Pipeline’s Lead Generation Blog

In the constant struggle to generate qualified leads, most sales and marketing executives unfortunately don’t have a quick, easy and objective way to measure the overall effectiveness of their lead generation efforts.   For many software companies today - generating new, qualified leads is one of their most challenging business issues.

After years of studying, developing and implementing successful lead generation programs and processes for software companies, we have developed a lead generation test that companies can now use to measure the effectiveness of their lead generation program.

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When we engage with a new software company to help them improve or “fix” their lead generation results – inevitably they want the quickest, fastest, easiest way to generate more leads…oh, and can we do that by tomorrow?     If it were only that simple.

If you’re not generating enough leads to satisfy your sales team, there is a very good chance you don’t just have a problem with your campaigns or activities – in most cases you have a problem that goes much deeper than just tactical lead generation activities.  You more than likely have a marketing and sales issue that’s not going to get solved overnight.

In over 15 years of focusing on lead generation solutions for the software industry – our answer to the “quick fix” has remained the same…

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One of the most popular sections of our old newsletter (which we retired at the end of last year to focus on our new blog) was our “Quick Tips” section.   This section, for those of you that did not receive our newsletter, was a series of short, condensed tips and tricks about various topics relating to lead generation.    We also incorporated many of our Quick Tips into our seminars and presentations.   As a quick and easy read - these Quick Tips have been well received by our readers and we have decided to continue them in this blog.   

We’ve created a separate “Quick Tips” category you’ll find on the right hand side of each page under the Category heading.  Hopefully you’ll get some value out of these tips…and of course, let us know what you think…

Quick Tips:   Lead Generation - Before You Start…

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If you’re using telemarketing as part of your lead generation mix, you know what powerful medium it can be – IF done properly.   Many of our clients are increasing their telemarketing efforts to not only generate leads – but also to capture new profile information, update company/contact information, build their database, add email addresses, gain permission to follow-up, etc.   But regardless of your plan for telemarketing – the bottom line is that in order for your telemarketing to be successful you have to have conversations with your prospects.   Here are five tips we’ve put together to help increase your conversation rates.

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An area of concern – and a hot topic with many of our clients - is the economy.   While the economy is not dominating all of our conversations, it’s certainly an issue that is getting some significant time and attention.   While a few people are predicting a significant downturn, most people we talk to do agree that IT spending does seem to be slowing down.   Some markets and industries are slowing down more than others as the current slowdown certainly appears to be uneven. 

In fact, in a recent Forrester Research document published an June 16, 2008 titled - US IT Market Outlook: Q2 2008, Not So Bad So Far — But There Is Worse To Come In The Rest Of The Year , the author Andrew Bartels summarized, “With Q1 2008 data now in for both the US economy and the US tech market, the year has started out much as we expected. The data so far supports our projection that the US market for technology goods and services will see a slowdown in growth in 2008, to 3% from 6% in 2007. This slow growth rate is mainly due to an assumed mild, two-quarter recession in the US economy.”

But even though the outlook might not be bright, - it doesn’t mean that generating new leads and closing new business needs to feel like it’s impossible.  

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This Friday, March 14 Enquiro is hosting a webinar entitled “Coaxing the Conversion” - How to keep and convert visitors on website landing pages.   The webinar will be conducted at 2:00pm Eastern, 11:00am Pacific.

According to Enquiro, “In this 50 minute live event catered to B2B online marketers and web designers, attendees will learn what the latest research tells us about landing page content and layout. We reveal what business to business purchasers look for at various stages of their buying cycle, and how marketing campaigns should be adjusted accordingly. More specifically, Enquiro’s new eye tracking research examines what these buyers look at on B2B landing pages and shows how the principle of barrier scanning can be used to effectively coax eyes towards the desired conversion.”

I have attended a few of Enquiro’s webinars and found them to be worth the time.   Of particular interest – and a topic I’m sure they will cover in this webinar as well – is their research concerning when B2B prospects use search engines and what they are looking for during the different phases of their buying cycles.

You can register for their free webinar here.

Search engine marketing and search engine optimization continue to get a lot of attention in marketing departments today.   Many software companies are still struggling with expectations and where SEM/SEO really fits in to their lead generation plans.

Last week I attended a webinar conducted by Kellysearch.com titled: “B2B Online Marketing Foundations: Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.”

The webinar’s focus was on the differences between Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization, and to provide tips and tools for developing effective SEM and SEO campaigns.  Like many similar type webinars there was a good deal of basic information, but the webinar also had some very solid ideas and tips for B2B marketers. 

Here are a few of the topics and tips I took away from the webinar that I thought were most relevant to our industry.

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Based on their “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey, BtoB Magazine’s editor Ellis Booker and senior reporter Kate Maddox will present a webinar titled “2008 Marketing Outlook 2008” on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 11 AM PST (2 PM EST)

According to their registration information they claim that despite the softness in the overall economy, b-to-b marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets this year.   During the webinar they plan to review the findings of this annual survey and update them with new interviews and survey data collected in the past month.

Included in their webcast will be:

• How marketers are measuring success in 2008
 
• Where marketers are spending their online budgets
 
• What marketers think about current economic
 conditions, and how these are affecting their plans
 and budget

Register here for this webinar, offered by BtoB Magazine.

Yesterday I posted some information and a few links concerning vertical search engines. 

While it’s not a vertical search engine, I ran across this site a few weeks ago and I think it’s a pretty interesting take on how people may use search engines in the future…not only in their initial search process, but also as they compare and contrast vendors and products throughout the buying process.

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Frustration.  It’s the one word that often best summarizes the general feeling of many B2B software marketers when they refer to their Search Engine Marketing efforts and results.

And it’s just not the software industry that’s feeling frustrated as they attempt to use the major search engines – but most all B2B industries are feeling some type of similar pain.  Most B2B marketers, by now, understand that you simply can’t compare the popularity and effectiveness of search engine results to B2C markets.   The bottom line is that the relevant factors that the major search engines use to determine rankings simply don’t work well for B2B companies.

However, one answer to this frustration may be vertical search engines. 

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