20 Dec |
A Review of the Top B2B Lead Generation Posts of 2011 |
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Looking back over 2011, first thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my posts and join in the conversation and improving approaches to B2B lead generation. If you are new to the blog or a regular subscriber, I thought it would be helpful to summarize the top five B2B lead generation blog posts of 2011 based on total readership, starting with the most popular: 1. Why Aren’t Your Sales People Following Up on Leads Provided by Marketing? It’s true isn’t it? That’s a fairly common situation in the B2B market. When the numbers are down and falling short of target,
Read more...06 Dec |
Why Aren’t Your Sales People Following Up on Leads Provided by Marketing? |
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It’s true isn’t it? That’s a fairly common situation in the B2B market. When the numbers are down and falling short of target, the blame game is at its best. Marketing tries to prove its contribution to the bottom line and insists that there are enough new B2B leads being poured into the sales funnel. The sales department isn’t able to close enough deals and a sense of doom and gloom just percolates company-wide. So what seems to be the problem here? Why aren’t your sales people following up on the leads provided by marketing? There could be a few reasons for this and they are
Read more...29 Nov |
Social Media for B2B and B2C—A Carnival of Grasshoppers? |
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Many years ago I watched a TV show called Kung Fu where the blind Kung Fu master calls his young student a “grasshopper” as a term of endearment for one who still has a lot to learn. A quick Google search led me to a scene I remember and I’d like to share it with you. Take a look— Now I’m not claiming to be like Master Po—mainly because I am neither blind nor old! But I was struck at the time by the old man who could see and hear things that others (including the young “grasshopper” boy) could not. My reason for bringing this up here on my blog is because I see a lot of
Read more...22 Nov |
The Challenges that B2B Marketers Find the Most Difficult to Overcome |
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In my post last week, I promised to share some interesting “sound bytes” from the MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. These are comments from B2B marketers about the barriers they find the most difficult to overcome. I picked a few that are very commonly experienced by B2B marketing companies. The Challenges for B2B Marketers “Lack of ability to stop executing and think strategically is the biggest barrier.” I find that typical of B2B marketing organizations that get so caught up in tactical plays and spike marketing. In the absence of a defined strategy
Read more...10 Nov |
Lead Conversion—the Biggest Challenge in the Marketing-Sales Funnel |
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A couple of weeks ago we purchased the comprehensive, 200 page MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. This veritable source of marketing insights is a reminder of the B2B marketing industry’s key challenges and ways in which organizations are struggling to overcome them. Over the next few posts on my blog, I thought it may be worthwhile to focus on certain aspects of this report and how marketers can apply this intelligence to enhance lead generation strategies and processes. The study analyses how B2B organizations plan, execute and measure business activities such as lead
Read more...02 Nov |
The Many Faces of “Lead Generation” – Trick or Treat? |
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Halloween has come and gone again and each year one marvels at the ingenuity and creativity of costumes, masks and disguises. The trick-or-treaters come around no matter what the weather with their bags open and outstretched for candy. Not to forget the adults who dress up and grab their share of fun at work or with friends and family. For some players in the lead generation industry, Halloween is gradually becoming a year-round event. You can see all kinds of tools, techniques and tactics disguised as “lead generation strategies” to fool indiscriminate marketers. Just like those
Read more...18 Oct |
B2B Marketing and Lead Generation Challenges – “The Q Continuum” |
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One of my all-time favourite television shows was Star Trek – the whole gamut of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. For those of you who didn’t fancy it or can’t remember trivial details like I do (am not ashamed to admit it!), let me remind you about the Q Continuum – an extra-dimensional plane of existence inhabited by a race of extremely powerful, hyper-intelligent beings known as the Q. They typically display indifference to most non-Q beings but have a deep interest in the development and progress of humanity. The Q character,
Read more...21 Jun |
Things they said at the B2B Demand Generation Summit… |
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Throughout the SiriusDecisions Summit this year, the message of “sales and marketing alignment” resonated loud and clear. That, in fact, was the theme – B-to-B Sales and Marketing: Forging a New Alliance. If you’ve been following closely, this theme has been a recurring one on my blog as well. Last summer, I wrote about connecting the dots between lead generation, sales and CRM. Around the same time, I offered a quick summary of inbound marketing trends and adoption of best practices for lead generation. Coming back to the Summit, speakers, John Neeson (co-founder of
Read more...31 May |
Prospects, Leads and Customers – Nail all Three with the Right Strategy |
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B2B companies face different buying cycles based on whether or not their product and/or services are a commodity or of a more structural nature. It is critical that B2B companies have a clearly defined lead generation strategy to: Attract new prospects Track and manage already identified leads Ensure that the value of their existing customer base is maximized It is safe to assume that most B2B companies are fully aware of the above three pillars, but what sets them apart from each other is how they go about making all this happen. Some companies will rely heavily on lead generation
Read more...19 Apr |
Do People Provide False Contact Information Online? 69% of the time! |
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It’s true! Landing pages and web forms can bring inaccurate information into your database. Landing pages are increasingly gaining ground as a popular online marketing tactic. Organizations include a strategically designed landing page in their package of marketing tools because it offers them the opportunity to ask for visitor information. From downloading a whitepaper in exchange for an email address to requesting a free trial by providing more detailed contact information, individuals do respond to a compelling call-to-action in a landing page that catches their attention. I read an
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