B2B Lead Blog

Have you had some great marketing successes this year? Then you’ll want to let my colleagues at MarketingSherpa know. They’re compiling their ninth annual MarketingSherpa 2011 Wisdom Report. It shares the best thoughts, ideas, anecdotes and takeaways from marketers in 2010. 

In fact, even if you’ve had disappointments, and are willing to share, they’d like to hear from you as well. After all, failure is often the best teacher.

Tell us, what are some of the best lessons you learned this year?   

Great marketers are always working so diligently to put everything and everyone else in the spotlight. That effort deserves attention. That’s why I strongly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to attain some very positive publicity. 

Share your wisdom here, but you’ve got to do it soon because the deadline’s December 21.

B2B Telemarketing, CRM, Cold Calling, Current Affairs, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Human Touch, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Lead Scoring, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Public Relations (PR), ROI Measurement, Referral Marketing, Sales, Sales Leads, Social Media, Thought Leadership, Trigger Events, Web/Tech, Webcasts/Webinars, Weblogs, Word-of-Mouth

A recent MarketingSherpa survey of email recipients found that 58% of those who stop reading, disengage, or unsubscribe after cite "lack of relevance" as a key factor. This is hugely important because most marketers rely on email as their main lead nurturing tactic.

As B2B marketers, we should have it drilled into our brains that relevance must be an essential part of our lead nurturing touches. But be honest: How well are you really connecting with your audience?

I encourage you to look beyond your unsubscribes and find a true measure. Start by considering all those prospects that are simply ignoring your emails. I read a blog post on by Steve Woods on "Emotional Unsubscribes" that's definitely worth checking on this topic. 

It’s a common phenomenon. I receive emails often from companies that “know” me, but their emails certainly don’t show it. Their creative and graphics-laden emails don’t speak to my concerns at all. And each irrelevant message I receive is basically programming me to ignore or delete future messages from them. I don’t even bother to unsubscribe. I'm sure that's not their intent but they are missing the key idea of relevance.

So, how do we align better align our email and nurturing messages with what is relevant to our audience? 

Consider the following 5 ways to build more relevance into your emails: 

Tip 1. Stage in the buying process: Be sure to provide different kinds of information to your prospect based on what point they are in the buying process. If you have a complex sale, the best way to I know how to do this is to combine a human touch to build relationships with your lead nurturing message. If they are an early stage lead and they are just starting to get familiar with the business issues you solve, don’t send them the same copy that you would send someone who is on the verge of making a decision.

Tip 2. Industry vertical: Industry information will more than likely tell you what pains your prospects are experiencing, while company size will give you a hint as to the resources they have available to tackle these challenges. Be sure to add this information to your marketing data often so that you can easily define your target segments based on these indicators.

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Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Strategy, Thought Leadership, Trigger Events

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called 5 steps for using LinkedIn as a lead generation tool and step number five was ‘create your own LinkedIn group and share relevant content.’

Well, last Thursday I launched the B2B Lead Gen Roundtable Group on LinkedIn. I wanted to create a group to discuss and share ideas that focus on the many aspects of B2B lead generation such as lead nurturing, lead management, teleprospecting and more.
 
I’m jazzed at how fast the group is growing and even more excited about the discussions that are already taking place.

My first question to the group was if lead distribution should be fair or optimized? What do you do? Do you invest your hard won leads on your top performers or do you try to help your weaker sales people? In this economy should we take a Darwinian view of lead generation and focus on helping the strong sales people get stronger?

What’s your take on lead distribution? I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Join the B2B Lead Gen Roundtable group and let me know your thoughts.

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

Most buyers aren’t ready to buy when we’re ready to sell. This trite but true observation has significant implications when it comes to lead generation.  It means that we must continue to nurture viable prospects until they are ready to buy. But what about the prospects who are not in your nurturing database yet?

This dilemma has led me to think about how trigger events are related to one of the basic laws of physics. Newton’s first law of motion (also called the law of inertia) is often stated as “an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

The first law of motion can act much like one of your potential prospects.  Unless there is an “unbalancing force” acting on them that is sufficient to move them away from the status quo (as rest), then they will not change their direction.  In this context, trigger events can be seen as the sufficient force or event that moved and changed the status quo.

So in the context of lead generation, what’s a trigger event? A trigger is a happening associated with a consequence so significant that it causes new behaviors, new ideas and new opportunities. One of my clients found companies with their key trigger events was 400% more likely to buy than companies without those trigger events.

When InTouch conducts an ideal customer profile workshop for a client, we help them understand favorable trigger events and related implications. The above trigger event mind map figure (Click Image to Enlarge) shows just some of the possible trigger events that you can track.

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Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Strategy, Sales, Sales Leads, Trigger Events

Have you ever wondered why some sales happen twice as fast others? 

For my first podcast I thought it would be fun to tell a true story about one of my clients. We’ll call her Kristin. At the mid-year point, in 2003, Kristin’s marketing budget was cut by 50%. Amazingly, her CEO still expected her meet her revenue contribution goal.  She had 2-choices…either quit or get creative. 

In the final 6-months, with a smaller budget, she exceeded her total revenue targeted by 25%! In this podcast, I’ll tell you her secret… okay not her entire secret but most of it.

Listen to podcast on trigger events

(File size is 5.58 MB) (Show length 12:07 minutes)

Show notes
Links to companies and articles mentioned in the podcast:

• Technorati watchlists
• Google news alerts via email
• Yahoo! RSS feeds & via email
• HillSearch online Business Library

View my podcast feed

Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, My Podcast, Sales Leads, Trigger Events

I met with a client today and the subject of trigger events came up. They look for companies that have an executive leadership opening or an active search in process. Job openings are trigger events or they are a leading indicator that a bigger trigger event is about to happen. Job postings are created during mergers, acquisitions, expansions, reductions, resignations etc. You just need to understand how each of these trigger events has a different consequence. What they do Their process is to search various job sites like Monster.com, Hotjobs.com and industry job sites for certain positions that are relevant to their value proposition. They use the job posting information they have collected to build a list of potential opportunities which they research further before making first contact.

Cold Calling, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Sales, Trigger Events

Have you ever wondered why some sales happen twice as fast others?

This is a true story.  I’ve changed my friends name because she didn’t want to her competitors to know what she was doing and she is busy like all of us. Let’s call her Kristin.   

Kristin, a marketing manager, works for a B2B company that sells to executives in mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies. Last year, her marketing budget was cut by 50% mid-year, yet her CEO expected her to still meet her revenue contribution goal. She told me about how she used trigger events to focus her marketing efforts and exceed her revenue targeted by 25%! Here’s her secret…

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Lead Generation, Trigger Events