Six Keys to Lead-Generation Success

Eran Livneh wrote a great piece on managing sales leads. Good reading for both your marketing and sales people. And his last statement is spot on...

"Your lead-generation program is only as strong as your weakest link. If any of the above is missing, your entire program will be compromised."

Content ideas for lead nurturing

Brian Carroll does a pretty worthwhile blog on B2B Lead Generation that I think is worth subcribing to. His most recent post includes content ideas for lead nurturing.

The idea of including informative content pieces in your follow ups with prospects is not a new one, but a very powerful one that is probably underutilized by many vendors. I'm willing to bet that there is a negative correlation between complaining that many of your leads are tire kickers and how well you include useful content in your follow up efforts.

If you have any data to support or contradict this, I'd love to hear from you!

Magazines Experimenting With Pay Per Action

Wow, it's finally happening. A few hundred magazines are stepping up to the plate and are allowing advertisers to pay per inquiry. I love it. It certainly shows confidence that their subscribers are actually reading and interacting with their ads. I'd predict that advertisers will be waiting in line for these opportunities. The real test will be if they work so my other my prediction will be that the magazines will have to create standards for the print ads to meet regarding calls to action and such.

What I'd like to make it clear is that this is not a test of whether Pay-Per-Action works. Advertisers getting in line is a sign that it does. Rather it is a test as to whether magazines are a good lead generation channel.

Will TV, radio and billboards follow suit?

Predicting the Next Software Decade

M.R. Rangaswami is such a great proponent of the software industry. I wasn't able to attend his Enterprise 2007 Conference last month, but he did shares the results of a pretty interesting survey that was conducted. Enjoy...

Pay-Per-Click Versus Blind Request Leads

I recently had a conversation with a friend in a different industry regarding online lead generation. Their two primary options were (1) Pay-Per-Click with the search engines and (2) industry-specific sites that encouraged buyers to solicit bids, which were in turn sent as "blind requests" to a handful of competing vendors.

Capterra is unique in that we offer our vendors both, but of course we only operate in the business software space. He asked me which method our vendors prefer, to which replied it depends on how Internet-savvy the vendor is. Those that are novices to online marketing prefer the RFIs, mainly because they are so tangible. But those that truly get online marketing prefer Pay-Per-Click for the following reasons:

1) PPC means the user is actively doing their own research, has read something about you specifically and clicked through to your website - where you control their experience and convert them to a lead.

2) You can respond more quickly to someone who submits their details over your own form than if they go through an intermediary.

3) PPC is less competitive. Lead gen services will send the lead to 3-8 vendors, typically. Whereas if someone contacts you, they may have also contacted 1 or 2 other vendors, but that's probably it.

Can anyone think of other reasons?