It is with pleasure that the SLMA publishes the list of the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for 2011. We aregreatly impressed with all of the nominees and our independent judges admitted to a difficult time picking the 20 out of the 33 names submitted. The judges are: Andy Brownell, CMO of LeadMaster, Lauren Carlson, CRM Market Analyst, Software Advice, Diane Mayer, Software Training and Adoption Consultant, and Dick Evans, Former CEO of the AdTrack Corporation. Please send an email or make a call to these outstanding contributors to the discipline of sales lead management in all of its forms.
A sales-ready lead is an inquiry that has been qualified and ranked by the Marketing department using criteria on which both the Sales and Marketing departments agree. Qualification and ranking take place before the lead is distributed to Sales. Do you know which of your leads are “sales-ready?”
If your company passes all inquiries directly to your sales team without qualifying and ranking them, you’re wasting your sales people’s time, lengthening your sales cycle, and increasing your cost of sale.
by Shreesha Ramdas - Chief Operating Officer, LeadFormix
I recently read on About.com an article by Laura Lake that the concept of Drip Marketing was developed in response to the ‘Law of 29’ in which many marketers believe that an average ‘prospect’ will not turn into a client until they’ve viewed a marketing message at least 29 times.
While the above explanation may sound exaggerated, there is no denying that drip marketing campaigns are a great way to keep in touch and stay on the mind of your future prospects and sales leads, even when they are not sales ready.
With higher penetration of marketing automation platforms in the B2B space, drip marketing campaigns have become a common lead nurturing activity. Now, planning and executing a drip marketing campaign only requires setting up some triggers on your marketing automation platform.
When determining the most effective marketing mix, e-mail marketing as an inexpensive yet highly powerful vehicle is a critical part of a strategic B2B marketing plan. In order to maximize success, you need to engage your creative team to design compelling messages, and then utilize best practices when conducting your campaign. In addition, marketers need to be fully aware of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and the requirements within the Act that govern all e-marketing campaigns.
The Creative Overview:
The first thing you have to do in creating an e-marketing campaign is to generate the Creative Overview. Make sure that you pull from past experiences with historical campaigns to build on successes and avoid bad ideas. To do this, it is helpful to answer the following questions:
Making Social Sell: Design Social Marketing to Generate Leads
by Jeff Molander
Blogging, engaging, listening to customers on Facebook or Twitter are all a necessary component of online marketing. But doing these things won’t help you actually generate leads using social media. The idea of following customers into social spaces is smart. But incomplete without a means to discover, nurture and capture demand – leads and sales.
Could the answer to selling more with social media be found in starting conversations that are worth having? And could conversing in ways that generate questions that you have the answers to be a better way to generate customer inquiries? Yes and yes. Successfully generating leads with social media requires we expect it to -- and design it to.
Book Review: Master the Art of the Sales Conversation
Title: Rain Making Conversations
List Price $24.95 Amazon $13.99 Kindle $ 9.99
262 Pages
Mike Shultz and John Doerr make a great case for their statement that Conversations make or break everything in sales.
Every conversation you have is an opportunity to find new prospects, win new customers, and increase sales. Yet so many professionals and sales people struggle with generating initial conversations and moving them to the close. They make common mistakes that end up losing them deals.
Rainmaking Conversations by Mike Schultz and John Doerr provides a proven system that will help you master the art of the sales conversation so you can close more deals, bring in more revenue, and be more successful.
Based on their research, decades of experience, and in depth interviews with leaders of the most successful sales organizations, Rainmaking Conversations is a guide to sales conversation success. You’ll be introduced to RAIN, an acronym that stands for Rapport, Aspirations and Afflictions, Impact, and New Reality.
In Rainmaking Conversations, you’ll learn how to:
Build real rapport and trust from the first contact
Uncover the full set of prospect and customer needs (most advice only gives you half the story)
Understand and communicate your value proposition
Apply the 16 principles of influence in sales
Overcome all types of objections (including price pressure) and move towards the close
Craft compelling solutions and close the deal
Avoid the most common mistakes that kill sales
The world-class RAIN SellingSM methodology featured in Rainmaking Conversations has helped tens of thousands of people lead powerful sales conversations and achieve breakthrough sales performance.
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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original articles on the subject of inquiry management (including CRM), fulfillment, telemarketing, inquiry nurturing, etc. We will also publish articles that have been previously published if the author submits proof that he or she has permission from the magazine, newsletter (print or on-line) or book publisher to reprint the material. Please submit content to [email protected].
Mike Shultz and John Doerr make a great case for their statement that Conversations make or break everything in sales. 
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