ViewPoint | The Truth About Lead Generation

Ruth Stevens is Founder of eMarketing Strategy, a consulting practice that assists companies in building their customer acquisition and retention strategies. Ruth is also author of Maximizing Lead Generation: The Complete Guide for B2B Marketers.

Every business needs new customers. But what are the most effective outbound marketing channels for kicking off a business relationship? There’s a lot of controversy out there on the subject. Let me go out on a limb and propose the top five media for your lead generation toolkit. These are the five essential channels you can rely on for generating a steady stream of inquiries that you can then convert to qualified leads, and have a prayer of closing enough sales to meet your revenue quota.

Jason Falls is an author, speaker and CEO of Social Media Explorer. He is also co-author of the book No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing, available on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere.

Marketing to the business consumer takes a special pedigree. The complexities of the non-commercial arena often overwhelm even seasoned marketers from the consumer-facing world. Whether it's trying to make a seeming non-sexy product irresistible or pinpointing the buyer in a corporate landscape of bureaucracy and politics, B2B is a challenge.

When qualifying and nurturing sales leads, the lead farmer (prospect development professional) has a challenging job. The starting point in lead management is usually an inquiry consisting of a name, title, a company, a phone number or email address. The lead farmer must have the patience, discipline and skill to engage the inquirer in a conversation. This step alone can take weeks or months.

Many of the best sales opportunities turn out to be those that have been contacted five or six times using a lead management process that includes voicemails, emails and direct mailings over a period of months before a conversation finally occurs.

Are marketing resources or sales reps the right resources to do lead qualification and lead nurturing in the B2B complex sale?

The answer is clear, and may surprise you. But first, let's take a look at some lead generation challenges.

Cahners Research has shown that 45 percent of qualified leads will end up buying a solution from someone within a year.

Contrary to popular belief, reps don’t need more sales leads. They need fewer leads—or more accurately, fewer raw, unfiltered, unqualified leads. Best sales lead management practices continually show that reps need qualified leads that have been carefully vetted, properly and consistently nurtured and appropriately developed, increasing the likelihood of a completed sale.

Good sales reps are by nature hunters, eager to close in on highly qualified leads for the kill.

James Obermayer, Executive Director and CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association and President of Sales Leakage Consulting is a regular guest blogger with ViewPoint.

An important skill in playing poker is being able to read the opponents at your table. A “Tell”* is a physical reaction, sometimes called a habit, or behavior that tells others information about you and your hand. If you can read the “Tells” of the others, you win; if you can’t control your own Tells, you might lose. We all have our own Tells, which are tics and habits. There are some common poker Tells that you should know about and then we’ll see how this connects to your sales prospects and even your sales reps behavior.

This year, we’re honored to have published posts from twenty-seven guest marketing and sales bloggers here on ViewPoint, and I wanted to say to all of you how much I appreciate your contributions.

Chris Selland is CMO at Terametric, a company focused on maximizing marketing ROI by helping marketers capture and measure all their channel marketing data. Chris is an experienced technology business development & marketing executive, with deep domain expertise in the areas of online and inbound marketing, strategic alliances, demand generation, and corporate development/M&A.

Chris originally published this post on November 14, 2011, and it is republished here with his permission.

One of the biggest challenges in calculating Return on Investment (ROI) from any type of marketing initiative—social or other—is in quantifying the actual economic value produced by it.

Anthony Iannarino is an expert in B2B Sales and Marketing and an Executive Sales Coach and Consultant. Anthony is President and CSO of SOLUTIONS Staffing, Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, and author of The Sales Blog.

There aren’t many salespeople or sales organizations that don’t wish for a silver bullet that would make producing sales results both easier and faster. Well, there is a silver bullet, but it’s only available to those that are willing to pay the price.

The Truth About Leads, has been selected as one of ten finalists in the 2011 Top Sales & Marketing Book category. I wrote this book because I felt the truth had to be told about how the gap between marketing and sales causes a relatively poor return on marketing investments and low close rates. The book discusses both best practice strategic approaches and specific tactics to correctly target markets, qualify sales-ready opportunities and nurture long-term leads.