Sales Lead Management Today

Surprising Research on Referral Marketing

Paper Title: Referral Marketing for Professional Services Firms

From: Hinge Research Institute

Length: 21-page white paper

Research database: 523 respondents.

Cost: Free

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Why Firms Get Ruled Out
4. Conclusion
5. About Hinge
6. Additional Resources 

While this white paper was created primarily, the authors say, for professional services firms, its contents are worth reading for all business-to-business companies.  Referrals for all businesses are valuable.  These are not to be confused with testimonials, but are the one-on-one discussions that occur from one buyer or influencer to another.

Hinge found that of the 523 respondents, 72.1% said that attracting and developing new business is

Can Marketing Automation Become Just an ERP Application? Dan Arra Hopes not!

 

 

 

Alto Cloud’s VP of Sales & Service Dan Arra, has an interesting viewpoint when he deliberates with the host Jim Obermayer how marketing automation could be slipping into a rigid process that resembles an ERP solution.  Dan feels this is not good for the salesperson or the customer. Arra argues that  machine learning, when added to marketing automation can push personalized communications in real time to address a customer’s immediate interest.  Real time, both agreed, is better than a salesperson getting around to answering a question a week after the person visited the website.  This also agrees with Andy Paul’s philosophy in the book Zero Time Selling which he discusses in another SLMA Radio interview. 

 

Cartoon: What an amazing movie,I thought it was so touching when they converted every one one of those leads

 

   (This cartoon may be copied and used as shown with attribution without additional permission)

 This cartoon has been created by Stu Heinecke of CartoonLink.    Its sponsor is LeadMaster  web-based sales lead management software. 

 

100 Sales and Marketing Stats Every Marketer and Sales Manager Must Know

This is a collection of by-the-numbers facts that every sales and marketing professional needs to know offered as a white paper by SalesStaff.

Publisher:  SalesStaff with 54 cited sources
Form: PDF  White Paper
Length: 14 Pages
Download Link

Ten categories covered include:

1. Email marketing, 2. Social Media, 3. Facebook, 4. Twitter , 5. LinkedIn, 6. SEO, 7. Content Marketing, 8. Blogging , 9. Lead Generation , 10. Sales

Some stats that surprised me:

• 89 Billion emails sent daily by workers
• 13% of all leads were generated using email marketing
• Personalized subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened
• Top 5 cities for job openings with social media in the title: NYC,L.A., S.F., London, and Chicago

Cartoon: When a company president asks my advice about growing the company, I tell him "Find a good marketer."

 

 

 When a company president asks me what can be done to grow the company, I tell him to find a good marketer who knows how to manage leads.

“Great marketers, pound for pound, create more wealth for your company,” I tell him, “than any other person in the company, and they can prove it.   Not-so-great marketers create some wealth, but they can't prove it.” 

The Missing Piece in Sales Lead Management

Last week, the Sales Lead Management Association posted an article discussing the sales industry’s struggles with lead follow-up.

It pointed out that marketing automation and CRM are important tools, but they don’t completely solve the problem -- even when used in tandem.

That’s because there’s something missing between these two technologies. The sales funnel starts with leads (marketing automation) and ends with customers (CRM), but what about the gap in the middle?

Sales acceleration technology is the missing piece. It sits between marketing automation and CRM platforms, and keeps the assembly line moving.

When it comes to lead follow-up, industry studies have taught us most reps give up before even making a second attempt. However, if they persist to six tries, chances of making contact reach about 90 percent.

Sales acceleration technology dramatically improves productivity, allowing reps to follow up on leads more quickly and persistently. And with automatic data capture to CRM, leads stop falling through the cracks.

It’s been reported that 79 percent of marketing leads never convert to sales, so it’s important for

Bonnie Crater On the topic of gender equality in the C Space. Listen While You Work

On SLMA Radio recently, Bonnie Crater, CEO of Full Circle CRM was interviewed by me on the topic of gender equality at the C-level. The question of whether or not it is possible was the focus and steps companies can take toward this goal. But one of the byproducts of this interview is the question, "Why does it matter?"

 Here is the replay of that interview:

Or you can view the SLMA Radio interview here > 

This article just posted in USA Today 4/18: Is Meritocracy a joke for women in tech >

The current situation in the tech industry has taken the issues of women in the workplace to new levels of controversy recently. For starters, the number of women in Silicon Valley has been falling precipitously over decades' time.

Amazon & B2B companies are not the bogeymen of online data-capture.

So much fuss is made about social media companies that capture everything about us. They sell everything about us they can learn by our behavior and that of our friends. We know this. We are also familiar with the tracking set up by Marketo, Bronto, click-just-about-anything, Constant Contact, Experian, Salesforce, SalesFUSION, Unbounce, Weblead Tracker, Zendesk, Zappos and the rest of the 380 most common beacons. This doesn't mention the 982+ common advertising trackers, 321+ common analytics trackers, 19+ for privacy and another 292+ of widgets in general. 

Cartoon on Sales Lead Follow-up: Not so funny when you think about it

Sales Lead follow-up is always a struggle.  When salespeople failed to follow-up leads, CRM software was supposed to be the fix and it has to a degree (accountability).  Marketing automation software was supposed to solve it when CRM software fell short and it has to a degree (automated follow-up).  

A Report on the State of Marketing Maturity: Users are getting business value but not following best practices!

Spear Marketing,  a B2B demand generation agency, released this month a free report on the state of the use of marketing automation, with some surprising statistics.  These statistics can serve as a guide to companies using the technology or considering purchasing the software.  The ‘State of Marketing Automation Maturity’ report is based on the results of more than 100 (a minimum statistical sampling which makes it reasonably projectable) marketing automation users’ responses to an email marketing and social media request. 

The agency started with a hypothesis that marketing automation is underutilized by B2B companies that have the product.  The respondents were assigned a grade depending on a best practices opinion (by the agency, I assume).  The primary result is that current owners are underutilizing the software, with the implied implication that this under-utilization comes at a high price in lost revenue.   Spear Marketing states that the users are “achieving real business value,” but have much room for improvement.  In many categories, they contend best practices in marketing automation are relatively uncommon.

The report broke out the results into the following categories (answers and pie charts):

1. Analytics and Reporting – Six questions
2. Programs – Nine questions
3. Forms and Landing Pages –Four questions
4. Lead Scoring – Eight questions
5. Data – Five questions

Aside from the 32 charts and results based on the five categories, there are “17 Key Results” listed.

I am most interested in the analytics portion, which showed:

• Do you measure and report on the pipeline contribution?
  • Answer: 77.3% said yes.
  • Do you measure and report on the revenue contribution?
    • Answer:  58.6% said yes. 
    • Have you defined the stages in your company’s sales cycle based on industry standards (MQL, SQL, etc.)?
      • Answer: 69.5 % said yes. 

I recommend that readers of this report who have their own marketing automation system in place create a score card to measure themselves against the results, and then make the needed changes to get the most from their system.  Getting the most to me means increases in revenue, or why else would you do this?  There are many actions to take for users that are not immediately measurable in revenue but taken together everything counts.

For those who do not have a marketing automation system in place, the report can provide a road map of how to get the most from your system as you implement it.

When asked which marketing automation platform the respondents used, they reported:

• 56.3% Marketo
• 18.1% other
• 9% Pardot  (a Salesforce company)
• 8.3% Hubspot
• 4.9% Eloqua (an Oracle company)
• 3.5% Act-On

Get report here.

 

Note:  Spear Marketing and Act-On are both sponsors of the SLMA.  Eloqua, HubSpot and Marketo have sponsored various programs in the past but are not currently sponsors. 

 

How to Measure Revenue with your CRM (Especially Salesforce)

 

Of all the reasons to install and use Salesforce as a CRM system, measuring marketing performance is one of the biggies.   In this interview with industry veteran Bonnie Crater, CEO of Full Circle CRM, we explore how can you get intelligence to make decisions and not hum and haw when the CEO says, “What does Salesforce report on our marketing spend?  Bonnie talks about marketing artists and scientists and who is most likely to want to be measured.   Within the 25 minute interview she covers the five steps that marketing and sales must take to measure revenue from marketing. 

 

About Bonnie Crater

 

Prior to joining Full Circle CRM, Bonnie Crater was Vice President of Marketing for VoiceObjects

Cartoon: "That's awfully forward of you to ask what my idea of an ideal prospect is, Edward"

Stu Heinecke our Humor Relations contributor and radio host (Contact Marketing Radio) from CartoonLink makes us think with this cartoon.  Does marketing really know what sales thinks an ideal prospect is?  If they know, what action do they take to find more of the ideal and less of the less than ideal?    Is marketing too embarrassed to ask?  Is sales too timid to let marketing know the profile of the ideal prospect?  Maybe it’s time to get together and discuss it. 

   (This cartoon may be copied and used as shown with attribution without additional permission)

Ask Stu about his CEO Contact Program.  He is the only agency I know that has had a 100% response rate for several programs. Yep, 100%.     Stu also runs Contact Marketing a Seattle based agency.

How does Pay for Performance work in Lead Generation?

Not every company has the guts for it, or the experience to pull it off.  

 

Pay for performance is an interesting topic in lead generation.  In this interview with SalesStaff CEO David Balzen we get an understanding of the what it takes for a pay-for-performance model to be successful for both parties. Certainly many companies want someone to take all of the risk while they reap the benefits of new sales.  We’ll see how this works and the pitfalls for both parties.   The host is Jim Obermayer. 

                                         

Marketing Tech Rollouts, How to Avoid Failure

A Digital Marketing Commentary from Paul Salvaggio

Marketing Technology rollouts are increasing and with it the failure rate, according to Paul Salvaggio. In this 5 minute commentary, Paul guides you through the three things that can be done to ensure a better result from your technology installation. 

 

 

About Paul Salvaggio 

Paul Salvaggio is the VP of Operations for Backbone Media, a digital marketing agency based in Boston – Paul provides the tools, processes, services, and teams to best serve their B2B clients in the areas of data, technology and content. He leverages his nearly ten years of experience in the industry to help clients get their message out so they can focus on creating and fostering relationships. Contact: [email protected]

 

Pandora's Box of Live Streaming and Paid Events

All the buzz happening with Meerkat and Meerkasting, Periscope, Twitter, LiveStream, streaming in general, and YouTube Live Events in streams has opened Pandora's box on copyright, trademark, privacy and just bad manners in general.

Visiting with a friend on this topic, Krishna De in Dublin, we reminisced about the time when we used to set up IP based webcams to stream live from our homes and businesses back in the day and

Sales Lead Management Association Declares Winners of 2015’s “20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management”

The winners of the 2015 “20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management” leadership program have been announced by SLMA founder James W. Obermayer.  “The 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management are extraordinary. They understand that sales increases and an ROI on marketing spending start with proper sales lead management.  They are saleswomen and marketing managers, consultants and speakers, book authors and bloggers; they sit on the boards of for-profit and non-profit corporations, and all have the traits of uncommon leadership. We congratulate them on their well-rounded achievements.”

 The 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management – 2015 in alpha order are:

Winners never “try.” Winners only win. Trying is for Losers.

Gerry Spence* said, “I warn you: a winning stance is never achieved by trying.  I hear some say, ‘I will try as hard as I can.’ Trying is for losers.  Trying implies the possibility of losing.  ‘I will try to win.  I will try not to lose.’ If after trying they have lost, well they tried, did they not?  Losers always try.  Winners never try.  Winners only win.” 

There are many memorable things that Gerry Spence says in his book “How to Argue and Win Every Time,”* * and my paraphrase in this blog post title is one of them.  My dog- eared copy of