June 2011 Archives

In honor of the long Fourth of July weekend, here is a roundup of various lead generation, sales, and holiday articles to get you through the week.

Do you ever struggle with questions like, "How often should I call? How often should I email? What should I do first?" Brandon Stamschror answers just these questions and more in his recent article, To call or email? That is the question. Read about his strategies for calls, emails, and follow-up.

Beyond connecting with prospects, you have to be able to target the right type of people that would be interested in your products or services. But how do you determine your ideal client? Find out in, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I'm my Idea Client After All.

However you look at online lead generation, one of the key components is the actual form you use to capture leads. There is a tendency (mostly by sales) to gather as much information as possible to help in the follow-up process. The problem with that approach - to most marketers, anyways - is the more information you ask for, the less likely a prospective lead will complete the form. The lesson, in most cases, is less is more.

Marketing Experiments published a recent case study on marketing automation company Marketo, about how they've experienced success with shorter forms. It's worth a read.

Want to slice the fat out of your forms? Review some tips from a post on this very topic that we wrote last year.

Here at BuyerZone, we're big proponents of lead nurturing as a way to help prospects become real customers -- but not all nurturing campaigns are created equal. Here's a quick video from Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers on some of the biggest mistakes businesses make when getting into lead nurturing.

As we wind down the week, wanted to share some interesting articles about our favorite topic: lead generation.

But first, we had some exciting news at BuyerZone this week where we announced a new partnership with our friends at RapidBuyr. RapidBuyr offers daily deals on products and services that businesses need. Think a Groupon-like model, but for business purchases (not massages, car service or pizza). It's a great fit for us, as we've helped connect millions of businesses with quality sellers of products and services and love helping our customers find not only the right deal, but a great deal. Check out the RapidBuyr site so you can get great deals for your business delivered directly to your inbox!

And now, back to lead generation. Here are three articles we're reading this week, hope you find them interesting too:

• 10 ways to magnify lead generation results: as always, it's not quantity, but the quality of leads. Here's how to make sure you're not wasting time chasing dead-end leads.
• Modern B2B lead generation - 5 key areas to manage: B2B marketing is ever-changing - here are five areas to manage to ensure you and your team are on top of trends and opportunities.
  
• Which lead generation method works best?: Geoffrey James on his five methods for lead generation and which are more effective.
  

What are you reading this week? Let us know!

Check out BuyerZone's new Lead Generation Resource Center! BuyerZone's resource center offers in-depth tools and guides for every stage of the sales process.  From generating new sales leads to following up and closing sales, our resource center has the information you need to grow your business.

Here's a snapshot of our latest tools and guides:

Lead generation 101: Discover how lead generation companies capture leads, what to look for in a lead generation provider and decide if it's right for your business.

Lead generation ROI calculator and lead tracker: Download our simple ROI calculator that you can use to compare the performance of all your internal and external lead generation programs, as well as do basic lead tracking.

Lead nurturing basics: Discover basic lead nurturing strategies to help you start generating revenue from stale leads.

Following up on a lead: Maximize your close rate by following our simple, but effective, follow-up tips.

SEO and lead generation: Learn how to use SEO tactics to optimize your website and generate more leads for your business.

Marketing and sales alignment: a shared path: Follow these tips to help bridge the gap between marketing and sales, and generate and close more leads.

Please comment below to let us know what topics you'd be interested in learning more about.

I wrote a guest post for Jeff Ogden's Fearless Competitor blog on how flexibility is essential when you're working leads from different sources. Take a look to learn a bit about how you might want to think about adjusting your sales tactics based on the characteristics of different lists and lead sources.

After you check it out, take a look around his site -- he's got a gold mine of other information on how find new customers for any type of business.

We've all been there - receiving a call from a sales representative that is overly aggressive, pushy, or even desperate. And what was your reaction? Most prospects just get frustrated and try to end the call as quickly as possible. In this competitive business environment, even the smallest detail can be the difference between success and failure. Small nuances of a rep's behavior can easily cost them the sale, and they might repeat that same behavior without realizing that it's the problem. So, let's take a look at some selling tactics to avoid -and ensure that you are always putting your best foot forward.

Here are some of the best ways to annoy your prospects - and likely cost you the sale: