The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview series is with Aaron Ross, formerly with salesforce.com and founder of PebbleStorm:CEOFlow. I've long been a fan of his blog Build a Sales Machine and I learn something new every time we interact. Tell us a little bit about how you got into marketing, and what you like most about it. Getting into lead generation was an accident. had more ego than understanding about lead generation and professional selling. Where better to learn that than doing sales at salesforce.com? MORE >>

This post involves one of my pet peeves in marketing: the tendency of marketers to spend money and time to generate inquiries and then fail to follow-up (FTFU) on these inquiries.  This failure can be fatal to the success of your sales lead management program. So what are the lessons of this example and how do they apply to B2B marketers who are selling more expensive products and services?  While a phone call is preferable, sometimes a quick personalized email is a good first step, even if that email is generated via auto-response. MORE >>

Here’s the shocking reality of B2B lead generation – 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales opportunities. Source: Marketing Sherpa/ KnowledgeStorm). B2B marketing and lead generation experts point to a lack of lead nurturing as the primary cause of this poor performance. Why is lead nurturing important? This is because of the prevalent trend of industrial buyers using online resources to go deeper and deeper into their buying cycle before engaging with your sales people. What is lead nurturing? MORE >>

Tweet Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to share the most exciting aspect of working at MECLABS – Research Partnerships that allow us to test and optimize lead generation processes. It’s thrilling for me to observe lead generation strategy transform into revenue for our Research Partners. You’ll learn how we: Improved the quality of sales-ready leads by attaining better information about prospects and where they are in the buying process. Determined how and when we speak to prospects to quickly advance them through the sales funnel. MORE >>

Click to access the Focus Roundtable on B2B Lead Generation Using outside professionals to help your company implement B2B lead generation gives 43% better results than hiring your own person. So many firms try to do b2b lead … Continue reading → Demand Generation Easy lead generation inbound marketing lead generation Lead Nurturing Leadership Management best practices Marketing marketing campaigns marketing funnel marketing sales Sales Leads sales-ready leads Simple lead generation MORE >>