Entries from August 2009
Want To Generate More Leads? Leverage Your Prospects’ Five Senses
If you want your B2B lead generation campaigns to be as successful as possible, you need your lead generating messages to break through the clutter, get your prospects’ attention and provide them with compelling reasons to respond.
To accomplish these objectives, consider leveraging your prospect’s five senses.
Sight: Many of your prospects process information best visually. To get your messages through to these visual people, use photos, illustrations or icons to help them "see" the benefits of your products or services.
I use Fotolia as a low-cost source of royalty-free photos, illustration and icons. When Garth Johnson, EVP North America for Fotolia, heard that I recommended his company, he offered to give my customers, readers, seminar attendees and business friends 5 free credits to give Fotolia a try, and 30 percent extra credits whenever you buy more.
So if you have a few minutes now, or next time you are looking for just the right image for an ad, brochure, email, website or presentation, visit www.fotolia.com/macmc to get your free credits. Then use the promo code "macmcintosh" to get your 30 percent bonus when buying additional credits.
Hearing: Other prospects are more receptive to words; both written and spoken.
My wife, Andrea, is one of these auditory people. It seems I’m always trying to show her something, as I process information best visually. Yet Andrea is always asking me to tell her instead. Why? Because she processes words better than pictures.
To communicate best with these auditory people, have a conversation with them; either out loud with spoken words or in their heads with written words.
A skilled writer can also use written or spoken words to paint mental pictures for those who are more receptive to visual information.
Touch: Does it make sense (no pun intended) to give your prospects a sample of your product that they can touch or play with? A client of mine, a manufacturer of drawer slides for the furniture industry, sends samples to qualified prospects so they can feel the quality and assess the durability of the company’s products firsthand.
Other products, software is a good example, lend themselves to "test drives" via Web demos, evaluations copies or free trials.
You can use also touch to communicate in more subtle ways too, like using the quality feel of your printed literature to reflect the quality of your products or services.
Smell and taste:
Have you ever had a pleasant smell trigger a pleasant memory? Or felt great after eating something tasty or sweet?
If your product can be associated with a pleasing fragrance, consider adding that fragrance to your lead generation materials. For example, a business catering company could add the smell of fresh baked apple pies to their postcards. Search on an industrial sourcing Website like GlobalSpec and you’ll find suppliers of fragrances (and flavors) like Carmi Flavors.
Or the catering company could leverage prospects’ taste buds by including a delicious cookie in its mailing, or giving them away at its trade show booth.
If you have additional tips about using the five senses to generate more leads, or have some related success stories you can share, please do!
The B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study Report: Useful data and advice
Are you looking for data to help justify a bigger budget or more resources for your B2B lead generation programs?
Are you looking for advice you can use to make your B2B lead generation programs as productive as they can be?
Get the 2009 B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study Report.
It provides metrics and best practices for B2B lead generation.
Please ask yourself these questions:
- Would it be useful to show senior management the big impact that lead generation has on the sales pipelines of other companies that sell their products and services to businesses, institutions or the government?
- Are you interested in knowing how your lead generation budget, tactics and results compare to those of other companies that sell products and servcicesto businesses, institutions or the government?
- Are you wondering what results your B2B lead generation peers are getting from telemarketing, email, their websites, online marketing, social media and other tactics?
- Do you know which lead generation activities your peers are now finding to be the most productive?
- Do you know how your B2B lead generation, follow up, nurturing and qualification processes compare to those of your peers?
- Would you pay only $159, with a money-back satisfaction guarantee, to get these answers and more?
If your answer to the last question was "Yes", click here to buy and immediately download the information-packed 2009 B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study Report.
If you’re still not convinced, consider this…
The 2009 B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Study Report gives you the information you need to justify and improve your lead generation programs:
- It shares the lead generation best practices that are now getting the best results for your peers at other companies that sell products or services to businesses, institutions or the government.
- It also includes a detailed recommendations section written by two B2B lead generation experts. (Yes, I’m one of them!)
Please take a look at the Table of Contents.
2010 is just around the corner…
There are only a few months left to generate leads and close sales before the end of 2009. This report will help you figure out what you can do to boost your short term leads and sales results before the year is over.
And if you are starting to plan and budget for next year’s B2B lead generation programs and campaigns, the report will help guide your decisions on how to get the best results in 2010.
Also consider that you might pay thousands in consulting fees for the same advice. Or think about the wasted time, money and the risks you face trying to figure it all out using trial-and error approaches.
Instead you pay only $159 to get this essential information.
And don’t forget your money-back satisfaction guarantee!
If you are not fully satisfied with the B2B Lead Generation Benchmark Report all you have to do is return it within 30 days and we’ll give you full refund!
B2B Marketing Tests Webinar: How to Improve Your Results & Fight for Your Budget
Who? B2B marketers responsible for lead generation.
What? A live webinar, B2B Marketing Tests: How to Improve Results & Fight for Your Budget, presented by Anne Holland with her special guest, B2B lead generation expert Mac McIntosh. (Yes, I’m honored to say that’s me!)
- Discover the top 7 web page and registration form tests to increase your site’s leads by 40%;
- Get invaluable office politics tips for testing success;
- Ask questions and get expert answers during the Q&A portion of the webinar;
- And, if you’re quick, you may get the opportunity to have your lead generation page evaluated live on air during the webinar!
When? On Thursday, Sept 24, 2009 at 2pm Eastern (1 hour)
Where? From any handy computer with broadband Internet access.
Why? Because getting better results from your B2B marketing and lead generation is your key to bigger budgets, more staff and maybe even a promotion and a raise!
How? Register for free here or visit www.whichtestwon.com
NOTE: Attendance is limited to 100 people.
I look forward to having you join us on Thursday, Sept 24, 2009 at 2pm Eastern!
B2B Marketing Summit: Learn what’s really working best in today’s difficult business environment
Join me, your B2B marketing peers and other marketing experts at MarketingSherpa’s 6th Annual B2B Marketing Summit 2009
Join America’s top B2B marketers to learn, apply and share the latest advancements in marketing while honing your traditional B2B marketing skills in parallel.
With over 26 speakers, 16 real life case studies and countless, practical marketing ideas, you’ll be certain to take home multiple strategies and tactics you can apply tomorrow. Subjects include:
- The latest research on what working right NOW in B2B marketing
- Leveraging white papers, webinars, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
- Proven tactics for lead generation, scoring, nurturing and closed-loop measurement
- Finding and building your social communities
- Taking advantage of PPC, SEO, email creative & landing pages
- Managing multi-channel campaigns
- Marketing to drive leads and sales from Fortune 500 companies
- Using Web 2.0 to cost-effectively reach SMBs
- More details here.
Please don’t miss the session I’ll be co-presenting on Tuesday, October 6th in Boston.
Chris Chariton, GlobalSpec’s Vice President of Marketing Services & Product Management, and I will be presenting a case study entitled, Taking Lead Generation to the Next Level: One B2B Company’s Success Story.
We’ll share how Chris and her team at GlobalSpec (with my help) embarked on a major initiative to increase the volume, value and velocity of its marketing-driven sales lead programs, and succeeded big time. Summit attendees will learn how they did it with a smaller marketing budget in this lousy economy.
We’re planning to give lots of how-to information and share some key lessons learned that you can use to cost-effectively improve your company’s lead generation, despite today’s tough business environment.
Take advantage of my special presenter’s discount to save $400.
Here’s some more about what will be presented at this information-packed, two-day B2B marketing conference:
- Multiple Case Studies, war stories and lessons learned presented by B2B peers and mentors (past speakers include marketers from Oracle, Siemens, Cisco Systems, and more).
- Practical advice on B2B search, podcasting, registration form tests, email, lead generation & nurturing and telemarketing.
- Countless hours of face-to-face networking with seasoned professionals, trainers and peers over breakfast, breaks, lunch and receptions
- Proven lead generation strategies, campaigns and tactics you can apply now to get more done with less people, time and budgets
- Interaction with colleagues sharing successful campaigns and tactics to inspire and hone your marketing skills
The bottom line? You’ll come away armed with practical, new B2B marketing tactics, knowledge and expertise you can use to get better results from your marketing and stay ahead of your competition.
Here’s where to learn more and take advantage of my special presenter’s discount.
Business Software Marketers: Finally a Conference Designed Just For You!
Join me and your business software marketing peers at this conference just for software marketing leaders.
Capterra: The Conference
Empowering Software Marketing Leaders
September 13-15 in Washington DC
Make the absolute most out of your marketing efforts across the board. That’s the goal of this first-ever business software marketing conference.
You’ll learn cutting-edge strategies for improving everything from your online marketing to your lead generation efforts from top industry experts (including yours truly).
Confirmed speakers include Ramon Ray, Bryan Eisenberg, Wil Reynolds, Robert Wright, David Meerman Scott, Ruth Stevens, Ashish Vij, Stephanie Miller, and Gord Hotchkiss. Learn more about them here.
Each presentation will be tailored specifically for the business software industry, and will deliver highly practical ideas designed for immediate results. Topics will include:
- Always Be Testing: Marketing Optimization in Challenging Times
- SEO Tools You Can Use Today To Improve Your Rankings
- Winning Positioning Strategies For Software Category Leadership
- Visitors Come and Visitors Go: Why Aren’t They Becoming Customers?
- How To Motivate Action Online
- Using The New Rules of Marketing and PR to Reach Software Buyers Directly
- The latest tools and features in Google Analytics to help optimize your website lead pipeline
- Successfully Measuring Email Marketing Success
- The BuyerSphere — A Different Perspective on B2B Buying
The agenda shows my session, A Lead-Driven Approach to Increasing Business Software Sales, is scheduled for Monday, September 14th at 10:00 am.
My presentation will address proven ways to use sales leads to find more short-term sales opportunities that your sales team and channel partners can close before the end of the year.
I’ll also be facilitating a breakout session on Monday afternoon entitled, Lead Generation: A Group Idea Exchange. It will be your opportunity to swap ideas about lead generation with some of the best in the business: your business software marketing peers. This idea exchange will be an open forum where you’ll have a chance to share both your successes, and your challenges, with generating, nurturing and qualifying sales leads.
Will I see you at Capterra: The Conference?
If you are planning to attend, please be sure to take advantage of my special presenter’s discount code capcon09mm when registering. It will save you $100!
B2B Lead Generation Checklist: 22 Success Tips
What I like best about being a B2B lead generation consultant is I get to work with some of the best people at the best companies in the business.
The rewarding part is I get to see first-hand what works best (and what doesn’t) when it comes to generating, nurturing and identifying the qualified, sales-ready leads that salespeople, reps, resellers and distributors need.
Speaking of what works best, here are 22 tips for getting better results from your B2B lead generation programs:
- Aim where your prospects are
- Be there when they are thinking about the problem (right media, right frequency)
- Make it easy to find (in the search engine results, on your website, in their email inbox, etc.)
- Focus on generating response
- Get right to the point
- Be relevant (to their job, industry, application, problem, pain, etc.)
- Communicate with words and pictures (or word pictures)
- Choose your words carefully (use powerful words and avoid clichés)
- Talk second-person (lead with you and your instead of we and our)
- Invoke a positive emotional response (pride, happiness, etc.)
- Talk about pain-relief or solving problems
- Show them the before and after
- Make it easy to skim (subheads, bullets, bold fonts, links, captions, etc.)
- Back up your claim (prove it)
- Use testimonials (real people at real companies)
- Offer ways to learn more
- Make multiple offers (calls-to-action)
- Make offers that appeal at different stages of their buying cycle
- Merchandise your offers (borders, color, bold, buttons, links, etc.)
- Ask for the order (tell them what to do next)
- Give a compelling reason to respond right now
- Make it easy to respond (by phone, e-mail, website, coupon, reply card, etc.)
What are some of the secrets to your B2B lead generation success?
Hopefully you’ll share some of them with us.
