22 Dec |
LEADing Numbers: Holiday Edition |
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Since we are in the midst of the holiday season, we found some holiday statistics to share with you. For those of you thinking – how is this relevant to B2B lead generation – successful lead generation does not exist in a vacuum. Knowing events and other factors that affect your prospects and customer base is an important part of building a successful lead generation campaign. I also challenge you to think about how you can use this information to incorporate into your playbook. 1. First, even though it is the holidays – keep blogging and posting outstanding
Read more...13 Dec |
Is Your CRM Wish List for the New Year Missing Something(one)? |
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Holiday shopping until a few years ago was actually an event I used to look forward to. There was much excitement around everyone’s wish list for holiday gifts. Bringing home the treasures was another adventure; sneak ‘em in and hide them well until it’s time to hand them out. Or place them discreetly where your loved ones will run eagerly to look for them on the big day. Surprises came in bigger packages; bigger the better. In recent years, the Internet has changed all that. Shoppers can sit bleary-eyed at some insane hour of the night and order gadgets, gizmos and geek delights
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...15 Nov |
Barriers to B2B Marketing |
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Continuing on my commentary on the MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, I’d like to draw your attention to what organizations consider the top barriers in their effort to overcome marketing challenges. Lack of resources in staffing, budgeting or time appears to be the #1 barrier. I wonder what the C Suite and Bean Counters would say about that. The same powers that hold Marketing accountable for reporting revenue contribution metrics are stifling marketing creativity by pulling back resources. My advice to marketers is to focus on lead quality and not worry about the
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...25 Oct |
Social Media for B2B Marketers: Brand Recognition and What Else? |
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Several months ago, I commented on my blog about Dell’s social media initiatives and the much touted case study of their “success”. Any good marketer should learn from past mistakes and refine demand generation tactics to deliver greater results and ROI. I thought it worthwhile to look back and see if Dell’s strategy has evolved and improved. Dell has been running its Trade Secrets campaign using Twitter, Facebook and various blogs. The campaign encourages users to share their experiences and tips about the new Dell Vostro V130. With over 1500 contributions, Dell has gathered enough
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...04 Oct |
Lessons from Facebook Addicts |
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I’ve been seeing and hearing so much lately about how individuals can’t do without their daily (or is that hourly?) fix of Facebook that I decided to rock the boat a little bit. So I took an intended Facebook vacation last week. My “vacation” wasn’t as simple as just not logging into my account. I went as far as deactivating my account. Now did that rock the boat, and how! People were going crazy and asking me if I was okay or if they had done anything wrong. The reactions I got were so quick, so strong and so emphatic it was as though I had really done something unimaginable.
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
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