B2B Lead Blog

What’s a marketer to do when leadership dismisses marketing and insists that a superior product will sell itself?

Follow the lead of Jeremy Scully and take a high-stakes gamble: Put your reputation on the line to prove marketing’s value.

Scully, the Business Development Manager for Planisware, a leading provider of project and portfolio management solutions, told his top brass that the best way to use leftover credit with a leading analyst was to feature her in a webinar.

Leadership was reticent. The competition had been hosting webinars for years with hundreds of attendees. If Planisware didn’t attract a large enough audience, then the company’s leaders could look bad and that could hurt their positions as thought leaders.

So Scully struck a deal: He promised to attract 200 registrants from the heart of the company’s target market. They had to be:

• CTOs, VPs or directors in portfolio management or research and development
• In industries like automotive, chemical manufacturing or medical devices
• From a list of 450 organizations with more than $500 million in revenue and $100 million in R&D budgets

The risk? Scully had never promoted or planned a webinar before.

Get prospects on the phone

To capture attendees from this narrow list, Scully used what he knew best: cold calling. Planisware planned an hour-long event, “Best Practices for Portfolio Management,” and Scully’s team spent six weeks phoning potential attendees.

If callers didn’t immediately reach a prospect, they left a voicemail and followed that up with an email. If they did not hear from the prospect after a week, they called again and sent another email.

Once a prospect was reached, Scully’s team members took the following actions:

• Asked about the prospect’s current project portfolio management solution.
• Asked about current project portfolio management challenges and, when appropriate, sent a follow-up email with information that could help solve those issues.
• Clarified contact information. (They not only attained webinar registrants, but they cleaned the company’s lists, too.)
• Went to the webinar platform page and registered prospects immediately if they expressed interest. The platform instantly forwarded an appointment that automatically linked to the prospect’s Outlook calendar.

This effort produced about 87% of the 300-plus registrations for the webinar. More than 60% were directors or VPs of R&D. The rest responded to announcements on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and were partners, existing customers or consultants.

Phone calls and automated emails

The webinar platform automatically sent email reminders to the registrants two weeks and immediately before the event. The team also made personal phone calls the day before the event to the top 50 prospects — those who used programs like Microsoft Office as their project portfolio management software.

As soon as the webinar was over, a standard email thanking attendees was automatically sent, and Scully commenced his lead-generation efforts. He prioritized follow-up on the basis of the prospects’ present solutions and their interest in Planisware.

The gamble pays off

There are several deals from this effort moving through Planisware’s sales cycle – which can be two years or longer – and these deals could be worth millions, Scully says. Closing one of them would bring a 600% to 1,500% return on investment.

These results were more than enough to shift leadership’s perspective on the value of marketing. It’s no wonder they approved three more webinars for this year.

Here are Scully’s top tips for a great webinar:

• Select a speaker who will attract attention. Planisware chooses speakers with high name recognition in their marketplace.“Attendees think, ‘Oh wow, she really knows what she talking about, I won’t want to miss that,’” says Scully. “And it enhances our image as thought leaders.”

• Don’t be afraid to ask for advice. When Scully was torn between outsourcing teleprospecting or hiring someone to do it internally, he turned to the B2B Lead Roundtable group on LinkedIn.“Of course, I got some responses from vendors, but most were from people who were eager to help. It gave me the insight I needed to make the right decision,” he says.

• Act fast, don’t procrastinate. The moment he received permission to move forward, Scully hit the ground running. The messaging, landing page and contact list were developed within two weeks.

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” he says. “Something will inevitably pop up that you’re not planning for. By taking care of what you can early on, you earn enough mental capacity and time to address the unexpected.”

• Register attendees immediately while they’re still on the phone. “If you wait and send them an email with a link, it could get lost in their inbox. The urgency will be gone and they’ll forget about it,” says Scully.Another benefit: You immediately collect pertinent information and gain opt-in for future contact.

Related Resources:

New to B2B Webinars? Learn 6 steps for creating an effective webinar strategy

Complimentary Download: Webinar Planning Timeline

MarketingSherpa Toolkit: How to Produce a Webinar

To Call or Email? That is the Question

Webinar Replay: Teleprospecting that Drives Sales-Ready Leads

How to improve lead generation with prospecting 2.0

Lead Generation, Webcasts/Webinars

I am especially looking forward to the next B2B Lead Roundtable webinar. You should be, too, if you’re eager to find out how your peers are responding to today’s marketplace, and how this represents an unprecedented opportunity to drive the highest performance from your marketing efforts.

Jen Doyle, MarketingSherpa Senior Research Manager and Lead Author of the 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, will reveal key takeaways from this just-released publication, which is based on a survey of marketers from 1,745 B2B organizations.

We weren’t surprised by their responses. However, to call 2011 a tough year is an understatement, to say the least. Respondents admitted that their marketing tactics simply aren’t working like they used to, and reported  as much as a 50% decline in effectiveness for even their most tried-and-true marketing strategies since last year.

However, Jen will reveal how these challenges merely point to abundant opportunity to improve overall marketing strategy. She’ll show you precisely where that opportunity lies by guiding you through a five-step funnel optimization process that will ensure you produce better marketing results next year. I will be joining her, as will Kaci Bower, MarketingSherpa research analyst. Together, the three of us are going to provide takeaways you can begin using now to overcome today’s marketing challenges and set the foundation for higher marketing ROI in 2012.

If you’re eager to transform this year’s pressures into powerful results, watch the webinar replay below.

View Slides on Slideshare

Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Strategy, Webcasts/Webinars

The graph at right, published in MarketingSherpa’s 2011 Benchmark Report, provides a snapshot of what marketers care about most. And it’s very telling, especially now. As we approach the fourth quarter, I am acutely aware of why marketers believe generating better leads is a higher priority than generating more leads.

In an economy that’s more precarious than ever, there’s simply no room to waste time, budget or resources.  And there is little that is more wasteful, and frustrating, than chasing down leads that will never be customers. It’s no wonder generating a high volume of leads has dropped in priority as sales cycles have become longer – lots of poorly qualified leads can bring a sales cycle to a screeching halt.

Conversely, I have learned how to accelerate your sales cycle to warp drive: fill it with well-qualified leads.

That’s why, during our next two B2B Lead Roundtable webinars, I’ll examine the smartest strategies you can execute right now to attract the highest-qualified leads to your sales funnel and speed them directly to your bottom line – just in time to meet your end-of-year goals. Finish 2011 Strong: Six Funnel Focal Points to Maximize Time, Resources and Revenues – Part II will be held Tuesday, September 20, at noon EDT, 11 a.m. CDT, and 9 a.m. PDT.

If you’re concerned about how you’re going to meet your sales goals and revenue projections, I strongly encourage you to attend.

Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Sales Leads, Webcasts/Webinars

According to MarketingSherpa’s 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, almost 70 percent of B2B organizations increased their inbound marketing budgets this year. This includes website design, management, and optimization, as well as inbound-marketing tactics including social media, virtual events and webinars, SEO and pay-per-click.

If you’re making the same investment, you will definitely want to attend our next B2B Lead Roundtable Webinar on July 19, Research from Harvard, MIT Pinpoints Hard Lead Conversion Lessons with Easy Solutions. David Elkington, Chairman and CEO of InsideSales.com, will share how his company has joined forces with these academic leaders to study how companies are managing the leads they’re generating through inbound marketing efforts.

The results are going to surprise and may even alarm you.

Consider this: merely responding to the leads you receive will put you ahead of 40 percent of B2B organizations! Companies are spending more money than ever to drive leads through their websites and the Internet, and yet, nearly half don’t follow up! That means there’s outstanding opportunity for those who do. David will give you practical, easy-to-implement ideas, underscored by case studies, to make sure you hold onto leads once you get them. The discussion will include:

• The speed at which leads go cold – it’s a lot faster than you think – and what to do about it
• The average time it takes companies to respond to leads
• The average attempts sales people make before they give up
• Why caller ID matters – even for B2B sales calls
• The best time of the day and day of the week to follow up with prospects

Watch the webinar replay:

B2B Telemarketing, Lead Management, Webcasts/Webinars

If anyone knows the smartest, most innovative approaches marketers are using right now to drive more ROI, it’s Sergio Balegno. As Director of Research for MarketingSherpa/MECLABS Primary Research, he and his team of analysts regularly survey B2B marketers and compile their findings in publications like the just-released Social Marketing Benchmark Report. It analyzes how 3,342 B2B marketers are strategically leveraging social marketing and proving its value to the C-suite, which is what Sergio will discuss at our next B2B Lead Roundtable Webinar on June 21.

He’ll reveal how:

• B2B marketers are integrating social media and SEO to increase conversion rates by 59 percent.
• One B2B company used this combination to pull 70 percent more leads and double annual revenue per account.
• You can apply these strategies to do the same for your organization. 

This isn’t going to be another social media webinar talking about listening to your customers and being authentic. This will focus on key social media and SEO integration strategies that are driving real business results right now. If that’s what you want from your social marketing strategy, this webinar will definitely be an intelligent investment of your time.  I hope you can make it!

Lead Generation, Social Media, Webcasts/Webinars

New technology to connect with customers is emerging every day. But even so, nothing is as efficient and effective as a simple phone call for beginning the conversations that ultimately result in sales, points out Brian Carroll.

During the latest B2B Lead Roundtable Webinar, Brian and his colleague, Brandon Stamschror, Senior Director of Operations for MECLABS Leads Group, explained how to make the most of the oldest and best sales conversion tool: the human touch. They explain why:

• The human touch is essential, especially if you count on inbound marketing to drive opportunity and you want to make the best use of sales time and resources.
• Quality data is critical. Good data significantly lowers your cost per lead. In fact, it slashed costs by more than half for a multi-billion dollar Cisco partner.
• Teleprospecting is about connecting with people, and that requires making sure every call counts through thoughtful value-adding conversation.

If you missed the presentation, you can watch the replay below.

How One Company Slashed Their Cost per Lead by More than Half from B2B Lead Roundtable on Vimeo.

View and download slides via SlideShare

Here’s a summary with time stamps to identify key sections:

4:10 – Lead generation is about building relationships. Brian emphasizes that lead generation requires communication and conversation: identifying the right people in the right companies, and engaging them with memorable, relevant conversations.

6:28 – Teleprospecting and email are the two most effective lead generation tools. Brian explains that while emails are a great way to support a conversation, they’re not a good way to start one. “What’s needed to drive conversion into the complex sales is the human touch,” says Brian. He notes that the fastest-growing companies, the companies that are fueling huge amounts of growth, look to teleprospecting and inside sales to maximize effective selling time.

8:11 – Qualify leads accurately and make the most of your sales team’s selling time with teleprospecting. Eighty percent of marketing leads are lost or discarded, according to MarketingSherpa. The biggest reason? They’re not ready to talk to a salesperson. The prospect may have responded to marketing campaigns and provided basic contact information, but sales professionals need much more than that. They need a valid business reason to talk to them and you’re not going to get that on a web form.

10:03 – Quality data is critical. Brandon reveals the outcomes of a breakthrough experiment the MECLABS Leads Group just completed with a $3.6 billion Cisco partner. They tested how higher cost/higher quality lead data affected the cost per lead. The outcome: cheap data is very expensive. The difference between the best- and worst-performing lists was an astounding $581 per lead! Listen to the webinar to find out the details.

22:58 – There are six teleprospecting rules that produce leads. The emphasis is always on building relationships. Teleprospecting is not about talking, it’s about listening.

24:55 – Rule 1: Sustain the calling. Developing relationships is a serious micro-conversion. Therefore, teleprospecting should be long-term and consistent. While most sales people give up after three times, it can take 8 to 19 calls to reach a prospect.

27:21 - Rule 2: Make every call count. There’s no such thing as a wasted dial; every call is an opportunity to learn. Brian advises taking a top-down approach. When you start calling at a higher level, the person you’re speaking with is more apt to confirm contacts and provide referrals. Know the specific role you’re calling for so that if you get voicemail, you can “zero out” to get another referral. Be in the moment. People are open to cold calls if they’re relevant. Five to 10 percent will be ready to speak to you about what you’re selling. With the rest, be prepared to add value to their day regardless of whether they’re ready to buy. After all, 70 percent of brand perception comes from direct contact with a salesperson.

36:28 – Rule 3: Throw away the scripts. Conversation is the goal. Outline the first 30 seconds of the call, briefly explain who you are, your company, the purpose of your call and how you’re going to add value. A call guide is a living document that should be flexible and assume multiple outcomes. It should outline the call’s goal, how you can add value, the important questions that you need answered, and the business issue you need to help solve. Remember: it may take several conversations to qualify someone as a sales-ready lead.

42:44 – Rule 4: Always be relevant. Sales training teaches that we need to follow-up. It doesn’t teach how. “I just want to catch up” or “I just want to touch base” is code for “Are you ready to buy yet?” That’s not being relevant; relevancy is connecting with people by understanding their priorities and their company’s priorities. MarketingSherpa found that 92 percent of B2B buyers are open to cold calls if the salesperson is relevant.

47:34 – Rule 5: Gain opt-in. Do this by sharing valuable information. Provide your teleprospecting team an email template with a valuable piece of content, it’s an easy way to gain email addresses. Brandon and Brian role play so you can hear how it’s done.

49:48 – Rule 6: Always follow up (with nurturing). This segment addresses how to deal with the 85 to 95 percent of prospects who aren’t ready to buy immediately. It outlines how to filter and find relevant content to keep them engaged, and how your teleprospecting team should present it. How do you know you’re nurturing? When what you provide offers value even if the prospect never buys from you.

53:53 – Put the rules into action. Remember, building relationships takes time. But when you add the human touch and bring all the pieces together, this is where conversion takes place. It takes conversation to achieve the discovery that qualifies leads at the level that most sales people need.

B2B Telemarketing, Cold Calling, Email Marketing, Human Touch, Inside Sales, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Webcasts/Webinars, Webinar Replay

Funnels are like the central nervous system of the best sales organizations. Few marketing departments depend on funnels to run their business the way sales leaders do. Yes, messaging, segmentation, branding, and numerous other considerations are extremely important. But no tool can impact financial performance for marketing as much as a funnel. It’s a topic I’ll be speaking about this coming Wednesday, May 25, at an American Marketing Association webinar.

There are four reasons marketing funnels should be the central nervous system of B2B companies:

1. Simplifying complexity. The great challenge in B2B is complexity. There are lots of moving parts that are growing and changing everyday. Social media, lead nurturing, lead scoring, webinars, data-as-a-service, web-crawling technologies, and many other advancements can be overwhelming. With all of these ever-expanding moving parts, finding revenue leakage is extremely challenging and often very subjective. The beauty of the marketing funnel is that you can break down complexity into very discrete components. In fact, the more discrete the funnel and sub-funnel stages, the easier it is to deal with complexity. The key is tying all the funnels and subfunnels together into a unifying framework.

2. Isolating the leakage. Once you have a comprehensive funnel framework, you can measure the conversion of prospects from one stage to the next. You can gather benchmark data from companies like MarketingSherpa and see how you compare to other organizations. Over time, you can aggregate data from your own corporate-wide efforts and develop internal baseline conversion ratios; that way, every variance from the benchmark or the baseline should prompt you to examine why.

3. Improving financial performance. Instead of having endless debates, marketing can simply set up tests and discover what really works by measuring conversions and looking at the impact on downsteam efforts. Having conducted thousands of experiments, we’ve seen that quite often the best answer is often counter-intuitive and defies “best practices.”

4. Forecasting results. With benchmarks and especially your own baseline data, you can start to make increasingly accurate predictions on the results you will have from a given marketing initiative. And, as a general rule, the more granular your funnel stages, the more accurate the projection. Of course, accurate projections are key to getting and keeping funding.

There’s a reason sales executives absolutely run sales organizations based upon the funnel while their best sales people use it to manage their pipeline. If marketers want to drive the highest ROI possible, it’s time for them to do the same.

What are your thoughts? I welcome your feedback and if you want to learn more, be sure to attend the AMA webinar on May 25 that I’m presenting with Steve Woods, Chief Technology Officer of Eloqua, and Mike McKinnon, Senior Demand Manager of ReadyTalk.

Marketing Strategy, ROI Measurement, Uncategorized, Webcasts/Webinars

This week I was in San Francisco doing a live, streamed presentation, Uncovering Trends and Best Practices in Lead Generation, for Cisco. It’s part of their on-going Partner Velocity Program which provides in-person events, in-depth resources, and online marketing tutorials to their value-added resellers worldwide.

I believe Cisco sets the standard for how to engage channel partners, and am honored that they asked me to share my ideas around where they need to focus their marketing attention and resources. In essence, smart marketers approach their work like a portfolio manager; they’re constantly thinking about and testing the optimal investment strategy.

In the playback below I examine how to make the best investments of marketing time, money and energy, and point out the areas where too many marketers are squandering opportunity and resources. I cover:

• The latest trends in lead generation.
• How to create buyer personas.
• Social media as a lead generation tactic.
• Steps to optimizing the B2B mix.
• Guiding principles to effective B2B telemarketing.

Of course, I only had an hour to speak and each of these topics could be a webinar on their own. In fact, that’s precisely the case next week, considering the topic for the next B2B Lead Roundtable Webinar: Teleprospecting that Drives Sales-Ready Leads – How One Company Slashed Their Cost per Lead by More than Half.

What other points would you like me to expand on? Let me know; watch the broadcast replay and review Cisco’s excellent blog post about my presentation. I’d love to hear from you.

B2B Telemarketing, Human Touch, Inside Sales, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Lead Scoring, Social Media, Thought Leadership, Webcasts/Webinars, Webinar Replay, Weblogs

This is a must-see webinar for any marketing organization that is contemplating the value of a CRM system or would like to leverage theirs more fully.

John Johnston, eBusiness Marketing Manager for Volvo North America, frankly reveals what business was like before CRM, which included temporary employees manually distributing leads to sales and the communications challenges that ensued. He then details every step he took to resolve those challenges, increase conversions, accelerate the sales cycle, and close the marketing-sales loop both online and off. Watch the video here:

How Volvo Construction Improved Leads, Increased Sales by Bridging the Marketing-Sales Communication and Technology Gap from B2B Lead Roundtable on Vimeo.

View and download slides via SlideShare

CRM, Lead Generation, Lead Management, ROI Measurement, Webcasts/Webinars, Webinar Replay

As promised in my most recent blog post, below is the link to the MarketingExperiments Web clinic replay that looks at how one organization overcame stagnant sales, regardless of more marketing activity, through lead nurturing.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/marketing-optimization/converting-leads-to-sales-.html

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director of MECLABS, joins me in discussing how we worked with them to execute a lead-nurturing program that launched them from their sales rut into $4.9 million in additional sales pipeline growth in eight months.

I encourage you to watch this replay if you want a better idea of how lead nurturing works in the real world. If you have further questions, feel free to comment below.

Human Touch, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Lead Qualification, Webcasts/Webinars, Webinar Replay