There are so many demand gen vendors out there, and if you are a demand gen professional in sales or marketing, we've probably called you. Outsourcing some or all of your appointment setting or lead generation activity to a third party vendor is a task that shouldn't be undertaken by responding to one cold call. Words of wisdom from two industry leaders: Trish Bertuzzi, Inside Sales Expert , @bridgegroupinc : "Hiring a third party lead gen vendor is like dating… the chemistry is either there or it is not. Cost per lead is a narrow look at the success of a program. MORE >>

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (Marketwire – May 4, 2011) – Today, at the SiriusDecisions Summit, Green Leads announced the acquisition of Target 250 to form the fastest-growing pay-for-performance demand generation company in the industry. We've doubled in size three years in a row and Green Leads has been able to break the mold on integrating with our customers’ go-to-market and pipeline generation initiatives to deliver material top line results,” said Green Leads CEO, Michael Damphousse. and Europe.” MORE >>

We agreed completely that marketers that think in the world of "campaigns" are shortchanging their results. Marketing programs need Consistency Momentum Staying power Adjustment It may be that campaigns seem normal because our needs change, strategies are modified or budgets are handed out piecemeal, but the most successful clients both Craig and I work with all treat marketing programs as ongoing efforts. Budget for ongoing activity - Treat it like headcount. Would you hire good talent and then shut them off 60 days later? Give it time and commitment. MORE >>

The highlight of my day was listening to Seth Godin, blogger and author on topics b2b sales and marketing folks devour. Not sure I've got the quote verbatim, but basically he was saying "marketers that build tribes of loyal prospects and customers will win." How can b2b marketers, especially those who DON'T have audiences of millions or hundreds of thousands, build a tribe? Just follow the HubSpot marketing machine for how they spread the Orange Kool Aid and built a large and loyal tribe of inbound marketers. Lead with leaders. LinkedIn Groups. Retweet. MORE >>

This past week a prospect commented that she wanted to explore a third-party lead gen program because their sales reps were spending too much time prospecting and not selling. She said that if they had enough leads they would be SELLING and CLOSING -- not having to do lead gen. About half the people spend somewhere between one and two days a week doing lead gen. If I'm a salesperson who knows how to sell and close, why on earth would I be wasting up to half of my time doing lead gen? But salespeople shouldn't be the ones generating the leads. Wrong. MORE >>