LEADership by Louis Foong » Lead Qualification

The Challenges that B2B Marketers Find the Most Difficult to Overcome

Louis Foong — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:18:43 +0000

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

The Many Faces of “Lead Generation” – Trick or Treat?

Louis Foong — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:00:23 +0000

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

B2B Marketing and Lead Generation Challenges – “The Q Continuum”

Louis Foong — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:31:43 +0000

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,

Things they said at the B2B Demand Generation Summit…

Louis Foong — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:21:59 +0000

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

Inbound Web Conversion

Louis Foong — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:10:05 +0000

- The land of opportunity for the B2B demand generator Jay Gaines (Twitter: @izjay), a Service Director with SiriusDecisions spoke about Website Conversion on Day 2 of the SiriusDecisions Summit this year. He talked about a big step up in website goals from merely disseminating information to “perpetual demand creation”. Conversion optimization is the way to create a steady stream of leads with the “4 critical elements” being: Content Website ownership Technology Program integration While a big part of demand generation traditionally has been “education”, i.e.

Prospects, Leads and Customers – Nail all Three with the Right Strategy

Louis Foong — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:37:28 +0000

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

Do People Provide False Contact Information Online? 69% of the time!

Louis Foong — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:22:46 +0000

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

To Spike, or Not to Spike: that is the question

Louis Foong — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:28:19 +0000

I’m feeling inspired by Shakespeare here but unlike Hamlet, it’s not a question I would ponder. Rather, it is a rhetorical question and my answer would always be “don’t spike”. I agree; a challenging economy and value-conscious customers are making it increasingly difficult for organizations to stay afloat, let alone meet sales targets. Added to that is the pressure of getting to customers before your competitors do. A “quick fix” might seem like the ideal solution. Enter a spike marketer who may be able to deliver the quick boost you’re looking for to improve your sales.

The Ideal Demand Generation Personality Profile

Louis Foong — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:31:52 +0000

Having witnessed organizations burn up thousands upon thousands of precious dollars, I can’t help but analyze a lead generation failure when I see it. While the specifics vary in every case, there are certain common traits of a lead generation personality profile that create negative results. I talked about some of these in my last post on the types of lead generation personalities. Let’s look at some traits...

What is Your Demand Generation Personality Type?

Louis Foong — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:11:23 +0000

As a demand generation advisor and lead generation consultant, there are often times when I wish that I could change my customers’ marketing personalities. When that happens, I find myself digging deeper and analyzing what type of demand generation personality that organization has. I remind myself of the practical advice from Ted Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” It makes it easier for me to help a client’s organization minimize the weaknesses and maximize the strengths of their demand generation personality.