In 2008, if you are like most B2B marketers, lead generation is probably at top of your priority list. But as you may already know, generating tons of “leads” won’t guarantee sales will follow.
Does the sales team either ignore your hard-won leads or complain about their quality? Do you ever wonder was the lead even contacted? If so, what’s the status? Could you have helped move it along by going deeper in the sales cycle?
This chronic lack of visibility has a snowball effect of making it challenging for marketers to measure their effectiveness and understand their return on marketing investment (ROMI). So what can be done about it?
Here's 7 Tips to Improve Sales Follow-up
1. Get buy in from sales team on your "sales ready" lead definition
2. Provide qualification information for each sales lead
3. Qualify and Distribute sales ready leads immediately
4. Communicate hand off to sales person
5. Measure sales pursuit - If lead not followed up it will be pulled / reassigned
6. Regularly close the loop -what gets measured gets done
7. Sales management must also audit and track rep follow-up
How often do you close the loop? I’ve found the most powerful way to improve sales follow-up on marketing generated leads is doing more frequent sales and marketing huddles.
Read Collaboration Huddles and 35 Other Ways to Improve Sales and Marketing Teamwork
Finally, if you’re using these tips already and still feel that your marketing and sales teams are working against each other instead of being on the same team, you could have some challenges with office politics read on.
Related posts:
Closed Loop Feedback: The Missing Lead Generation Huddle
Closed-Loop Marketers More Likely to Reach ROMI Goals
Podcast: Using Closed Loop Feedback to Boost Lead Generation ROI
January 02, 2008
Podcasting – Lower Priority on the Marketing Totem Pole
Like blogs just a few years ago, podcasting now seems to be the talk among marketers. But do the initial results justify the hype? I say no.
On the optimists side we have eMarketer projecting over 50M listeners and $300M in advertising revenue in the US by 2010. Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, cites that there were 7.5 million regular listeners in 2006, and the numbers were growing fast.
Even the famous blogger, Robert Scoble, left Microsoft to join startup, PodTech, a podcasting startup, based on his belief that podcasting was going to rocket. So there’s no lack of optimism in this technology that facilitates time-shifting of traditional media content. But our own client experiences in 2007 do not support such exuberance.
Don’t get me wrong. I love podcasts as a consumer. I personally subscribe to over 20 publications and spend probably thirty minutes a day listening. Yet I do not strongly advocate podcasting as a top priority for marketers. Why? I’ll share with you below my honest assessment of podcasts from both the consumer and the marketer perspectives. I’ll close with a recommendation that podcasting does have a place in the marketer’s budget especially for lead nurturing and installed base customer communications if you’re already funding these.
The Consumer View
Pros:
• Easy to consume content anytime, anywhere -- I listen while exercising, driving, running errands, waiting in lines, and even while washing dishes.
• Timely information – I get daily and weekly feeds from sources that I find credible and consistent.
• Short pieces – segments of 4-10 minutes keep my attention the most.
• Easy to share photos – over the holidays, I found my iPod Nano very popular as it was passed around to family members who wanted to see dozens of my favorite photos of our kids.
Cons:
• Long pieces -- I tried listening to an audio book on black holes but found it somewhat frustrating because it’s 11 hours of recorded content. I can read the exact same content in probably half the time. Commuters and air travelers will perhaps not mind this productivity issue.
• Business video -- Business video podcasts like BusinessWeek Market Reports are far less captivating than stunning consumer video like NASA’s space telescope. In fact, many business podcasters are dropping their video and sticking to producing compelling audio.
The Marketer View
Pros:
• Cheap -- costs only about $500- $2,000 to produce one podcast piece. That’s a fraction of the cost of a whitepaper, video, or other lead generation offers.
• Quick – podcasts can be as simple as an audio recording of an interview with your customer or an industry analyst.
• Builds relationship – once you have a subscriber base, podcasts can be a very easy way to deliver ongoing value to your constituents. Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, rightly recommends podcasts for “lead nurturing” rather than lead generation.
Cons:
• Poor metrics – for the most part, you can’t tell which subscribers actually listened to the podcast segments and for how long. VoloMedia claims they have a way to detect actual listens/views versus just downloads. Our clients who have done podcasting for a year have seen very little in the way of net new leads. They report that it’s more like advertising in that it’s hard to quantify the ROI but they know that podcasting helps with brand building and customer satisfaction in general.
• Limited reach – podcasts are still very low in the information source hierarchy. Most executives still rely on word-of-mouth, business and trade publications, the internet, and traditional TV/radio/print for their information sources.
Our Recommendation
We endorse podcasting as a very low cost way for you to augment your installed base customer communications and lead nurturing campaigns with another mode of delivering thought leadership pieces. Keep the pieces to five to ten minutes max and use formats such as interviews with experts, short speeches by company executives, and practical tips for the week. Forget video. The key is to deliver bite-sized content consistently, at least monthly if not more often, to your subscriber base. Again, we would not advise prioritizing podcasting above high ROI spend like pay-per-click campaigns or other online marketing campaigns if your primary goal is customer acquisition.
Resources:
• eMarketer “Who’s Listening to Podcasts?”
• Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers
• PodTech
• Brian Carroll’s blog entry “Lessons Learned from Podcasting”
• VoloMedia on podcast metrics
Sridhar’s Podcast Roll
• BBC: Best of Today (BBC Radio 4)
• BusinessWeek Market Report
• CNET News.com daily tech news podcast
• Bill Moyers Journal, PBS
• The History Channel: Just Another Day
• KCRW’s Left, Right & Center
• KQED’s The California Report
• KQED’s THIS WEEK in Northern California
• New Yorker: Out Loud
• NOW, PBS
• NPR: World Story of the Day
• NPR: Story of the Day
• NPR: Books
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• Slate Magazine Daily Podcast
• This American Life
• HBR IdeaCast
• Knowledge@Wharton
• Hidden Universe: NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope
• AstronomyCast
10 Ways to Make Your Words Captivate
Does the thought of writing give you a sinking feeling? Do you find yourself falling asleep at the keyboard?
What follows are ten unique tips to boost the clarity of your written words.
“Why should I care?” you say.
Because the thrill of writing is achieved when others read your work. Boring words are doomed to digital archives.
Whether you write blogs, ad copy or white papers, these unique methods will help your words grab and maintain the attention of any reader.
Here we go:
- Get motivated by reading good writing: This may seem like a no-brainer, but good words are like caffeine for your fingers. Looking for samples? Give this a try.
- Write like you speak: If you can’t get it right, talk it out. The fact is that we have no problem gabbing. So speak and record. When you write like you talk, people will listen.
- Concept, then refine: Start some unedited free form writing. Get the ideas out of your head. Make them sound better later.
- It’s about you: Hey, buddy. Yea you! It’s all about using the word ‘you.’ If you can use this attractive word, you will grab eyeballs.
- Address the why: Make sure you actually explain why someone should read. Don’t assume anyone cares. Make the case.
- Use word pictures: “The hole was as big as a house.” You get the idea. Place an image in the mind of readers and captivate.
- Think like an advertiser: First impressions really matter. Make your headline a show stopper. Capture a few tips here.
- Keep it short: Try short sentences. While you are at it, how about short paragraphs too? This helps the reader skate through your piece.
- Okay, “Action!”: Add a clear action step to the end of your work. Don’t leave your reader at a dead end wondering what to do next. More on this.
- Percolate: Just when you think it is done… Table it. Come back with fresh eyes later and perfect those words even more.
Does this pass the test?
Your action: Let me know what you think about these 10 methods. Your comments keep these fingers creative.