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Earlier this week, Anne Kelly, our VP of Sales (who you'll be hearing more from on this blog in the coming months) and I attended Demandcon in Boston. It was our first time at this conference and we attended because the subject matter is right in our sweet spot: accelerating and aligning marketing and sales resources to succeed with lead generation.

I thought I'd share some key takeaways:

State of B2B Demand Generation

Jay Gaines from SiriusDecisions keynoted the conference with some interesting thoughts about the state of demand generation. Over the past few years, demand generation techniques have improved vastly - it's now a well-oiled machine, but the training wheels are still on.

• Tools and technology are on the rise, and marketers are doubling their investment in business intelligence and marketing automation/CRM software. But less than 25% of businesses are leveraging these tools to their fullest (especially marketing automation).
  

• And though marketers have many more tools at their disposal -- allowing for targeting, segmenting, lead scoring, nurturing and the like, many are still resorting to the tried and true tactics of "spray and pray" -- sending generic email blasts hoping to drive leads.

• The balance of inbound lead channels versus outbound lead channels is still skewing towards inbound. Inbound leads are always a good thing (especially when factoring in cost), but you still need a balance of the two, which we talk about at length in our recent whitepaper.
  

• As we all know, not all leads will close. According to Jay, 80% of Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) don't close. Thus, there is an immense amount of "lead waste" if you aren't prepared to turn those "wasted" leads into future opportunities with lead nurturing. The key is to manage the waste with smart but not overly complex lead nurturing campaigns. Campaigns that address the reason for non-closure, for instance, and not just a one-size-fits-all maze of emails that are unlikely to turn a prospect back into your pipeline. 

In case you missed it, we are offering a free webinar next week based on our recent white paper, "The Art and Science of Online Lead Generation."

I've been working on the deck and my script for the presentation, and I can tell you we are going to pack a lot of info into a short amount of time. Whether you're brand new to online lead gen, or have been doing it for a while but want to get more data and how it can be more effective for you, I think there's something for everyone.

We also plan to include plenty of time for Q&A, so prepare your questions. We'll have me and LeadsCouncil's Michael Ferree on deck to help answer those tough lead gen questions.


When: Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Time: 2pm EST
Who should attend: B2B marketers and sales professionals who want to learn clear and actionable tips for succeeding with online sales leads from the experts.

Register now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/756885614

See you next week!

We recently launched our new whitepaper, the Art and Science of Successful Online Lead Generation. And now, we're hosting a webinar with our friends at LeadsCouncil to talk about our tips, in-depth!

The webinar will be hosted by Michael Ferree, Director of LeadsCouncil and will feature Jeremy Sacco, Editorial Manager at BuyerZone and the author of the whitepaper.

Here are the details:

When: Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Time: 2pm EST
Who should attend: B2B marketers and sales professionals who want to learn clear and actionable tips for succeeding with online sales leads from the experts.

Register now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/756885614

We hope you can join us on the 18th!

Tonight, Jeff and I are going to be making our web radio debut, thanks to the Sales Lead Management Association. They've asked us to join their weekly live broadcast to talk about the results from our recent State of B2B Lead Generation survey. 

We're looking forward the chance to talk through the survey, and answer questions we weren't able to get to in our whitepaper. Join the broadcast and see what else we found: get the details and the link to listen live here.

Thursday, August 16, 5 pm PST. (Yep, 8 pm for us East Coasters.)

At a great webinar I attended yesterday, Forrester Research senior analyst Rob Brosnan shared some insights from a recent survey about marketing automation usage, as well as some great tips on how to take automation to the next level. (The full survey results are available from Silverpop.) Here's a summary of his presentation.

Done correctly, marketing automation (MA) can address challenges from three directions: customers, competitors, and internal demands. It's all about improving efficiency and opening new opportunities. It's not one specific category of software: it can include a wide range of tools to improve efficiency, enhance alignment, and provide new opportunities.

Back from another successful show in Las Vegas last week, I thought I'd share some brief notes and themes that I took away:

• In his keynote address, Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School, talked at length about the concept of labor illusion - meaning it's important to be transparent with what is happening after you ask a potential customer to do something. The classic example is the lame progress bar, which while telling you the percentage completed (or something similar), offers zero value in terms of communicating what's happening behind the scenes. Instead of offering very little, Norton suggests that showing the customer what's actually happening is a powerful way to demonstrate the labor you're performing - thus inherently making that person more vested in the outcome. One example of a successful application is a flight search engine that shows what's happening after you enter in your criteria, but before a flight matrix is displayed. Why not tell the user the list of airlines being checked, flight combinations, class of service requested, etc?
  
• In the annual state of the industry chat, the CEO's of Quinstreet and Bankrate spoke about where they see the future of lead generation going. Content will continue to be king as well as a key differentiator for those without it, regulations (especially in education) will be a disruption, social media as a lead generation tool remains unproven in the B2B space, and the growth of mobile continues. Our thoughts echo many of these observations, as BuyerZone too is focused on producing more great content, cracking the social media code and mobilizing our sites for, well, mobile.
• Lead quality and the ever present balance of quantity with quality remains a key focus. Those lead generators who work with lead buyers directly understand the importance of quality, while lead aggregators, resellers and affiliates are often to blame for unseemly practices which, at times, give the industry a bad name. 
• Tim Ash, CEO of Site Tuners, spoke of 5 tips for great landing pages, most of which are fairly standard, but one -- keep your promises -- stuck with me. Throughout the entire lead generation process, marketers need to make sure what we state we'll do actually happens.
• In the click-to-call space, we know that timely follow-up is critical, but one stat really shocked me: re-contract rate drops to less than 1% after 30 minutes. That is mind-boggling to me, and just underscores how sales processes need to be not only relevant, but super timely.

Overall, another great show. Did you attend? Add your key takeaways in the comments section below.

In honor of our twentieth birthday in 2012, BuyerZone is producing the first annual 20 Under 20 awards. These awards will recognize 20 of the youngest small businesses in America which have gone above and beyond in terms of customer service, innovation, social engagement, teamwork, leadership, and more.

Yes, you can nominate yourself. (There's no promotion like self-promotion, after all.) The only rule is your business needs to be fewer than 20 years old.

Fill out the form below to see how you compare! We'll be announcing winners in March.

UPDATE: The nomination period has ended. Winners will be announced later this month.

Image: Flickr

No, not the Superbowl. (Although with our Patriots back in it again, there is a lot of excitement around BuyerZone's Boston-area office... go Pats!) No, the real big game for us is LeadsCon - and it's coming up in a little more than three weeks.

LeadsCon is the premiere event for our industry -- we look forward to it every year. Despite the sense of competition between lead generators who are competing for the same eyeballs, there's always something to learn from others' experiences.

I mentioned previously that we'll be sending two of our all-stars to Leads Con: Jeff Gordon, our Director of Marketing (and About Leads blogger), and Anne Kelly, our VP of sales. Both have been important parts of BuyerZone for years, and both will be out and about at LeadsCon to make connections. And just like media day before the Superbowl, I had a chance to interview both of them about their plans for the big game.

Jeff's more focused on relationships with other lead sellers. "We're always looking to find new ways to work with other lead generators," says Gordon, "and besides, these other lead guys always know where the best buffets are."  (Gameday tip: never stand between Jeff and a buffet.)

As our VP of sales, Anne's more interested in connecting with lead buyers. "With our range of lead gen services," she says, "we can help businesses in almost any industry. You want flying car leads? I'll get you flying car leads."

Ticket discount
If you're interested and haven't gotten your ticket yet, the LinkedIn Online Lead Generation Group has an exclusive $400 discount off the on-site price. But it's only good until February 10, so don't wait.

Note: Jeff and Anne probably didn't say these things. But you can ask them in person... at LeadsCon.

LeadsCon Las Vegas is February 28th and 29th this year, and we're already getting excited. It's probably the single most important tradeshow for those of us in the lead generation industry -- and it can be a gold mine of information for lead buyers, as well.

In fact, this year LeadsCon has added a set of workshops specifically focused on lead buyers. With titles like "You're Buying Crap - More Than You Would Ever Know," I'm not sure what to expect -- but if I was a lead buyer, I'd be interested in those, as well as the Buyers-only events on Monday the 27th.

If you're going to LeadsCon, make sure to keep an eye out for BuyerZoners. Director of Marketing (and fellow About Leads blogger) Jeff Gordon will be there, along with our VP of Sales, Anne Kelly. Track them down and say hello -- and let them know what we can do to help you get and close more leads.

We're headed to LeadsCon - the lead generation conference - in early March. As usual, the program is action-packed and full of panels and sessions about all things leads. Like last year, we'll plan to do some live-blogging and also recap our thoughts after the conference, but we want to hear from you: what should we cover? 

Check out the conference agenda and let us know in the comments section below which three sessions you want us to recap for you right here on the blog.

Going to be attending LeadsCon? Let us know at partnerships@buyerzone.com.

Finally, here's a quick look back at our recap from last year's show.