A video on visual content that may or may not include me

October 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Ok, it this video does include me along with some awesome takes from other thought leaders.  Note to self:  I misunderstood the question and thought we were only talking about video.  I still made the cut so there you go.

PS my hair looks terrible.

PPS Thanks Marketo and Jason Miller for including me.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUuVkEccNs0?rel=0]

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

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Competitive Internet, Internet, Thought Leadership, Video Tagged With: , ,

2011: The Year or Living Boringly (I Hope)

December 24, 2010 by 2 Comments

I promised myself I wouldn’t make predictions, year-end lists, Christmas wish lists, New Year’s resolutions and so forth. Then I was forced to answer the question: “What do you see for b2b marketers in 2011?” I was asked twice: in an interview with Maria Pergolino from Marketo, then while considering predictions about b2b marketing trends for 2011 on Focus.com.

Here is my 2011 sound-bite: Live boringly.

From 2008 to 2010, it was basically a “content bubble” for marketers. All of us in the blogosphere have been riding high; talking about lead scoring, lead nurturing, content marketing, social media, sales and marketing alignment. So much sizzle and sexiness, it’s been a fantastical ride as marketers ate it up. Everyone in the world of marketing had endless new toys to talk about, and talk we did. But now, marketers must live boringly. Not to be a sensationalist, but our survival is at stake.

How to Live Boringly

Focus on execution and how to get it done, or said another way: Stop talking about it and just do it. I love this article by Carlos Hidalgo (Funnelholic all-time fave) on marketing automation. As Carlos mentions, in the case of marketing automation, less than 25 percent of us have implemented marketing automation to its full potential. In other words, a lot of hype and nothing to show for it. Create simple goals for next year, let sales and the C-suite know what they are, and hit them. Just as a VP of Sales must hit his or her metric, marketing does too. All the social media, lead nurturing and so forth are means to an end. An example of a metric might be pipeline-created qualified leads, appointments or revenue. I don’t care, but all the really “bright shiny things” have to align with achieving goals that the organization cares about.

Do This, or Else

Do you really want marketing to end up back where you started before the Marketing Content Revolution? The marketing automation vendors are trying to help you now. Look at market leaders Marketo and Eloqua. Their marketing has switched from tactics and techniques to revenue. Marketo’s Jon Miller likes to say, “More marketers are getting a seat at the revenue table.” This may be true, but that seat is hot. The revenue table is a “you’re-either-helping-or-you’re-getting-in-the-way” spot. If you’re helping, you get to stay. If you’re in the way, you are gone and won’t be back.

So, take my advice and live by my 2011 mantra: Live boringly.

Sincerely,

The Bore-aholic

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

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Business Musings, Funnels, Marketing Automation, Thought Leadership Tagged With: , , , ,

26 Reasons Your Leads Aren’t Converting into Opportunities

March 25, 2010 by 5 Comments

I got the band back together: Tom Scearce (aka @TLOTL) and Chris Jablonski (aka @cjablonski). These are my partners in crime when creating long(er) list posts, and they certainly helped me here. We have put together a list of 26 reasons your leads are converting, and, as usual, we had some fun with it.

Before you read on, I want to make one point. There is typically one major issue to overall lead conversion: lack of lead management, also known as passing raw leads/MQLs directly to sales reps. I have yet to find an organization with legit lead management processes that can’t convert leads. They can convert co-reg, content syndication, you name it — because they have built an always-on lead management process to convert leads or inquiries into qualified leads.

One other point, this assumes you are producing at least reasonable leads/inquiries/MQLs.

With that in mind, here are the 25 reasons your leads aren’t converting:

  1. You’re passing them directly to the sales team without an intermediate step or two (i.e., lead development or lead nurturing).
  2. You don’t have dedicated resources (i.e., lead development or an inside sales team) connecting with and qualifying leads.
  3. You haven’t tried to optimize what the lead development team is doing to convert your leads.
  4. You aren’t leveraging scoring.
  5. You aren’t leveraging nurturing.
  6. You haven’t created a unified lead definition with the sales team (the term “unified lead definition” was coined by Brian Carroll @brianjcarroll).
  7. You don’t have an SLA with your sales reps for what they guarantee they will do when you pass them a qualified lead.
  8. Sales doesn’t care about you anymore and won’t follow up on anything you send.
  9. You’re considering the wrong metrics when looking for optimization.
  10. You don’t look at metrics at all.
  11. You look at too many metrics.
  12. You think your job is to get the most leads and the lowest CPL (cost per lead).  Right answer: your job is to create the highest conversion at the most efficient CPO (cost per opportunity).
  13. You don’t have “conversations”— optimization sessions with your lead vendors.
  14. You don’t have “conversations” — optimization sessions with the sales team.
  15. You dump leads from different sources into an identical lead development path (@cjablonski).
  16. Your shotgun marketing approach gives you a lot of quantity at the expense of quality (@cjablonski).
  17. Sales disqualifies leads because they deem the leads too early in the sales cycle (@cjablonski).
  18. Your value proposition is diluted, unreinforced, or at worst, forgotten as the prospect moves from inquiry through nurturing to sales follow-up (@cjablonski).
  19. Marketing has no process for filtering raw inquiries and disqualifying those that don’t fit (at least closely) the ideal customer profile (@cjablonski).
  20. Your sales team already has so many good leads on its plate, and sales reps would rather close those leads than sift through your mixed bag of suspects and prospects (@tlotl).
  21. Your leads are going to inbound contact-center sales reps, and answering the ringing phone is always more important than calling out on your Web-captured “handraiser” leads (@tlotl).
  22. Your leads were captured at a trade show two months ago and haven’t been nurtured or called since (@tlotl).
  23. The first 100 leads tagged with campaign code “XYZ” were unreachable, unqualified or not ready to talk to a sales rep, and now any lead tagged with that campaign code is effectively blacklisted in the sales team (@tlotl).
  24. You haven’t educated your leads with vendor-agnostic, third-party-sourced content that validates your solution in the marketplace (@tlotl).
  25. You’ve purchased a targeted list of contacts or names, didn’t market to them and delivered them to sales — under the (false) pretense that they are actually leads (@tlotl).
  26. Your leads are great leads, but they’re best suited for a product that your sales team is not properly trained, compensated or experienced enough to qualify. For example, your sales team is world class at selling a point solution, but you’ve delivered them (expensive) leads for a bundled offering (@tlotl).

Are there more?  We’d love to hear yours.

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, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Funnels, Lead Development, Lead management, Lead Qualification Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Marketing Hipster Dictionary, Part II: 53 Definitions Every Marketer Should Know

January 28, 2010 by 1 Comment

Here we are again. If you missed Part I, make sure to read it first. Once again, before we begin, I need to introduce the members of the band:

On the guitar, Tom Scearce (@TLOTL), and on the electric keyboard, Chris Jablonski (@cjablonski).

I can say this, we had a lot of fun. Check out numbers 37-49. @TLOTL has some great ones.

25.  Cold calling: I really have no idea why I put this on here. It’s pretty simple: You pick up the phone and call someone who has no idea you are calling. In today’s day and age, this is best left to professionals — a.k.a., outsourced.

26.  Contacts: Just names. The contact movement has been brought upon us by breakthrough companies such as Jigsaw, demandbase and NetProspex. These are not leads, even if these companies market them as such. Contact purchasing is a critical component to push marketing (see below).

27.   Leads: A lead is a person who has opted in for an offer (see below). As mentioned above, a contact is not a lead.

28.   Offer: An offer can be defined as “something” someone has opted-in for. These can be discrete offers such as white papers, webinars and podcasts. They can also be an appointment with a sales person.

29.   Lead generation: Activities designed to create leads.

30.   Demand generation: All the activities designed to create demand. Not just lead generation, which is part of it. Everything — including things like PR, speaking engagements, advertising, discounts or special offers and so on and so on. BTW, this is an interesting point of conversation — check out some of the answers to this on Focus.com.

31.    Lead nurturing: A process that uses content (offers, tools, white papers, etc.) and distribution tactics (email, phone, Web, etc.) to market to leads over time until they are measurably ready to engage. This one was hard. I got some terrific definitions from experts on Focus.com.

32.   Remarkable content: You need to develop this every day, and you know it’s remarkable if people can apply it right away. You need to deliver on three characteristics: 1) value: create substantive, meaningful and high-quality content and 2) efficiency: package for simplicity and ease of consumption; 3) relevance: target buyers and address their specific challenges. (@cjablonski)

33.   Push marketing: “Knocking on someone’s door.” In other words, using outbound marketing tactics such as email, phone and direct mail to market to contacts in order to create leads. Examples are outsourced appointment setting and email campaigns to a list.

34.   Pull marketing: As opposed to push marketing, “getting people to walk into your store.” Pull means you are using SEO, paid search, etc. to attract people who are searching for something you offer. It also includes getting people to look at your products in other stores through online media and white paper syndication, for example. Because not all buyers are walking into your store, you need to make sure you are represented in other stores that attract your type of buyer.

35.   Landing page: A Web page with a call-to-action to download an offer, such as a webinar, a white paper, and so on. In order to download the offer, the user has to fill out a form. (@cjablonski)

36.  Direct mail: The act of sending a marketing offer via the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, and so on. This is a dying lead-generation tool. NOTE: there are marketers who believe direct mail still works despite the cost and low conversion rates. My suggestion is that, if you don’t do it now, don’t start.

37.  Return on contribution: Anyone who takes the time and energy to create remarkable content needs to also invest time in managing return on contribution. This can mean several things: 1) crowd-sourcing the content to leverage the friends and followers of the contributors for added distribution; 2) syndicating your content through targeted media properties; 3) engaging in online conversations where your content can be delivered in a relevant context ; and 4) leveraging your content across multiple campaigns, including lead-nurturing programs. (@TLOTL)

38.  Micro-marketed content: The opposite of mass-marketed content. An unmediated, free-flowing discussion among genuine experts in a niche category (e.g., this discussion on Focus.com) is often more relevant and helpful to buyers than a banner ad or an industry trade publication. (@TLOTL)

39.  “Multi-channel, multi-touch”: The mantra of any successful pipeline/revenue generation program. Email, Web and phone are all integrated and response-measured (scored) using marketing automation services. (@TLOTL)

40.  The “three legged stool”: In direct marketing, results are usually, ultimately, a function of the:

  • List (or audience)
  • Offer
  • Creative

Underperform in any one of these areas and the stool falls over. (@TLOTL)

41.  The revenue/sausage factory: A useful metaphor for helping the uninitiated understand how the marketing and sales team work together to drive the top line. The factory can include “upstream” suppliers like Google, direct mail programs or demand-gen agencies. And it can also encompass post-sales “revenue recognition” functions like professional services and account management. (@TLOTL)

42.  Pipeline erosion rate: Your sales team converts your leads into pipeline deals. They win some, they lose some. Some deals roll into next month/quarter. Some don’t. The erosion rate measures the lost pipeline value that must be replaced through incremental demand-gen efforts and budget. (@TLOTL)

43.   Rotting lead rate: The percentage of leads that go untouched by sales (no email, call or voicemail) before they start to “rot.” Keep in mind that the goal is not necessarily a 0% “rot-rate.” In some cases, it’s totally ok for sales to let leads “rot.” If sales has warmer leads to work, marketing can take back the leads that would otherwise rot and nurture them until they are ready. (@TLOTL)

44.  Funnel jockey: The demand-generation expert in every successful marketing department who understands his or her funnel well enough to hard-wire the entire revenue manufacturing process, from marketing spend, to lead gen, to pipeline creation and booked revenue. This person is one of the Excel users in the marketing department who is most likely to have a working command of functions like VLOOKUP, GETPIVOTDATA, SUMPRODUCT, and RAND. (@TLOTL)

45.  Campaign Sorcerer: Describes a marketer who can quickly articulate and illustrate campaign concepts with a unique and integrated skill set that includes design aesthetics, copywriting/storyboarding, program logistics, and schedule visualization. A Powerpoint/Keynote Magic User proficient in spell-casting with SnagIt and Photoshop. (@TLOTL)

46.  Market whisperer: The agency-side marketer who can, in 30 minutes or less, figure out the essence of a client’s marketing and sales challenges, with minimal to no briefing from said client, consulting only Twitter, Google, WordPress and Michael Porter’s Five Forces model. This marketer is more likely than his or her peers to get away with wearing ironic tee shirts or quirky, comment-worthy eyewear/accessories. (@TLOTL)

47.  Tweeps: Twitter + Peeps = Tweeps. (@TLOTL)

48.  Product myopia: Outdated marketing thinking still practiced by many who engage with prospects and clients through the lens of their own solutions. (@cjablonski)

49.  Trapping the chicken in the courtyard: A semi-obscure “Rocky II” reference/metaphor describing the relentless and often frustrating pursuit of repeatable marketing and sales success. “I feel like a Kentucky Fried idiot.” — Rocky Balboa (@TLOTL)

50.  Buyer engagement: Your goal anytime a buyer comes into contact with you. To get their full attention and immerse them into a brand experience, make sure everything you do is valuable and differentiated. (@cjablonski)

Below are SiriusDecisions definitions I have included because they have done an amazing job of getting marketers to use their methodology and lingo. This is for the other marketers who aren’t Sirius trained and want to talk the talk (I chose the three most used terms)

51.  MQL (Marketing qualified lead): Prospects defined by your marketing and sales organization as someone ready to pass to sales. They’re instrumental in calculating lead gen metrics, such as marketing qualified lead rate (# of MQLs/# of total marketing contacts).

52.  SAL (Sales accepted lead): A lead that has met the basic tenets of qualification and that sales has agreed to engage. (@cjablonski)

53.  SQL (Sales qualified lead): A prospect confirmed by sales as a true revenue opportunity and entered into the pipeline. (@cjablonski)

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

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Business Musings, CRM, Direct Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Funnels, Lead Development, Lead Qualification, Lead/Inquiry Generation, Marketing Automation, Social Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Marketing Hipster Dictionary, Part I: 53 Definitions Every Marketer Should Know

January 26, 2010 by 2 Comments

Drumroll, please … Another ambitious post here: The Marketing Hipster Dictionary. When we started, I just wanted to create a post with some definitions of terms used in this blog and in the marketing space in general. Then we started having fun with some “originals.”

Before I go on, I must introduce my band. (Side note: I love when the lead singer introduces the band at concerts. I don’t know what it is — but I get excited.) On the guitar: Tom Scearce (@TLOTL). Tom is a brilliant marketer who understands marketing from brand to process. Follow him on Twitter. And on the electric keyboard: Chris Jablonski (@cjablonski). Chris can do anything. Period. And he does do everything, but he is not a dilettante. He does them all really well.

Ok, so here is the deal, my guitarist Tom wanted me to break this into a series. I prefer the big bang, so we compromised: The dictionary is broken into two: Today is the first 24. We will release the next 26 on Thursday. If you want to have fun and send in some, we may add it so send it over.

1.    Marketing hipster or hipster marketing: The new bleeding-edge marketer. One of the first terms I’ve made up for this blog post but that I like a lot. If you’re doing some of the activities I’ve described below, you are a marketing hipster.

2.    Lead qualification: People (with headsets), automation (CRM and marketing automation – yes, marketing automation) and process dedicated to contacting leads and qualifying them before passing them to sales. If you actually generate leads, you should do this. (See every other post on the Funnelholic.com). People can build this process for you like @bridgegroupinc or Stu Silverman (SalesRamp), or you can outsource qualification (numerous folks, I can’t even mention). Look, this is “old school” stuff, but it works. I sell leads, and what we’ve seen from our data is that companies with lead-qualification (and lead-nurturing) processes convert better than anyone else and, ultimately, buy more leads.

3.    Conversion rate: The rate at which a prospect advances in your marketing process. I included this because everyone assumes conversion rate means landing page conversion. That is not true. Conversion rates happen across the life of a lead: Traffic to registration conversion, registration to lead conversion, lead to opportunity conversion, opportunity to sale conversion. Conversions happen all day in your process (I hope). Track them and watch them.

4.    Lead scoring: Seriously, make it simple: the process of determining which leads are better than others. Don’t make it bigger than that. Use data you have now to start – this isn’t hard, then use marketing automation to implement, optimize and refine. Scoring seems so daunting, but it really isn’t when you finally tear down what it really is. The humans in your “conversion chain” score all the time in their head: They call certain leads more than others because they know they will convert.

5.    Conversion chain: I just made that up in the previous definition, so I figured I would make a definition. The conversion chain is your series of conversion points you track from the top (e.g., Google, white paper syndication) to close. That’s a cool term. If it catches on, you heard it here first.

6.    Metrics: Numbers generated via reporting that tell you something about your current processes. Yes, it can be called reporting or just “numbers,” but remember you want to be a b2b marketing hipster, so use the word: metrics. Here’s a tip: Choose three metrics to look at every day. Look at the rest once a week.

7.    Pay-per-lead lead generation or performance-based lead generation: This is how marketers roll today. If you haven’t jumped on the PPL bandwagon, you should. You can get performance lead generation from media companies (such as the one I work at, Tippit) where you provide some sort of content such as a white paper in exchange for registration information. The media company will determine the number of leads they will deliver and a price. You can control your CPL metrics and organize around particular quantity numbers. This is good for marketers. You can also do this with appointment-setting vendors such as Green Leads, a firm led by one of the most active mavens on the market @damphoux.

8.    Targeted email/email blast: Email is not for spam anymore. As marketers have gotten more sophisticated, they have gotten much better at outbound email. We have seen a big jump in email blasts to our database. You can blast to a third-party database (check out Marketfish for an amazing new targeted email application).

9.     Trade show: Ah, the trade show. Let’s define a tradeshow as a broad industry event (e.g., Interop for IT), with a variety of different talk tracks, trade show booths, etc. Trade shows aren’t dying, they are just never going to be the same again. In ancient times, there were lots of tradeshows with lots of people and lots of vendors. Those days are gone. The trade shows that work are:

a.    Raging parties: CES
b.    Real education value: Sirius Decisions in marketing is a perfect example. They really focus on the content instead of pretending to help buyers, but peddling their own goods.

10.    Live seminars: These can fall victim to the same symptoms as trade shows. The time commitment to travel ratio is minimized and the focus (not trying to be something for everyone) is compelling.

11.    Lunch and learns: These are the same as live seminars but are shorter and with less content. Lunch and learns are small local, lunch events typically put on by vendors. They get 10 people, so the ROI is debatable.

12.    Maven: Two years ago, I admit I had to look this one up. Here is the best technical definition: “A maven is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. The word maven comes from the Hebrew, via Yiddish, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge.”  A number of factors have made the role of the maven uber-critical in your life:

a.    The role of third-party/thought leadership content in effective marketing practice.  In other words, take a look around and you will find the best marketers incorporating the work of thought leaders and mavens instead of product sheets and data sheets.
b.    Social media: the maven has gone from obscurity (only writing books and speaking at seminars) to global popularity with social media (Twitter in particular) and blogging. When I am doing research in my field, I go to my favorite mavens such as @ardath421 or @brianjcarroll in marketing (there are more obviously, but I need to restrain myself)

13.    Maven marketing: I just made this phrase up too, and I’m hoping it sticks. Today’s marketer does two things with mavens:

a.    Courts and/or works with mavens to create helpful buyer materials that don’t necessarily ever mention their product – that’s right. Mavens get more downloads than you and are TRUSTED. Today’s buyer trusts two people: their peers and their mavens. Those two groups far outweigh the vendor.
b.    Creates mavens from their organization. Here’s one for all those people with social media budgets. Start by creating an internal maven. Here’s an example from the marketing industry: Mike Volpe (@mvolpe), VP at Hubspot, has 15,872 people who follow his every move on Twitter. They read him, respect him and re-Tweet him. That’s hipster marketing.

14.    Marketing automation: This is an emerging software category offered by a plethora of vendors intended to consolidate, systematize and improve your marketing efforts. For some it’s nothing more than an email tool on steroids; for others, it’s delivering on the promise. Check out @cjablonski for more.

15.    Content marketing: An Internet-spawned phenomenon embraced by B2B marketers. It has unleashed a torrent of information intended to build vendor thought leadership by way of educating the customer until sold on the brand. See @cjablonski.

16.    Social media marketing: The marketing trend du jour with vendor outposts proliferating across social networking sites as they join communities and conversations in the effort to build awareness, drive sales and get people to talk about them. See @cjablonski.

17.    Sales 2.0: I grabbed a technical definition from InsideCRM.com: “Sales 2.0 brings together customer-focused methodologies and productivity-enhancing technologies that transform selling from an art to a science. Sales 2.0 relies on a repeatable, collaborative and customer-enabled process that runs through the sales and marketing organization, resulting in improved productivity, predictable ROI and superior performance.” What matters to you is that there are killer tools that make sales better. An example is Connect and Sell which is a new-age auto-dialer that guarantees sales connects. Why does that matter to a marketer?
a.    It’s a great tool for your lead-qualification team.
b.    The biggest lag on your conversion rates come from sales connecting with your leads. Offering them tools to be more effective is a win for you. Period.

18.    Thought leadership: In a world full of information and “me-too” solutions, you need to differentiate and boost your signal-to-noise ratio through the delivery of expertise and original knowledge that your audience cares about. Tap your mavens for this. See @cjablonski.

19.    White paper syndication: Your marketing assets reside on your Web site, but you can get a lot more mileage out of them if you make them available from relevant sites across the internet. Vendors like Tippit can get your content into the right hands to help spread your message and build the top of your funnel. See @cjablonski.

20.    BANT (Budget Authority Need Timeframe): A qualification methodology, or information that must be gathered or agreed to before passing a lead to sales. BANT is an age-old tradition that is coming back in vogue (big-time). Note to self: BANT is not something you achieve in lead generation (don’t put timeframe on forms) but in lead qualification.

21.    Personal branding: This concept is not new, and not unique to marketing. But every marketer needs to understand it and practice it. Interacting with the world through a well-defined “brand of you” gives you a unique perspective on how people engage those other brands that you are paid to promote. See @TLOTL.

22.    Mass expertization: A rapidly growing population of people, typically with commercial or status-driven agendas, publishing original content drawn from their experience, for the consumption of peers and/or prospective business partners. See @TLOTL.

23.    Webcast, Webinar or Web Seminar: A webcast is a presentation delivered over the Internet so that prospects can watch instead of read. Webcasts are typically an hour long and involve a PowerPoint presentation. Webcasts should not be confused with video. Yes, you can use video, but that is not your typical use-case for a webcast. Webcasts are great vehicles for education, lead nurturing, thought leadership and quantifiable lead generation.

24.    Optimization: Overused marketer term but critical nonetheless. Every element of your demand-generation process has hidden pockets of opportunity to improve. Don’t think so? Hire a consultant or design thinker to review your content and your strategy and listen in disbelief. See @cjablonski.

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

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Business Musings, Direct Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Lead Development, Lead Qualification, Lead/Inquiry Generation, Marketing Automation, Social Networking, Thought Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

210 B2B Marketing Tips for 2010

January 14, 2010 by 1 Comment

Drumroll please …  I present the 210 B2B marketing tips for 2010. Let me tell you, this was quite an adventure, one that I will certainly do differently in the future.

Basically, the sequence of events went like this:

  1. Decide on topic: 210 tips for 2010
  2. Start writing them off the top of my head
  3. Get to 65
  4. Still determined, decide to ask for help
  5. @scottalbro, @cjablonski, @tlotl, @mschmier and @damphoux come to the rescue

Much of what you see below is attributed. Some, however, like the input from @scottalbro, were fed to me conversationally through stream of consciousness, so I didn’t attribute them. He is a great writer and would not be crazy about my translation.

So, without further ado, here they are. I hope you enjoy them.

  1. Contribute to the conversation (@tlotl)
  2. Create remarkable content (lots of it) (@tlotl)
  3. Distribute remarkable content (@tlotl)
  4. Evolve beyond managing CPL (@tlotl)
  5. Bring data to Sales management (@tlotl)
  6. Talk to in-market prospects (@tlotl)
  7. Close the buyer loop (@tlotl)
  8. Talk to people who have bought/customers (@tlotl)
  9. Talk to people who chose a competitor (@tlotl)
  10. Sit in on a sales call once a week
  11. Sit in on a prospecting call
  12. Create a lead scoring system
  13. Implement a lead scoring system
  14. BTW, if you are just starting on scoring, don’t get too extreme. Scoring means deciding which leads are better than others.
  15. Implement a lead nurturing program
  16. Judge lead nurturing progress via the conversion rate after 1 month metrics
  17. Buy a marketing automation platform
  18. Implement a marketing automation platform (no shelf-ware)
  19. Create a unified lead definition
  20. Get the unified lead definition signed off by sales
  21. Don’t agree to restrictive BANT criteria without considering all the people you won’t have sales talk to (if you think about it, they probably do)
  22. And if you are in a hyper-targeted market (e.g., are focused on managed service providers only), your unified lead definition should be only: the right person with interest. Anything more restrictive means one lead a month, and your organization in trouble
  23. Meet with sales weekly/bi-weekly for anecdotal closed loop feedback
  24. Make a decision based on metrics
  25. Make lots of decisions based on metrics
  26. Over-rule a metrics-driven decision with a decision made from the gut
  27. Basically: Balance metrics with intuition
  28. Oh, and track everything you can
  29. Oh, and yes, the numbers will never be perfect, but they should be enough to help you make decisions
  30. Follow the top marketing mavens on twitter
  31. Read content from top marketing mavens on twitter
  32. Ask a question you want answered on Focus.com (OK, you can ask it on LinkedIn, too)
  33. Create a lead management plan that starts from the top (lead generation) to a passed lead (P.S., based on your unified lead definition)
  34. Read your competitors marketing materials
  35. Fill out a lead form on your competitors site and see how they qualify, convert and nurture you
  36. Do a at least one webinar a month
  37. Make the webinar focused on business pains and issues, NOT a demo for your product
  38. Leverage experts and thought leaders in your industry to speak
  39. P.S., have those same experts create white papers, blog posts, etc. for you
  40. Think of webinars for ALL aspects: quantifiable lead generation, lead nurturing, education, thought leadership
  41. Create a lead qualification organization (dedicated phone-based team focused on following up on leads)
  42. Optimize your lead qualification organization
  43. Read scripts, emails etc.
  44. Send an email to your clients that doesn’t sell them anything but instead helps them do their job
  45. Then send these helpful emails monthly
  46. Then use the marketing automation system you bought to track efficiency
  47. Don’t forget your current customers, or to put it another way, market and foster goodwill with your customers
  48. Update your social media profiles for completeness and marketability even if you aren’t looking for a job (LinkedIn, Focus.com, Facebook)
  49. Start a blog
  50. Update your blog weekly minimum
  51. Don’t write about yourself, your company, etc. on the blog, except once in awhile
  52. Put marketing, lead generation blogs into your Google reader
  53. Allot 22 minutes a day to reading industry-related content
  54. Respect every single lead (@cjablonski)
  55. “Systems design” your programs (@cjablonski)
  56. Make calculated risks routinely (@cjablonski)
  57. Delight the most loyal (@cjablonski)
  58. Surprise your customers (@cjablonski)
  59. Be your target audience (@cjablonski)
  60. Rip and replace your strategies (@cjablonski)
  61. Manage your brand symbols (@cjablonski)
  62. Nurture as if you meant it (@cjablonski)
  63. Cleanse your sales pipeline (@cjablonski)
  64. Be authoritative
  65. Track your metrics based on opportunities created and opportunities
  66. Get everyone on CRM (seriously — Its 2010)
  67. Get a sales 2.0 tool
  68. Increasing connects increases conversion
  69. Don’t complain about what sales is doing with your leads
  70. Don’t complain about sales in general
  71. Urgency. Just be urgent
  72. Call your lead generation vendors and optimize the program with real data
  73. Post your content on third-party Web sites to capture traffic not going to your Web site
  74. Get tweetdeck, hootsuite or something to manage your twitter content
  75. Re-evaluate your Web site. Chances are it sucks
  76. Clearly define what your product is and the use case it solves for in buyer language on your Web site, in materials, etc. — how many Web sites do you go do and you can’t figure out what the f*** the vendor does?) (@mschmier)
  77. Optimize your landing pages for conversion
  78. Considering pulling fields OFF your landing pages to get more people to download
  79. Go to one of the following trade shows: Marketing Sherpa or Sirius Decisions.
  80. Stop going to industry trade shows that don’t work
  81. However, don’t think about immediate conversion, judge the show by important meetings had (could be with customers) and the “right” people. If you are looking at short-term conversion rates, you will cancel them all.
  82. Test a new lead generation source whenever you can (or you’ll never know what works)
  83. Not sure what to do about Facebook — if you can get business there, write me back for next year
  84. Read the book: eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale by Ardath Albee
  85. Read the book: Digital Body Language by Steven Woods
  86. Buying a list is not a lead generation strategy
  87. Buying leads is not a lead generation strategy
  88. Instead, figure how to convert leads, then buy leads or lists — if you know how to convert, you can buy till the cows come home
  89. Remember: white paper leads are the start of a conversation, not the end of the conversation
  90. Try new things, always (I think I already said that)
  91. Channel partners are terrible at following up on leads; if you pass them leads, run them through a lead qual team first or buy appointments
  92. Replace “always be closing” with “always be helping”
  93. Map and understand how your buyers make decisions
  94. Re-evaluate your target buyer persona.
  95. Confirm the target buyer persona and tell everyone in your organization till they tell you to shut up (it’s that important that they know)
  96. Make your written content one page. Buyers are busy
  97. Consider simplifying your message — bring back “simple as 1-2-3” messaging
  98. Buyers love lists, they just do. Lists are easy to read and set an expectation with the reader that it will only be “X” number of points in the offer
  99. Create a diverse mix of content (webinars, white papers, podcasts)
  100. When following up on leads, combine phone and email
  101. Optimize everything about the phone and email process: scripts, emails, sequencing
  102. Meet with sales leadership and get them on board. Act like a sales person. They will barf on you at first, but don’t quit — get buyoff
  103. Spend some time and money, and you WILL make more money
  104. Metrics aren’t just cool, use them to make you better (and look better!)
  105. Warning on all this: Sales will always be from Mars, and marketing will always be from Venus
  106. Consider all the touch points in a campaign not just the messaging — message, landing page, follow-up, etc.
  107. When considering, draw a process map to represent the various touch points
  108. Create metrics for each touch point
  109. But pick three overall metrics you will look at every day
  110. Did I mention social media? Have a twitter strategy, use LinkedIn too
  111. Do things on social media, but if you move money away from pure demand generation for social media, that is bad, because …
  112. Social media is not a “down the funnel” lead generation strategy, measure social media buy link-backs and traffic, not people ready to buy tomorrow
  113. Oh yeah, and if you’re judged only by finding people ready to buy tomorrow, warm up the resume
  114. Run a VITO campaign. They still work if you combine phone follow-up with the marketing portion
  115. Throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care.
  116. Talk to your CEO more than the VP of Sales does
  117. Talk to your prospects using case studies
  118. Peers are the most trusted source of information for other buyers — leverage your customer network via webcasts and references to re-enforce your value proposition (@mschmier)
  119. Online vs. offline is very 2009 (@scottalbro)
  120. Online AND offline is very 2010 (@scottalbro)
  121. Create a list of 210 tips for your target buyer
  122. Do email campaigns — they still work.
  123. I know I mentioned podcasts earlier, but don’t do them. They don’t work
  124. Choose someone in your company who will be your voice online
  125. Stop advertising in trade magazines
  126. If you are fortunate to sponsor a big sporting event, make sure you get tickets as well because you should at least get personal ROI
  127. Make sure you provide a demo. The self-service buyer craves it (this falls under “down the funnel” content)
  128. Understand your competition and give sales real competitive language, not high-level outdated, irrelevant stuff (everyone considers more)
  129. Where are your users online? Figure out where your users are online and create a strategy as appropriate. Hint, most SMB buyers probably aren’t tweeting all day. (@mschmier)
  130. The phone is still the most important tool for conversion to opportunity.
  131. Go to sales training — if you can sell, you can market
  132. Read a sales book, see above
  133. Try emails using the exact opposite of best practices
  134. Oh, and send an email on Sunday morning. People will open it
  135. Social media is not a panacea (@cjablonski)
  136. Improve field-to-headquarters information flow (@cjablonski)
  137. Research your industry buying cycles (@cjablonski)
  138. Deliver on your intent, daily (@cjablonski)
  139. If you don’t believe in your value proposition, rewrite it (@cjablonski)
  140. If the average person can’t understand your value prop, rewrite it
  141. Social media is WOM on steroids (@cjablonski)
  142. Keep emerging submarkets on your radar (@cjablonski)
  143. If you pay for impressions, then you will get impressions(@cjablonski)
  144. Give away your best content for free (@cjablonski)
  145. Learn your company’s elevator pitch (@tlotl)
  146. Write your personal elevator pitch (@tlotl)
  147. Claim your area of unique expertise (@tlotl)
  148. Challenge any assumption more than 9 months old (@tlotl)
  149. Learn how to (effectively) explain social media to executive management (@tlotl)
  150. Don’t let the bastards drag you down (@tlotl)
  151. Don’t get defensive
  152. Append your house list. Why wouldn’t you?
  153. Be the first to develop a Google Wave marketing strategy (@cjablonski)
  154. Throw your hands in the air and Google Wave them like you just don’t care
  155. If you spend more money on promotional items like t-shirts and pens than you did on demand gen, then shame on you
  156. Facilitate conversations between experts (@tlotl)
  157. Create content for every buyer persona you create (business users want something different than technical)
  158. Consumer marketers are light years ahead of B2B marketers. If you want to know what’s cutting edge, it’s them.
  159. Don’t overvalue title filters with content syndication; identifying organizational interest is the goal.
  160. P.S., Directors and VPs don’t download white papers online.
  161. Keep voicemails under 30 seconds
  162. In voicemails, don’t sell the product, sell the next step (e.g., just ask them to read your email), because …
  163. You should send an email after you leave a voicemail. You will get an exponentially higher open rate.
  164. Speaking of which, in lead gen and marketing, you should sell the meeting, demo, or next step not the product
  165. If you throw a party , invite the neighborhood — don’t filter webinars
  166. Keep marketing and generating demand in December, or you’ll end up with no pipeline in January.
  167. Understand common prospect objections and help attack them in your collateral.
  168. Assess the ROI of your fixation on ROI (@cjablonski)
  169. Elevate your marketing database hygiene (@cjablonski)
  170. Shoot for viral when you have the talent (@cjablonski)
  171. Make a contingency plan for your guerilla marketing idea (@cjablonski)
  172. Don’t write off direct mail (@cjablonski)
  173. Work with “frenemies” to serve the community (@cjablonski)
  174. Don’t hire someone to write your blog (@cjablonski)
  175. Be interesting by being interested (@cjablonski)
  176. Help make sales people be trusted expert advisers(@cjablonski)
  177. Don’t begin a survey with demographic questions (@cjablonski)
  178. Have conversations not sales pitches (@cjablonski)
  179. Create versatile content: Can you use this content in a white paper, webinar, blog post, etc.?
  180. Marketing is either a critical advantage against your competitors or nothing at all (obsolete, ineffective, etc.). Think like sales when you build your marketing strategy — build it to compete
  181. When considering everything you can do in 2010, remember you will be judged by pipeline created for sales
  182. Knowing the above, when trying to figure out whether to put money into lead gen or branding and you can’t afford to do both, I think you know the answer now
  183. Repurpose old content (@damphoux)
  184. Measure CPO (Cost per Opportunity) (@damphoux)
  185. It’s not a sales process, it’s a buying process (@damphoux)
  186. Interview candidates from competition (@damphoux)
  187. Ask prospects which competitor you lost a deal to (@damphoux)
  188. Ask them why (@damphoux)
  189. Pounce on a Web lead if they abandoned their visit on the Contact Us page (@damphoux)
  190. Make the goal of the first sales call to get a second (@damphoux)
  191. Different sales reps at the same company can benefit by different leads (introductory appointments for one, qualified leads for others) (@damphoux)
  192. Not all sales people know what’s right for them — think of them as teens and give them what you think is right for them (@damphoux)
  193. Log into your webinar platform an hour early and get all presenters set up early (@damphoux)
  194. Do demand gen programs targeting your existing and past clients (@damphoux)
  195. Never pay a lead gen team by the hour, pay for results (@damphoux)
  196. Spend a day with your lead gen team or vendor (@damphoux)
  197. Teach your sales team the best practices of handling the leads you worked so hard to generate (@damphoux)
  198. Learn how to use a tweet scheduler, but still be personal most of the time (@damphoux)
  199. Your most important landing page is your home page (@damphoux)
  200. One of the highest converting forms is the Subscribe to Blog by Email form (@damphoux)
  201. Selling doesn’t start until sales is talking with a prospect. Set introductory appointments for them (@damphoux)
  202. Do AB testing with a simple 3 line email, instead of a formal email marketing piece (@damphoux)
  203. Read the Pounce, Pause, Nurture or Wait debate (@damphoux)
  204. You spend thousands, if not millions of dollars building your contact database, so invest a little bit to maintain it with dedupes and validation (@damphoux)
  205. Attend a tweetup (@damphoux)
  206. Create a simple slideshare presentation and make every marketing and sales member of your team loads it into their LinkedIn profiles. Stagger them so they continually go live (@damphoux)
  207. Favorite, Like, Retweet people promoting your offering (@damphoux)
  208. Build a twitter “List” (@damphoux)
  209. If you see business cards lying on a sales rep’s desk, get them entered into a spreadsheet/CSV for free (@damphoux)
  210. Never try to do a list over 10 by yourself (especially 210)

Thanks, @scottalbro, @cjablonski, @tlotl, @mschmier, @damphoux.

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, Business Musings, CRM, Direct Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Internet, Lead Development, Lead Qualification, Lead/Inquiry Generation, Management, Marketing Automation, sales, Social Networking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 3 Absolutely, Positively “Must-Haves” for Successful Lead Nurturing, Featuring an All-Star Cast

December 2, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I don’t publicize all the Webcasts I am in, even though I should. That being said, I am really excited about “3 Must-Haves for Successful Lead Nurturing”  on December 8 at 10 a.m PST / 1 p.m. EST.

Here are the reasons I’m keyed up about the Webcast — and you should be too:

1. It’s about lead nurturing, but better. Like you, when I see a link that says “lead nurturing,” I click on it. And I, like many of you, are often bummed about the content, which can be redundant, basic, conceptual and sometimes stupid. We strive to provide the opposite — content that is fresh and innovative and complete with concrete action items.

2. It captures the core of what we in sales and marketing really need to know. We are talking about nurturing’s three essential elements:

  • Content
  • The “human touch”
  • Marketing automation

3. We are presenting an all-star cast consisting of three of the biggest, smartest players in the business:

  • Ardath Albee (@ardath421): A CEO and B2B marketing strategist of a notable consulting firm, Marketing Interactions Inc. She is one of the most respected B2B marketing experts in our space, and if you don’t follow her content, get on the stick. And read her book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale.
  • Brian Carroll (@brianjcarroll): The 800-pound gorilla in the demand-generation and lead-nurturing space, who is without a doubt the most famous blogger and speaker on those topics.
  • Scott Mersy (@smersy): A rising star. Pay attention, and see what we are noticing — more and more of Scott’s smart, insightful and helpful content on the Internet.  As vice president of marketing and products at Genius.com, he’s an expert on what it takes to succeed at lead nurturing.

So, sign up and check out our Webcast: Tuesday, December 8 at  10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m.  EST. Register here.

See you there!

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

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, webinar Tagged With: , , , ,

Confessions of a Funnelholic

July 31, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Yes, the book and subsequent movie “Confessions of a Shopaholic” inspired the title, but I couldn’t resist.

So, without further ado, Confessions of a Funnelholic:

  1. I hate to say this, but I see similarities between The Funnelholic and the “Shopaholic”: The young writer’s financial column becomes very popular not because of her tremendous financial acumen but because her writing is “accessible.” She avoids complicated, esoteric language and gives her readers insight into the complex world of finance. While I feel like I have sales and marketing acumen, I have tried to make The Funnelholic casual and readable, which I believe has been one of the keys to success for this blog.
  2. I stole the “Thought Leadership Series” Idea: One of the biggest traffic drivers for me has been the Thought Leadership interviews. I didn’t come up with the idea. I stole it from Jon Miller at Marketo and his Modern Marketing blog. I have no apologies, and Jon’s not mad at me. If there is one rule the Internet has created for marketers, it’s “if it works, steal it.” When marketers are coming up with their campaigns, I always tell them that part of their strategy should be to take anything that works for their competitors. Is an Adwords campaign working for a competitor? Copy it, make some minor tweaks and go.
  3. I write everything myself: Some people in my company don’t believe I write everything, but I do. This isn’t much of a confession. The confession is that I leverage Tippit’s editorial staff to help edit and provide writing ideas.
  4. I work for Tippit: Tippit CEO Scott Albro and I are big believers in third-party thought leadership. When I decided to write the blog, we agreed that The Funnelholic would not be an adver-blog for Tippit. It has worked, but the only negative has been the fact that no one knows I work for Tippit. Well, I do. But there is a greater point here: Today’s buyers leverage the Web to educate themselves (given), but their preferences are for third-party, non-partial thought leaders to turn to, not datasheets. Buyers listen to trusted advisors not sleazy sales pitches. We made the right move.
  5. I create titles first and work backwards: It sounds crazy, but it’s true for two reasons: First, I think like a demand gen guy, with a subject line, a.k.a conversion, first. Second, I have a notepad, write down ideas as I do lead gen all day and fill it with knowledge later.
  6. I read techcrunch: It’s my vicarious thrill.
  7. I am having fun again writing posts: Man, I got serious for awhile and had to bring back the fun.
  8. My posting schedule has become inconsistent and it’s bad. Folks, my traffic has been affected big time. All those blog tips on writing blogs are right. You have to do content at least twice a week.

Thanks for indulging me.

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, Business Musings, Random-ness, Thought Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Reporting on Demand Gen: Thought Leadership Interview #19 with Andrew Gaffney of the Demand Gen Report

May 19, 2009 by 1 Comment

Today we have a colleague of mine from the Lead Generation Blogosphere, Andrew Gaffney — the editor of DemandGen Report — The Scorecard for Sales & Marketing Automation. It’s a must-subscribe for anybody in the “game,” and I am really excited to get him to join in on the Thought Leadership fun.

Gaffney also heads up G3 Communications, which specializes in helping B2B organizations develop custom content for thought leadership and lead nurturing campaigns. Translation: Like me, he doesn’t just write about it, he lives it.

Enjoy the interview.

1.    What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?
The first and most prominent would be more emphasis on lead nurturing as companies look to maximize their marketing investments. When the economy was still in a growth mode, it was easy for B2B marketers to keep paying for more new leads to feed the funnel. Now, as efficiency has become the rule of the day, companies realize they can’t afford to let valid contacts waste away in their database.

The second trend I’ve seen is more focus on lead progression and the conversion of leads through the various stages of the marketing and sales funnel, ultimately increasing the number of opportunities the sales team is trying close.

Finally, I would point to the increase of new media and new tactics to engage prospects. Whether it is social media, viral video, e-books, podcasts or other types of content, B2B marketers are realizing they need multiple touch points in order to stand out from the crowd noise.

2.       What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

Buyers are clearly pulling back and really looking for reasons not to invest. Companies have to have a fine-tuned demand generation engine in order to connect with contacts at the top of the funnel and then have a compelling ROI and competitive advantage story in order to progress prospects to close the deal and make an investment in this climate.

3.       What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?
As I mentioned earlier, I think conversion rates at each phase of the funnel from inquiry to qualified lead and then handoff to sales will be critical to success. Marketers are going to need to benchmark their progression rates against established best practices and establish goals to improve at each phase. Ultimately that will pay dividends in the revenue and closed deals. There are probably four to five different metrics specific to the funnel  I’d suggest looking at, rather than only three.

4.      What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?
One of the most common mistakes I see is overlooking the importance of the contact database. The old phrase “garbage in, garbage out” is especially true in lead generation. If you don’t have a solid data base of current and accurate contacts who are the right demographics for your solution, you’ll get a lot of email bounce-backs, your telemarketing will cost you a lot more and your results will suffer.
5.       What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?
Micro-manage as much as possible. Focus on data hygiene with your contact database and then look at the progression rates of each phase of the funnel to where your messaging may be missing the mark.

6. What  three Web 2.0 applications,  cutting-edge technologies, or lead-generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?
I think we’ve gotten to the point where a marketing automation system is a must-have. I have seen too many examples where high-growth companies have a significant lead over the pack because they have more intelligence on prospect behavior and they know the optimal path to progress prospects through the funnel.

There are a lot of intelligent database tools I would recommend — such as Demandbase, ZoomInfo and Reachforce — which really enable marketing and sales to have smarter touches with prospects. These tools have proven to really accelerate the engagement process in B2B.

Then I would suggest looking at any ROI tools, such as calculators or assessment tools, which help in the later stages of the funnel.

7.    What do you hope for in b2b sales and marketing for the new year?
I’d like to see the maturity and skill sets around demand generation continue to progress. Sophisticated companies are realizing it’s no longer just about getting random contacts to complete registration forms, its aligning sales and marketing processes to accelerate the buying cycle of targeted prospects.

And I’d love to see the economy start to turn so budgets loosen up and we can all start focusing on growth again.

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

Filed Under: b2b Marketing, Business Musings, Direct Marketing, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Funnels, Lead Qualification, Marketing Automation, Thought Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Thought Leadership Interview #1: Anneke Seley proving every day that the Phone Works’ in Lead Generation

January 6, 2009 by 4 Comments

Anneke SeleyAnneke Seley is our first interview in the series. Anneke Seley was the twelfth employee at Oracle and the designer of the company’s revolutionary inside-sales operation. She is currently the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a consultancy that helps large and small businesses build and restructure sales teams to achieve predictable, measurable, and sustainable sales growth. Her book, “Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology,” is available at online retailers. For more information, visit www.sales20book.com.

Everywhere you go in Silicon Valley, people know Phone Works. In my eyes they have evolved their messaging to the point that they are directly associated with the Sales 2.0 movement. I am excited to have them involved in the Funnel Thought Leadership Interview series.

1.   What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

  • Proliferation of Sales 2.0 — the use of innovative sales practices enabled by technology that creates value for both the buyer and seller.
  • More focus on measurable, predictable selling and lowering cost of sales.
  • Strengthening of customer relationships and alignment with buyer preferences.

2.   What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

  • Finding new customers with budget and resources this quarter.
  • Keeping sales teams motivated.
  • Getting creative and strategic when it’s necessary to do more with less.

3.   What are three metrics that b2b marketers should care about and why?

  • The number of qualified leads they are adding to pipeline weekly/monthly/quarterly. Volume is important, but numbers alone won’t help sales make its numbers.
  • ROI on marketing investments (best sources of qualified leads) to drive future investments in the most effective programs and avoid spending money on ineffective programs
  • Conversion rates from qualified-lead stage to future stages such as opportunity and close. To align marketing goals with sales objectives, leads should be tracked all the way through the sales cycle. Compensating marketing for generating leads that turn into revenue strengthens this alignment.

4.   What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

  • Not measuring quality or conversion from lead to close.
  • Not communicating with sales on what constitutes a “qualified lead” or “target prospect”
  • Under-investing/not understanding volumes of qualified leads needed in the pipeline for sales to make its numbers.

5.   What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

  • We design sales processes that clearly indicate the volume of qualified leads required for revenue objectives to be met.
  • We work with marketing to define target prospects, lead-rating criteria and lead-qualification processes and establish sales development functions to track demand-generation program effectiveness as well as effectiveness of marketing messages, positioning, pricing, lists and offers.
  • We recommend marketing automation tools that can accelerate the sales process and test the results of those tools with pilot programs.

6.   What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead-generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

If forced to pick only three, I would pick a well-designed, easy-to-use, expandable CRM as the foundation, a great contact list/data source that is well-maintained and accurate, and sales analytics tools to facilitate sales process measurement. But there are many other effective tools that help engage or qualify customers online, accelerate the process of connecting with them live, shorten the contracts cycle, and so on.

In order to pick the best technology for you, first establish a sales process to track and measure your sales steps consistently to understand where the selling cycle is stalling or sales challenges are occurring. Only then can you determine which tools can have the most impact for your company.

7.   What do you hope for in b2b sales and marketing for the new year?

  • Close communication and collaboration — with each other as well as with customers and prospects.
  • Changing mindset to embrace Sales 2.0 and the science of predictable selling.
  • Staying positive, optimistic and creative!

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, CRM, DRIP and Lead Nurturing, Inside Sales and Tele-selling, Internet, Lead Development, Lead management, Lead Qualification, Lead/Inquiry Generation, Management, Marketing Automation, Random-ness, Thought Leadership Tagged With: , , , ,
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