Sales Lead Insights

JULY 31, 2009

I was thinking about all the lead qualification criteria I’ve seen used in B2B lead generation programs and started listing them by category. Here’s what I came up with so far: Firmographics (Industry, company size, location). Demographics (Contact’s title, job function). Contactability (Phone number, email address). Action taken (Attended webinar, downloaded whitepaper, requested pricing, spent time on certain Web pages). Need for your product or service.

Lead Qualification 158

Lead Qualification List Leads Lead 158

LeadSloth

JULY 10, 2009

In the spirit of Twitter’s Follow Friday I’d like to finally publish the remaining Demand Generation blogs that I enjoy reading. Earlier I published the Top 10 Demand Generation vendor blogs and the Top 10 Marketing Automation Blogs. Of course, there were many great blogs that I forgot to include, so here are the remaining ones! B2B Marketing Zone. This is more of a meta-blog, aggregating a large number of B2B blogs, including this blog.

Demand Generation 153

Demand Generation Demand Generation SMB 153

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 29, 2009

Saw a very interesting video where Seth Godin talks about how useful social media is to businesses. Even though the use of social media like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is growing exponentially, there is a raging debate about

Social Network 150

Social Network Network Business Social 150

ViewPoint

JULY 13, 2009

Leads 146

Leads Lead 146

Speaker: Matthew Hawk, President of B2bTrainers

The term “sales enablement” applies to a dizzying array of best practices and technologies. In addition, there is tremendous competitive pressure not to fall behind. No matter where you are in your current sales enablement strategy, one thing is key: success ultimately rides on the habits of your sales managers & marketers. In this webinar, Matthew Hawk will lay out an in-depth schematic for your next-level sales coaching, demonstrate the key activities that comprise success, and walk you through several examples of sales coaching cadences that apply to all salesforce sizes.

Sales

B2B Lead Generation

JULY 1, 2009

Under increased pressure to help drive revenue in this challenging market, many of us are tempted throw as many leads as we can to our sales team. I'm still my the cost-per-lead focus only approach to lead generation. We can tell ourselves that more leads is better because it lowers the cost-per-lead. Don’t be one of those lulled by this false sense of security. If you really want to make a difference in your company’s sales, dig deeper.

Lead Generation 126

Lead Generation Leads Lead Generation 126

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 16, 2009

Summary: Alterian's purchase of Techrigy marks the first integration of serious social media management with marketing automation. Others are sure to follow. Marketing automation vendor Alterian yesterday announced its acquisition of social media monitoring company Techrigy. Even though the Techgrity deal is the first direct acquisition I recall of a social media monitoring system by a marketing automation vendor, it strikes me as an obvious step.

Acquisition 167

Acquisition Social Media Media Social 167

The Point

JULY 28, 2009

There’s a great article (and not just because I’m quoted) in this week’s Demand Generation Report describing how marketers are actively seeking alternatives to the free trial offer. As I say in the article, free trials have become popular – too popular, in my opinion – as offers, because they’re perceived to be the shortest route [.].

Landing Page 113

Landing Page Opinions Best Search Engine 113

B2B Marketing Traction

JULY 12, 2009

Forrester Research reports that 71% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have cut budgets. Most of the reduction is in traditional marketing: 61% in TV, Radio and Magazine advertising and 52% in direct mail. Email has been cut 11% and

Trends 113

Trends URL Forrester Newsletter 113

ViewPoint

JULY 27, 2009

Sales Cycle 120

Sales Cycle Sales 120

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Every sales forecasting model has a different strength and predictability method. It’s recommended to test out which one is best for your team. This way, you’ll be able to further enhance – and optimize – your newly-developed pipeline. Your future sales forecast? Sunny skies (and success) are just ahead!

Forecast

B2B Lead Generation

JULY 8, 2009

I’m amazed that 90% of the companies I’ve talked with over the last six months lack a clear definition of a sales lead really is – that is their sales and marketing departments don’t agree on a universal lead definition. By not asking and answering a few critical questions, these teams are working inefficiently, wasting time and money, and in effect, crippling the bottom line. Teamwork is the only way organizations can achieve maximum ROI.

Help 124

Help Leads Lead Acquisition 124

WriteSpark

JULY 21, 2009

If you develop customer case studies, success stories, or references, you'll want to explore the excellent resources offered by the Customer Reference Forum. The forum started as a community of professionals who manage corporate customer reference programs, including representatives from many technology companies.

Resources 120

Resources Custom Publishing Case Study Customer 120

Chris Koch

JULY 24, 2009

I’ve been working on a report for ITSMA clients this week about analytics and it got me thinking about the proverbial bigger picture of B2B marketing. We know from our research that we in marketing don’t do much with analytics—i.e., using data to determine and predict customer buying patterns. Only 50% of marketers in our survey said they had analytics programs, and of these, few were focused on predicting behavior; most were simply reporting past behavior.

Lead Qualification 113

Lead Qualification Lead Scoring Eloqua Lead Nurturing 113

Smashmouth Marketing

JULY 30, 2009

Jill is going back to the Outbound Marketers when it comes to dating. Who do you date? Inbound or Outbound? inside sales

Inbound Marketing 113

Inbound Marketing Marketing Sales B2B 113

Speaker: Christopher Ryan, Founder and CEO of Fusion Marketing Partners

Sales & Marketing departments that work together guarantee higher acquisition, better nurturing, and more effective sales. Join Christopher Ryan for this insightful webinar, presenting the wide funnel lead nurturing model. Don't miss out on this opportunity to get your teams working together and your revenue performance optimized.

Lead Nurturing

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 20, 2009

Summary: Active Conversion helps marketing and sales departments make the best use of leads they’ve generated outside the system. That's fewer functions than traditional demand generation, but if those are the functions you need, who cares? The classic demand generation cycle starts with an outbound email campaign, captures replies on a landing page, scores the responses, and then sends qualified leads to a sales automation system and keeps the others for more nurturing.

Active Conversion 156

Active Conversion Activities Lead Management ActiveConversion 156

ViewPoint

JULY 20, 2009

Sales 120

Sales Marketing 120

B2B Lead Generation

JULY 29, 2009

I've heard more B2B marketers citing LinkedIn as a key social network they want to add into their lead generation and marketing strategy. I often get asked questions like "how do you generate leads via LinkedIn (without alienating your network)? How are you doing it? What works, and what doesn't etc."  "  In this post, " 5 steps for using LinkedIn as lead generation tool ," I share what I've learned so far.

Lead Generation 122

Lead Generation Linkedin Generation Leads 122

The Effective Marketer

JULY 12, 2009

Stop doing charts in Excel. At least don't use the default options that give you 3D bar charts with dull colors and gray background. The fix? Go to Juice Analytics website and download their free add-on to Excel that cleans up charts

Effective 109

Effective Effectiveness RSS Clickthrough 109

Speaker: Jay McBain, Principal Analyst – Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems

We are in the middle of a major transformation of how companies go to market – in fact, 76% of global CEOs feel that their current business models will be unrecognizable in the next 3 years. Join Jay McBain from Forrester as he unpacks these future trends.

Forrester

The Point

JULY 21, 2009

As I have often lectured in this space, much of what makes for an effective email has less to do with deliverability, mobile compatibility, social media functionality, and all the technical bells and whistles that most people fret about, and more about basic direct response principles such as a strong subject line and a compelling [.].

Deliverability 107

Deliverability Mobile Social Media Demand Generation 107

Smashmouth Marketing

JULY 15, 2009

In response to Hubspot's Cartoon post today: Jill is going back to the Outbound Marketers when it comes to dating. Who do you date? Inbound or Outbound

Inbound Marketing 109

Inbound Marketing Hubspot Marketing 109

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 8, 2009

Summary: Based on Web traffic rankings, new demand generation vendors with low prices are gaining market presence. Pardot and (perhaps) Genius.com look particularly strong. But Eloqua , Silverpop and Marketo remain industry leaders. Last November, after much consideration of alternatives , I settled on Alexa three-month Web traffic rankings as a reasonable way to measure the relative market presence of demand generation vendors. You can see that post here.

Vendor 156

Vendor Demand Generation Traffic Demand 156

ViewPoint

JULY 3, 2009

Class 120

Class Prospect Develop Best 120

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Sales enablement is the strategic process of providing sales teams with the content, guidance, and mentorship needed to engage targeted buyers. It’s all about equipping sales professionals with the tools they need to put their best-selling foot forward. And if sales teams want to continuously sell better -- and faster -- their sales enablement process must have a game-winning strategy. It's time for you to start selling smarter - and hitting your sales number - with the best B2B database in the market. Get started today.

Sales

B2B Lead Generation

JULY 24, 2009

More marketers are embracing social media and inbound marketing practices for lead generation. That's a good thing. I’ve written about how you can leverage social media tools like blogs, twitter , LinkedIn , etc. to drive interested visitors to your website or landing pages to register for educational content and other assets. It works. But remember most people coming to your website aren't coming to your website to buy. They are coming to your site for information.

Landing Page 120

Landing Page Social Media Lead Qualification Media 120

LeadSloth

JULY 14, 2009

In the last years I’ve done a lot of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) projects. What keeps surprising me is that most people think it’s some kind of black art. Basic SEO is actually quite straightforward: hence my 3 steps to SEO Success. Agreed: I had to simplify some things, so please don’t bash me on that. My goal is to expose the basic principles of SEO, not to provide a comprehensive cookbook.

Optimization 107

Optimization SEO Link Building Portal 107

Chris Koch

JULY 31, 2009

It’s time to declare marketing metrics a failure once and for all. ITSMA research has long showed that when we do it at all, we do it poorly. It’s difficult to parse out the contribution that marketing makes to a sale and it’s even more difficult to get salespeople to spend the time figuring out/checking the box/giving credit in the quest to determine whether marketing played a role in making the sale. So we should just stop.

Measurement 100

Measurement Lead Nurturing Rules Lead Management 100

The Effective Marketer

JULY 29, 2009

an interesting post by steve johnson talks about marketing not being a list, but rather an approach to solving customers problems and helping buyers to buy. as marketers, we sometimes fall victims of the routine day-to-day tactical

Custom Publishing 100

Custom Publishing RSS Help Web 2.0 100

Speaker: Ruth Stevens, President of eMarketing Strategy

In a pandemic, it’s more important than ever to focus on retaining and expanding current customers. So, how can sales and marketing support the retention effort? Join Ruth Stevens as she dives into this fast-paced session and reviews the 7 key strategies for current customer marketing, to enable sales and expand customer value.

Customer