July 2010 Archives

According to a recent study by CSO Insights, (seen in eMarketer) marketing departments are slowly starting to increase their budgets for lead generation. A sign of ongoing economic recovery? Maybe that's reading too much into it. Even in a bad economy, smart businesses know they need to spend money to attract customers.

More interesting to those who manage lead generation activities is the breakdown of which areas are receiving more and less funding. Here's the chart from eMarketer:




Website design/content deserves is a logical choice for increased investment simply because it supports so many other lead gen activities: whether they're attracted by email marketing, social media, banner ads, or any other online activity, many prospects are likely to explore beyond your landing page to learn more about your company, so a information-rich, easy to use web site is critical.

Email, new media, and search optimization are the top three activities in this report -- but the fairly even distribution as you go down the list suggests that marketers are spreading out their investment and efforts to cover their basis.

eMarketer also highlights the fact that 51% of the marketers surveyed report that web marketing tactics need improvement to be effective lead generation campaigns. To me, this dissatisfaction combined with the increased budgets implies that many businesses feel like they haven't solved the puzzle of effective web marketing yet - but they're confident that there are good returns waiting for them when they do.

One great detail that's a little bit buried in the eMarketer report is this nugget:

Among those companies that had not adopted a lead generation management system, 65% were dissatisfied with the performance of web-based lead generation efforts. But among marketers that did have a system in place to track leads, only 37% agreed--putting the web on par in effectiveness with traditional media advertising and ahead of direct mail or telemarketing.

For executives and marketers who don't have an intuitive 'feel' for web marketing -- and few do, as the landscape changes so quickly that intuition isn't reliable for very long -- measurement is absolutely essential. We've made that point before, but this report just provides a little more evidence.

What about you -- how are you planning to spend you marketing budget this year? Are you starting to increase your investments in online lead gen, or are you still on the sidelines? Let us know in the comments.

Be sure to check out our recent post on Marketo's Modern B2B Marketing blog about the questions you need to ask potential lead sources you're considering.

In the post, we cover the major questions to ask, including:

• How leads are generated
  
• Credit or return policies
• Lead formats
• Verification
• Relevant experience

So head on over and give it a read!

We're also curious about the questions you ask when considering a new lead source. Share yours in the comments below.
 

By now, everyone knows about the lead generation capabilities of webinars, but the depth of client interaction from webinars allows for great lead nurturing opportunities rather than just pure lead generation. This is the Webinar 2.0, a new breed of webinar.

Webinars have always been ideal for training, lead generation, and product launches. It's a no-brainer. They act, in many ways, similar to a press release, webcast, or live info session. The expert is essentially giving a seminar (I wonder where they got the name?), but in a more effective way that doesn't involve travel or taking too much time out of anyone's day.

So how do you harness all the influential power of webinars and convert it into clients and sales? Well, that is at the core of the webinar 2.0 - creating a relationship with your prospects rather than just acquiring a name and email address. Think of the webinar as more of an online workshop than a presentation.

Here are some pointers to get you started:

Timing and Preparation
The first thing you need to do is layout a timeline. Select a date 4-5 weeks in advance, send out your email invites about 3 weeks before the event, and plan any other publicizing material around that. The best time of day for a webinar is usually between 12:00-2:00 EST to maximize viewing across the country.

Like any live presentation, your audience's focused attention has a lifespan of about 30-45 minutes. What makes things even more difficult in a webinar is that you can't see each other, so your audience might start multitasking and clicking away from your slides if you lose their attention. In other words, keep the presentation succinct! Then allow about 15 minutes for questions so that you can keep the feeling of a conversation going. Feel free to change around the format a little. You can even schedule pauses for questions during the presentation or just leave them for the end.

Like many things in life, preparation time can make or break you. Practice in front of other people in your company and make sure that you have been fully trained by your web conferencing provider about the interactive features available.

Negotiations can feel like an endless tug-of-war, where tensions are high and the outcome is often less than ideal. Learning to negotiate effectively can both bolster your sales and increase your profits. Here are a few common mistakes to avoid when you negotiate:

Failure to plan means planning to fail. Plan your approach, the concessions you are prepared to make and what information you still need to negotiate the best possible outcome.  Don't make rash decisions in the heat of the moment just to get the deal done.

Focusing on price. Of course price is a critical factor in every purchase; however the value your product or service brings to the prospect is even more important. Price becomes an issue when your prospect doesn't fully understand the value that your product or service can provide to their company. Learn how to overcome price objections.

Not asking quality questions. Asking the right questions will help you understand the prospect's issues and hot buttons, and what benefits will be most valuable to them. This knowledge is essential for effective negotiations, so don't forget to listen to what your prospect tells you!

Negotiating with the wrong person. Deal with this early on by confirming that the person you are negotiating with has the authority to make a buying decision. If the person you're talking to doesn't have the authority to make a final buying decision, then you need to get a commitment to meet with the true decision maker.

Focusing on the give, instead of the give and take. The end result of your negotiation should be a win-win situation - valuable for both you and your client. If you make a concession, ask for something in exchange.

Not knowing when to walk-away. Know your bottom-line price in advance of negotiations so you don't get caught up in the heat of negotiations and agree to a deal that is unprofitable or doesn't make good business sense.

Making too many assumptions. Ask and listen, don't assume. Don't miss out on opportunities because you didn't take the time to validate your assumptions.

Negotiating is a daunting task, even more so when working with savvy business buyers. What are your tips for successful negotiations? 

A few weeks ago, I covered lead forms and offered some simple advice on how to make them friendlier with the goal to increase conversion rates.  Now, I'd like to take it one step further and offer some quick tips on building conversion-friendly landing pages which are pages that appear after someone clicks on an advertisement such as an email or pay-per-click ad.

We all spend time designing good looking emails or optimizing ad copy for paid search campaigns. While that's important  - don't forget about the landing page you're sending that traffic to!

Here are a few quick things to keep in mind when creating landing pages:

Maintain design continuity - make sure your design (including images, fonts, colors, etc.) is consistent from the ad to the landing page (and to all subsequent pages). You want your users - your potential leads - to be comfortable and to feel like they're in the right place.

Ensure consistent messaging - the messaging/copy you use in the initial advertisement should be reused in places on your landing pages. For example, if you're advertising low health insurance coverage options, you're landing page should - naturally - talk about how to get low health insurance rates. Doing anything else would confuse the user and distract from your goal.

Be helpful - you want to ensure that the user knows where they are and where they can turn for help. Clearly display your company logo and make it easy for them to pick up the phone or email you if they want to reach you by prominently showing a phone number and/or email address.

Give direction - You're likely not building a landing page for someone to peruse for hours. Rather, this is a conversion page where you want the user to quickly get acclimated and then take an action. Make it abundantly clear what that action is - don't bury your offer or your desired next step!

Keep it simple - Sure, you have more room to showcase your jazzy marketing copy than you would in an email, but don't get carried away (and don't be too sales oriented and pushy). Definitely share what's needed to whet the appetite, but remember: the core purpose of a landing page is to drive leads or sales for your business.

Test - I know this sounds basic, but you should always be trying new things on landing pages. You never know which slight tweak can make all the different in the world. Experiment again and again.

What landing page tips have worked for you? Share yours in the comment section below.

Further reading on this topic:

• 30 principles to a better landing page design
• Increase landing page conversions
• 10 tips for lead generation landing pages
• Ultimate guide to A/B testing
• 5 ways to improve your SEO landing pages

For this week's blog roundup, I'd like to explore the idea of thinking outside the box and trying tactics that might not be in your comfort zone. This first article explores the tactic of not giving sales prospects choice, even though it might be counterintuitive. Options can lead to too many decisions, which ultimately slow, if not stop, the buying process.

Also, in the spirit of thinking outside the box, here is a list of Favorite Sales Manager Sayings and Clichés to avoid this quarter!

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Here are two interesting articles by Fill the Funnel about tools to help reclaim control of your time. The first discusses AwayFind and the way it can improve efficiency by allowing you to determine when and how you will be interrupted by emails. They explain:

AwayFind watches your inbox in the background. It notifies you when an important person or subject comes in. You select to be notified by phone, SMS, Instant Message, a DM (Direct Message) on Twitter. You can even decide to delegate or route certain messages to others that are better suited to take action anyway.

The second article of theirs that I would like to highlight is, Google Voice Now Available to Everyone. The blog post explains, in detail, many of the benefits of Google Voice and how it could be beneficial to a small business. Previously Google Voice was only available by invite, but now it is available even for businesses to take advantage of.

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One blog post that really grabs the attention this week is about the acquisition of Zappos.com and The $887.9 Million Dollar Twitter Campaign. Check it out!

Make selling your main priority by organizing everything else. The following are ten free tools to keep your workday under control. These tools will help you keep contacts in check, analyze and track your activity so you can refocus your efforts, and will help your overall sales performance.  Really, what could be better?

Performance Tools:

Firefox SuperSearch

According to Geoffrey James at BNET, this is the "Swiss Army Knife" of search engines: "It allows users to perform web searches, people searches, reverse lookups, public records searches, due diligence and background research, using over 160 of the internet's best search engines."
James also added in his review that the "search link" menu is far from limited. It can even connect you to other search sites like white pages, yellow pages and more.

Google Analytics

This application gives you everything you want to know about who is visiting your site. Tyler King at Less Annoying Software said in his review, "the reporting features in GA become even more useful [with] the more traffic you get. It's easy to pick out trends, view which pages are generating your traffic, and see all the different ways people are reaching your site."




Zoho CRM

Partho at Gaea News Network said Zoho CRM presents an effective customer relationship for companies on a budget: "It offers end-to-end solutions from marketing activities to post-sales customer support and more."
Partho continued to explain that Zoho CRM helps manage sales leads, accounts, campaign, forecasts and business activities.
"The most convenient thing about Zoho CRM is that you create an account with email address and password and get started."
Read the full review here.  

•  Other CRM tools at a price: PMAM CRM, PipelineDeals or Salesforce 

Why not learn from the successes of other B2B businesses?  In this week's blog roundup, we are featuring MarketingSherpa's Top 7 B2B Case Studies for 2010, where they interview businesses about best practices that could be applied globally to other B2B companies.  The case studies include lead generation, client interaction, SEO, and more.  Best of all, they are free!

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How important is timing when it comes to contacting leads?  According to ZoomInfo's B2B Blog, leads can be Gone in Sixty Seconds.  The article explains that timing can have a drastic impact on conversion rates:

It [a study by Leads360] found that 88% of all leads that eventually convert were called within the first 24 hours. What's more, sales leads called within 60 seconds of being first generated online showed a fourfold (391%) increase compared with average conversion rates.

Even though sales cycles have rapidly increased due to the Internet and sales tools, timing and follow through have remained a constant.  In fact, one could argue that the speed of technology makes timing even more crucial because clients have even higher, fast-paced expectations.

However, remember that there is a difference between being timely and being persistent.  Here are some tips on contacting prospects.
We also covered some of the interesting findings from Leads360 on this topic in a previous post - check it out. [link below]

http://www.buyerzone.com/blog/2010/03/-leads360-a-lead-management.html

As we begin the second half of the year, it's a good time to assess your progress against your annual goals and find areas of opportunity. Cross-selling and up-selling are excellent opportunities to increase your sales volume and average order size without increasing your marketing budget.

Cross-selling is simply encouraging the buyer to purchase a complementary or related product or service. Amazon.com is a good example of cross-selling complementary products - "if you bought product A, you might also like products B and C."   

Up-selling is giving the buyer an incentive to purchase a higher volume or an upgraded version of a product. Comcast bundles their products, offering discounts for customers who use their phone, internet and cable services. Your local gym might offer a discount if you sign a commitment for two years instead of just one.

Suggesting complementary or related purchase items is both logical and intuitive.  In the past week or so, I've run into many examples of cross-selling and up-selling in my personal life. Here are a few examples:

• While picking up a package at the post office, the woman behind the counter asked if I needed to buy stamps.
• I purchased new running sneakers and the sales person suggested socks to go with them.
• An online retailer sent me a coupon code for free shipping with an $80 purchase.

These techniques are simple concepts to understand and if used correctly, can provide value to your customers while boosting your sales.

Do you offer your customers related or upgraded products in this manner?

Since the onset of web 2.0, online engagement has become crucial to the success of campaigns, even in the b2b space. However, not all contact with clients is necessarily positive. Remembering the difference between broadcasting and engaging when interacting with your audience can be vital to the success of your client and potential client relationships.

You also want to track how your engagements are materializing in your analytics. Here are a list of biggest mistakes and how to avoid them.

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Since Internet Safety Month just drew to a close, here are some final thoughts on your online safety.

To protect your business on the web, follow these tips from Forbes. They explain:

Financial fraud as well as identity and intellectual property theft are the crimes of choice. The Justice Department's Internet Crime Complaint Center received 336,655 complaints about online fraud last year, totaling a record $560 million.

Online theft can take many forms. Here are some additional notes on online safety from Small Biz Blog because no business is too small to be a target. In fact, small to medium sized businesses are said to be the most vulnerable to attack. They remind us:

Many of these cyber criminals steal whatever they can get their hands on -- most in demand are credit card numbers, personal information, and social security numbers. While it's a no-brainer for a small business owner to secure a store or business office with locks, alarms and perhaps even video surveillance - some still neglect to secure their computer.

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Just for the fun, we wanted to share a few 4th of July easy party food ideas that will set you apart from the other office barbeques on the block!

Having trouble capturing the moment? Here are tips to improve your firework photography.

Have a Happy Independence Day!