B2B Lead Blog

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just collect hot leads by spending a few minutes a day on LinkedIn?

A member of our B2B Lead Generation Roundtable LinkedIn Group was likely dreaming about this when he asked the group for a way to generate leads through LinkedIn that “doesn’t require a lot of time, engagement and endless keyword searches.”

I posed this question to Ellie Mirman and Shreesha Ramdas. Mirman is head of SMB (small and medium-sized business) Marketing for HubSpot, and Ramdas is General Manager of LeadFormix, both are marketing organizations specializing in B2B lead generation.

Guess what? They said it is possible to generate hot leads in a few minutes a day.

But, here’s the rub: It’s going to take time, effort and content to reach that point.

(If you have heard the term “content” tossed around in marketing, but aren’t quite sure what it is, it’s just a fancy term for information. Content could be anything from a link to a newspaper article, to a blog post. Every time you see the word “content,” just think, “Oh, they mean information.”)

Here are their five essential tips to getting to the point where it’s easy to generate leads on LinkedIn.

1. Know and segment your audience.

Ramdas advised following groups, individuals and companies so information about them fills your LinkedIn stream. You’ll see what’s important to them through the information they’re posting, and the questions they’re asking. From that, you can determine what content they’ll value.

But, you only have so much time in the day, so he also advised being selective about the companies and people you follow, and the groups you join. To those ends, Ramdas suggested taking advantage of the advanced search option on the upper right corner of the LinkedIn page.

It enables you to search people by:

• Past and current employers
• Industry
• Location
• Title

For groups, he advised using the keyword function to:

• Search by industries in your marketplace, e.g., “semiconductors”
• Search for the roles that populate the influencers and decision-makers in your marketplace, e.g. “semiconductors, marketing”
• Selecting the groups where they are most active – some will be open and anyone can join, others will require approval for you to join.

“Those that require approval will have very relevant members,” Ramdas said.

2. Proceed with caution if you don’t want to be perceived as a spammer.

Once you have a list of names or are a member of a group, take it slow and move forward thoughtfully.

“Build up your credibility,” Ramdas advised.

3. Post content to groups and your own LinkedIn stream that matters to your marketplace.

To do so, Mirman offered these tips:

• Don’t sell. “The main rule of thumb is speaking to your target market’s problems or common challenges without selling your product,” she said, “and offer content that can help them – regardless of whether they buy from you – at least once or twice daily.”

• Keep it current. “Latch onto anything around recent news and current industry events,” she advised. “Find ways to marry current events to your industry.”

• Stay within the channel. “Stay specific to your social network, for instance, LinkedIn news does well on LinkedIn. Facebook news does well on Facebook,” Mirman said.

• Be proactive with blogging. She advised posting at least once weekly on real industry issues that point back to your solution.“Sales and Marketing should work closely together. The marketing team should be creating blogs and other content, and Sales can help ensure they are creating the right content by letting Marketing know what their prospects care about,” she explained.

4. Is time of the essence? Consider a paid program.

They’re often the fastest way to get your message in front of your prospects, Ramdas said.

“So, for example, if I am going to target a VP of marketing and irectors of marketing, I can run a LinkedIn banner ad promoting a white paper to all those members; it’s easier than joining groups and following discussions,” he explained.

But, those ads probably aren’t going to be as effective if there isn’t the groundwork of an existing relationship.

You can also pay for programs that can extract contact information from LinkedIn Groups so you can contact members directly.

“I wouldn’t advise doing this unless what you have to say is very relevant to the members,” Ramdas added. “Again, build up your credibility first.”

5. Message unto others …

Mirman believes there’s a golden rule to LinkedIn messages – contact others as you would like to be contacted.

“I get all of these LinkedIn messages from people I have no relationship with, maybe some sort of exchange at some point, but they have jumped way far ahead of the sales and marketing process by contacting me,” she explained. “They’re pitching me on an idea, solution or product that has nothing to do with my issues. It’s very irritating and I tune them out.’

The key, she said, is to share content your prospects will find interesting, share with their peers and motivate them to click through to your website and contact you.

“When you do that, you’re reaching more than just a few prospects, you’re reaching your prospects and their networks,” Mirman said. “The return on your time invested will increase exponentially and lead generation will become much easier – prospects will be seeking you out.”

Related Resources:

Social Media Marketing: 6 tips for running a valuable LinkedIn group that attracts prospects

How IntraLinks Used Social Media to Generate Twice as Many Sales-ready Leads as Any Other Channel

Lessons from a B2B Summit Coach: Five Steps to Cut through the Noise, Turn off the Hype and Create a B2B Social Media Program that Works

Social Media Pays Off Big for Over 1,000 Marketers Reporting 150% ROI or More

Is Social Media Really Living Up to Expectations?

Lead Generation content, lead generation, LinkedIn

I had the pleasure of attending MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2013 a couple of weeks ago, and while I was there, Jim Ducharme, Community Director, GetResponse, an email marketing vendor, asked me how to maintain low email-marketing opt-out rates.

My answer, in a word, was relevance. Watch the video below to find out more.

Relevance is the foundation of lead generation, which is, at its core, a series of conversations. Like real-time conversations, we can’t bore the recipients of our emails by talking about ourselves all the time – we have to discuss what they care about.

• If all we do is focus on winning the sale, they’re going to tune out or opt out.
• If we focus on how we can help them, we’re going to build trust, and when they trust you, they’ll stick around and likely buy whatever it is you’re selling.

The foundation of relevance is knowledge of your marketplace:

• Know what keeps your prospect up at night,
• Know what makes their lives easier or harder and
• Know how your value proposition helps.

This knowledge provides the context for compelling, relevant conversations your prospects will be eager to be a part of. Below are a handful of articles from the B2B Lead Roundtable blog to help you generate these kinds of conversations with your customers.

8 Questions to Steer Your Marketing Priorities – Find out the value of asking a handful of customers questions directly – not through surveys, focus groups, digital body language or social media.

Lead Nurturing: Build trust, win more deals by helping prospects – not selling them – Find out how to execute a relevant conversation.

3 Steps that Helped Skyline Exhibits Increase New Product Sales by 18% – Learn how Skyline Exhibits identifies and responds to problems in a way that improves its value to customers.

Sales-Marketing Alignment: How consistent messaging helped ADP engage customers at a faster pace – ADP reveals how Marketing and Sales align themselves to enhance the value proposition by identifying and responding to unmet customer needs.

Content Marketing: Slow, steady pay off for manufacturer – Find out how a manufacturer’s simple email campaign, featuring one piece of relevant content a month, is producing more leads than trade shows at a fraction of the price.

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013 Wrap-up: Top 5 takeaways for email marketers

Mining Gold through Email Integration: 3 lessons from MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2013 winners

Email Marketing: 142% higher open rate, 15% bigger list from retailer’s strategy

Marketing Automation: 25% more engagement, 0% unsubscribe in 4-email series

Email Marketing Email marketing, Email Summit 2013, Lead Nurturing, relevance

Tellabs is a global communications equipment company supporting telecom leaders such as AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon and Telefonica, and it’s able to hold its own in a cut-throat marketplace with competition up to 30 times its size.

“Tellabs is playing a David and Goliath game,” admits George Stenitzer, Vice President of Communications, Tellabs. “And content marketing is the slingshot that gives us a fair advantage.”

The rock in that slingshot is controversy.

“We want thought-provoking content: the kind of content that if you discussed it with your prospects in a crowded room, it should inspire an argument,” Stenitzer explained.

He cited the company’s study, The End of Profitability.

“We had a number of meetings with other industry analysts who did not share the point of view that we had in our report. They got in my face and said to me, ‘Look, your reports are all wrong. We have been following this industry for years. We don’t see anything like that coming. What are you talking about?’”

He walked them through Tellabs’ thought processes and the trends the company saw coming.

“What we found was in the course of those meetings, people were surprised,” he said. “Their eyes were opened. They gained a point of view that they had not seen before,” he says.

These kinds of conversations have helped Tellabs to:

• Attract prospects outside of its traditional marketplace, such as Google, government agencies and utility providers using the same services as telecom companies. This has created a multi-million dollar pipeline of pending deals every year.
• Gain worldwide industry attention. For instance, Tellabs is the only telecom company to have two stories featuring its content listed among the top 10 most-read stories for Total Telecom, an industry magazine serving readers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Here’s an overview of the steps the team at Tellabs takes to develop and distribute thought-provoking content:

1. They work with their public relations agency, one that specializes in the telecom industry, to come up with ideas which:

• Relate to their audience’s most pressing issues and problems.
• Point directly to Tellabs’ solutions.

They spend two months bouncing these ideas off professionals inside and outside Tellabs – from Sales and Marketing to industry analysts and journalists to customers. Stenitzer then has several face-to-face meetings with the public relations agency to hash out final ideas.

2. Once they choose an idea, they submit a request for proposal to identify an analyst firm to build a study around it. The selected firm spends several months doing research on the topic – including interviewing Tellabs customers. Actual customer quotes are always a part of their study. It’s a process that takes several months.

3. They develop how they will tell the story beyond the report itself. This includes news releases, videos, infographics, executive summaries, magazine articles and blogs.

“It will save you a lot of work if you use your industry analysts and journalists to do the thinking, questioning, writing and framing of the issues in your study,” Stenitzer advised. “Our industry journalists are well-known and respected by readers; they know how the industry works – there’s a lot of expertise we capture there.”

Stenitzer hires industry journalists for this purpose.

4. They don’t give everything away. Instead, their goal is to pique prospects’ interests to learn more, because the only way they can do so is to set up a meeting with Tellabs.

“We’ve turned content marketing into something that helps Sales get their job done,” Stenitzer said.

Related Resources:

Content Marketing: Slow, steady pay off for manufacturer

Content Marketing: 5 questions to ask subject matter experts to get the ball rolling

Content Marketing: A process for evaluating content channels

Content Marketing: 3 tips for how to get started

Content Marketing content marketing, controversy, journalists, public relations, telecommunications

According to MarketingSherpa’s just-released 2013 Analytics Benchmark Report, only 37% of respondents said they routinely used analytics for their marketing planning. It’s no wonder the highest priority for 66% is to do a better job of acting on data to improve marketing performance.

They would be wise to follow the lead of Aimee Miller, Vice President of Marketing, AppFolio, a property management software company. She is able to:

• Track every penny of her marketing investment and its business impact
• Help her sales team identify the hottest prospects faster in the company’s database
• Help her marketing team do more in less time

“We are able to do 30% more marketing activities. When you increase your workload by 30%, that means not hiring more people, so the efficiency is a huge gain for us,” she explained.

She achieved this by maximizing all of the functionalities of her marketing automation program, and brought in a marketing automation consultant to help. Aimee had been an early adopter of marketing automation, and she witnessed its value in her previous position. However, she knew the system could do more than what she was using it for, especially with recent product upgrades.

The consultant helped by using marketing automation to enhance AppFolio’s lead-lifecycle performance reporting. AppFolio was collecting many names for its database, but the consultant wanted to make the following distinctions crystal clear:

• Which were qualified leads
• Which ones were accepted by Sales
• Which ones resulted in revenue

The steps AppFolio took to achieve its lead-management goals

1. The team collected 90 days of lead data to develop a baseline to understand where there was the most room for improvement. This included:

• The number of new leads created during that period
• The number that were qualified and added to the pipeline
• The number that closed

2. Marketing and Sales clarified their lead definition and what it looked like at each stage of the marketing/sales funnel. (Learn more about that in this article, “Why 75% of Marketers Are Experiencing Lead Generation Pain and How to Stop It Before It’s Too Late.”) This wasn’t too much of an issue for AppFolio, because its definition of a qualified lead was simply anyone who asked for a demo or trial of the software.

“Obviously, we get fewer leads, but they are higher quality because people are raising their hands for the solution,” Aimee explained. “But we also wanted to give visibility to those who weren’t raising their hands, but showing signs of interest.”

AppFolio achieved this by developing a lead scoring system that attached points to prospect behavior, such as:

• Clicking to the “Features and Benefits” page
• Registering for an educational meet-up (AppFolio hosts 17 every quarter)
• Downloading content
• Reviewing the pricing page

Once prospects reach a certain point threshold, the system alerts sales professionals to move forward.

3. They make it simple for Sales to participate in the process. All they need to do is update one or two fields in the automation system to report lead progress.

Aimee said whether a lead is rejected or advanced in the automation system should give marketers plenty of information on its quality.

“Sales shouldn’t have to check all these different boxes to rate and respond to a lead. Whether they accepted a lead or not should tell us whether the lead is moving forward,” she said. “Furthermore, Sales should be focused on closing business and generating revenues, not updating forms.”

Aimee said she is in good company when it comes to the challenges of understanding the marketing funnel, but points out data alone isn’t the answer.

“A lot of companies are investing in marketing automation to collect data, but if you’re not making sure you can look at the data and understand how what you’re seeing and how your marketing is performing in a concrete way, then it’s not a good use of time or energy,” she said.\

Sources:

LeadMD – AppFolio’s marketing automation consultant

Related Resources:

Lead Scoring: How to pick the right ingredients for high ROI

Sales and Marketing: The technology behind CRM

Universal Lead Definition: Why 61% of B2B marketers are wasting resources and how they can stop

B2B Marketing: 7 tactics for implementing marketing automation from a fellow brand-side marketer

Lead Generation lead generation, leads, marketing analytics, marketing automation, universal lead definition

It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves trying to promote products and services before we’ve given the prospect a reason why they should learn more, and trade events can exacerbate the issue. After all, this is the place where you can see a lot of demos; we expect to collect product information.

However, trade shows can do so much more by creating opportunities for more meaningful engagement for everyone.

We provided this opportunity at the recent MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013 in Las Vegas two weeks ago (and our B2B Summit before that). We gave sponsors the opportunity to engage prospects during an hour-long set of roundtable sessions on the exhibit floor the second day of the four-day event.

Here’s how it worked:

• Sponsors brought in thought leaders to guide 15-minute small-group discussions (no more than 10 people) on topics such as:
  • Utilizing Automated Messages to Improve Your Email Program
  • Maximizing Mobile Email ROI
  • Optimize Data for Your Prospect Outreach
• Event attendees could select the three topics they thought most relevant to their issues and visit three different round tables.

The marketers and sponsors loved these sessions.

Marketers could:

• Network with a small group of people with similar challenges and speak with them later in the event
• Get a glimpse into a vendor within the safe confines of a group

Sponsors could:

• Demonstrate thought leadership
• Build rapport and relationships with individual marketers
• Use these roundtables as a stepping stone for the next step in the journey, like meeting one-on-one in a coaching clinic or stopping by the booth for a related offer. (I did note that the most effective roundtable leaders were those who led a discussion and not those who asked one or two qualifying question followed by a 14-minute PowerPoint presentation.)

It’s no wonder the roundtable events were jam-packed and most of the discussion was constant and lively.

“It was better than speed dating,” one marketer admitted to me!

Other ways to creatively engage prospects include:

• Cocktail parties
• Coaching clinics
• Games to encourage networking
• Event-specific business cards with QR codes everyone can scan

Great conferences are rich with case studies, trends and advanced practices.  This environment motivates participants to collaborate with the sponsors who are making innovation possible and each other.  Where else throughout the year can this fruitful exchange happen so readily?

Seen in this light, trade shows have the potential to be a super-intensive engagement opportunity for everyone involved. Facilitating audience participation and collaboration should be a high priority for hosts and sponsors. It certainly is for us, and we would love to hear your ideas for increasing connection, collaboration and interaction at these events.

Related Resources:

Optimization Summit 2013 – May 20-23 in Boston

Event Recap: Notes from the Optimization Summit 2012 roundtable sessions

How Technology on the Trade Show Floor Can Help Your Sales Team Work Smarter and Sell More

Trade Show Follow-Up: 5 tips to optimize response

Nine Simple Tactics to Drive a Higher Return on Trade Show Investment

How to Use Lead Scoring to Drive the Highest Return on Your Trade-Show Investment

GetResponse Roundtable at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013

Marketing Strategy, Uncategorized B2B Summit 2012, discussions, Email Summit 2013, networking, prospect engagement, roundtable sessions, sponsors, trade shows

I feel very fortunate to work with some of the world’s most progressive marketers.  Whether they’re MECLABS Research Partners or attendees at one of our Summits, these marketers are driven to prove to their leadership that their efforts drive a return on investment.

They focus on measurable outcomes that translate into revenue, not vague notions like “brand awareness” that were the cornerstone of marketing back in the day. This is why they are attracted to us: We don’t believe there are expert marketers, only expert testers.  At MECLABS, we approach marketing more as a science than an art.

So, when I saw this article in MarketingWeek, 70% of CEOs Have Lost Trust in Marketers, it gave me pause. Interviews with 1,200 CEOs across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia revealed they believe marketers have “continuously failed” to prove marketing strategies deliver on business growth.

Are CEOs disappointed, or are they just waking up?

The article concerned me because these findings are completely incongruous with what I witness among the marketers I come in contact with every day. I believe the results are merely a snapshot: A static picture of what is happening right now.

It misses the point of a massive trend developing. CEOs are waking up. They’re seeing opportunity to align key performance indicators (KPIs) with clear marketing objectives. This is probably why doing a better job of acting on data to improve marketing performance is the goal of 66% of the 1,260 marketers surveyed as part of MarketingSherpa’s 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report. (Check out the report’s free excerpt.)

The Internet has closed down old-school marketing

The old-school approach to marketing, with the fuzziness associated with measuring the brand impact of traditional media like television, is running its course. The Internet has changed the playing field.

However, the Internet is more than a channel – it’s a laboratory to get into the customer’s mind and close the gap between the customer’s reality and ours. We use the Internet to focus on the customer, not the product, and to translate those findings across online and offline marketing so the organization is fully aligned with customers’ desires.

A return to true marketing

When this happens, so does effective marketing. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.

How well you’re able to do this is measured in marketing KPIs like conversions and clickthrough rates, but those need to be translated into what matters most to CEOs:

• More leads
• More revenue
• Shorter time to revenue
• Improved marketing-to-sales expense

Fortunately, that’s what the marketers we work with are mastering through leveraging the Internet. They’re testing what’s most resonating with customers, and what isn’t, and then revising campaigns accordingly to drive the best results.

I believe these marketers represent the other end of the CEO spectrum: The 20% featured in the article who believe their marketers provide a return on investment, have “solid influence” within their organizations, and are candidates for senior management.

These marketers represent the future of the profession.

Related Resources:

How to Get the CEO to Support Your Next Marketing Plan

Most important B2B Marketing Metrics For CEOs

Is Revenue Contribution the Best Executive Metric for Demand Generation Investments?

Marketing Data: Using predictive analytics to make sense of big data

Marketing Strategy internet, KPI, marketing performance, marketing strategy

Customer relationship management (CRM) is defined a number of different ways. However, the most expansive definition takes a total end-to-end look at every interaction a person has with a company from simply becoming aware of the company at the very top of the sales funnel, all the way through customer service contact after the final conversion to a closed deal.

With a complex sale, many personal touch points in customer relationship management are present – such as directly answering a question posted on social media or an online forum. At the same time, the real engine driving CRM and keeping prospects moving through the sales funnel is technology.

The first technology that comes to mind is CRM software, such as Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics. However, CRM technology potentially includes multiple pieces including email software and marketing automation (MA) solutions.

Paul Greenberg, Managing Principle, The 56 Group, LLC, and author of CRM at the Speed of Light, said although there are some technology suites that attempt to provide these solutions through the entire sales cycle, it is much more common for companies to integrate CRM technology from more than one vendor.

A common example is utilizing marketing automation software on the Marketing side of the funnel from one vendor and integrating that piece with CRM software from another vendor for the Sales side of the funnel, with a common database providing records on each prospect or customer for both pieces of software.

Paul said this creates something of a challenge because a number of different areas in the company are involved in implementing, and utilizing, CRM technology.

Marketing, Sales (and IT) alignment

Marketing and Sales alignment should be a goal for any company to improve the efficiency of the entire complex sale process Bringing multiple pieces of technology into the sales funnel adds another element within the company – the information technology department.

“Who owns [CRM technology] is a matter of the internal culture of a company,” Paul explained. “Could it be joint ownership between two departments? It could be, as we’re seeing increasingly.”

He added, “But, we’re seeing the CMOs are starting to own a lot of IT budgets, so it could be the CMO that owns that [technology].”

At the same time, the IT department traditionally has controlled technology pieces, so the CIO could possibly own the CRM technology, allocate usage, and make functional decisions based on the business outcomes Marketing and Sales are looking for in using CRM tech.

The role of marketing automation

Linda Athans, Marketing Manager, Tribridge, stated the size of the company might dictate how many pieces of CRM technology are deployed.

“Ideally, your CRM can ‘do it all,’” she said, “but depending on your organization’s size and how it uses its CRM application, additional MA integration may be necessary to handle specific tasks.”

She mentioned a few areas where MA software can help Marketing:

• Automatically sending  large quantities of emails
• Performing split testing on campaigns, such as email subject lines or copy
• Providing performance tracking and analytics on campaigns

Heidi Melin, CMO, Eloqua, obviously has a certain amount of vested interest as a MA software vendor, and she pointed out the value of MA for marketers.

“By integrating marketing automation with CRM [software], companies are able to get a better picture of their buyers and a better picture of how their marketing investments impact their revenue,” Heidi said. “That’s an area where companies are understanding that they can get a competitive advantage in tying a marketing automation solution into their existing CRM implementation to get more out of their investments.”

Brian Vellmure, Principal and Founder, Initium LLC/Innovantage International, added another advantage of bringing more than just CRM software into the customer relationship management technology picture: The nature of B2B sales has changed in recent years. Before, the sales team had a great deal of control over the information flow and education of prospects.

Now, according to Forrester analyst Lori Wizdo, two-thirds to 90% of the buying cycle is completed before a B2B buyer ever speaks with a sales rep.

Marketing automation helps the marketing team track prospects’ behavior, such as website visits and social media interaction, and then respond to that behavior with what the prospect is looking for, at the time they are looking for it and on the channel where they are looking.

“Then, [Marketing] offers an invitation to the next place on the prospect’s journey. I think that’s where marketing automation comes into play,” Brian explained.

How does your company handle CRM technology? What department “owns” each technology piece? We’d love to hear your thoughts and insights in the comments section.

Related Resources:

CRM How-to: Tactics on Marketing/IT alignment, database strategy and integrating social media data

Marketing Research Chart: Social CRM is increasingly important for managing social customer relationships

Defining CRM: Thoughts from three experts

How Technology on the Trade Show Floor Can Help Your Sales Team Work Smarter and Sell More

Lead Nurturing: 9 questions answered on lead qualification, nurturing, and Marketing-Sales alignment

Marketing Strategy CRM, marketing automation, Marketing-Sales alignment, sales funnel

TERRA Staffing Group has been serving the Seattle area for three decades. It built a strong reputation for excellent service and was extremely well networked in that community. However, when TERRA opened a new division in Portland, Ore., in 2012, it had to start fresh – the company had no reputation to fall back on.

Jenifer Lambert, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, TERRA, decided to use this opportunity to launch her sales efforts into the 21^st century. The company’s existing sales process was proving to be a dinosaur predicated heavily on “intentions, moods and temperament.” She couldn’t afford that in Portland, considering this was TERRA’s first expansion outside of Washington state.

“We had to produce a quick return on investment, and I needed a profitable, predictable sales engine,”
she explained.

Fortunately, Lambert already had an ace team of closers – recruiting and staffing professionals who worked directly with clients to deliver results.

“They outperformed direct sales because they simply had more credibility,” Lambert confessed. “They intuitively knew the questions to ask to provide solutions our prospects needed.”

What she didn’t have were the prospects for her team to talk to, and they had neither the time nor know-how to obtain them. Inspired by a MarketingSherpa article, she decided to outsource a lead generation company to generate leads they could close.

In 90 days through teleprospecting, TERRA Staffing had 242 qualified leads, 27 appointments, and closed three deals. This more than paid for its investment. Most importantly, the staffing company established a predictable sales engine through the following:

Measurement. The first priority was to establish a benchmark to measure the team’s progress. After analyzing the Portland marketplace, the team determined:

• The size of their target market
• How much of that market might be urgent buyers
• The response rate and deal size necessary for ROI

The team set out the exact metrics and determined the exact triggers to decide if the campaign would make sense. Thanks to this benchmarking, at any point in the program, they could determine whether they were on track or off.

Clarifying messaging. Teleprospectors followed a script that included how to respond to objections. They worked directly with TERRA’s staffing professionals to develop appropriate responses.

“This process has, frankly, helped us refine our own messaging,” Lambert said. “It has forced us to be much clearer.”

Determining cadence. After testing how many calls produced the best results, the outcome proved fewer calls to a broader audience was optimal. Most of the appointments came early in the prospecting process.

Optimization. The team used a software system that made the progress of the lead generation effort completely transparent. TERRA could look at data, note which messages were resonating most, and see precisely which leads were progressing and which weren’t.

“In the beginning, we noted we had an unusually high number of leads that were just not moving forward,” Lambert recalled. “By looking at the data … we discovered a commonality: The companies were all too small.”

TERRA adjusted its qualified leads to include only companies with a larger employee and revenue base, and noticed significantly more calls converting into appointments. It also helped the team work more efficiently – they stopped wasting time trying to win over prospects who weren’t in a position to buy.

“While sales used to be based on personality and persuasive abilities, today it’s much more of a science,” Lambert said. “At the end of the day, it’s about initiating a sufficient number of contacts with people who can buy from you. Having this partnership has made that very clear to me and, thanks to that, I’m going into 2013 with a much more predictable sales engine.”

Sources:

LeadJen – the outsourced lead generation company TERRA used

Jesubi – software system used by the team

Related Resources:

Intro to Lead Generation: How to determine if a lead is qualified

Thriving in the Pressure Cooker: 5 tips for optimize your time, knowledge for better lead gen

Ideal Customer Profiles: 5 steps to ensure your lead generation stays on target

Why 75% of Marketers Are Experiencing Lead Generation Pain and How to Stop It Before It’s Too Late

Lead Generation B2B lead generation, lead generation, Sales, teleprospecting

How can a marketer, in one fell swoop …

• Capture the attention of millions of potential prospects?
• Meet with executives at a Fortune 500 company?
• Engage with existing customers?
• Create a centerpiece that enhances employee pride?

KeyedIn Solutions, a software technology and consulting company, has achieved it all with the sponsorship of up-and-coming golfing professional, Scott Piercy.  The company, not even a year and a half old, took a gamble on Piercy, as its leadership had previously witnessed success in sponsoring PGA Tour pros with another software organization.

It was a smart decision. Despite ranking below 170 on the World Golf Rankings at the start of 2012, Piercy now holds the 41st spot at the end of the season. For KeyedIn, this has paid off in many ways …

Brand exposure

Karen Adame, Chief Product Officer, KeyedIn, set up the sponsorship knowing it would draw attention. She notes that 45 million people a week watch the Golf Channel,  so every time Piercy achieves a prominent position on the leaderboard, KeyedIn does the same.

“Every great shot is replayed, and so is KeyedIn’s logo — it’s everywhere Piercy is,” Adame said.

It is no wonder KeyedIn typically receives one or two prospect inquiries after golf events.

“When Piercy has a good round, there are interviews and photographs that millions see,” Adame said. “And our logo, which includes our full name, appears on the screen every time.”

KeyedIn promotes wins in advertisements, on its website and in emails.

Prospecting with top executives

After winning the 2012 RBC Canadian Open, Piercy was eligible to participate in the Bridgestone Invitational. Adame was there and had an opportunity to join Piercy in networking with executive leadership.

“He has a lot of interaction with executives and knows our company and our solutions very well, so Piercy actually does some prospecting for us off the course,” Adame said.

Customer engagement

KeyedIn hosts golf events for its best customers to give them a chance to play and socialize with Piercy.

“Even though some may not be golfers, it can be cool for them to come out and rub shoulders with a celebrity,” Adame said. “Golfing is a social sport; you tend to see more business-to-business interaction within the golfing community, and you can enjoy the game no matter your skill level. It’s good for up-and-coming people and businesses, and gives them easier access to people they normally wouldn’t have an opportunity to meet.”

Employee engagement

Adame said sponsorship gives employees a common cause — someone to root for, a source of pride, and even a conversation starter.

“They could be on a plane sitting next to a golfer and say, ‘Hey, do you know we sponsor Scott Piercy?’ That can instantly spark interest and a conversation about KeyedIn,” she said.

If these benefits impress you enough to consider sponsoring an athlete, Adame outlines the four questions to ask yourself before doing so:

1. Do you want to invest in this person for the long haul?

If he is on his way up, a longer contract may pay off because if he continues to perform, you will see a bigger return on your investment.

“We had a good feeling about Scott, so we created a longer-term contract,”  Adame said.

She advised building in bonuses for performance as an incentive.

2. How many corporate events will they participate in?

Specify in the contract every event they must attend and their required duties. Set crystal-clear expectations.

3. What circumstances will affect the contract?

“We selected Piercy for his playing abilities and his reputation as a devoted father and husband,” Adame said. “For other organizations, this might not be important, but it ties in well with our values.”

“Of course, depending on the sport, you may want to consider what happens if the player gets injured or something negative happens that affects him.  As in all contracts, it’s important to plan for any potential issues in advance,” she added.

4. How well does the athlete match your brand identity?

One of the primary reasons KeyedIn decided to sponsor Piercy was because his success reflected the success of KeyedIn.

“Piercy is one of the rising stars on the PGA Tour, which is underscored by him advancing more than 130 places in the World Golf Rankings in 2012,” Adame said. “This perfectly illustrates the trajectory that KeyedIn is on in terms of our growth and our drive to help clients achieve.”

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Lead Generation brand exposure, brand identity, networking, sponsor

During the economic downturn of 2008, while most companies were scaling back and avoiding risk, Skyline Exhibits, a global trade show exhibit company, decided to go the opposite direction and invest in innovation.

It was a smart move, considering that Skyline:

• Became the smallest company ever to win the Product Development and Management Association’s prestigious Outstanding Corporate Innovator Award in October 2012 – joining the ranks of companies like Harley-Davidson and FedEx

• Increased sales from new products from 6% to 24%. Total sales in 2012 grew 6% compared to the 2.1% industry growth projected by the Center for Exhibition Research

Here’s a high-level overview of the steps the marketers at Skyline take to ensure they focus on innovation that produces recognition and revenue:

1. They do research.

“A significant part of what we do is listen to the end user by going to shows, talking to dealers and taking surveys,” explains Sofia Troutman, Skyline Exhibits Segment Manager. “We consider it an important part of research to get out there and literally be in the shoes of our consumers and feel the pain that they feel.”

Troutman explains that observation is critical to the research process because customers often work around issues and may not even realize there’s a problem. So she regularly attends trade shows to observe how:

• Quickly and easily labor crews set up exhibits“Customers are paying for labor, and we want to make set-up as efficient as possible,” she says.
• Customers are using and modifying products
• Competitors’ products perform

“By thoroughly understanding customers’ problems – and they may not even realize they have a problem – we can provide a solution that helps them exhibit more successfully than ever,” she explains.

An example is Skyline’s exclusive DesignView® Presentation System. While walking trade show floors, Steve Dunn, one of the segment managers, noticed people unsuccessfully using projection to combine PowerPoint presentations with static graphics. He brought the issue back to Skyline’s engineers, who then came up with a compact rear-projection solution combined with printed screen. It creates a powerful image without taking up a lot of space.

2. They encourage customers, dealers and staff to submit ideas for new products, and then put them through a formal evaluation process.

They receive, on average, about 50 ideas every year.  Each idea is evaluated by representatives from leadership, marketing and engineering, and is scored on the same criteria, such as:

• Revenue potential
• Risk involved
• Level of resources required
• Other projects in the pipeline

3. They assign top-scoring ideas to a project manager who oversees their execution from start to finish. The project managers:

• Are the communication liaison between Marketing, leadership and Engineering
• Set up and oversee a schedule for completion
• Document every aspect of the development

“Having one neutral person – outside of Engineering, Marketing and leadership – in charge of the development process reduces communication issues and ensures the development moves forward smoothly,” says Troutman.

“It’s easy for knock-off products to come in from overseas,” she points out. “That’s why we are intentional about continuously innovating. For us, our process has become a great recipe for success.”

The results

This is evident in results, which are moving Skyline ahead of the competition by increasing product sales by 18% and exceeding projected industry growth by approximately 4%.

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