Elusive Closed Loop Process Rev 2: Sales and Marketing needs to talk

January 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Brian Carroll, my B2b lead gen blogging idol, talks about this in his post: Closed Loop Feedback: The Missing Lead Generation Huddle. Brian is coming from the outsourced Call Center perspective and I am coming from the third party lead generation perspective, but the massive benefits are the same: The organization providing leads and the consumers of the leads (Sales) need to meet and talk WEEKLY.

Yes, I know, the Sales Team will give you annoying feedback: “This lead had freckles, so its not a lead”. But in between those annoying comments are the kinds of tidbits that both sides can leverage to refine and optimize the process. The leads dont do the talking and you cant live off the feedback from your automation. Conversations will usually yield really important holes that need to be addressed that get lost in automation.

So meet, and ask the important question: What’s working and what’s not working. Lead Generation needs to listen-filter too but listen. Both sides should be a/b testing new ideas to increase conversion rates.

What is sales doing when they get a lead? Sometimes just changing how Sales engages the lead after receipt can yield higher conversion rates.
What is marketing doing to prep the lead? Sales needs to know what marketing or lead development is telling the leads before passing….that can be leveraged for the next conversation?
How much effort is sales putting into reaching the lead? How many contacts were expected by them?
When is a lead dead? When is lead recycled back to marketing or lead development to work?

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, b2b Sales, Lead/Inquiry Generation

Email List Pricing is Dropping…but does that mean anything?

January 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment

B2B Online is reporting that email list pricing is dropping..1.4% from last year. The title is deceiving, this doesn’t per se show that email blasts are decreasing in popularity but that there are more and more people providing this service.

Permission based email is $273/m is the number one list rental whereas second place is newsletter list which is $172/m which decreased by 3.4%.

b2bonline: E-mail list prices continue to slide, says Worldata

By the way: Is anyone still doing snail-mail???? That is dying a fast death, not a slow death…email while prices are dropping, usage is not.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Lead/Inquiry Generation Tagged With: , ,

Another great site to follow — “Build a Sales Machine”

January 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Anyone in the business knows that Salesforce.com is a true post-tech crash, on demand success. Aaron Ross helped build the lead generation, front-end sales process there. He has a blog I like and will likely refer to often: Build a Sales Machine

His article on “Clarity”, read: Clarity = Sales Success is certainly a theme in the funnelholic too. We discussed creating a clear, agreed upon lead definition…Aaron takes it farther talking about clear sales steps, and sales process.

Successful companies create clear, hard deliverables for every step of the sales process. That is what I have seen. example: To go from 10% to 20%, a face-to-face meeting must be set up. 20 to 30 Face-to-face completed with scoping document completed and so-on. I like how Aaron talks about the sales support process that back up the process steps.

Literally one document can support these processes.

Think out and make clear sales steps.

Write out the various sub-steps that support these steps.

Don’t advance in the sales process without a hard deliverable to support advancement.

As Aaron writes, “clarity” = success.

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Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Sales Tagged With:

Big Deal: Eloqua Names New CEO

January 23, 2007 by Leave a Comment

This is not on my blog to perpetuate any rumors or speculate on why, but Eloqua has named a new CEO. Eloqua is without a doubt going to be/is one of the major players in the marketing automation wave. The idea of “lead scoring” is buzzing and Eloqua is one of the best systems to support those types of efforts.

News is news, but watch out for Eloqua nonetheless:

B2B Online Article: Eloqua names new CEO

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Lead/Inquiry Generation, Marketing Automation

The Elusive Closed Loop Process

January 19, 2007 by Leave a Comment

One of the main reasons for this Venture Capitalist/Silicon Valley gold rush towards marketing automation ultimately stems from B2B’s inability to create a fully automated, reliable closed loop process. Neither Salesforce.com nor Sugar CRM are very good at it though they can be gerry-rigged to get close. Again, the recent success on the internet with B2C pay-for-performance advertising is leading the charge and as usual B2C is ahead of the B2B game. The B2C companies do a great job of following lead to sale because they have to and they can. Vonage pays publishers and ad networks $30-100 per sale you bring in. From the reg page to the close, their system keeps a closed loop tab on your lead.

B2B lead generation are typically more complex sales that don’t lend themselves as easily to clean closed loop process. And furthermore, if the marketing department is doing their job, future customers are coming to their site via webinars, email campaigns, etc…that is, they are getting touched more than just once. These multiple touches make things tricky.

So does the reliance on the Sales Team to correct track and update leads in your CRM.

So does the subjectivity of the Sales Team against even the “tightest” lead definition.

This is our life.

Some beginning steps:
1. A unified lead definition is vital and a great first step.

2. The next step is to get your automation to best support your process. More on this in future posts.

3. The anecdotal Closed Loop Meeting between Sales and Marketing. See Elusive Closed Process Part II.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Inside Sales and Tele-selling, Lead Qualification, Lead/Inquiry Generation

Guy Kawasaki “hearts” Linkedin too

January 11, 2007 by Leave a Comment

As my blog grows, I just want to make it clear that I DID not anticipate that my first couple blogs would include two about Linkedin. I have to say, I try to utilize it…see my entry . Well, Guy is certainly alot more famous and actually has put some pretty interesting tips on the page. I agree with everything except that I am holding my breath on the Linkedin Answers thingie…I am not sure it is nearly as cool as the other stuff. Net-net: Guy Hearts Linkedin too: How to Change the World: Ten Ways to Use Linkedin.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Lead/Inquiry Generation