We have built our business on customer acquisition in its many flavors — building mailing-list strategies for major catalogers, developing databases for software manufacturers, conducting hefty lead-generation campaigns for various high-tech companies, and now we are assisting the small-business owner in growing their lists and attracting new customers — another way of saying lead generation. But whether the enterprise is huge and complex, or a mom-and-pop, the lead funnel stages are the same.  I want to take a minute to focus on the lead nurture aspect.  This is the part that is too shortened or ignored in the larger enterprises, who are so focused on quarter-by-quarter performance that they may not have the time to nurture a lead properly.  Smaller companies and entrepreneurs frequently don’t undertand or spend enough effort in the wooing process.

The classic lead funnel has 4 stages — brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurture and finally the sale. Let’s look at it another way, from the prospects perspective — the  Know/Like/Trust/Sale continuum with a focus on the inner 2 stages.  One of the best-kept secrets of converting a prospect to a buyer is making sure that the bait used to hook them is in alignment with what they are expecting, wanting, and needing AT EACH STAGE OF THE FUNNEL. That will differ, and there is the difference.

2.  Like – Stages 2 and 3 are really the important pieces, in my mind. You are now building a level of involvement and increasing intimacy with your prospect. This may sound like a romantic, consumer-ish, and odd concept. But buyers are people. And people make decisions more with their emotions than with their brains, whether they are buying blade servers or scented soap.  Knowledge about the product, features, and benefits, are all part of what needs to be communicated. But that is truly not what makes a sale happen. This is the time to provide value at no cost; white papers about a pain point in the industry, resources for problem solving, a free e-book pertaining to a specific concept  of particular interest to your prospect.  Give all this away.  Give lots away, and give it frequently and often. If you are providing truly valuable (to your prospect) information, frequent contact will not be perceived as harassment, so don’t be shy. But don’t ask for the sale, not yet.

3.  Trust – This is an even more intimate stage, and the nurturing process should reflect that.  Podcasts and interviews tend to be more personal and more involving, and this is the perfect stage to integrate them into the lead-nurture process. There is something about having an ear-bud plugged in to your ear that creates a very intimate relationship between the listener and the presenter. Emails with a brief embedded video create direct interaction and conversation (if comments are allowed) with the viewer. Here is where personal stories from the sales rep or CEO, or longer off-topic lunches (in old sales parlance) make a difference in the quality of the relationship. You are building trust. Use Social Media at this stage as well on a more intimate level; invite prospects into your blogging community, internal wikis or mini-sites to gain a more human perspective on your company, brand or people. Invite them to participate as a guest blogger, interview them for an internal video, and involve them in the social media community.  Envelope them with social media love and you will be holding them very closely.

4. The sale – If you have done steps 2 and 3 in a truly nurturing way (this is a Mom speaking, but it’s still true), then asking for the sale is easier, and more comfortable for all concerned — almost a natural and expected progression.

Think again about levels of intimacy and how and where to include social media into the nurturing stages of the lead funnel.  Your close rate will certainly improve.

How do you stand out amidst the millions of emails in our inbox, Tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn status, blog mentions, direct mail offers et al? It’s a challenge. It’s always been a challenge but now more so than ever. And more than ever, creativity is the solution — and multi-channel/cross-channel activities or old media-new media combos will win. Below are several ideas for creating multi-channel efforts that will shine:

1. Direct Mail is back – have I said this enough yet? Yes, I know postage is going up, yes I know this seems old school. But mail boxes are pretty light these days, so there is not much competition for your prospects’ attention. Mail a piece that has your company’s Twitter handle on it. Invite viewers to follow you, and set up an autoresponder to their follow that includes a special offer with a quick timeline to drive that call to action (example: 20% off on your next order if you place the order by Friday).

2. Send a postcard (snail mail) and include a QR (Quick Response) code that can be scanned by your smart phone to send the reader to mobile enabled page of your website with a special offer, or to a training video that tells a better story or demo of a product, or even a free donut if they come into your store or place of business. (Keep donuts on hand, then!)

QR Code generators are simple apps and easy to use. Do a Google search on QR Code generators and find the top rated suppliers, and jump in.

3. Or on that same postcard, send them to a squeeze page on your website with a specific white paper or eBook in return for registering for your newsletter. Now you have proved your value with some educational material for your prospect, and you have gleaned their email address as well for ongoing marketing. Not a bad quid pro quo. I’m a big believer in the give-to-get mentality.

4. With that same email registration (see #3), set up an autoresponder email to thank visitors for their registration to your newsletter, and link to your Facebook page, inviting them to “like” your page (FB, please change that concept — such an awkward verb), and set up a special tab with a timed offer. Now you have a postal address and their email address and have gained more traffic on your FB page — all for future marketing.

Sound gimmicky? Not at all, certainly not these days and very easy to do.

Most business professionals are on LinkedIn at this point.  LI tells us that:

•LinkedIn has over 65 million members in over 200 countries.
•A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
•Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

To me that says clearly that if you have almost ANY kind of business and are prospecting, LI will be a good resource for you.  But just setting up a profile and dabbling once a week or so is not going to do much for your prospecting efforts.  Below are a few tips that not many folks know about, but are powerful techniques for increasing your visibility and maximizing that “inbound marketing” that Social Media is known for.

 1. Using LI to research potential prospects? You can create 3 saved searches.  If you are doing a search on a person, save your searches.  Once you have done a search from the search box in the upper right of your home page, you will see your results.  At the top where you see the number of records in your search you’ll see a “save this search” button. LI will give you the option of sending you a weekly email, to get updates to your search.  Great ongoing tool!

2. Recommendations are important, so ask for them. Companies, people and brands are evaluated by who else like them.  But make it easy.  First call or email your contact and ask if they will recommend you.  If so, write the recommendation yourself. Not only will you be sure that you are positioning yourself in the best light, but you will make it much easier for your contact to provide the referral.  All they need to do is cut and paste. Easy.

3. Use the Question and Answer area to gain more visibility on the Internet.  On the question that you answer you will see a “share this” with a drop down menu.  You can email your network, Digg it, Bookmark the question on Delicious, or use the link provided in your answer and link to your one of your blog posts, or somewhere else on your site to pull in traffic.  Great for online visibility, gaining credibility and helping people find you.

4. Join groups that are in-line with your business, your objectives or a desired job.  Fish where the fish are.  The more “on target” the group, the more valuable the content they provide, and the greater the networking opportunities (and ultimately leads) will be.

5. Use groups to expand your network, but be selective.  In the groups tabs, you will see one called “other” with a drop down menu.  Select members and you will see a list of all of the members in that group.  Offer to connect with the ones that make sense.  You might evaluate based on the size of their network, the type of company or industry they are in or how much interaction they have had with the group.

6. Did you know you can export your connections? Go to “Contacts.” then “Connections.” At the bottom of your Connections box is “Export Connections.” Export the connections and import them into your preferred address book.  Do this frequently so you are consolidating all of your contacts in one spot (might be Outlook, Act, Salesforce)

I’m doing another free teleclass on using Social Media to generate leads and build sales on Wed, May 12 at 1 pm Pacific Time, 4 pm Eastern.  Register here to join me.  I’ll send you dial-in information the day before the event.

I started this class because, after conducting a monthly breakfast meeting on Social Media for the SVAMA, it became clear to me that the small business was not getting the kind of strategic direction that they really needed.  Everyone will say that they are using Social Media.  They are on Twitter, or have a Facebook profile, but few really understand how to use Social Media strategically.  It’s a marketing powerhouse if used effectively and I want to give all businesses the tools to do just that.

So please join me.  If you can’t make the class live, sign up anyway!  I’ll be recording the class and will send everyone who signs up an audio file the following day.

Hope to see you there!

I never thought I’d say this, but my mail box is starting to get full again.  Brands and agencies seem to be slowly returning to the tried and true method of direct mail.  Perhaps our email inboxes are getting too full, or the online world is just getting too cluttered. Or the marketing people have realized that they have been missing an important piece of the marketing puzzle all along.  But direct mail is becoming more sophisticated as technology is allowing for more capabilities.   Even if you are going to mail a simple post card (very powerful, by the way), below are a few trends that you might want to take into consideration:

Direct Mail/Social Media integration
Including a brand’s Twitter handle, and Facebook page URL is becoming as frequent as the old 800 number used to be.  As companies become more creative about how they use social networking sites for tightly timed discounts, offers and coupons exclusive to the social sites, it makes only good marketing sense to groom your customers and prospects to be on the lookout by sending them to there with each of your mailings.  

Personalized and customized mailings  Improved data capture, database enhancements all allow for a more robust body of information on each customer.  This translates, with digitized printing, into the abilty to create more targeted and personal messages. Personalisation in itself is not new but in the coming months we will see it move to a new level, making reference to past purchasing behavior and suggested next purchases. Companies who find ways to personalize communications will continue to see a better response.

Using direct mail to drive web traffic – Given all of the above capabilities with customer data. Some smart marketers and sending readers not to the home page, but customized mini sites based on the recipients data. – Transaction history, advanced demographic info all can point reader to a very individualized experience.

Marketing automation to cross and up sell
Once the province of the major CRM companies (think Salesforce.com) now the ability to automate a multi channel contact strategy is filtering down to smaller companies with smaller budgets. A well targeted direct mail piece might have a call-to-action for an offer that is only available online. Once that customer has clicked to the site, a chain of auto-responder emails is initiated that will hopefully move the prospect further down the purchasing decision making process. Each step the customer takes is recorded in their customer record, to encourage future even more intelligent marketing activities.  The technology has become more sophisticated and less expensive in the last year or so, and will only get better with time.

I started using Social Media to promote my business 3 years ago, without much real knowledge about the whys and wherefores.  I wasted a tremendous amount of time – Tweeting now and then, connecting on Facebook with whoever seemed like a likely prospect and getting distracted by numerous small and unimportant social media sites.  

Does this sound familiar?

I was tired and frustrated with the trial and error of “trying” social media. I had no real strategy, or understanding of the power of the medium and knew I was missing out on a lot of potential business and can’t even imagine the
amount of billable time I wasted on this fruitless exploration. 

Over the next 3 years, I made it my job to take classes and webinars, read blogs, and follow the thought leaders of social media.  Now, I am armed with the critical knowledge needed in order to take advantage of all of the social media tools that help businesses grow, and I want to share it with you. 

Did you know that social media is the number one source for lead generation for our company? And these are WARM prospects – people who are coming to us ready to sign a check…or pretty close.

Let me save you all of that wasted time and money.

Why make the same mistakes I made?  

I’ve put together all of that hard earned expertise into a content rich and action directed teleseries.

I’ll take you step-by-step through the process of setting up a social media strategy without the headaches, miss-steps and wasted time.

Grab your spot NOW…the class starts on Tuesday April 27th and I don’t want you to miss a thing!

Hope to see you on the call.

Say the word “email” and many people shudder. But email does not equal spam. Use it correctly, intelligently and strategically and you will stay in touch with clients, build your brand, and warm up prospects.  Below are 7 tips for integrating an email strategy into your small business marketing efforts

1.  Define your objectives (I know I always start here, and so should your company).  Are you using it for CRM, prospecting, branding, information dissemination or a combination of several of these?

2.  Collect email addresses ethically. Start with the email addresses of your current customers.  If these aren’t already in a primary database, access all departments within the company to gather as many customer email addresses as possible.  Accounting, tech support, customer services, marketing, and sales may all have email databases so collect them all and consolidate to begin.

3.  Build your email database. Ask for the email address of every potential customer and prospect.  Add a newsletter subscription link to your website (more on that below) and make it part of your email signature, make white papers and articles accessible from your site only with a sign-up form, make it part of the credit application.  Any opportunity to ask for an email address, do so.

4. Start publishing an e-newsletter on a regular basis. Establish a look and tone, define what types of content will be included, set a schedule and stick to it.  Twice a month or monthly is a good starting point. You may want to outsource copy writing and creative, or keep it internal depending on your organization’s capabilities and available time.

5.  Use 3rd party deployment company for ease and to maintain list hygiene (opt-outs and unsubs must be honored if you are NOT going to be perceived as spamming).  Vertical Response and Constant Contact are both excellent companies to start with if your list is under 30,000 records or so.

6.  Have a registration/sign-up mechanism on your site.  One do-it-yourself  resource is Wufoo -  a great site for online  form building and registration capture.  Certainly signing up for your newsletter will add email addresses to your database, but offering articles or white papers targeted to the concerns of your customers will not only build your database but add to your company’s credibility and positioning.

7.  Measure results and improve. At the very least, keep track of the number of opens, click thrus and unsubscribes you get with each mailing.  Is there content that had better results? Did your unsubs jump up?  Be aware of the effect your email marketing is having.  Ask your current customers what they think of your efforts, after 2 or 3 have gone out.  You will get feedback on ways to improve and enhance.

If all of this seems pretty basic…it is. But I’m amazed at how many larger organizations either do not have an email strategy, or are not doing it well.  Start now.

We have been working on a large lead-generation campaign for a new consumer-biz client, and we were delighted that they allowed us to incorporate social media into the plan. I know, it seems counter-intuitive to use social media for a mainly commercial objective, but if it is handled delicately and with respect for both the brand and the SM audience, it can be done very well.

Below are a few pointers that should be taken into consideration:

– Social Media is all about creating and joining community and adding value. Keep this ahead of everything else.

– First join the community – join many groups and participate, linking back to your offer every now and again. Build your network with keyword or category searches to find good prospects and interested followers.

– Be strategic – your messages should vary by target audience, the landing page should echo the content of the original message or post, and the ultimate call-to-action wording should support both.

– Content – Decide what issues and topics are interesting for your target audience. Invest some time to become a member of the community. First listen in, then ask questions, and only then define whatever your target group is excited about and what topics you should be addressing. Your content is about establishing a relationship with your community, not about re-purposing your sales presentation.

– Be sure your posts are a combination of conversation and links to your offer. We aim for at least 50% posts providing info on relevant topics, asking questions, responding to followers, and 50% talking about our offer and providing a link to our landing page.

– Standard lead-gen practices hold for Social Media – convert with the landing page.  As is true with any lead-gen strategy, the landing page does the heavy lifting.  It should be clear and simple, with a crystal-clear call to action.  Don’t offer options or links taking the reader off the page. The registration form should appear above the fold. Assume your reader will not be scrolling down, so keep all the salient points up top.

– SM offers wonderful opportunites for viral content to happen.  You can’t control it, but here’s some clues on what gets shared and what doesn’t…. Rarely shared: product info, free trials, hard offers, selling posts. Often shared: New Data, trends, funny videos, reference to top-notch blog posts.

We will continue this topic in future posts with more specifics on how to use Twitter, Facebook. and LinkedIn for lead-generation with specific tactics for each.

The key is to be a participant in a community, and provide value to create enough interest so that your followers and readers will want to find out more about your offer.  It CAN be done.

All print media are struggling these days, from the New York Times to the local newspaper.  As the readers are moving online, print might seem more and more irrelevant, and publishers are struggling with ways to keep their readers.

I came across a wonderful example of how to do it right. 7×7 Magazine, a San Francisco-based, glossy lifestyle pub invited their readers to submit all of the photos and much of the copy for a neighborhood review (August 2009 issue) of our beautiful city. The photos were incredible, but not just for their beauty. The strength of the issue was really the multiple slices of life that were represented with the great number of contributors. Plus their Twitter feeds and Facebook pages were touted throughout the issue.

The 7×7.com website provides far more content — videos, more pix, more reviews of each neighborhood’s strengths, and on and on. But the print magazine stands alone for its visual beauty and is definitely worth the cover (or subscription) price. The integration of the magazine with its social-media and online versions only magnifies that content and doesn’t detract from it. Job well done!

Major take-aways from this? Not all brands or pubishers are so content-rich or gorgeous (I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. and all brand managers love their children). Where can you extend your brand or publication into social media, and then involve the reader or customer with the content that is most easy to create and receive from them?

If you are a publisher, initiate the dialogue in print, then move it online. Sell cat food, walking shoes, lead-gen services? On your product labels, in your print ads, on your boxes and packages, invite your customers to participate in a contest related to the topic. Have them send in videos or photos, reward the winner with something related to the brand. And then publish (well-tagged) vids and pix on your Facebook Fanpage, Tweet to direct people back to your website and/or the fan page, upload videos to video sites, along with publishing them on your site.  The more you involve the reader/customer, the more engaged they become with the brand — the true definition of “dialogue”.

E-mail is enjoying a resurgence in these difficult times. Many bloggers are adding email to their mix of content distribution, and many companies are rediscovering the importance of an ongoing email strategy to enhance their brand, re-connect with customers, and drive leads or sales.

Whether you are using email to prospect for new leads or customers, or as a vehicle to communicate with (and gain incremental revenue from) your current customer base, it would be wise to be sure they are as productive as possible.

Here are a few tricks of the trade:

• Prospecting •

- Be sure you are using outside email lists that are reputable — opted-in, double opted-in. If the price for a list seems too good to be true, it is…. Don’t use it.

- Clearly identify your target — the sweet spot may not be achievable in the data world but start the search there, and then tweak “selects” based on availability.

- Explore pricing models — can you find CPC or CPL deals? More and more email list providers are willing to move to a CPL basis.

• Creative •

- Use a strong subject line — short and addressing a “pain point” will get the best open rates.

- Put a personal note above your banner or header to get recipients reading immediately — either in their mail-reader preview pane or when they open the e-mail.

- Personalize the message (IF your email database is reliable enough and you’re sure that most records have a first or first-and-last name)

- Include a sidebar. Highlight your call to action there with a photo, headline, caption, and action button.

- Pace your copy. Opening paragraph should be the most engaging, but short, 2 or 3 lines at most. The rest of the paragraphs should be no more than three sentences each. Intersperse longer paragraphs with short, snappy one-sentence paragraphs for emphasis. Use bold type and underlining (for links) to guide the eye to your most important points. Use bullets to break up the copy and move the reader along. Every third paragraph should have an action link to your desired call to action. Most click-thrus happen at the very end of the copy, Be sure you end with a link AND include a “P.S.” — that old standard from Direct Marketing 101.

• Landing Page •

- Whole books are written about landing pages, but at the very least include a very strong call to action — hopefully only one.

- Keep it clean and crisp. The creative design should have the same look and feel (and company logo etc) as the email so the reader doesn’t think they have gone to a different website or offer.

• Video? •

- If it’s in the body of the email itself, it may have delivery problems, or be blocked as potential spam attachment. If the video is on the landing page, it will probably get good viewership — but will it distract from the main call to action? Put some brief text and a call-to-action link above the video, or maybe the video can include a constantly visible and even clickable Web-address URL.

• Got Strategy? •

- If you are using email to contact your customer base, it’s best to have a schedule and stick to it.

- Decide on an email frequency — once a week, or once a month may be fine for some companies, too frequent or not enough for others. If you have a large enough mail-list file to test and measure response rates for different frequencies, do so. The last thing you want to do is irritate your own customer. They should perceive your emails as value-added, not intrusive.

- Segment your own email database if it makes sense. For leads, use different offers depending upon how far down the sales funnel the prospect is. For current clients, segment by product category, for example.

- Think BIG. A large-scale email campaign may not always be as efficient per dollar as a timid campaign, but well-crafted email can quickly build up your in-house customer list for further testing or offers. It’s an investment.

- Tracking is critical. Be sure you can measure open rates, click-thru rates, and conversions at least for each blast. And maintain historical reports over time to see both successes and weaknesses in your campaigns.

Need help? Want the best list broker? Thought you’d never ask. Call us.

According to a March 2009 Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report, lead generation represented $1.61B or 7 percent of the overall interactive-advertising spend in 2008, with white papers as the most frequently used tactic. Another study by B2B Magazine and Junta42 Match shows that one third of current marketing budgets are spent on custom content creation, half of which goes to white papers. The entire first experience of your brand online is all about the quality of content you produce, and (in this day of social media and the ability to comment and rate everything!) what people have to say about your content.

White papers have been the Number One lead-generation tool used by buyers for years. Today their importance has only strengthened. In difficult economic times like these, when money is less available (even in strongly performing industries), education is vital before a company will spend that money. Where does this education come from?

Overwhelmingly, it comes from white papers. Statistics and reports show over and over again that buyers use white papers in their purchasing decisions. A recent Eccolo Media study reviewed in B2B Magazine stated “White papers remain the most effective piece of collateral, with 86% of respondents finding them moderately to highly influential in the purchasing decision.” TechTargets’ Media Consumption Benchmark Report found that 80.5% of buyers find white papers to be somewhat or very effective in their decision making – this was higher than any other marketing tool. This same study also found that buyers read more white papers than any other marketing medium — up to five or more in a three-month period — and that they are used both to gain awareness and decide on a solution. What happens to that white paper after it’s read?  An Information Week report  showed 93% of buyers pass along at least half of the white papers they read. They are influential, educational and viral.

A well-researched and well-written white paper (and its abstract — that short description used as a teaser) serves not only to educate your potential customer; it provides a targeting mechanism to assure the quality of the leads being generated.  The more specific the content is to a particular issue, the more likely the reader will be well aligned with your definition of a good prospect – and a better use of the sales team’s time.

But it is not just the quality of the white paper that creates lead-generation success. Using the white papers in a well-thought-out media strategy is another way to assure the quality of the leads. Be sure that the site statistics and reader demographics are well-aligned with your target audience, so that the leads derived are as on-target as possible. A few ideas: content-distribution providers and industry-specific websites often have white-paper areas, e-newsletter sponsorships, and specific sub-sites devoted to your topic that can also be sponsored with a white-paper offer. 

One last thought. Once a well-crafted white paper is created, it is a valuable asset in an ongoing lead-generation strategy. Unless it is time-specific material, the white paper can be utilized in any number of opportunities over time. Rested for a bit, then brought back as a lead-gen tool, it can be refreshed at a later date to give it more life.

It’s tempting when shopping for cost-per-lead placements to seek out the lowest-cost leads –- and hope that your sales force (or your website or follow-up materials) have enough salesmanship to convert them. But initial expense is not the only consideration — you will need to take a good look at the quality of each lead. This includes both the conversion rate and the average revenue per sale. For example, it may be that leads generated from one type of media (such as paid search), turn into actual business at a substantially higher rate than other types. Given this fact, you will be willing to pay more per lead for the better ROI….

Examples:

– Campaign “A” cost = $1,500. Revenue = $3,000. The ROI ratio is 2:1.

– Campaign “B” cost = $2,500. Revenue = $7,525. The ROI ratio is 3:1.

The campaign needs to be followed through the complete selling to establish the best leads. How many leads are converting to a sale, and then what is that average sale? The latter two variables are as important a factor as the original cost of the lead.

In a B2B Lead Gen placement, lead expense occurs in 2 areas – the amount of targeting or filtering required, and the amount of data being captured.

The least expensive leads will typically be the least targeted. No filters (or few) will be applied –- this is truly putting an offer out to anyone. And anyone is exactly who will respond. Typically the only data required is a first and last name, and email address. The more targeting a publisher or ad network can provide, the more potentially targeted and hopefully responsive the lead will be.

The data fields being captured will also influence the cost. Standard “business card” fields are frequently used. But it may be important to further refine the leads. Most sales people, if complaining about lead quality, would rather have fewer, but better-qualified, leads. Keep in mind, the more data fields required, the higher the “drop off” rate. People don’t want to take the time to fill out forms, so be careful to balance the amount of data that is truly necessary versus what would be nice to have.

To further qualify the lead, add 2 or 3 questions to the lead-registration page. Frequently, this option is available if the upfront targeting is a bit more specific. Think about what additional information will assist your selling process. Examples would be: when will the purchasing decision be made?; what is the respondent’s decision-making role?

Some tips:

• Know who your target audience is for a given product or offer.
• Ask publishers for filters to reach that target, or as close as they can come.
• Ask how they are ascertaining the data –- is it credible?
• If the lead is based on contextual or behavioral data, be sure to understand completely the publishers’ methodology.
• Publishers/providers should be scrubbing leads for accuracy and hygiene — making sure all data fields are what they are supposed to be.
• Leads should be unique leads — publishers should be eliminating duplicates.
• The IAB has established best practices. Lots of good information here.
• Last thought…. Act on leads quckly. They don’t get better with age.

In our ongoing series on lead generation, the best place to start would be with some suggested best practices.  And the best place to start with all things online is with the IAB  – Interactive Advertising Bureas, and their  best practices  As a media buying agency, our job is to match the target audience with the online opportunity as closely as we can to get highest qualtiy leads for our clients – at the best price, of course.  While the media is a very important part, it’s not the only consideration.  We have also helped with the overall prospecting strategy, sourced vendors, and overseen many projects for our clients over the years.   Here are a few tips:

1.  Clearly define, target audience.  Sounds simple but it takes everything from a quantified analysis of the current customer base to converations with the sales reps to flesh out the full picture.  Dun and Bradstreet seems to be the primary source, but there are others.  We use Direct Marketing Partners for customized phone research into client databases to gain a much better understanding of who their customer is.  Very granular, but always worth the time and expense if the project is well scoped out.

2.  Clearly define the objective of the current campaign – is the  target audience for this product or offer consistent with other camaigns.  Don’t assume that one customer definition will fit all marketing efforts.

 3. Be clear about what constitutes a lead.  Will it be standard business card info, do you need or want the phone number, or email address?  Do you need or want additional information – like title, function, how far down the decision making path they are?  Additional questions may mean a more costly lead, but will allow for much better targeting and sales follow up.  If you don’t define this up-front, and communicate this clearly with the source of the data, you may not get what you are expecting….and guess whose fault that is?

4.  Lead quality.  In addition to defining what you want in a lead, be sure that the source of the data – ad networks, online pubishers, mailing lists etc, can provide what you are looking for and can substantiate how they determine the information.   Transparency of data – where ever,  possible will eliminate mis-understanding, poor leads, and lack of closings or conversions.  We ask enough questions of media sources to be annoying – then I know we are doing our job.

5.   Landing page  – is it clean and clear?  Do ask a couple of additional questions to gain more intelligence on the lead, but only 2-3 questions.  Any more and you will discourage completion.

6.  Prepare whoever will be doing the lead follow up.  Are the leads going to be scored?  Eloqua and Marketo do a good job with this, but there are many other suppliers.  Do telemarketers have well crafted scripts?  Do the sales reps calling on the leads have enough information and preparation to sell well?

7.  Lead nurture.  Leads rarely close with a single phone call or sales call.  Is there a schedule of ongoing touch points – follow up emails, phone calls, etc scheduled and scripted,  to warm the lukewarm lead up to actually buying?  When we have clients not happy with lead quality, and we have confidence in the qualityof the data used to provide the lead, I have to question what is happening to the leads once they are pitched to the sales team.

If  you are not getting “good” leads, or aren’t closing on enough of the ones that are being delivered, then some of these tips are not being followed.  Take another look at the whole process, from the begining, and start making improvements. 

The current economy is dictating that we all get the most bang for our buck. We have been working diligently to be sure our clients are getting just that with their media dollars. We blogged earlier about some ideas for maximizing spend. We have all been forced to become more resourceful and creative in our efforts to build our businesses, brands, and revenues. In our blog ElymediaFrenzy, we are kicking off a series on lead generation (including CPC and CPA deals) to help our clients, friends and associates make the best of a bad economy and do a better job finding qualified prospects. Along with general best practices we will explore:

• Why do lead generation campaigns fail? And the corollary – 6 ways to improve your lead gen campaigns
• Ad-networks – updates on how they are serving the B2B and B2C markets
• Web 2.0 for the B2B brand – lead generation vs. brand building – or more specifically Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn for lead gen and branding
• Guaranteed lead buys – how to ensure targeted, well qualified leads
• Funnel management – once you’ve got the lead – then what?

Check in with us frequently!