B2B Lead Blog

The audience for podcasts is tiny, when compared to other marketing mediums, but growing especially, in the context of the complex sale.  Podcasting is proving to be a great way share multimedia content because your audience can fetch it automatically or when it fits their schedule. 

Podcasting is already successfully used for:

• Talk radio complete with topic and call-in listeners where voice mail boxes can play the audio into the podcast.
• Ideas or tips of the day.
• Short interviews with thought leaders and industry experts.
• Recording speeches or teleconferences for later distribution. 

A new article in BtoB Magazine by Karen J. Bannan on podcasts caught my attention.  Bannan’s article examines how John Costigan Cos. is using podcasts to generate sales leads and revenue for their sales training events. 

I’m going to share some ideas on how to use podcasts for lead generation with podcast expert, Joe Cullinane over at the Cullinane & Green Report some time in the next week.  Joe just did did an interesting podcast with best selling author, Guy Kawasaki.

Link: BtoBOnline.com: Firm showcases owner’s personality with podcasts.

Current Affairs, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Strategy, Podcasting, Public Relations (PR), Sales, Weblogs, Word-of-Mouth

Join me for a complimentary webcast on Thursday, March 16th at 2pm EST.  I’m speaking on the "8 Critical Success Factors for B2B Lead Generation Success" along with Mark Organ, CEO of Eloqua.   

Watch the recorded webcast archive now

During this webcast, I will share the most critical – and often overlooked – factors in successful lead generation including:

• How to combine sales and marketing to optimize the number of leads
• Preventing lulls in your sales cycle
• Developing Universal Lead Definition (ULD) and ideal customer profile (ICP)
• Building, maintaining and growing your database
• Multi-modal lead nurturing – a crash course
• Ready yourself for what’s next – new and promising tactics
• and more…

Register for this webcast registration is closed. Watch the recorded webcast now

Sponsored by Eloqua, provider of the leading integrated demand generation platform for executing, automating and measuring highly effective B2B marketing programs.

B2B Telemarketing, Books, CRM, Cold Calling, Current Affairs, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Podcasting, Public Relations (PR), ROI Measurement, Referral Marketing, Sales, Sales Leads, Web/Tech, Webcasts/Webinars, Weblogs, Word-of-Mouth

Aaron Ross over at "Building The "Sales Machine"  shares some great tips on trade show lead generation.  Ross writes, "You need a process that emphasizes quality of leads over quantity of names." 

I agree.  Well meaning marketers can ruin their lead generation results by rushing an unqualified list of tradeshow attendees to their sales team.  After doing numerous lead qualification programs, we have found 5% to 15% of trade show inquiries are truly sales ready leads. 

So don’t pass marketing driven inquiries to your sales people until they’re more rigorously qualified as sales ready leads.  Early stage leads – those who are not ready to speak to a sales person yet – can be developed further with an effective lead nurturing program. 

Link: Building The "Sales Machine": How to Generate Real Leads from Trade show/Conferences.

Direct Marketing, Event Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Marketing Strategy, ROI Measurement, Sales, Sales Leads

I was quoted in an article on B-to-B marketing in Marketing News, a publication of the American Marketing Association.  The article entitled, "It Takes a Committee to Buy into B-to-B," by Staff Writer Allison Enright, focuses on how marketers can connect with decision makers in big companies. 

If you’re doing marketing or lead generation for a complex sale, you’ll want to read it.  Normally, this article would only be open to American Marketing Association Members but InTouch was given special permission to share it with readers of the B2B Lead Generation Blog.  Enjoy. 

Here’s a brief excerpt of the article:

If you think finding the right person to target with your business-to-business marketing is harder than it used to be, you’re right. The number of people involved in a purchasing decision is filling up the boardroom, according to Sirius Decisions Inc., a marketing and sales information services company in Southport, Conn.: In 2005, 3.5 more people on average were involved in making a purchasing decision than in 2001.

With so many people weighing in on a decision and no clear go-to target, marketing and salespeople are evaluating the best way to go about making a connection.

“The challenge is to create a dialogue from sales and marketing, and we need to be a lot more intelligent with our approach. People who are lower in the organization used to make decisions, but now it’s the boss’s bosses and involves more of a team approach,” says Brian Carroll, president of Arden Hills, Minn.-based sales qualifying service InTouch Inc., and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale."

Read full article "It Takes a Committee to Buy into B-to-B"

Reprinted with permission from Marketing News, published by the American Marketing Association, Allison Enright, February 15, 2006, Pages 11 – 13.

B2B Telemarketing, Cold Calling, Direct Marketing, Event Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Marketing Strategy, Referral Marketing, Sales, Sales Leads

Events are a highly visible way to demonstrate your marketing prowess.  Or the lack of it. Beyond the fact that it is more difficult than ever to attract people to live events, the events themselves require a large amount of careful planning and development, good content, and great orchestration.  The truth of the matter is, though, event marketing can deliver quite impressive return on your lead generation investment. 

If you’re planning any type of event marketing, Ruth Stevens’ new article on MarketingProfs.com is a great place to start.  Ruth is a super marketer and I think she’s dialed in on what’s working (and what’s not) in event marketing today.  Her book, Trade Show & Event Marketing, is definitely worth checking out too. 

Ten Secrets of Success in Business Event Marketing| MarketingProfs.com.

Three Ways to Develop a Business-Event Marketing Strategy| MarketingProfs.com

Event Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Public Relations (PR), Sales Leads, Webcasts/Webinars

Greetings and happy New Year!  Wow, I haven’t posted here in a month but I promise you will see a lot more activity soon.  In the meantime, I wanted to give you an update.

During the past month, I’ve put all of my energy into getting my first book, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, to the finish line.  I got this milestone e-mail (for a first time author) from my editor at McGraw-Hill.  She wrote, "I just put your book in production!  Congrats.  It’s in great shape.  All the final edits you made really helped to polish it off even more.  Well definitely go out and celebrate tonight.  I know that you’ve worked really hard on this manuscript and it’s turned into a fantastic manuscript."

So after 14-months of writing, editing, writing, editing, and re-rewriting again, I’m "done!"  Seriously, this has been a labor of love and I hope this book profoundly changes the way people think about lead generation and makes a huge impact. 

Though there are scores of books on direct marketing, branding, advertising, marketing tactics, PR, varied sales approaches, cold calling, etc., I have yet to find a text that addresses the comprehensive approach to lead generation for the complex sale like mine. 

I’m awaiting an official release date but Amazon currently shows April 15th… yes that’s Tax Day.  To those who have already pre-ordered the book, thanks!  You can pre-order it here. 

B2B Telemarketing, Books, CRM, Cold Calling, Current Affairs, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Personal Messages, Public Relations (PR), ROI Measurement, Referral Marketing, Sales, Sales Leads, Web/Tech, Webcasts/Webinars, Weblogs, Word-of-Mouth