, discover how to get the most from your lead nurturing program, and how to plan for success if you’re just getting started. Join me on Wednesday, December 7 as I present a Webinar on “ Top 10 Tips for Lead Nurturing Success ,” hosted by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Wednesday, December 7, 2011.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Webinar Metrics Tips Leads 100