The Funnelholic

Jobfox has released a report on the 20 most recession-proof jobs. There are two really interesting developments for my two blog constituents, sales and marketing folks.

1. Sales guys: Congratulations — you have and will survive the economic slowdown. Heck, even sales executives made the list, so congratulations. Bottom line: You can’t make money unless people are selling.
2. Marketing people: ouch. You’re not even on the list. What’s clear here is that marketers still have a lot of work to do to prove that they’re a part of the critical path to revenue. There are great tips on this on Jon Miller’s Modern B2B Marketing blog. Read his post “7 Strategies for B2B marketing During a Recession.” Then hit his series on “Proving Marketing’s Value” (start on Part I). It’s easy for me to say, but don’t lose your job. If you take the lesson learned from my previous post “The 7 Similarites Between VPs of Sales and Professional Sports Coaches,” marketers don’t get fired as frequently … but, as you can see from the below stat, you will struggle to get a new job.

By the way, I have never heard of Jobfox so I don’t even know how credible the data is. What I do know is that there is a beautiful marketing lesson to be learned from this. This data has been great viral content for Jobfox. I found this article on Network World’s blog, which proves that this piece of content worked. Now, I am writing about a company I have never heard of before, and I am giving them visibility. I also forwarded this article to some friends. And Jobfox didn’t write about its marketing mumbo jumbo, and the site has no registration form. Now that is social-media marketing.

Read Jobfox’s”Top 20 Most Recession Proof Professions” (PDF).

Top 20 Most Recession-Proof Professions

Rank

1. Sales Representative/ Business Development
2. Software Design/ Development
3. Nursing
4. Accounting and Finance Executive
5. Accounting Staff
6. Networking/Systems Admin
7. Administrative Assistant
8. Business Analysis ( Software Implementation)
9. Business Analysis ( Research)
10. Finance Staff
11. Project Management
12. Testing/ Quality Assurance
13. Product Management
14. Database Administration
15. Account/ Customer Support
16. Technology Engineering
17. Electrical Engineering
18. Sales Executive
19. Mechanical Engineering
20. Government Contracts Administration

Image via Wikipedia

It’s amazing, it seems like every week I run into a Direct Mail is not dead seminar or blog post or article. I just read the Go-to-Market Strategies article ‘Is Direct Mail Dead?‘ Typically I have stopped reading these last pleas to keep a dinosaur alive, but decided to read it today. This is my favorite quote: “The DMA study released in June 2008 shows that 75% of marketers still use direct mail and that direct mail still surpasses email in the most important result of all–revenue generation.” Look that does say direct mail is not dead, it still doesn’t mean it is not dying.

The Al Gore “Four”: The slow and painful death of direct mail.

1. The Incovenient Truth– Come on people…read the freaking news….you are killing the environment for a couple leads.
-Basically in the direct mail process you did the following:

1. Killed a tree
2. Used up expensive crude oil/gas (and funded terrorism)
3. There is probably a bunch of other environmental offenses you have done as well.

2. Al Gore, the ‘inventor’ of this little thing called the internet – Please join us in the millennium. Yes, marketing on the internet takes work. I still have some people I talk to who say the internet for lead generation does not work…those people clearly do not read my and other blogs and stories that the internet is a GREAT place to generate leads…you just need to have the right strategy to attack it. Commit to the internet for god’s sake, it’s time.

3. Al Gore’s reinvention to pure utter hipness – Guys, seriously, you just look bad with the client. If you are doing technology marketing and you send a piece of paper to an engineering guy, if he even gets it in his hand, he now hates you for sending him that. Seriously, in verticals like tech marketing you are HURTING yourself by sending them mail

4. Al Gore’s staff of people who read his mail – Look, your boy Al has a staff to read the mail, that’s right, they actually have a process for looking at it. The rest of us, file through the mail and look for the bills we have to pay, not to read a letter from you on Endpoint Security or VoIP.

The “Direct Mail is not dead” movement sounds is a conspiracy run by people who still broker addresses and do direct mail.

The webinar is fast becoming an extremely important element to one’s marketing mix.  In my generation, guys grew up watching television.  They hated reading.  From Happy Days to Laverne and Shirley to the Cosby Show to the Simpsons: They did not pick up a book.  P.S. they also were, bar-none, the biggest consumers of Cliff Notes. The moral of the story is: Have a variety of mediums you use to reach prospects.  If you have read my blog, you know I believe in whitepapers but you can’t JUST do whitepapers and you can’t just do emails.

It is my belief the webinar is a nice “quadruple whammy”.  A vehicle where you can get your money’s worth.  Remember: 4 reasons.  When you think of you webinars don’t just think of lead minimums and cpl, think of the entire package.

Continue Reading »

Image via Wikipedia

Can the B2B lead generation world accept whitepapers without reg forms?

Continue Reading »