B2B Lead Generation Blog

B2B Marketing Zone launched

A new B2B marketing community that I am participating in was just launched. The B2B Marketing Zone is a marketing community site that was launched as collaborative effort between Tom Pick and Tony Karrer.

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.

Inbound lead nurturing presentation slides available

I had a great time with being a professor at the inbound marketing university. Here's my presentation deck on inbound lead nurturing (CV201) via #IMU for those who missed it.
#8 IMU: Inbound Lead Nurturing (CV201)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Hubspot Marketing.

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

5 Lead nurturing tips to create relevant and engaging emails

A recent MarketingSherpa survey of email recipients found that 58% of those who stop reading, disengage, or unsubscribe after cite "lack of relevance" as a key factor. This is hugely important because most marketers rely on email as their main lead nurturing tactic.

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.

B2B Lead Generation Roundtable Group on LinkedIn

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called 5 steps for using LinkedIn as a lead generation tool and step number five was ‘create your own LinkedIn group and share relevant content.’

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.

MarketingSherpa Seeks Case Study speakers for 2009 B2B Demand Generation Summits

If you have a great B2B story to tell, think about sharing it with other B2B marketers at MarketingSherpa’s 6th Annual B2B Demand Generation Summit 2009.

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

5 steps for using LinkedIn as lead generation tool

Like many of you, I’m using LinkedIn to connect with work friends and colleagues. But I’ve been intrigued by how LinkedIn has quietly developed into a useful lead generation tool for marketers and sales people to build relationships with potential customers.

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?

Using thought leadership tactics for lead generation

As marketers look for ways to optimize lead generation, they are recognizing the value of using educational content and thought leadership to help attract more customers.

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

How to use social media for lead generation

I’ve been blogging for over five years. When I started, there wasn’t a business case on the ROI of blogging, nor was there a lot written on B2B lead generation. I started blogging because I wanted to share with everyone what I thought were useful B2B lead generation ideas, tips, and resources – material that I was already freely giving to my clients.

I have to say, my expectations were pretty low. I thought maybe I’d attract a few new clients, but I didn’t know it would generate so many leads, or develop into a book deal with a major publisher – who came to me, by the way. Blogging became a way to help build my company’s reputation, and your reputation helps people make conclusions about your brand.

Still not convinced that you should delve into social media? Maybe you think there’s no way to measure social media’s success. Here’s a case study that MarketingSherpa released earlier this month that follows one company through its social media adventure. In the end, the team’s analysis showed a dramatic correlation between the use of social media channels and the growth of the company’s Web traffic and leads. They showed a 155% increase in unique Web visitors and they also generated more links on non-brand search terms that helped boost their search engine results positions.

MarketingSherpa Members can view the case study at length.  Here’s a look at the 5 steps they took:

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.

Share your marketing 'wisdom' with Sherpa readers worldwide

I wanted to be sure to let you know that MarketingSherpa is gathering content for its seventh annual “wisdom report.” It’s a great opportunity for you to share your top 2008 story – and get back lessons learned from colleagues worldwide. “Marketing Wisdom from the Field Report” will be published in January and distributed free to all MarketingSherpa readers.

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

Can a social media like Twitter boost your lead generation results?

Yes.

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.