Webinars are an important part of the B2B demand generation toolkit. What advice do marketers have when it comes to producing, promoting, and following up on webinars? We put this question to our #B2Bchat audience in our latest session. Here is what the experts had to say:
Q. What are innovative ideas of promoting webinars?
Schedule the webinar on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. 9am Pacific (noon Eastern) was cited as a preferred time. An alternate strategy would be to schedule webinars when others aren’t being held, e.g. Fridays, to avoid competition.
Send a voicemail service reminder to registrants the day before.
Use social media to promote via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Place reminders on your corporate site and banners on industry publications.
To increase attendance, send email reminders 7 days, 3 days and 1 day prior.
Offer a short video preview.
Offer a prize draw for attendees.
Average webinar attendance ranges from 30% to 70% depending on industry and qualifications of registrants.
Many people actually prefer viewing on demand, after hours; it allows for fast-forwarding, pausing and skimming.
When offering an Outlook calendar invite, make sure to set the reminder. Many default to “no reminder.”
Q. How can marketers leverage Twitter with webinars?
Tweet before, during and after the webinar.
For sharing the tweet transcript post-event, www.wthashtag.com is GREAT. Just make sure you register & describe the tag beforehand. www.wthashtag.com will summarize tweets and also illustrate via bar chart who your top tweeters were, so you know who to thank.
Prepare a few canned tweets based on content ahead of time to get the conversation going.
Have designated Twitterer, and expert to answer questions.
Don’t forget the twitter hashtag. Have it on all slides for latecomers. And the host should determine, create and promote the hashtag far in advance, or someone else might.
Q. What are some of the biggest mistakes that marketers make when producing webinars?
Not sufficiently promoting the event in advance
Not sharing the content afterwards
Droning on about “company capabilities” esp. if at the beginning
Saying “on this slide”
Not following up with attendees
Not inviting people to submit questions in advance
Not leaving enough time for Q&A. 1/3 of the total webinar time should be alloted for this.
Q. What is the best way to follow up after a webinar?
Send a short email to attendees referencing the highlights from the webinar and Q&A, plus link to the recording.
Follow up on survey results. If someone provides very interesting comments, write back personally.
Send info on the next webinar.
Whatever follow-up activity, the presenter should set the expectation. If a rep. is going to call, tell them so in advance.
Q. What will webinars look like in 5 years?
Webinars will be more interactive, include things like instant polls, widgets, integrated payments and social media capabilities.
There will be less PowerPoint and more video.
Audiences may be smaller, but more specialized.
Mobile devices will play a bigger role.
Join us again this week for #B2Bchat – Thursday, June 24 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Pacific). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.
About the B2Bblogger: Andrew Spoeth is an independent marketing consultant who specializes in B2B demand generation. He most recently worked as the marketing director at Enquiro, one of North America’s leading search marketing agencies. You’ll also find Andrew speaking at industry events, co-moderating the weekly #B2Bchat series on Twitter, and blogging at MarketingFinger.com. You can follow him on Twitter at@andrewspoeth.
Editor’s Note:In our ongoing efforts to provide you with relevant, helpful information, I am pleased to inform you of a new relationship we have formed with BrightTALK.
First Event: How To Build A Demand Generation Machine With Online Events
Every marketer responsible for lead generation and nurturing knows the power of online events. However, most still find it challenging to build a demand generation machine that turns out audience and fuels their sales department with quality leads. Join David Pitta with BrightTALK’s Online Events Academy as he lays out the steps needed to build your own event machine this quarter.
View this webcast from the Online Events Academy live to submit real-time questions to the presenter and vote in audience polls or on demand at your convenience any time following the recording: http://academy.brighttalk.com/events
ABOUT THE PRESENTER:
David Pitta has 15 years of technology sales and marketing experience including over a decade in the online events industry. He now serves as BrightTALK’s Demand Generation Marketing Manager and Evangelist and has helped thousands of marketing professionals use online events to meet lead generation, awareness and community building objectives. He has also deployed webcasting solutions for NYU, USC, California Pizza Kitchen, DoubleClick (Google), and hundreds of other small to enterprise-sized organizations.
Like many marketers I am hard-wired to look for emerging trends. I’ve read about or observed key trends affecting B2B marketers, and more about trade show trends, but I’ve yet to read anything that summarizes how current B2B trends affect trade show marketers.
Why look for the overlap between B2B marketing and trade show trends? Because trade shows represent the single largest marketing expenditure for B2B marketers. For some companies, trade shows are central to their B2B marketing.
So here are seven B2B marketing trends, and some ideas on how trade show marketers can take advantage of them:
1. Economic recovery: With US GDP growth of 5.7% in the 4th quarter of 2009 (the fastest rate in six years), B2B marketers are getting off their heels and onto their toes, as prolonged uncertainty gradually shifts towards resurging ambition. Marketers don’t just want to conserve cash; they want to make an impact.
“The extreme cost-cutting of the past has led to a big rebound in corporate profits, so businesses will start to compete for market share, said Frank Chow, chief economist for Trade Show Executive magazine. To look like a leader at trade shows, B2B marketers are getting new graphics to promote their more ambitious marketing messages, or finally replacing the entire worn-out trade show display they had been holding onto. But they are cautiously spending even in their ambition, choosing lighter weight portable and modular exhibits, and renting exhibits more often than before the downturn.
2. Change in the sales cycle. Until about 10 years ago, when a B2B buyer needed product information, they had to ask potential vendors’ sales people. That put the sales people in control of the sales cycle. But now, buyers know they are in control, because they have so much product info instantly available just by searching Google. The recent downturn gave any actual buyers even more clout. Buyers can wait later and later until they contact the sales rep.
This places even greater value on trade shows, as when a prospect meets you at the show, they’ve already learned about your products on the internet, and want to check out your people. Plus, at a show you finally get face-to-face access to the buyer that your salesperson is having a harder time getting an appointment with.
3. Marketing Automation: With B2B salespeople losing access to their prospects in favor of the Internet, marketing automation software such as Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, Manticore, and Silverpop has gained popularity as a means to keep tabs on and develop top prospects.
For trade show marketers, if your company introduces a marketing automation platform, you will need to learn how to record leads at show so they seamlessly enter into the marketing automation program. Even better, be able to tap into the lead scoring system at a show, so when a top prospect enters your booth, you can identify their value, and take appropriate action, such as introducing them to a top company officer, or bring them to a conference room for a longer discussion. Also consider how lead nurturing drip campaigns can include your pre-show invitations and post-show follow up messages.
4. Growth Internationally: United States companies that want to grow are looking more at exports to achieve that growth. Recently President Obama even set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over the next five years. No wonder — according to the World Bank, GDP in developing countries is expected to grow 5.2 percent in 2010 and 5.8 percent in 2011, while GDP in the USA is only expected to grow about half that.
U.S. manufacturers looking to increase exports can get an easier start by exhibiting at international trade shows, either on their own, or within a U.S. pavilion at the foreign show. Even if they don’t exhibit abroad, U.S. exhibitors can get started or expand exports by paying more attention to international visitors in their booths.
5. Greater Sales and Marketing Integration. The economic downturn put even greater emphasis on the need for marketing to better drive sales. There just isn’t any more leeway for lost revenue and profits from friction and miscommunication between sales and marketing. Marketing must provide the sales force with tools for every step of the sales cycle, and deliver leads that sales values and will follow-up on. They become one team with a common goal. Companies that embrace this partnership are more likely to succeed.
There is no greater example of this than at trade shows, where sales and marketing literally work side-by-side. In the booth, marketing people have to act more like sales people, and sales people have to be willing to help generate leads for outside their territory. That teamwork at trade shows builds stronger relationships between sales and marketing.
6. Social Media: Social media growth has been one of the most high-profile trends affecting business marketers. More and more B2B marketers have learned to take advantage of social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook to extend their brand reach, communicate with customers, build communities, and generate sales leads.
Those same social media tools are becoming more useful to trade show marketers. Whether it’s posting on YouTube a video interview with a client in their exhibit, or sending a tweet during show hours to announce a drawing in their booth, business marketers will more fully integrate their pre-show, at-show, and post-show promotions with their company’s social media programs. Also consider that your popular company blogger may now be a good draw in your trade show booth and that your bloggers could get similar treatment as your industry press as an attendee
7. Increased Use of Mobile: As more and more people carry their computer in their pocket, growth in mobile marketing is expected to grow 43% in 2010 according to Forrester Research, much faster than established B2B marketing mediums. While some marketers are starting by ensuring their websites and blogs view well on mobile devices, others are taking advantage of the location-aware nature of mobile devices to create greater relevance and interactivity in their marketing.
For trade show marketers, mobile devices mean that trade show attendees don’t have to lug a laptop around the show to receive and act on their Twitter and email at-show promotions. Some trade shows are using apps that replace, even surpass the printed show book, with a scheduler, venue city info, and more. Also, new lead management systems are now available that can be run on mobile devices rather than show-specific systems. And audience polling apps can be used on mobile devices for greater interactivity, be it in their booth or at conference seminar sessions.
Marketers who exhibit at trade shows control a huge portion of B2B marketing budgets. While other marketing areas appear to be undergoing more rapid change, trade show marketers are also affected and need to remain aware of how to adjust and adapt to these trends.
Do you have other ideas on how trade show marketers can adapt to these 7 B2B marketing trends? Or have you noticed other B2B marketing trends you feel are more important to them? Please share your insights in the comment box below.
About The B2Bblogger:: Michael Thimmesch is Skyline Exhibits‘ Director of Lead Generation and Industry Relations, with over 20 years of Marketing and Trade Show Marketing experience.
Thanks to everyone who joined us for the first #B2BChat last Thursday night – our new weekly twitter conversation for B2B marketers.
The objective is to bring the B2B marketing community on Twitter together while discussing topics relevant to us as B2B marketers.
So Mark Your Calendars ForMarch 11th at 8:oo PM EST.
In this week’s #B2BChat, we take on the topic of seminars and roadshows and attempt to answer the question, “Effective Lead Generation Tool or Glorified Sales Pitches?”
With travel budgets slashed, and time away from the office at a premium, 1-day seminars and road shows are gaining momentum. But some pundits judge them to be nothing else but veiled sales pitches.
How do you create appealing educational content, while meeting lead generation goals? Do you need a guest speaker (industry expert or educational partner)?
How do you maximize registrations, and minimize no-shows?
How to effectively integrate social media tools in the event promotion, and during the event? Should you focus on Twitter, create a LinkedIn group, or employ other tactics?
And last, but not least, what door prizes and give-aways are most in demand?
Join us for a live conversation with other B2B marketers who face the same challenges that you do.
Follow @B2B_chat for updates and join us this Thursday, March 11, at 8 pm Eastern as we tackle seminars and roadshows.
About the B2Bblogger: Ksenia Coffman is senior marketing manager at Firetide, a wireless infrastructure mesh company, where she is responsible for Firetide’s marketing strategy and technology solution partnerships. Her articles on wireless infrastructure appeared in various publications, including Security Products, Law & Order, SecurityInfoWatch.com and Communications News. An ASIS member (an international association for security professionals), she is a frequent speaker at industry events, including ASIS workshops and IWCE conferences. Ksenia launched @Firetide – with 800+ followers, it’s is one of the most active Twitter accounts in physical security and wireless infrastructure space. You can read more from Ksenia at Mesh Without Wires blog.
From various conversations with others in my profession, I am starting to realize that very little is understood about the role of web analytics in the context of this brave new world of b2b marketing automation. In this article is an explanation of how to think about these tools and the types of questions they can answer for your business.
Let’s start with the definitions as it is important to put each of these terms into context:
Marketing automation tool – a marketing database (think Salesforce, but for marketing). You place marketing leads here first until they are ready to be passed into your business CRM and to a sales representative.
With the help of compelling content delivered via email & your website, you can help educate prospects in this database about your solution as you progressively glean more information about who they are and what solution would benefit them the most.
In order to easily collect the activity information of your prospects at this phase, the automation tool also has a web tracking component that saves a person’s web activity from a particular campaign into a field in the marketing database.
Web analytics – a tool that tracks visitor activity at an aggregate level; also helps build traffic trending over time, etc. on your web properties. You typically get very high level data and no IP information with a service like Google Analytics, but you can drill down to the individual with services such as Webtrends and Omniture.
Fillingthe Marketing & Sales Funnel
Implementing a marketing automation tool helps ease some of the work hours a marketing department spends manually gathering information and setting up workflows. With that freed time, the team has more resources to dedicate to generating demand for the business.
Demand Generation activities – events, PR, contributed articles, speaking engagements, advertising, SEO, social media – will feed the marketing database with contacts that can be nurtured, qualified, and then passed to Sales based on rules that marketing & sales establish together.
Creating a Lean & Mean Demand Generation Machine
Peter Young from Webtrends (@webtrendspeter, LinkedIn profile) has a very neat metaphor for describing the difference between web analytics and marketing automation:
“Marketing automation is like looking through the windshield of your car.Analytics is like looking into the rear-view mirror – both are critical to a positive driving experience.”
Another useful way to think about the power of web analytics is in the context of the Sales & Marketing Funnel. Web analytics reports and dashboard help marketers optimize web properties in order to bring visitors into the Marketing & Sales Funnel. Path analysis, web behavior tracking, landing page optimization, etc. all fall into this part of the experience. When you make changes to your web properties you can also check against historical data and make decisions based on those baselines.
The key at this step is to fine-tune the web properties to drive conversions (in many cases, this would be obtaining vistors’ email address for future email marketing).
Down the Rabbit Hole: Passing from Top of Funnel into the Marketing & Sales Funnel
As soon as someone identifies themselves, they immediately get placed in the marketing database, where further web activity, qualification (lead scoring), segmentation, and education (lead nurturing) takes place. From this point on, you may want to segment out the web traffic of these warm prospects visiting your site and use content marketing to drive thought leadership and educational messages to them.
Beyond the Horizon: Messaging To Your Customer
The other, sometimes overlooked, aspect is that this marketing database of contacts will keep track of a prospect’s behavior on your web properties into their transition as a customer. Additional segmentation on your customer population can help drive customer retention and programs that target your base. You can use marketing automation to learn, indirectly or directly, more about your customers’ needs.
About the B2Bblogger: Rodica Buzescu (@rodica) is a marketing manager at Amazon Web Services. She enjoys combining interdisciplinary knowledge and various agency & B2B experience in digital marketing to solve larger marketing challenges. Rodica sometimes blogs on various marketing, management, and bigger strategy ideas at http://morphingthrough.blogspot.com.
White papers are one of the best marketing tools you can use to educate your audience about your products and services. A rapidly increasing number of professionals claim white papers are a major factor in influencing their purchasing decisions.
TechTarget recently surveyed more than 1,400 IT professionals about their buying habits. The survey revealed that 66% of IT buyers have used white papers within the past 3 months to evaluate new technology information.
Although many marketers take the time to create white papers, their messages may only reach a fraction of their potential audience. This is because some marketers simply post white papers on their websites, sit back and hope their ideal customers will find them.
If you want to increase your readership and the number of leads you generate, you must make it easy for your target audience to find your information. Below are 5 ways you can promote your white papers online and direct more leads to your website:
Share your white papers with your social networks
One key component of social networking is providing valuable content for your community. IT professionals and other business buyers tend to perceive white papers as highly valuable. Eccolo Media’s 2009 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report revealed white papers are shared more than any other form of marketing collateral. In fact, 89% of survey respondents reported sharing white papers with others.
Use your social networks to spread the word about your white papers. If members of your community enjoy the content, they will pass it along via their own networks.
Run a teaser in your blog or e-newsletter
Before you create your next white paper, try writing an e-zine article or blog post that discusses one of its key points. Doing this early allows you to:
Gauge your readers’ feedback to determine if the topic interests them.
Overcome writer’s block. When you sit down to write the white paper, you’ll already have a solid starting point.
Send out an online news release
Your latest research can become exciting news in your industry. Every time you create a white paper, you should develop an online news release to drive journalists, bloggers and potential customers to your website.Online news releases have a few benefits over traditional press releases. Many popular online press release distribution services will submit your news to major search engines and social networks, helping to improve your overall search engine rankings. These services also allow you to target your distribution, so your press release goes to the exact sector you wish to reach.
Promote your white paper in your email signature Your email signature might be one of your most overlooked marketing areas. Add a P.S. to your outgoing messages that invites your contacts to visit your website and download your white paper.
Increase downloads with online advertisements
If you have a large website, try placing ads for your white paper on your home page and throughout your site. You can also run a Google AdWords campaign that directs people to your white paper’s registration form.
Once people arrive at your landing page, make it easy for them to request your white paper. If your registration form asks for too much information, people will become frustrated and leave your web page. Keep your registration form as short as possible to ensure the most people request your white paper.
About the B2Bblogger: Rachel Foster is an award-winning B2B copywriter and owner of Fresh Perspective Copywriting. She helps technology marketers generate more leads and sales by providing them with compelling marketing copy that motivates their audiences to take action. Join the 8,500 B2B professionals who follow Rachel on Twitter, where she shares the latest B2B marketing trends, copywriting tips and advice on how to effectively use social media to market your business.
The Sales Funnel is a classic motif in the B2B world. It’s often written about; seldom used in real life. Most folks haven’t thought through what it takes, step-by-step, to convert a stranger into a customer. THAT, however, is a post for another day.
IF you did have a sales funnel, and if you’ve been tracking progress over time, you’ve probably noticed that prospects are
engaging with real live sales people toward the transaction end of the funnel (the bottom, as it were), and
turning to online sources as a first step in the buying cycle.
It’s going to get worse, not better. As social media moves beyond the early adopters, pioneers, and tinkerers, it will morph into an efficient and pervasive peer-to-peer intelligence gathering, archiving, and sharing platform. That means prospects will increasingly engage with sales people only after they’ve already made all their decisions and when they’re ready to place the order.
The good news is, it’s incredibly simple to meet the evolving B2B buyer where he or she is and will be. Here are five steps you can take to be in position to move prospects through your *sales funnel:
Produce solid educational content to help prospects move through each phrase of the process.
Make the content freely available in every format and every platform possible. For instance, when you produce a white paper, record an audio version of it, too. Make them both available freely on your digital real estate. Freely means: place no barriers to access whatsoever. If a prospect clicks on the resource, it downloads or starts playing right then. The old school (antiquated, obsolete, etc.) trick of requiring something from your readers before you’ll give them a white paper hurts you. You already HAVE something from the prospects: their attention right then. Make it count. Don’t irritate them and shoot yourself in the head by requiring them to complete “required information.”
Read Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing. (Yep, it was published a long time ago, even before any of us thought of MySpace or Facebook.) Then, make it easy for prospects to give you permission to help them. When you offer that white paper (as a PDF and MP3) by way of a button or link that says, “download now” or “listen now,” include a second button offering to send them a note when you publish another white paper, or conduct a webinar, or enlist beta users. Make it obvious the educational piece is freely available with no strings attached. Also make it obvious that you’re letting them determine the next step and making it easy for them to get the information or attention they seek.
Follow up according to the permission you’ve been given.
Have real-live people readily available to talk whenever your prospect wants to talk. Maybe the third button is a “chat now” option and the fourth is “talk to someone now” option.
These five steps enable you to meet your buyer wherever he or she is and help them navigate through the sales funnel. By making your content and yourself available to your prospects when they want you, you’re giving them the content and access they need to travel through YOUR sales funnel, and not your competitors.
*The concept of a sales funnel is helpful, but it’s probably outdated. Given the multiple access points to a sales cycle, multiple influencers, peer-to-peer platforms, a non-linear model would more fully comport with the evolving reality of the marketplace.
About The B2Bblogger: Trey Pennington (@treypennington) uses technology, marketing, and stories to connect businesses with the people they seek to serve. With an educational background in marketing, including an undergraduate degree in marketing management and an MBA, combined with a masters in education, Trey understands the need for businesses to discover and develop their core story and to engage their marketplace in making the story their own.
His book, Spitball Marketing: Using What You’ve Got to Get More of What You Want is due out in early 2010. You can read more from Trey now at his blog www.treypennington.com.
So here’s a big can of worms that I’m not afraid to open – What’s the difference between appointment setting and sales qualified leads? Well, here we go…
In outbound B2B lead generation, there are typically two ways that an organization’s sales team gets in front of its prospects: they’ve got themselves either an in-house team or a vendor supplying them with either appointments or qualified sales opportunities. The size and effectiveness of your sales team should play a factor as to which outbound effort you utilize. For example, is your sales organization comprised of those elite sales reps who can meet a prospect, even if by happenstance, and within moments build a rapport strong enough that the prospect feels connected? You know who I am talking about right? The sales rep who can qualify a prospect on the spot and thus bring them to the next stage of the sales cycle. It is these types of sales organizations that are very successful at making the most of their partnerships with appointment setting firms. A company with an extensive sales team can also do very well with appointment setting organizations, because the name of the game here is numbers. Although this approach can be expensive, the more meetings their large sales team has, the more likely they are to close some, right? So how does appointment setting differ from qualified sales opportunity generation?
A question of deliverables
With qualified sales leads, a series of qualification questions has been asked of the prospect, so much so that at the end of a teleprospecting call, the teleprospector can qualify that prospect as either in or out of the sales process. They’ve either met a set of criteria to be determined as “qualified” to sell to, or they have not. In contrast, an appointment, by definition, means “a meeting set for a specific time or place.” There is nothing quantitative about an appointment; it is what it is: a meeting with a contact.
Appointment setting services supply their clients with meetings from their clients’ marketing lists, but remember, that’s it. The difference between the appointment setting firm and an organization that supplies sales qualified leads is most drastic in its deliverables. With the appointment setting firm, you’re getting the appointment from your targeted list. With a company providing you with sales qualified leads, you’re getting, along with an appointment, information that puts your sales team that much closer to winning business. Now, that is not to say that the same thing cannot happen with appointment setting firms, because it can and it does. The difference here, though, is the information that gets transferred from the teleprospector to the sales rep via a sales qualified opportunity. Sure, you may have an appointment with a key C-level executive from one of your target companies that you’d like to sell to, but what else comes with that appointment?
The whole picture
Imagine, for a minute, that you’re staring at a big patch of the color green on a wall. As you take a few steps back and your eyes begin to focus, you realize that you’re looking at a painting. To me, that is the difference between the appointment setting firms and the ones that deliver fully qualified sales opportunities. You look at that green on the wall, and sure, it’s a great shade of green, one that you don’t mind looking at; however, when you step back and see the green along with the other colors of the spectrum in an entire painting, the artist’s choice to add the color green makes much more sense. If you’re the recipient, the appointment is great, especially because it comes from a list that you’ve probably generated, and, going back to my painting analogy, it’s also a really nice shade of green. The downside, however, is that that is all you have. If you’re the recipient of a qualified sales opportunity, you’ve got the entire picture to look at, and now that color green makes more sense because you see how it fits with the other colors. If we say that the color green is analogous to the contact of the appointment, the other colors within that painting, then, are analogous to all of the other factors within a qualified lead.
A lead that is deemed “qualified” puts in the hands of its recipient information about not only the appointment date and time, but about the contact’s situation. A sales qualified lead is fleshed out beyond the appointment in areas such as Business Pains, Timeframe to Purchase, Decision Making Process, and Budget. A sales qualified lead by its very nature implies that there is a potential to sell, and that it has been qualified against a set of criteria constructed by the organization receiving the lead. The fully qualified sales opportunity brings with it all of the background information that is pertinent to having a more strategic sales meeting. Is it great to get the appointment? Absolutely. But, what if that appointment had with it information about the contact’s issues with their current process, or information about how that contact goes about deciding on technology/services spending, or even puts into view the decision making process of the organization to evaluate new technology /services? When you are able to arm your sales team with information like that, you put in their hands the ability to close opportunities exponentially faster. Closing business faster means having more time to close more business faster which means…well, you get the picture, right?
As I said above, if you’ve got that choice sales team that closes deals during an initial meeting, it’s quite possible that appointment setting firms are all you need to make your sales force even more successful. Conversely, if you find that your sales team doesn’t fit that bill, it probably would make more sense to work with an organization that can supply sales qualified leads, bringing your sales team that much closer to closing the opportunities presented them.
Did you scan this story? Here are some key points to take away:
Consider the size and effectiveness of your sales team when determining which outbound effort you should utilize: appointment setting or sales qualified leads.
Unless your sales organization is huge and/or extremely talented and effective, you may benefit more from qualified sales opportunities than from appointment setting.
Appointment setting may deliver a larger quantity of contacts/appointments, but qualified sales opportunities deliver more information about each contact, giving you a more complete picture of the prospect’s needs and requirements.
The fully qualified sales opportunity brings with it all of the background information conducive to a more strategic sales meeting.
About The B2Bblogger: Chris Snell is Director, Corporate Marketing for AG Salesworks, a teleprospecting and marketing services organization. Chris has spent the last decade generating and managing teams that have generated millions of dollars in closed business for his clients. Currently, Chris is responsible for all aspects of marketing, including online marketing, marketing communications, and product marketing. Follow him on Twitter, or at his blog The CRAP Report.
Phil Lauterjung, President of Integrated LeadGen Results, continues his guest post series.
OK, are you ready for smart way #2? It’s really quite innovative and very high tech – over used word alert, is anything really high tech anymore? Can we still use that term? Well that might just be the point of our topic. It’s fallen out of favor too.
Trade Shows.
Wait, wait don’t start running for the exits just yet. For many years trade shows have been considered a necessary evil of many marketing budgets. And, often for good reason. You went because your competitors were there and it might look bad if you weren’t there. Your marketing department always wanted a big budget so they could make the big splash and razzle-dazzle everyone. Your sales people often spent more time talking to industry network contacts rather than potential customers.
And the ROI. What ROI you ask? Exactly. I once worked for an Executive VP who thought the best measurement was the cost-per-lead from the show. You know that drill – take the total cost for the show and divided by the number of ‘leads’ and the lower cost-per-lead the better. The only trouble with that method is that all it would take to drive the cost-per-lead down was to scan as many badges as possible (who cares if it’s a real lead?) or hold a bogus contest and get a bunch of business cards in a fish bowl and call them ‘leads’. That’s definitely not a recommended way to measure ROI.
Do you still plan on doing trade shows? Still wrestling with the budget and how to measure results? Here are a few suggestions for this coming year.
1. Reduce the size of your booth. I know, I know; marketing might not like that, but consider a few facts about crowd flow. People usually enter the hall and either turn right or left and head for the far wall in their chosen direction. Get a smaller booth at the front of that far wall aisle, and have marketing put their best effort into that location. You’ll be saving money on the smaller booth, but you’ll pick up the first wave (and less tired wave) of traffic.
2. Carefully evaluate which shows you’re in. Recognize that many shows just don’t get the kind of traffic and the level of quality attendees that they once did. Be brutally honest in your evaluation and only display at those shows you know will be attended by your targeted market segments. Talk to your good customers and ask them which shows they still find useful.
3. Conduct pre-show training with your staff. Outline your objectives for the show and emphasize the importance of real leads – potential buyers. Consider offering incentives for leads that come closest to your buyer persona/profile. You will go home with fewer, but better qualified leads.
4. Prepare a post-show marketing campaign. With the money you save on the trade show cost have a marketing campaign in place and ready to go as soon as your return. It will be very important to launch that right away. I can’t tell you how many times I have received letters thanking me for stopping by a booth at a show I attended 2 – 3 months earlier. I have trouble remembering where I was last week, much less a couple of months ago! What a waste of time and effort. They might as well not follow up at all. Follow up soon and measure your response from the follow up.
5. Measure your ROI. No, not the cost-per-lead method mentioned earlier. Track each and every lead, and nurture those that aren’t ready to see a salesperson. Keep tracking them – studies have shown that 67% of leads classified as ‘bad leads’ end up buying within 18 – 24 months. Measure the cumulative sales revenue from those show leads until the number left to follow up dwindle to a pre-agreed number. That will give you your true ROI.
Trade shows may not be the sexiest marketing tactic in your tool box, but it just might be more effective than you think. Let me know your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.
About the BtoBblogger: Phil Lauterjung is President of Integrated LeadGen Results, providing strategies and tactics for small and medium size businesses to get found, get leads, and get sales. With over 20 years (12 in senior management) of sales & marketing experience helping both small companies and Fortune 500 increase sales, Phil is adept at implementing social media tools with a Certified Inbound Marketing Professional designation, and a member of the Sales Lead Management Association. Phil’s is a regular contributor to BtoBbloggers.com and also can be found on his blog; Conversations Re: Sales | Marketing | Social Media | Etc.
Conversations Re: Sales | Marketing | Social Media | Etc.
Everyone wants to know where they can get the best return for their marketing dollars. And, lots of people think they have the answer. Buy my solution and your ROI will sky rocket beyond your wildest dreams. Yeah, sure it will.
For the next few posts I will give you ideas on how to use your marketing dollars more effectively. I know that’s a bold claim, but take a moment to read these tips, consider them carefully, and then make up your own mind.
Here’s smart way #1 – don’t spend any more money on marketing. I know that might sound heretical to some who make a living selling solutions, but they will also agree that there are some things that you must do before you spend any money on marketing. Here are three things to have in place before you start spending money on marketing.
Have a Sound Value Proposition. Not one full of buzz-word-bingo language. You know what I’m talking about, you see them all the time and they all start sounding the same – blah, blah, blah. Instead, survey some of your customers and find out how they describe your company and your products or services. Develop a Value Proposition that clearly states your value in the customer’s language. A good resource for some tools you can use in this process is Product 180.
Develop a Buyer Profile, sometimes called a Buyer Persona. Review the customer data you have for your past customers. Talk to your sales and customer service people about which customers are the ones that they would like to have more of. Sort out the common characteristics of those customers – company size, what level makes the buying decision, locations, industries, vertical markets, etc. Then go to the next level. Do something really weird, talk to your customers. Find out what problems you solved for them (in their own words). What media do they use to search for answers to their problems? What are their goals? What images and multimedia appeals to them? A buyer profile should be a short biography of your typical customer. For more help with this start with the Buyer Persona Blog by Adele Revella.
Your Marketing Plan. Now you are ready to start putting together your marketing plan. Your plan should address how you are going to reach your Buyer Persona with your Value Proposition. Your research of your Buyer Persona should give you very good ideas as to what channels you will need to use. Beware of the “shiny new toy” syndrome. It all depends on where your potential buyers hang out.
Once you have done these steps, now you are ready to start spending your marketing budget. The above steps will give you a tremendous advantage in allocating those dollars effectively.
Coming up next: The next smart way to spend your marketing dollars and time. You do remember that time is a cost too, right?
About the BtoBblogger: Phil Lauterjung is President of Integrated LeadGen Results, providing strategies and tactics for small and medium size businesses to get found, get leads, and get sales. With over 20 years (12 in senior management) of sales & marketing experience helping both small companies and Fortune 500 increase sales, Phil is adept at implementing social media tools with a Certified Inbound Marketing Professional designation, and a member of the Sales Lead Management Association. Phil’s is a regular contributor to BtoBbloggers.com and also can be found on his blog; Conversations Re: Sales | Marketing | Social Media | Etc.
Conversations Re: Sales | Marketing | Social Media | Etc.
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Hi, I'm @jeremyvictor, the founder of Make Good Media and Editor In Chief of B2Bbloggers.com.
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About the B2Bblogger: Andrew Spoeth is an independent marketing consultant who specializes in B2B demand generation. He most recently worked as the marketing director at Enquiro, one of North America’s leading search marketing agencies. You’ll also find Andrew speaking at industry events, co-moderating the weekly #B2Bchat series on Twitter, and blogging at MarketingFinger.com. You can follow him on Twitter at@andrewspoeth.
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is your sales organization comprised of those elite sales reps who can meet a prospect, even if by happenstance, and within moments build a rapport strong enough that the prospect feels connected? You know who I am talking about right? The sales rep who can qualify a prospect on the spot and thus bring them to the next stage of the sales cycle. It is these types of sales organizations that are very successful at making the most of their partnerships with appointment setting firms. A company with an extensive sales team can also do very well with appointment setting organizations, because the name of the game here is numbers. Although this approach can be expensive, the more meetings their large sales team has, the more likely they are to close some, right? So how does appointment setting differ from qualified sales opportunity generation?
A lead that is deemed “qualified” puts in the hands of its recipient information about not only the appointment date and time, but about the contact’s situation. A sales qualified lead is fleshed out beyond the appointment in areas such as Business Pains, Timeframe to Purchase, Decision Making Process, and Budget. A sales qualified lead by its very nature implies that there is a potential to sell, and that it has been qualified against a set of criteria constructed by the organization receiving the lead. The fully qualified sales opportunity brings with it all of the background information that is pertinent to having a more strategic sales meeting. Is it great to get the appointment? Absolutely. But, what if that appointment had with it information about the contact’s issues with their current process, or information about how that contact goes about deciding on technology/services spending, or even puts into view the decision making process of the organization to evaluate new technology /services? When you are able to arm your sales team with information like that, you put in their hands the ability to close opportunities exponentially faster. Closing business faster means having more time to close more business faster which means…well, you get the picture, right?
About the BtoBblogger: Phil Lauterjung is President of Integrated LeadGen Results, providing strategies and tactics for small and medium size businesses to get found, get leads, and get sales. With over 20 years (12 in senior management) of sales & marketing experience helping both small companies and Fortune 500 increase sales, Phil is adept at implementing social media tools with a Certified Inbound Marketing Professional designation, and a member of the Sales Lead Management Association. Phil’s is a regular contributor to BtoBbloggers.com and also can be found on his blog; 
