Our ask the experts spotlight this month is on the Lead Nurture Category on the SLMA Ask the Experts area of the SLMA site. If have a question, any question, these experts have agreed to answer your questions. We have 32 experts, some are authors, all are experts in their fields. They have applied to be listed in this area, all have articles in the resources area of the SLMA site.
Most organizations are realizing little if any TANGIBLE VALUE from social media. And here's why.
Jeff Molander is a marketing futurist, professional keynote speaker, leadership speaker and professor of digital direct marketing at Loyola University’s school of business. As CEO of Molander & Associates Inc. he helps build profitable businesses by improving digital marketing outcomes by making them accountable to business goals.
The SLMA re-launched its blog under a new name and format in February. People who had subscribed to the old blog must now re-subscribe to the new Sales Lead Management Today blog. We promise an expanded guest blog roll, harder-hitting, pushy questions and opinions on the subjects of sales lead management and sales lead generation.
The secret to getting the most value from voicemail as a B-to-B marketing tool is strategy, plus a healthy dose of best practice. Let’s look at the top techniques out there today.
Outbound telemarketing is still a powerful part of B-to-B sales and marketing, but, as we all know, business people are harder to reach than ever. The net is that 85% of calls these days are going to go to voicemail or otherwise not connect. This can be frustrating, but it also offers an opportunity to turn voicemail from an enemy into a friend.
Your campaign strategy needs to be built around your objectives with the outbound call. For example, if you are trying to have a live conversation, and you reach a voicemail box, then you should plan on either hanging up or leaving a short voicemail message. The message should request a callback and give a good reason why the prospect should want to talk to you. If, on the other hand, your call is an extra touch to support, say, an event invitation , or an email campaign, then you should pre-record the voicemail message and seek to deliver it to every voicemail box on your list.
Here are the elements of best-practice voicemail marketing today, whether it’s designed to support lead generation, qualification or nurturing.
An effective, integrated approach to content marketing, lead capture, lead nurturing, lead scoring, opportunity handoff, and lead funnel measurement. Companies are pouring millions of dollars into marketing to generate leads. Of these leads, 80% will never be converted to sales. This dismal return on investment is the result of poor lead management — handing off leads to sales before the opportunity has been qualified. What is worse, according to a 2009 study by CSO Insights, 50% of all leads being actively pursued by the sales team have been generated by the sales team themselves— not marketing. The system is broken. Lead Management Best Practices presents a new, more effective approach to lead management.
A while ago at a conference I had dinner with two people. The first, (we'll call her Janine) I had known since we worked together six years earlier. The second person (Ed), Janine and I had just met.
Janine described a sales challenge she was facing. She'd been working with two prospects at two different organizations, one for over a year and one for almost two. The typical sales cycle is 6 to 9 months, and these were both well beyond. She felt she was nearing a sale with both, but for all she knew, "nearing" might mean a year or two to go.
When Your Web Visitors Call: Using Dynamic Telephone Number Insertion to Bridge the Website Analytics Gap
by: Scott Buresh
In previous articles about search engine marketing and website analytics, I have written about the importance of tracking leads from a website all the way through the buying cycle in order to determine which of your online campaigns are performing at optimal levels and which could use some tweaking. A new technology, Dynamic Telephone Number Insertion (DTNI) has arrived, with the ability to track website leads based upon your incoming sales calls. With a modern website analytics platform (i.e. Google Analytics, Omniture, etc.), it is currently fairly simple to track your closed sales back to their point of origin, whether from organic search, banner ads, social networking, pay per click, or other online marketing initiatives.
Since we posted the
first Blog entry the reception has been great. We
have discussed how Marketers are the Builders of Wealth, Sales Lead
Management Week, and how Closed Loop Lead Management Systems = Lead
Quality and Lead Management (guest author Danny Head from Avaya).
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A while ago at a conference I had dinner with two people. The first, (we'll call her Janine) I had known since we worked together six years earlier. The second person (Ed), Janine and I had just met.
ActOn Software
Applied DM Research, Inc.
CartoonLink, Inc.
ClickPoint Software
eti Sales Support
Event Technologies
The Hill Group
ITN International
Invenio Solutions
InterlinkOne
LeadLife
New Business Strategies
The Pedowitz Group
PointClear, LLC
Sales Benchmark Index
SalesFUSION
Sales Leakage Consulting
Sandler Training
Validar Inc.
The Vanella Group
VanillaSoft
Velocify
The Velos Group, Inc.
Vorsight