Lydia getting some rest : )

Our first family photo with Lydia as a happy family of five! I feel very grateful and blessed.

To get your lead generation program on track, I recommend that your organization start by creating a universal lead definition. By following these five steps, you’ll create a definition that not only works but that gets better over time.

Steps for defining a universal lead definition:

1. Meet - Get those who are marketing and those who are selling together in a room or on a conference call. You need a leader/facilitator with "street credibility." The premise of the meeting is that we're all in this together.

2. Ask this question to sales team: “For us to be 100% certain that when we send you a lead that you will act on it and provide feedback on 100% of the time, what do you need to know? At what point do you consider a lead qualified?  Now shut up and listen. Dig. Dig. Dig. Everybody must play.

3. Don't stop with just one meeting. Summarize the notes from your meeting and have another meeting to clarify and make sure everyone is satisfied with the definition. You need to have a strong consensus.

4. Publish the Universal Lead Definition everywhere so people who are involved in new customer acquisition are reminded often about their target and objective.

5. Close-the-loop via huddles before leveraging software. Sales/Marketing should meet bi-weekly to review if the lead definition is still accurate. Ask questions like: Was X a lead? Did they enter the sales process? Why or why not? What else would you like to have known about this lead? How can we improve? What should we stop doing? What should we start doing?

It won’t take long to reap the benefits.  And, I guarantee you that improved ROI won’t be the only one.

Related Posts:

Closed Loop Feedback: The Missing Lead Generation Huddle

If your sales team perceives the majority of "leads" passed to them are no good, they're unlikely to spend time tracking prospects down.

I’ve already written about why lead quality should be emphasized over quantity. But, how do you weed through all those web inquiries to get to those that are truly ready for the sales team to engage so you can nurture the rest?

Here's a lead qualification process that may help you turn your web inquiries into viable sales leads: 

Step 1 - Create a marketing funnel.

The purpose of the marketing funnel is to bring inquiries (aka leads) into one spot and qualify them. The marketing funnel creates sales-ready leads and nurtures the leads that aren’t sales ready. Lead qualification must first classify leads according to their "sales readiness" and business fit; and second, to manage all the incoming leads effectively.

Step 2 - Create the universal lead definition, and apply it to the remaining inquiries.

There are must-have questions your sales team must know in order to feel that an inquiry is worthy of being called a lead. Ask yourself:

• What’s the company’s size, industry, and geography. At this point, you may want to remove inquiries based on specific marketing requirements or limitations. For example, you may remove foreign email address, student email addresses or contacts residing in locations or industries that you don’t serve. This step could reduce 5 – 10% of entries.

• Ask business situation questions such as number of users, current systems platform, etc.
• What is registrant’s role in the organization, or what is their authority in the buying process?
• Based on their business need, how can you help?
• What stage of investigation are they in the buying process? Many registrants are actually still early in the buying process and are conducting general market research. These contacts are very valuable and should be nurtured and managed over time—but these folks clearly aren’t people who are ready to buy. Be honest about what the search marketing effort is designed to achieve and is capable of accomplishing.

Purge those inquiries containing bogus information. It’s amazing how creative people can get. Remove duplicates and invalid names and email addresses. Keep in mind that simple forms tend to generate less invalid info rather than lengthy, time-consuming forms. People start to question the value of giving up too much info. Trim the form by about 20% to avoid this.

I read of one company that trimmed down the registration to include an extremely simple, two-field form. Conversion rate more than tripled with this simplification. At the same time, the company expanded their email follow-up process and was able to increase the total amount of personal data collected over time.

Step 3 - Create a behavior model to prioritize leads based on activity and data.

Apply lead scoring to prioritize your leads on order to follow-up in step 4. What lead scoring does is assign a point value to who prospects are, how they interact with your company and what their need is for your product. Most marketers give higher scores to those further along in the buying process based on their engagement. Lead scoring works best if you have 200+ inquiries per month. Otherwise it might be overkill.

Use your CRM or marketing automation suite to prioritize based on:

• Level or engagement through touch points such as repeat web visits, downloads, or clicks.
• Size of organization
• Fit

You can measure all these touch points, but in the end if you want to know something you’ll need to talk to someone and engage them in conversation.

Step 4 - Use the phone (or email) to qualify high priority leads based on the scoring.

The phone is the gold standard for qualifying most leads. There’s no better way to engage. We have also found email to be a great way to create a one-to-one dialogue by asking questions. (Test this first with your audiences.).

Using these channels to nurture web registrants, learn more about each one, and then provide personalized and relevant information over time. You should be spoon-feeding prospects, provide truly valuable information, while moving them through the buying process.

Related Posts:

Why Most B2B Sites Fail to Convert Sales Leads
Lead Nurturing is about Relationships, not e-mails
Using Kaizen to improve your lead generation results in 90 days or less

The community features content from other B2B marketing bloggers I enjoy such as Ardath Albee (Marketing Interactions), Paul Dunay (Buzz Marketing for Technology) and Jon Miller (Modern B2B Marketing) as well many others. If you’re looking for insights from other experts in B2B marketing I recommend you check it out.

We can tell ourselves that more leads is better because it lowers the cost-per-lead and gives the sales team more activity. But don’t be one of those lulled by this false sense of security. If you really want to make a difference in your company’s sales, dig deeper. Focus on metrics that go beyond cost-per-lead, and more importantly, focus on quality first then quantity.

Do you know how many of your leads are actually impacting the sales pipeline? I've done numerous lead qualification programs have shown that as little as 5 to 15 percent of all inquiries turn out to be truly sales-ready opportunities. And while there are other influences such as sales training and refining the lead handoff process, lead quality stands out as the single largest factor driving the real ROI of our lead generation programs.  

The only way to ensure quality is to make sure that all leads, regardless of their source, meet the standards set by the universal lead definition. At its most basic definition, a lead is a potential customer who wants to learn more about what you have to sell and that has acknowledged they have a business problem you can help solve. Couple this definition with elements from the ideal customer profile and you have the beginnings of a meaningful lead definition. However, for the lead definition to be useful, it must be applied to all leads whether they are received from a webinar, a website, or from teleprospecting.

Creating the universal lead definition is a collaborative effort.  When working with clients the first thing we do is facilitate meetings and bring marketing and sales leaders together. A universal lead definition (ULD) begins to take shape as we ask ourselves a few basic questions including: What makes a good sales lead? What are the job functions/titles of economic buyers/influencers?  What information is necessary in order to qualify a prospect etc.?  I'll write more about this in a future post.

Once we’ve agreed on the Universal Lead Definition, we can begin to efficiently weed through the inquiries in order to discover the fruitful leads. Then and only then, can we begin to measure the cost of our efforts. But don’t get caught up with the cost-per-lead. Dig deeper. Cost-per-lead budgets are irrelevant unless you can first measure cost-per-opportunity or cost-per-lead-pursued by sales. Programs may generate many low-cost responses, but they don’t turn to opportunities at the same rate, making opportunity a critical metric. 

Creating a lead qualification process that works is challenging, but don’t shortchange your sales team by focusing too much on cost at the front end of the demand generation cycle. You’ll fail to measure the impact on the generation of real opportunities. Closed loop approaches where marketers focus on optimal spending at each stage of the sales cycle minimize the frustration factor and save time, ultimately saving lots of valuable dollars. Focus on quality and make sure that all leads meet up to your sales’ departments standards and then… start nurturing!

Related posts:

B2B Lead Generation Blog: Why cost-per-lead budgets fail and fewer leads are better

If you are still on the fence or if you are still struggling with how to fully utilize social media, I encourage you to check our Ambal Balakrishnan’s article, “Tips on how B2B marketers should leverage social media.”

In the article Ambal asked me and 6 others to share our thoughts on using social media, and we steer you towards some our favorite reading resources, too.

ClickInsights: Tips on how B2B marketers should leverage social media

Here are some quick highlights from those 7 interviews:

Tip 1: Ardath Albee, a B2B Marketing Strategist for Marketing Interactions, reminds us that in order to reap the biggest benefits we have to be relentlessly generous and stop with the quid pro quo mentality. You’ll become a trusted resource much faster by giving away something of value freely.  I love the video she recommends from Gary Vaynerchuck, “Telling Your Story.”

Tip 2: Rebel Brown has been creating strategies and launching companies for over thirty years, and encourages you to think through the purpose of your social media endeavor.  Read what she says about   the who, what, where and why of the process. 

Tip 3: Patsi Krakoff, a journalist who has been working in online content marketing for the last 10 years, says you should use social media to be helpful and to ask for help. She gives you tips for using Twitter and offers some great reading recommendations to help you with content marketing.

Tip 4: Mac McIntosh conducts marketing workshops and seminars, writes for marketing and business publications and is the publisher of Sales Lead Report and Sales Lead Insights. According to Mac, if you want to use social media to generate leads your business will fall into one of three distinct categories. Find out if these apply to your business.

Tip 5: According to Maria Pergolino, an Inbound Marketing Manager at Marketo, social media works best when used in conjunction with all your marketing resources and tools and can provide some extra punch because you discover new ways to share information.

Tip 6: And that leads to the tip you’ll get from yours truly.  Explore the platforms your prospects use and listen to what they have to say. Through social media you can learn so much about how to approach your audience. Each time a prospect asks a question or joins a group, you’ll gain valuable insight. With a little patience, you’ll probably be able to figure out where they are in their buying process and what challenges they are facing at the moment.

Tip 7: And last but not least, you’ll hear from Seamus Walsh, author of B2BContent Marketing. According to Seamus, social media is not a panacea. Make social media a part of a well-though out point strategy and realize that you don’t have to be everywhere day one to start where your customers are.

Do you have some words of wisdom for B2B marketers that are ready to take the dive into social media that you can share?  Share your comments.

The one that stands to me is the last one, "have a process for handing leads back to marketing" when they are not sales ready. We call that lead reengagement and it's a form of lead nurturing.

Lead reengagement is one of the most powerful ROI tools marketers have available to them. Why? You're getting more out of the money you've already spent by going deeper within the opportunities you already have. It seems like common sense, but the reality is, I know of very few companies that think about it, because they assume it's the salespeople's job.

Related post: Lead reengagement gives you more out of your lead generation investment

What best pratices and processes do you think marketers should be doing to move more marketing generated leads to the sales pipeline?

You can check out all the other classes or register at: http://www.inboundmarketing.com/university

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.

Tip 3. Role and job function: What’s their job function? What part to they play in the buying process (influencer, decision maker, information gather). For example, our experience shows that a decision maker is heavily involved at the very start and the very end of the B2B buying process, but leaves the middle of the process up to the influencers. For your niche, you’ll need to investigate who gets involved at which point in the process so that you can segment your messaging. 

Tip 4. Timing factors: Learn about these lead nurturing time factors. You’ll also want to think about the favorable trigger events you can utilize to your advantage. Trigger events are a great way to change the physics of the buying process and yet another way that we marketers can go beyond the lead.

Trigger events matter for two key reasons. First, they may indicate the status quo in an organization is changing, and secondly, they can contribute to the development of timely and relevant sales and marketing messaging. Read The Physics of Trigger Events for Lead Generation to get a look at a trigger event mind map. It will show you some of the possible trigger events you can track.

Tip 5. Message style: This is the hardest to get right. Each audience responds differently to style. That’s why you should test, test, test. Try different subject lines (this is my favorite relevancy booster - I find using the less marketing hype the better). Try different message copy and calls to action. The response to your A/B tests will help you understand which style is most relevant and effective with your audience. Try different mediums (don't rely on email only nurturing).

As you develop lead nurturing tracks this is extremely useful because you can leverage what you've learned to reuse that content again and again.

I realize that new social media trends have opened up many avenues in which marketers can create and nurture relationships. However, I believe email can still hold its own. But, in order to keep it effective, more than ever you’ll have to create meaningful, informative, attention-grabbing content... in a style easily perceived to be directed exclusively to the recipient. 

If you’re not prepared to do the work it takes to stay relevant with your prospects, then at least prepare for more “emotional unsubscribes.”

Additional resources:

“Engage prospects while guiding them through buying process” for more advice about being relevant in the buying process from B2Bonline.

For more on email testing, read “E-mail Testing: A Real-World Approach.” This article provides a simple road map to follow and outlines testing scenarios in the way people really think (or should be thinking) about testing.

The list is divided into categories including: personal sales, build up to corporate and international clientele, marketing for more sales and lead generation. It’s a list worth checking out. And, who knows, maybe you’ll find a few new blogs to add to your reading list. 

Top 100 Blogs to Boost Your Sales (and Marketing) Skills

I wrote an full article that outlines the basic steps to help you get started down the path of lead nurturing success, but here’s a quick synopsis:

1. Walk IN your potential customers’ shoes.This means thinking like your customer and considering the questions they will have for you and your company.Consider the questions that customers have in mind before they make a buying decision:

    * How will this product/service help my company?
    * We’re doing okay, why do we need it?
    * Is there another company out there that is better?
    * Will their solution really work? Can they prove it?
    * Is the company credible?
    * Can we afford it? 

Help prospects find the answers to these questions, and you’ll remind them of the benefits of working with you. You’re creating value by giving them useful information in digestible, bite sized chunks.

2. Plan your path. Figure out which methods of answering these questions work best for your company. They’ll have to be timely and relevant.

3. Now, walk the path WITH your customer. Think of yourself as a tour guide. You’ll need to keep your prospect company along the way, all the while building trust through an honest relationship. Most economic buyers subscribe to the notion that how you sell me indicates how you will serve me.

4. Keep marching. Make sure you put on some comfy shoes, because complex sales require a long-term commitment and lots of walking. Companies that make plans with this fact in mind are tremendously more successful than companies who are set on taking shortcuts.

Read the full article "Lead Nurturing is Walking the Buying Path with Your Customers"

I will discuss Inbound Lead Nurturing. This class will be based on my 14 years of experience creating and executing lead nurturing programs for InTouch. Other classes focus on effective blogging, SEO tactics, uses for Facebook and LinkedIn, and landing page best practices.

You can check out all the classes at: http://www.inboundmarketing.com/university

Other professors leading courses include: Chris Brogan from New Marketing Labs, Mack Collier and Ann Handley both from MarketingProfs, Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz, Eric Groves  from Constant Contact, Jeanne Hopkins  from MarketingExperiments, Lee Odden  from Top Rank Online Marketing, David Meerman Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing & PR and Marshall Sponder from Monster.com.

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.

Over time, we came to realize that our approaches to designing and implementing lead generation process were complimentary. Michael uses the Kaizen approach, which is a method of driving improvements based on evidence and data, and for establishing a system that continuously improves results.

I was recently interviewed by Michael for an article: “Using Kaizen to Improve Your Lead Generation Results in 90 Days or Less.” In the article, Michael and I look at the problems with lead generation and share research conducted that addresses these challenges along with the following topics:

• Collaboration: lead generation and sales Kaizen
• Creating information offers to generate leads
• Developing content for lead generation campaigns
• How to organize a fast attack on lead generation problems
• Five steps to lead generation success

Read Using Kaizen to Improve Your Lead Generation Results in 90 Days or Less

Here's a quick summary of Michael Webb's Kaizen approach:

• Define and measure the undesirable results
• Identify the cause of those undesirable results
• Devise improvements that addresses the causes.
• Pilot that improvement to prove that it works.
• Incorporate the new process in to the management system.
• Drive to continuously improve the results of the new process.

So often I find that marketers are only looking at conversion rates of how specific phrases or banners perform and are ignoring other valuable information. While conversion rate is one way to measure the effectiveness a search phrase, it can be extremely misleading.

I came across an interesting article by B2B Internet marketing consultant Todd Miechiels, and I liked what he had to say about those B2B marketers that make bad decisions based on “solid analytics data.”

Marketers need to look at more than the quantity of conversions. Quality is just as important. If you look solely at what phrases convert a higher percentage of whitepaper downloads, for example, you could be missing the fact that another phrase brought in 2 or 3 of your top prospects, which in the long run, could be better for your company.

Todd goes on to say: “If you are spending thousands of dollars per month on search marketing and not capturing visiting organizations (both those that convert and the many more that don't), you are shutting down phrases and scaling back campaigns by using only half the truth. Equally as dangerous, you are likely routing dollars toward phrases and ad creative that appear to perform better but in reality are merely clogging the marketing database and sales pipeline.”

According to Todd, there are three things you should remember:

• Make sure you're capturing and reporting on visiting organizations referred by specific search phrases.
• Factor in the number of legitimate organizations you've captured when assessing the effectiveness of your search terms and campaigns.
• Don't fall into the trap of optimizing campaigns based solely on quantitative conversion data.

 Don’t clog the pipeline. Take Todd's advice and take the broader view.

Here's some related posts:

Web analytics for b2b lead gen
Tracking ROI for web generated leads

MarketingSherpa is looking for speakers for the events which will be held September 23-25 in San Francisco and October 23-25 in Boston. These summits feature case studies based on real-life marketers’ actual lessons learned about what is working at this moment in advanced business marketing.

Experienced B2B marketers who want to present will need to submit speech proposals by May 21, 2009.

Click here to learn more

Here’s what they are looking for:

1. B-to-B marketers to present Case Studies on real-life tests and tactics in demand generation. Marketers should work for an organization that does not target marketers as primary prospects.
2. Agencies may propose client Case Studies or joint presentations focused on what works for any of the following: sales lead generation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, multinational/international demand generation, B-to-B email, paid search advertising, SEO, PR, social media marketing, word-of-mouth/buzz marketing, print advertising, trade shows, webinars/white papers that work better, direct mail and advanced lead qualification. Please confirm the client’s availability to speak prior to submitting.
3. Advanced expert training sessions on one particular tactic featuring scientific/statistical data, test results/real-life campaigns and creative samples.

Note: Beginner 101, sales pitches or speeches that have been presented elsewhere will NOT be accepted.

Here's a summary of the process that Ardath uses that can help you start planning a progressive nurturing approach:

1. Think about one problem your products solve that's key to your prospects.
2. Define that problem from your customer's perspective.
3. List the questions they'll have and what they need to know in order to make a decision. (If you can address this to segments, all the better.)
4. Review your options for content that addresses these concerns.
5. Rate the Q&A for priority (take a stab and refine as you go)
6. Create an editorial calendar based on the priority list you just created.

Also, for those who own a copy of my book be sure to check out the "buying process map" (table 5-1) in Chapter 5 or you can search my book for free via Google Books.

Related posts:

5 Lead Nurturing Time Factors to Fine Tune Your Message
Content ideas for lead nurturing and tactics to use 
Lead Nurturing - Ripening the Right Bananas

I’ve discovered that it’s a pretty simple process if you’re willing to invest the time to freely share your expertise and thought leadership with others.

Here are 5 ways you can generate leads via LinkedIn:

Step #1 - Create a polished and personally branded profile on LinkedIn. Start connecting to your current and past contacts - focus on connecting with contacts where trust already exists.

Step #2 - Join LinkedIn groups where your clients/customers gather and participate.

Step #3 - Post relevant content on groups. Start building your credibility in the group by sharing relevant content. This can include things like relevant blog posts, links to articles you have written, articles that quote you and event notices for webinars etc. Be sensitive to the dynamics of your group and don’t dominate the conversation!

Step #4 - Answer questions posted on LinkedIn. Answer questions that are relevant to your expertise or something you're passionate about.  Group members often post questions on LinkedIn. Answer them and demonstrate your expertise and add value to the conversation. You can also visit LinkedIn Answers.  

Step #5 - Create your own LinkedIn group and share relevant content. Starting your own group gives you control over its content and reach. You can choose to open the group only to people you know or if appropriate, and you have the time, you can open it up to a larger audience. The goal is to engage your audience and leverage your thought leadership to make a difference with members of your group.

Here are a few other resources that have helpful tips on using LinkedIn for lead generation.

Ford Harding’s blog: Leads from LinkedIn

Hubspot blog: LinkedIn's Little Secret: It's a Great Lead-Gen Tool

What have your experiences been with LinkedIn for lead generation? Which LinkedIn Groups do you find the most useful as a B2B Sales person or Marketer and why?

• 16:14 The challenge today is not in generating leads, but more in truly connecting with them. That's why lead nurturing matters. #

I firmly believe that organizations that perform match readiness of the buyer with expectations of their sales team. The unrealized potential can be likened to the batteries in a flashlight. If the batteries aren't inserted in the right direction, or are otherwise out of proper contact, their power is unusable. My experience confirms that this communication breakdown affects nine out of ten companies. Bill asked me what advice I would give these organizations that are struggling with alignment. Here are the five tips I shared with him:

1. Sales and Marketing must collaborate on defining leads and marketing objectives. You can make a huge impact by focusing first, on creating an Ideal Customer Profile (company-wide, for each product, service or solution). Then, create the Universal Lead Definition of a "sales-ready lead." Finally, connect the marketing/sales process to customer's buying process.
2. What gets measured gets done. Connect sales and marketing metrics together.
3. Create relevant content for each stage of the customer buying cycle.
4. Focus on the data points you REALLY need to measure in your CRM.
5. Clarify your value proposition now! Does your sales team have sales-ready messaging?

In developing a lead generation program, it is incumbent on marketers to view the sales team as the customer. It's no different than directing a consulting firm project where the client is involved in each stage of the project. The sales team should become so integrated that it has program ownership just like everyone else.

There’s a lot more good info discussed in this interview so be sure to read the full article here. Thanks to Bill and SMM for giving the opportunity to share.

You don’t have to submit something in order to participate in the clinic. And, get this: you can win prizes by just making contributions to the discussion.

Visit the MarketingExperiments Blog to see 5 recent B2B Landing Pages that were submitted and analyzed by the MEx Sciences Team.

Watch the clinic on demand now

Read the summary

I've written a number of times on using educational marketing and certain aspects of thought leadership to generate leads, and I thought this post by Dana VanDen Heuvel over at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog was useful reminder.

So what is a thought leader?

First of all, thought leaders don't really refer to themselves as thought leaders. Thought leadership is an outside assessment based on what others say about you NOT what you say about you.

A thought leader is a recognized authority in one’s field. Elise Bauer wrote an article on thought leadership that I referenced in my book that's still relevant today, and it gives some good tips.

Bauer writes, “What differentiates a thought leader from any other knowledgeable company [or individual] is the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.”  She continues, “Trust is built on reputation and reputation is generally NOT built on advertising or looking smart.” 

I agree.  People have a natural "BS" meter. We can sense when someone is just trying to sound smart rather than be authentic. Most of us can recognize a charlatan, one who pontificates about their expertise only to pitch us. These so-called thought leaders are only just trying to edify themselves.

Thought leadership is not just about what you say or write. It is a way of being. Thought leaders genuinely influence others by creating, advancing and sharing ideas. And there are just a select few thought leaders in every industry and field of study. Their objective is to genuinely help others. In business, thought leaders revolutionize the way others (both inside and outside their companies) do business. That's true thought leadership. 

Bauer concludes, “Become a thought leader in your field and it won’t matter as much how big you are. Companies and people will look to you for insight and vision. Journalists will quote you, analysts will call you, and websites will link to you.”

If you're looking to develop more educational content or leverage thought leadership check out the following posts to get you started:

On giving away ideas
How to Become a Thought Leader and Attract Customers
Leverage Thought Leadership to Win More Sales (with Nurturing)
Using thought leader content as a lead generation tool
Content ideas for lead nurturing and tactics to use

In spite of the fact that in the past pushy salespeople and poorly trained marketers have tarnished the image of the phone, I still believe that reaching out via phone is a very effective lead generation tool.

Studies by leading marketing research firms like MarketingSherpa show that 92% of B2B buyers are open to cold calls if the sales person is relevant. However, to ensure success, cold-calling needs to be part of a holistic lead generation strategy.

How to Get Started:
To truly use phone calls as an effective lead generation strategy, I recommend you create a specialized sales development team within the sales or marketing group or hire a firm that specializes in teleprospecting. Make certain that your cold-calling is aligned with other ongoing marketing and reputation-building activities.Teleprospectors must be smart, articulate, engaging and organized. Their training should focus on making them a consistently productive and sustainable extension of the selling effort.

The phone is the human touch of your lead nurturing program and thus every opportunity including cold calling to a potential customer should be treated with great respect. Each time you pick up the phone, whether it be the first call or subsequent calls, it’s important to create value by giving your prospects useful information in digestible, bite-size chunks.

Step 4: Respect the Executive Assistants - Don’t view the EA as a barrier to initiating dialogue. Executive assistants can occupy a significant place in the sphere of influence, not to mention the boss’s ear. Don’t treat them as lesser and don’t be afraid to develop a relationship with people titled “assistant.”

Step 5: Always be relevant and über-informed - When you’re making a call the worst thing you can do is to call someone and know nothing about them. You must have a sound working knowledge of each potential customer and the company and most importantly, the issues they face and how your product can help solve them. This personal interest goes a long way in establishing meaningful dialogue.

Step 6: Gain opt-in - When you are speaking with a prospect it is proactive to request permission to e-mail subsequent helpful information. More often than not, the answer will be in the affirmative, which provides another building block for staying in touch.

Step 7: Always follow-up - It is crucial that you follow up in a way that is precise in terms of promptness and relevancy toward your prospect’s needs. Keep in mind when you follow up that you also need to ensure you do so in the manner requested. If they decline a follow up phone call, but ask you to email them then make certain you do so.

Teleprospecting is a much more rewarding way to reach out and initiate contact with prospective clients. By providing engaging and meaningful conversation you are also building the bridge to a much longer relationship. In sales, a bridge always enables taking another step toward a client/customer relationship.

Related post:

10 Lead Generation (Prospecting) Tips for Sales People

Here's some other blogs that focus on the using the phone to generate leads:

Art Sobczak's Telesales Blog
Inside Sales Experts Blog
Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog
Life in the Telebusiness Trenches
Wendy Weiss ~ The Queen of Cold Calling 

Sherpa’s free report is filled with mini-stories from our colleagues in the marketing world who have learned through trial and error. The topics of this year’s report touched on just about every aspect of marketing out there – from tradtional tactics to Web 2.0 and mobile marketing.

According to the editors at Sherpa, there were three main trends represented in this year’s edition:
1.    Email  - It’s clear from this book that email isn’t dead. In fact, it’s far from it. Sherpa editors noticed that marketers are looking for ways to tweak their email correspondence. Marketers are personalizing messages more than ever, segmenting their lists to create the most focused targets possible, and are testing to the hilt. You could learn a lot from the stories included in the email section.

2. Build Social Networks - Marketers are starting to see the value of building relationships using LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and blogs. There are some interesting “Case Studies” that will hit home for marketers investigating ways to integrate social media marketing into their 2009 plan.

 3. Search Engine Optimization - It seems that more and more marketers are focusing on making their websites search-engine friendly.  Marketers give advice on everything from making PPC more affordable to concentrating on niche keywords. One marketer shares how 2008 was the turning point that made him realize that after 25 years in the business he had to get with the program.

Download a copy here today

Marketers looking for ways to create this relevant content will get practical training during MarketingShepa’s B2B Webinar Training coming up January 29 from 2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. (EST). I’ll join a panel of experts including Sherpa’s Research Director, Stefan Tornquist, and Senior Reporter, Sean Donahue. Sean is in charge of MarketingSherpa’s newsletters that covers B2B marketing. 

During “How to Create High Conversion Lead Generation Content" marketers will learn how to:

• Use the 7 Questions Method to create relevant, effective content
• Create content for each state of the sale cycle
• Use third-party content for inexpensive lead nurturing programs
• Determine if home grown content or third-party content is best
• Produce quality though leadership content
• Create site and product tours that produce higher ROI
• Generate how-to content that generate quality leads

All attendees will also receive MarketingShepa’s  Special Report: “Create Content Your Prospects Adore.” This 45-page report provides dozens of the most useful content types for marketing purposes, along with practical tips for each. The webinar does cost $97, but how often do you get 90 minutes of training AND a special report for that price?

Get more info or register here

By the way, this webinar is free to MarketingSherpa members. 

Here’s an overview of Kindle: Kindle is a portable reading device from Amazon.com that allows you to download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers in less than a minute. It’s a wireless device, so there’s no PC and no syncing required.

One of my co-workers got a kindle and purchased a copy of my book and it looks great and was easy to read. A great feature is that you can download and read first chapters of books for free before you decide to buy. 

If you don't have a Kindle, you can get a free chapter of my book here.

1.    Created a blog to start and join online conversations
Blogging and conversating brings in that human touch that I am forever pushing. It can seem like a daunting project, but this company set up an online monitoring system that helped them finetune their blog. They scanned the Web, the blogosphere, online fourms, and communities to find conversations relevant to their industry and their technical audience. An RSS feed gave the team something to review each morning. They used several scanning tools including TweetScan for Twitter posts, Google Alerts for industry terms, and Boardtracker.com to monitor technology forums and message boards.

When the scanning tools found a relevant conversation, such as a blog post, a team member would join that conversation and point readers to content on the same topic at the company website. The team also used their blog to write stories on subjects that had the potential to go viral. Those stories generated links from other industry blogs and articles in major trade publications.

2.    Established a Twitter account
The company used the account to supplement their blog. As I’ve written before, using social media tools like Twitter for lead generation, I have found Twitter to be helpful in this way.The company in the Case Study used tweets to post notices of new blogs and webinars, trivia questions, and informal focus group questions. An example: They conducted a poll of Twitter followers about potential names for the company newsletter.

3.    Created a LinkedIn group
The group also started a Facebook account, but found that the LinkedIn group began attracting members with the right professional backgrounds. The team established the group as a forum to discuss issues not related to the company or its products but issues related to network test equipment and security. Group members took the lead in starting conversations themselves, but the company acted as host, joining discussions when they had something to add in order to keep members engaged.

4.    Modified press release strategy for blogger coverage
The team revamped its press release strategy to encourage more online coverage for the company. This is what they did:

• Released at least one new press release each week, and kept them short with links to sections of the company’s website.
• Shifted release time from 8 a.m. EST to late morning/early afternoon to accommodate West Coast bloggers.
• Published press releases using a service called PitchEngine, and posted to social media channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

5.    Promoted social media channels on company website and in email signatures
Under a “join us” headline, link visitors to your Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Employees’ email signatures should include links to all accounts as well.

6.    Measured growth of social media and Web traffic
The company made sure to track metrics to determine the growth of their various social media channels, such as unique blog page views, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn members. They also tracked a series of marketing metrics such as unique website visitors, traffic generated by SEO, leads, leads by source (inbound Web, email, trade shows, seminars, etc.), and marketing-influenced pipeline activity, by source. They compared metrics to look for correlations between activity in social media outlets and an increase in leads and sales pipeline activity.

Maybe you have some tips or other reading material suggestions for marketers who are interested in using social media to jumpstart their lead generation process. I’d love for you to pass those along.

Here are a few suggestions for ‘wisdom’ stories:

-Test campaign that worked better (or worse) than anticipated.
-What you learned about a specific tactic
-How you coped with a recessionary economy and the impact it had on your 2008 marketing plan and budget.

Deadline for quotes for the ‘wisdom report’ is December 31. 

Here’s the link: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/91070/wisdom-report-survey

I came across a blog this weekend that reinforced my thoughts. This post, written by Christian Fea, CEO of Synertegic, Inc., started off with a this statistic that he found on compete.com: Twitter had around 3 million people visiting the site in 2008, and it grew 640% between November 2007 and November 2008.

Ok, so how do we harness all of social media’s potential and use it to build a lead generation system?

Well, I’ve started to use my Twitter account a lot more, and I’ve found some productive uses for the application:

• Sent mini survey question and got answers quickly
• Promoted new blog posts and upcoming webinars
• Shared articles, resources, and blog posts that I found interesting
• Learned what topics my network finds interesting faster
• Discovered some useful blog posts and resources by using tweetscan

There are lots of great resources out there if you want to learn more about how to use Twitter to generate leads, and I’ve include links to several of them at the end of this posting.

But, first, let me give you a summary of Christian’s blog. He offers six effective ways to use Twitter as a lead generation tool:

1. Target your market to follow the right people. Christian says to ask yourself, “Who’s my ideal client?” Even if you’re in a broad spectrum market you’ve got to narrow down your focus to an industry, niche, or demographic.

2. Offer actionable advice. This is where being relevant sets you up us as an authoritative resource. Focus your tweets on solutions to issues, concerns, cares or problems that your target audience may have. Anything that will help your audience do their jobs better, easier, or more efficiently will hit home with them.

3. Use your 140 character wisely. Just because you have 1,000 followers doesn’t mean they are all going to read your tweets. Your tweets – which you are forced to keep at 140 characters - are in effect your headline and become the reason someone is going to take the action to click your link in your tweet. Use defined, tangible, and clear benefit in your tweet.

4. Your offer and call to action. Obviously, you can’t provide a solution in 140 characters. Christian suggests providing a link back to your blog before directing them from Twitter to another site.

5. Frequency of your tweets. If you’re serious about using Twitter as a lead generation tool, Christian suggests that you tweet a minimum of three times a day. His reasoning is that your target audience is online at different times of the day, so a tweet in the morning, midday and at night raises your chances of getting to more people.

6. Tracking your results. Christian says a good way to track tweet subjects is to name your blog post the same as what you use for your tweet post. He uses Google Analytics to track website traffic by copying and pasting Javascript code into the blog page header and then every page on his site is tracked.

Additional Resources:

Don’t have a Twitter account?
This site also offers help in getting started: “Using Twitter…‘The Smart Way’” by Mark Ramskill on TwitTip.   

Looking for more Twitter followers?
Read this post by Guy Kawasaki: Guy offers some great tips for using Twitter including Twitter etiquette and how to write headlines. He also addresses the importance of links, and tells you the right tools to make picking up followers as easy as possible.

Need help organizing the world of microblogging?
TweetScan will give you daily or weekly email alerts on topics or people.  

Have questions? Just give me a tweet! http://www.twitter.com/brianjcarroll

Personally, I’ve met only a handful of B2B marketers who are consistently testing their offers to optimize them and generate leads more effectively. I think this is due to two things: the first is time (because marketers want to get their campaigns out there), and the second is knowledge of testing methods.

I was glad to see Jon Miller who writes Marketo's blog, Modern B2B Marketing, recently interview Hunter Boyle, Managing Editor for MarketingExperiments on Testing B2b Marketing. In the interview, Hunter shares best practices for increasing conversion via testing , building a universal definition of a lead, and using testing to discover what works.

Read: Testing Your B2B Marketing: Thought Leadership with Hunter Boyle
Related post: MarketingExperiments: Better tests, better results -- here's how

Blogs can offer little-known companies name recognition, and the chance to boost traffic and generate leads well beyond what they'd get if they were simply offering a list of goods and services for sale on their website.

But should you write a blog exclusively for search engine visibility?

Some what say yes but not me. I think a frequently updated, well written and relevant blog by an author who has passion for the subject will out perform others that were only for SEO.

Lee Odden over at the Online Marketing Blog shares a useful perspective on why blogs written solely for SEO objectives will inevitably fail. If you're thinking of blogging for SEO it's definitely worth checking out.

Link: Online Marketing Blog: 3 Reasons Why Blogs for SEO Fail

Brian, I heard it was your Birthday today! Here is my personal Birthday Video Greeting!

http://proclaim.netbriefings.com/flv/nb/nsux9/nbnsux9101573/   

Have a Great Day!!!!  You deserve it!!

Gary W. Anderson

The video is 29 seconds but it made my day and I must confess that it caused me to think about his company (which is the point). Please note: it's not a polished or pretty video but he put in some effort to be personal and that's what made it stand out. That said, I don't think this would work for everybody.  Let me know what you think.

You need to develop and then engage in memorable and relevant conversations with prospects. You need to position your company as a thought leader and solution provider that understands your prospect’s needs. You need that “human touch.”

During this one-hour, live webinar you will learn how to:

• Engage your prospects with memorable and relevant conversations
• Build and maintain quality relationships with potential clients
• Develop a lead-nurturing process that really works
• Recapture lost leads and opportunities

I’m teaming up with Citrix Online to bring this webinar to marketers of all levels. Whether you are a VP of Marketing, a VP or Director of Sales, or a Sales or Marketing Consultant, you’ll learn how to connect by sharing your expertise.

Watch the archived webinar on demand

I bet I already know. I had a conversation recently with my business development executive who has become highly suspicious of "free" white paper downloads. There are some sites that he refuses to download from because not only was the prior information unhelpful, but he knows he will receive a call from a telemarketer - even after he's made it clear he's not interested. Why do we continue to force people into being "leads"?

People download content often to answer questions. Don't assume that because they downloaded something that they are ready to talk to a sales person. You need to first connect with your potential lead.

I've found that calling people is the best way to qualify leads, and if that phone call is conducted correctly it can be the start of a really good relationship. If there is an initiative invariably people will tell more about their project and what they are trying to do. The nuance matters and it helps you sound less like a pusher and more like a relevant resource.

A good example of a follow up comes from Endeca. When my colleague downloaded a white paper from their site, Endeca's follow-up was very professional. The call opened with questions about what led him to take a look at their paper. They asked what he found particularly interesting about the download.

When InTouch handles inquiry/lead qualification for our clients, we typically start off with something like, "A lot of people download our white papers to get their questions answered. I was wondering if you got a chance to read (insert title of the download), and if your question got answered. Or, is there some other way that I can help?" 

Also, rather than asking, "Are you the decision maker for the company?" ask something like, "Were you trying to answer this question for yourself or another member of your team so I can help you get the needed information."

There has to be a balance between collecting information and providing value. If you'll think of Lead Generation as a process of micro-conversions that build opportunity profiles over time, you'll be successful. With that in mind, here are some things to think about when offering 'free' information:

• Downloads that are thinly-veiled product brochures and technical documents of the offered product are not only unprofessional, they're ineffective.
• Be careful about requiring registration to receive anything worthwhile.  Request an email address first, then later on a first and last name. Requesting a phone number should be later on in the process.
• Sales teams should never receive Web inquiries directly and unqualified (truth be told - sales people only want to talk to people who actually WANT to talk to them)
• Contacts should be established with potential customers to prime them into the lead-nurturing program
• Web site forms should be to the point for maximum response
• All inquiries should be responded to with a prompt note of thanks (how good is your "thank you" auto reply?)
• A supplementary email thank you should be used to share value added relevant data

Related Posts:

On Lead Nurturing: Looking for a "hot" date?

Why Most B2B Sites Fail to Convert Sales Leads

So what do you wish companies/sales people would stop doing when you download a free white paper or other "free" content?

Others bloggers named to Craig’s 2008 Top of the Funnel List include Jon Miller, the author of Modern B2B Marketing blog, and Michael Stelzner, the author of Writing White Papers Blog and many other great resources. I feel privileged to be in such great company. Thanks Craig. Check out the Craig's 2008 Top of the Funnel List

I just finished up the MarketingSherpa Demand Generation Summit in Boston where I was given the opportunity to present my ‘Playbook for Effective Lead Management.’  And, we’re doing it all again in San Francisco October 26-28. Check out the full agenda. I hope you can make it.

If you attended MarketingExperiments’ recent Web Clinic on September 24th you've already got a glimpse of my five-step ‘playbook.’  By applying the ‘playbook’ as a tool to identify, evaluate, and address the underlying issues, we show how a company benefited from a 325% growth in sales ready leads and a 200% growth in lead-to-sale pipeline rate.

What you need to understand is that this client did not spend any more budget to achieve these results. Rather, a greater focus was put on developing and executing an optimized lead management process.

Watch the presentation on demand including slides and audio.

If you don't have time to watch here are summaries written by others:

Hunter Boyle: Lead generation playbook

June Li: Go Beyond Website Conversion: Nurturing Sales Ready Leads

Jeff Ogden: Demand Generation grows up -- finally

Here’s a quick look at the process we took the company through:

1. Refine the universal lead definition of “sales ready.” It’s imperative that both marketing and sales agree on the definition of a lead. Each time you hire new staff, use that as an opportunity to visit the definition again.
2. Qualify leads based on universal lead definition. When you qualify leads against a universal lead definition you’ll get higher lead-to-opportunity conversion rate and start to overcome some friction.
3. Nurture early leads until “sales ready.” This is where marketers can apply a measurable process to create relevant, consistent dialog with viable potential customers. Position yourself as a reliable resource for folks and when they are ready to buy, they will come to you.
4. Define hand-off process from Marketing to Sales. Make sure leads are sales ready, confirm that leads are ready to speak with a sales representative, and provide qualification information for each lead. Agree on a turnaround time to get feedback from sales. Study the documentation process chart included in the Webinar. It shows the steps a lead should go through from marketing to sales.
5. Close the loop via Sales and Marketing “huddle.” Huddling once a quarter is not enough. Examine often what’s working and what’s not working. Know the status of every single lead at all times.

I’ve already fielded questions from the presentation, but would love to hear from you as well. View the clinic and send me your thoughts.

The true value of lead nurturing comes from the technique of staying in touch with prospects while providing them with the relevant information as they move through the evaluation and buying process. But, how do you get that delicate balance just right? 

I’ve gotten the okay to highlight 5 Nurture Campaign Time Factors from MarketingSherpa’s new B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook that will help you to fine tune the nurturing timing. MarketingSherpa uses real-life examples and charts to hit home these five factors, but here’s a quick look at them:

1.    Immediate welcomes
As soon as you receive a response to a lead generation campaign, you should rush out a welcome message in reply. It’s just good manners to acknowledge someone’s interest in your brand promptly.

2.    Lead Qualification Telemarketing
The velocity of follow-up matters. As soon as possible use telemarketing (aka teleprospecting) to qualify each lead.

3.    Interest-level Timing
Most prospects go through a variety of interest levels in your brand. Without being annoying, you need to stay in their radar until they decide to make that buying decision. Identify where they are in the buying process so you can share relevant information at the right time (i.e. should you share a case study vs. white paper? etc).

4.    Industry Timing
It’s a given that you may need to adjust your campaign timing to reflect your industry’s annual rhythms.

5.    Job Function Timing
Data shows that a decision maker is heavily involved at the very start and the very end of the process, but leaves the middle of the process up to the influencers. For your niche, you’ll need to investigate who gets involved at which point in the process so that you can segment your messaging. 

I encourage you to check out MarketingSherpa’s B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook. It is a  monster of a book, but I assure you it’s jam packed with practical, hands-on advice for B-to-B marketers.

Readers of my blog can save $250 off the book at
http://leadgenhandbook.marketingsherpa.com/

I’ll address this proverbial black hole between your company’s sales and marketing efforts during a MarketingExperiments’ Web Clinic on Wednesday, September 24 at 4 p.m. EST. I’ll outline ways to build an operational ‘playbook’ with your sales department to better manage and nurture the leads you generate.

By using this approach I will share how we helped one client increase their sales-ready leads by 375% and increase their lead-to-sales pipeline conversion rate by 200%. I’ll be answering your lead-gen questions as well.

Watch the presentation on demand including slides and audio.

If you don't have time to watch here's a summary

Lead generation playbook: 5 steps to a 375% conversion lift by Hunter Boyle

Four bloggers have all agreed to post their answers to the email question simultaneously, each offering a different perspective, with all responses linked.  They are:

1. Ford Harding, student of selling professional services.
2. Tom Kane, specialist on marketing and selling legal services.
3. Mark Buckshon, prodigious blogger and specialist on marketing and selling design and construction services.
4. Yours Truly

I could make affirmative and negative arguments for email, phone calls and face-to-face meetings depending on the situation. But I think the answer to this question really revolves around the “maintaining and developing relationships.” In the end it all comes down to relationships.

I've found that emails, phone calls and face-to-face meetings all can help you start or continue conversations but they won't do the hard work of building relationships for you. 

My research shows that executive buyers choose the sales person who has been a resource and developed a relationship with them regardless of their timing to buy. 

Average sales people think they are most effective when they talk with someone WHEN they are ready to buy, but top performers seek to build relationships with the right people in the right companies BEFORE they're ready to buy.

Today’s prospects have a general lack of trust and they simply don’t want to be sold. They are weary of pitches, hype, pushy sales people and manipulative marketing tactics. They are time constrained and too busy to think. So what do they do with most of our sales and marketing messages)? They simply ignore them.

Time and time again it is proven that customers want the salespeople they deal with to understand their business, their needs, and the pressures under which they operate. These people are called trusted advisors. 

For this reason, I think it’s critical to contact and have initial conversations with our future customers that are devoid of sales pitches. Quite literally when we begin a conversation with them, their attitudes and beliefs are being shaped, primed by the information they have already soaked up through various sources. 

Be a resource to them regardless of their timing to buy. Otherwise, they are likely to get information from the internet or uninformed colleagues, trade publications or heaven forbid your competitors.

And I think a perfect way to do this is through lead nurturing. A key aspect of lead nurturing is the ability to provide relevant, valuable education and information to prospects up front. In this way you will be able to position yourself as a trusted advisor and perhaps even a thought leader.

Again, it’s about relationships. The key I think is putting the interests of our current or future customers first. That’s not always easy especially when we’re trying to meet objectives, growth goals etc. But when you do that, you don’t have to sell to people. You'll start to find they even will come to you first when they are ready.