02 Nov |
The Many Faces of “Lead Generation” – Trick or Treat? |
 |
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...21 Jun |
Things they said at the B2B Demand Generation Summit… |
|
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...15 Jun |
Inbound Web Conversion |
|
- 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.
Read more...22 Mar |
Social Media and B2B Lead Generation…A definite work in progress |
|
- Take the statistics with a grain of salt A recent Survey by Hubspot, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing” offers statistics on the average cost per lead for Inbound vs. Outbound marketing in 2010-2011 for North American companies. With social media budgets increasing between 2010 and 2011, social media channels seem to surpass paid search for inbound marketing. eMarketer quotes this survey and opines that inbound leads via blogs and social media are the least expensive inbound leads (actually, they use the term “cheapest leads”!) I’d like to examine this statement –
Read more...16 Nov |
The expanding social landscape – integral to lead generation? |
|
Is Social Technology Integral to B2B Lead Generation? The scope of social technologies and their potential to help maximize B2B lead generation efforts is real and valid. But marketers must look beyond the eye-candy. Having a bunch of social media medals (logos and icons on your website) won’t do much for your sales team that’s out in the field trying to close the sale on a hot lead. But being active socially will definitely help establish greater credibility and increase visibility; both important factors that positively influence prospects about to make a purchase decision. It looks
Read more...09 Nov |
Is There More to Social Media than Meets the Eye? |
|
Social Media and B2B Lead Generation In the spring this year, I wrote in one of my blog posts, that “social media is new and evolving”. That was in late April 2010. Today, in the fall of the same year, I have to say that social media has indeed evolved with great speed! This actually makes me want to caution marketers that social media isn’t like magic beans that will sprout into a lead generation beanstalk overnight. You still need a very strong foundation on which to build your demand generation efforts. Incorporating social tools and technologies into tried and tested target
Read more...28 Jun |
Social Media Fuels the B2B Lead Lifecycle – CRM Update is Critical! |
|
Social media plays an important role in the sales cycle, but keeping your CRM database is key No matter how many budget cuts your organization introduces to cope with challenging times, you somehow make room for B2B lead generation expenses. It is after all, the lifeline of your sales performance, right? The only change to this ongoing situation is the dire need to measure and quantify results, so not a penny goes to waste. The results of B2B lead generation are best measured by the end goal, i.e. a customer conversion. For a B2B interaction to progress from seed to lead to sale, it must
Read more...
