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...01 Nov |
LEADing Numbers |
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I thought we would start some regular features on this blog, starting with a weekly round up of interesting statistics and numbers: 1. 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted-in to. (source: Hubspot). People whether consumers or executives only want to receive information and news relevant and interesting to them. What are you doing to prevent this attrition rate on your email list? 2. 41% of B2B companies and 67% of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook (source Hubspot). Really? This still does not convince me that B2B demand
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...11 Oct |
The Ongoing Debate Over Cost Per Lead – Louis Foong’s Perspective |
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In a recent brainstorm about lead generation services and processes, my team mates brought up a few questions about average cost per lead. This is an ongoing debate and a quick search on Google will show you that the range of opinions is fairly wide. The range of actual cost estimates is even bigger. The reason for this is mainly because individuals and organizations have diverse definitions of a lead. With the varying criteria that exist out there, it’s inevitable that the comparison is apples to oranges rather than apples to apples. [caption id="attachment_1041" align="alignleft"
Read more...27 Sep |
Is Your Marketing Ready to Adapt to the Changing Business Landscape? |
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The crevasse between Sales and Marketing is commonly visible across all types of companies. Some choose to ignore it at their own peril and those that take cognizance of it are still struggling to find ways to bridge the gap. Despite earnest efforts by some B2B organizations to integrate sales and marketing, the gap still remains. In previous posts I have talked about ways to bring lead generation, sales and CRM together. In my opinion, even though sales and marketing teams may have started communicating more closely, the reason their combined effectiveness still falls short is because of a
Read more...01 Sep |
Ways to Leverage Video Marketing for B2B |
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A Guest Blog Post by Internet Marketing and Social Media Expert, Liana Ling I hope you enjoyed reading my guest post last week, the first in a short series on Internet marketing and social media. This week I’d like to draw your attention to a medium that has always been considered extremely powerful and yet, possibly the most under-utilized by marketers. Video marketing has yet to be explored to its full potential and definitely has a long way to go in the B2B marketing space. And yet, statistics clearly show the steadily increasing numbers as far as video viewing and penetration is
Read more...03 Aug |
Vanilla Marketing Vs. Geo-targeting – What’s the “Scoop” |
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In a recent report, the CMO Council identifies the top 10 ways to create marketing ecosystem value. For sure, everything looks good on paper, but in my opinion, it doesn’t take into account local markets and ground realities. How can you replicate the same strategies for different marketplaces? In a typical scenario, the CMO yields the power of marketing policy. The pendulum has swung way too far on that end. I reiterate what I said before – about finding middle ground. I marvel sometimes at the timeless, ageless wisdom of ancient sayings. Many of them may sound clichéd but there’s
Read more...26 Jul |
Effectiveness of Social Media Marketing for B2B – The Debate Rages On |
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Popularity is a strange thing – whether it is a high visibility brand, a car, a pop star – as the popularity charts go up the numbers on the opposite side start to grow too. It’s true, die-hard fans will always have a community that looks down on them (their taste). Same is the case with Social Media Marketing (SMM). You can love it, hate it, but you can’t ignore it. And so it continues to be a topic of debate in the world of business. How effective really is it? Is it only the racehorse for the consumer market or can B2B marketers gain significant ROI from social media marketing? I
Read more...12 Jul |
Are Your Bean Counters Stifling Marketing Creativity? |
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A few months ago I posted on this blog about how and why small companies can think big. It’s like the small, fast cars on the race track. Smaller players can act fast because they are nimble enough and have a streamlined decision making process. Unlike most large organizations and IT giants that frequently or sometimes even chronically suffer “analysis-paralysis”, small and medium companies have the ability to move faster. They have the potential to get ahead of their bigger competition. I was just reading Car Guys Versus Bean Counters: the Battle for the Soul of American Business, by
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
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