B2B Lead Generation

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

To be successful at lead nurturing marketers can't rely on one specific channel but rather they need to leverage a multi-modal portfolio of channels. The goal of lead nurturing is to maintain a relevant and consistent dialog with viable future customers - regardless of their timing to buy. In short, it’s about relationships. To help illustrate, I created a mind map of what multi-modal lead nurturing looks like (click image to enlarge). Are there any channels/modalities that I'm missing?

Lead Nurturing 181

Lead Nurturing Leads Lead Mail 181

Sales Lead Insights

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Here is a simple and effective way to allocate your business-to-business lead generation budget. Use the first third of your B2B lead generation budget for Internet marketing. Start with: Search engine optimization (SEO) so your web pages will be found when prospects are using the leading search engines to find companies, products or services like yours.

Budget 168

Budget Lead Generation Generation Telemarketing 168

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Do you know the key component of email marketing that generates more high-quality leads and drives sales? Marketing gurus tend to talk about opt-in pages, sign up forms, calls to action and interactive squeeze pages to boost your click

Opt-in 154

Opt-in Email Web 2.0 Privacy Policy 154

The Point

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

A client asks: “Now that we have our marketing automation system in place, is it really necessary to use registration forms in our lead nurturing (follow-up) campaigns? After all, we already know who these people are, correct? If we offer them direct access to the content assets, we can still track their click-throughs and then trigger sales alerts or assign lead scores based on that action, and we won’t be forcing them to fill in a registration form. Can we do without?”.

Landing Page 147

Landing Page Lead Scoring Lead Nurturing Trigger 147

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

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 18, 2009

One of the audience members at the B2B Marketing University in Boston asked about demand generation systems for small businesses, and how to distinguish among the vendors in general. My brief answer was that the biggest difference was less functionality than the target markets the different vendors pursue. This has more to do with the degree of personal selling (and after-sale service) than anything else. I also promised a blog post on the topic. Here it is.

Demand Generation 207

Demand Generation Vendor Demand List 207

ViewPoint

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

139

139

Sales Lead Insights

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

This is one of a series of occasional interviews with top practitioners on topics of interest to B2B lead generation, marketing and new business development professionals. Miller McMillan is a copywriter who worked on high-profile accounts at ad agencies in Atlanta and Boston before establishing his copywriting boutique in Los Angeles. Miller has worked with such clients as CNN, Hughes, Nestlé, Avery and Microsoft.

B2B 153

B2B Mail Search Engine Writing 153

B2B Lead Generation

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

This is the sixth in an eight-part series I’m calling the ‘Lead Generation Checklist. I wanted to provide a checklist that helps organizations optimize their lead generation process.

Lead Generation 131

Lead Generation List Generation Leads 131

Smashmouth Marketing

NOVEMBER 22, 2009

In the collection of appointment setting techniques I've seen before, I've never seen the one that I fell victim to this week. Interestingly, if Green Leads did this for our clients we would soon be one a B2B Appointment Setting Vendor that had a tainted reputation. The scam : I got an unsolicited calendar invite in my inbox with a bridge number, date and time. My week is comprised of 5-8 appointments per day. I figured, what's one more?

Broker 122

Broker Vendor Medium Conference 122

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

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Summary: Marketing automation and CRM systems may eventually converge, but for now marketers need help explaining why they need a system of their own. I hugely enjoyed yesterday’s Boston session of the Silverpop -sponsored B2B Marketing University. You can catch another session in Atlanta next week and in Seattle on December 1.)

Automation 180

Automation ActiveConversion Marketing Automation Salesforce.com 180

Buzz Marketing for Technology

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Whenever I ask members of sales team from around the globe what they need – the answer never changes – more case studies. Its not to say that we don’t respond but for whatever reason it takes a village to get a single case study done. The reason the sales team loves case studies is it gives them evidence. Evidence for them to start a conversation around your solution and gauge whether there is a need with the potential buyer they are talking to.

Social 171

Social Digg Case Study Viral 171

ViewPoint

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Lead Management 120

Lead Management Sales Lead Leads Lead 120

Sales Lead Insights

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Don’t miss this opportunity to vote for your top five candidates to be among the fifty most influential people in sales lead management in 2009. Because the Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA) is closing the polls at Midnight Pacific Time (UTC-8) on Friday, November 13th. Both members and non-members can vote. So why don’t you click this link to cast your votes right now: www.salesleadmgmtassn.com/top50_vote.htm. Then be sure to watch for the results on November 16, 2009.

Lead Management 148

Lead Management Sales Lead Leads Lead 148

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

B2B Lead Generation

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Don't forget to secure your Twitter name! I signed up for twitter a year an half ago but that wasn’t soon enough to get my hands on my company's twitter name of choice of @intouch. Anyway, If you were late to the party (like me) I'm happy to say there still might be hope. I found this blog post How to Snap Up that Twitter Username You’ve Always Wanted posted by @zee. I followed Zee's process and I'm pleased to say it worked for us! Maybe it will work for you too. Here's what we did.

Twitter 122

Twitter Release Profiling Email 122

The Effective Marketer

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

How do you change people's behavior? Corporate America usually relies on some form of compensation system which basically uses a reward/punishment method that tries to coerce people into doing what the company wants

Behavior 115

Behavior RSS Viral Web 2.0 115

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Summary: As marketers add more content to meet needs throughout the purchase cycle, they must work harder to ensure prospects actually read it. One of the emergent themes at Tuesday’s session of the B2B Marketing University was the growing importance of marketing “content”. The general logic was that marketers increasingly interact with prospects throughout different stages of the sales cycle, and each stage needs different materials.

Work 171

Work Paper Sales Cycle Search Engine 171

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 …”. Then there’s a string of lukewarm benefits that really say nothing – or more precisely, nothing specific and compelling – about why online meetings and GoToMeeting in particular is worthy of my investment.

Email Campaign 113

Email Campaign Email Campaign Demand Generation 113

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

Chris Koch

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

One of the cornerstones of a social media strategy is having a clear set of corporate social media guidelines or policies. The best documents don’t just tell employees what not to do; they also tell them what they should be doing to further the marketing goals of the company. Here are some recommendations based on a cross-section of social media policies from B2B companies, including social media policy examples from some leading B2B companies.

Social Media 113

Social Media Media Social Guidelines 113

Sales Lead Insights

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

This is one of a series of occasional interviews with top practitioners on topics of interest to B2B lead generation, marketing and new business development professionals. My guest is Mike Wallen , CEO of The Lead Dogs , a B2B lead development company that provides sales lead generation, telemarketing and telesales services. Mike, I understand that you recently published a special report about the handling of web inquiries, titled " The Truth Behind Web Inquiry Management."

Webcast 146

Webcast Telemarketing Classified Lead Nurturing 146

B2B Lead Generation

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

A few months ago, at the MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing summit in Boston, I was asked on how best to follow-up on leads generated via the web by Richard Hill. Richard writes over at the Idea Exchange blog on marketing automation related topics. Marketing automation tools are useful because they can give us a ton of visibility into the visitors to our website, what they looked at, etc.,

Websites 120

Websites Marketing Automation Automation Exchange 120

Smashmouth Marketing

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

I had the pleasure today of participating in the Richardson Connect webinar series. Nigel Edelshain of Sales 2.0 and I were both panelists discussing: Linked, Tweeted, and Profiled:Using the Power of Social Media to Generate Sales Leads and Expand Client Relationships Despite a minor glitch from the webinar hosting provider during the first minute, the event was successful due to Richardson's impeccable planning process.

Lead Gen 108

Lead Gen Tips Leads Lead 108

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

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 15, 2009

Summary: a new Aberdeen Group report argues that Web content management systems should add customer management features and will ultimately compete with traditional marketing automation products. I agree with one reservation: I doubt large companies will use a single system to manage all customer touchpoints. I’ve been convinced for some time that Web content management systems (CMS) will become important platforms for marketing automation.

Touchpoints 149

Touchpoints Marketing Automation Automation Barriers 149

B2B Marketing Traction

NOVEMBER 18, 2009

Tweet. One of the most fun aspects of marketing planning can be brainstorming. Here are ways to make sure your marketing brainstorming is fun and productive. Invite the right people. Don’t brainstorm in a marketing silo. Invite others who deal with your customers, including customer service, product development, sales, distributors and possibly suppliers or strategic alliance partners.

Plan 102

Plan Marketing Plan Attitudes Tactics 102

Ambal's Amusings

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Think quickly. Which marketing slogan or jingle can you hear in your ear? Which marketing logo or picture appears before your mind's eye? Why do we remember only some marketing messages over others? What are characteristics of a memorable marketing message? Here is an interview about with Chip Heath, author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die - Making B2B Marketing Messages More Memorable.

BtoB 143

BtoB Emarketing Lead Generation PR 143

Sales Lead Insights

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I promised to link to the list of the top 50 most influential people in sales lead management. The ballots are counted. Imagine the drum roll.) And the winners are: [link]. To those of you who voted for me, my sincere thanks! If you'd like to learn more, please use my Contact Form , call me directly at 1-800-944-5553 or +1-401-294-7730, or check out the marketing consulting or speaking and training pages on my website.

Lead Management 136

Lead Management Sales Lead Leads Lead 136

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