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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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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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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