We’ve just recently sponsored a few events.  Some smaller very targeted B2B Marketing events, some with about 500 attendees like partner events and then a mega show with over 15,000 attendees.  Here’s what I don’t get – why are we standing at our booths with smiles on ready to go each day at 7:30am?  None of the attendees come out that early looking to be pitched.

Here’s a couple of interesting numbers we’ve collected over the last couple of months.

Targeted show of about 250 attendees, morning networking started at 8am, there were about 10 people on the show floor.  Where was everyone else? Unfortunately they were all looking for their morning coffee and stale bagel.

Partner event with over 500 attendees, partner showcase opened at 7:30 (1.5 hours before keynote), we had 4 people stop by, 2 of them looking for breakfast.

This week we’ve been at the big mamma jamma show, over 15,000 attendees.  Show floor opened from 7:30 – 9:00am with keynotes at 9am.  2 people stopped by, that’s right just 2.

So I’m wondering why?  Why do those hosting events use this morning “networking” time as a part of the sales pitch?  Really, as the host of these events does this make you feel like you’re giving us more for our money? I don’t know about you but I’d rather sleep in, get my cup of coffee, enjoy the stale pastries and be “open” for conversations when everyone else is ready to talk….let’s say AFTER 9am.

As B2B Marketers we spend a lot of time, effort and resources on creating lead generation programs that drive prospect conversions.  But what happens next?

As we become more sophisticated marketers with more promising tools, we are now not only filling the top of the sales funnel but we are also helping move prospects through the sales funnel; one buying stage at a time.

We know it takes multiple interactions to turn a lead into a prospect and usually these interactions involve both Sales and Marketing.  This means both teams need to be armed and ready for the next follow up.

Here’s a checklist to go through to make sure you are set up for success before launching that next program.

• Do your sales and marketing teams know what to follow up with in response to different types of inquiries? If someone reaches out to you about Product A, your follow up should include more information about Product A that opens the door for a discussion.

• Are you emailing pdfs with your follow up emails? Remember attachments can get hung up in spam filters.  Consider putting your docs out on the web and link to them.  This also enables you to track who’s visiting this page.

• Are you prepared to capture all inquiries in a database or CRM for ongoing nurturing and qualification efforts? It’s key that this information is stored in a place that both sales and marketing can access.  Marketing needs to know when and what kinds of nurturing campaigns to push these people through and sales needs to know what marketing programs prospects are interacting with.

• Have you agreed with sales on what a qualified lead looks like? This is 101, right?

• Do you have a process in place for distributing qualified leads to sales contacts as they are identified? Getting in touch in a timely manner is key.  Make sure everyone is clear how leads are being routed.

• Do you have a program in place to nurture or cultivate your not-yet-qualified leads? One and done doesn’t work in B2B so you need a plan for staying in touch.  Different mediums with different offers is key here.  Not everyone responds to the same things.

• Do you know how often to contact prospects with nurture messages? The jury is still out here, monitor your nurture marketing unsubscribe rates and adjust as needed.  Also be sure sales has a way to opt people out of further communications.

• Do you know what offers to use to get them to further identify their needs and situation so you can determine if they are ready to buy today? Nurturing programs help build awareness, make sure you have the right kinds of offers in place to build on your prospect profile.

• Do you have a program in place to measure and track the results of your various sales-lead generation, cultivation and sales follow-up programs? You need this.  How else do you know what’s working and what isn’t?

• And, in my opinion, the most important question – Do you know what new customers originated in marketing and what programs helped drive them to the finish line?

Being able to show real ROI from your marketing efforts is key.  It drives so many “what’s next”  decisions.

We know all know Content is King in B2B Marketing.  We use it for blogging, email campaign offers, sales support, website content, whitepapers/eBooks, social media teasers and webinars.  In a recent study by Kingfish Media they found that over 70% of marketers are using custom content to communicate with current customers and 70% use custom media to attract prospects.

We also know that it takes multiple touches to convert a lead into a prospect so using the right kinds of content in the right marketing vehicles is key.

We just recently got back from the MarketingSherpa B2B event where I sat in on a presentation by Bob Johnson from IDG Connect.  He presented some really interesting stats on using content for lead generation.  One that really stood out – “Prospects that engage in 2 touch points are 25% more likely to be in a buying cycle.”  This is huge!

Knowing that content is so important (and so often used), you’ve got to stay fresh.  Here are a few ideas to help get started on creating new enticing content to engage your prospects.

Everyone loves lists, consider creating one of these –

• Compile the top blog posts on a specific industry topic (related to what you are promoting)
• Promote five blogs in your industry (be sure to let them know, you want to make sure they know you are out there too)
• Create lists of your own; things like Top 10 things to consider when choosing a XYZ solution or Top 5 things to avoid when implementing XYZ service (give your prospects a helpful tip and chances are higher that they remember you next time you reach out)
• Create a list of interesting industry stats

Get people to act, try one of these –

• Start a contest and ask for submissions
• Create a survey and commit to sharing the results with everyone that participates
• Start a discussion in your LinkedIn groups.  (Relevance is very important here.)
• Ask a question on Twitter and blog the answers

Think TIPs, everyone is interested in information that will help them –

• Explain industry terms for either the novice or the industry veteran
• Review a recent trade show or conference
• Interview industry leaders asking the tough questions and share their responses.

Remember you can repurpose all of your content.  Here at ReachForce we take our blog tips like this one and roll them into eBooks.  These tip-based eBooks are our most popular pieces of content and for us, writing them in bite size pieces (blog posts) makes the task of creating a new eBook a breeze.

We also use these blog posts for our monthly newsletter, it’s a compilation of our best posts from the previous month.  The newsletter typically gets about a 40% open rate.  It takes us no time to put together and it’s a crowd favorite.

Got any other content ideas, please jump in and share.

If you haven’t noticed by now, we think of Mashable as THE source for all things social media (and generally cool tech stuff).  I came across an interesting article on Mashable by Ben Parr yesterday, Twitter’s Value: 5 Eye-Popping Stats.  Check these out:

1. According to PEDC’s numbers, the price of a single share of Twitter has increased by 239,619%, from a measly $0.00667 per share to a much stronger $15.9824.

2. Twitter’s $100 million round is over 1025 times the amount of money they raised in its very first round of funding. In July of 2007, Twitter raised $97,500.

3. In five rounds of funding, Twitter has raised an estimated $153 million (some peg it a few million dollars higher). Since the day of its initial round of funding, Twitter has been given an average of $187,356 per day by its investors.

4. Using that same time frame and its current $1 billion valuation, Twitter’s worth has grown by $1,223,990 per day. If you start with the day of Twitter’s inception (the first tweet from Twitter’s Inventor and Chairman, Jack Dorsey), then Twitter’s worth has grown by around $772,797 per day.

5. Twitter has yet to make a single cent in profit. We’ll let you be the judge of what that means.

Having worked for more than my fair share of start-ups, these are some incredible stats.  The most unbelievable is the last; they have yet to make a dime.  Lots of Twitter Apps are profiting, so if I am an investor in Twitter, I would be saying “Show me the money!” very soon.  And if their investors are not asking that, then wtf?

In the Boston Area?  You should be at the Marketing Sherpa event Monday and Tuesday

We’re still trying to get caught up after being out last week at the Marketing Sherpa event but WOW was it worth it.  It’s always great to be able to spend time with peers experiencing the same challenges we are every day.

For those of you out west who missed the event.  Marketing Sherpa posted 8 key take-aways from the event in their  San Francisco Event Wrap Up.  You should definitely check it out.

If you’re in the Boston area, there’s still time to register for the Marketing Sherpa event starting on Monday.  Register now and save $400.

If you can’t make it you can also follow the Twitter conversations at #sherpaB2B09 or watch live video streaming via Hubspot TV.

Is your database a clunker?  Is it sputtering to a stop just short of the finish line?   Taking a look at the contents of your clunker can have some huge benefits for you, it not only helps you save some green, it also can stimulate the revenue engine for your sales team.   Drag your clunker out of the garage and see how it measures up:

1. Do you know how many of your contacts are duplicated? Saying you have 45,000 contacts is one thing, but if that is three copies of 15,000 people it’s not really a 45,000 contact database.  You aren’t reaching the number of people you want to be with duplicates in your database and you’re probably missing out on other contacts and companies who are ripe to hear your message.
2. Are you marketing to the entire DMU (decision making unit)? Marketing Sherpa says that for purchases of $25k or more:
   • Companies with 100-500 employees, the DMU consists of 6.8 people who make buying decisions
   • Companies with 501-1000 employees, the DMU consists of 13.5 people
   • Companies over 1000 employees, the DMU consists of 21 people

   So the question is which, if any, of the 6.8/13.5/21 people are in your database?  Which ones are you missing, which ones are over a year old?

3. How many email addresses are you missing? I’ll bet that’s an easy number for you to find, now can you tell me how many of the existing addresses are right or wrong?  Of those that are wrong, is it because there is something structurally (i.e. they are missing the ‘@’ sign or a ‘.com’) wrong or are they hard bouncing?  If you’re relying heavily on email marketing these are important things to know.  Having thousands of contacts is great, but thousands of contacts with only a few hundred accurate email addresses, not so great.
4. According to Gartner, more than 30 million people out of the 138 million employed in the US will switch jobs in the next 12 months.  Do you know which of your contacts have been sitting in your database for 12 months or more? Do you know which of those are still employed with the same company, doing the same job?
5. Do you know which companies in your database are in your target market? Is it easy to segment your database by company level information? If you’re missing industry information on your records you’re probably missing opportunities to include the right people (or companies) in your messages.

If you’ve been left with a few too many questions after reading this, that’s ok.  The good news is that a good data cleansing/appending service can fill in the gaps and help you turn your clunker into cash, or some serious elbow grease from an in-house team can really get the wheels turning.  SiriusDecisions reports that companies marketing to a database that is routed through a healthy data-cleansing routing can realize nearly 70% more revenue than an average organization, based purely on data quality.  Next step for you – get that clunker rolled out of the garage and get cleaning!

Need help updating your clunker of a database? ReachForce has a special Cash for Clunkers offer for Q3 to help you get in gear for Q4.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been highlighting some of the most well known Marketing Automation players out there.  This week we’re profiling MarketBright.  Thanks again to Caitlin and Mike Pilcher for the previous blog post.

So now that you’ve read about and studied up on each, what’s next?  Just getting the right technology in place isn’t going to solve all of your headaches.

MarketBright’s whitepaper, Tips To Improve Your Lead Management Strategy, has some great ideas on creating and building out your lead generation strategy.

Here’s a few things that caught my eye…

When getting started here’s a few things to think about:

• Who has ownership of each stage of the process?
• Is there a defined lead management flow that exists today?
• What essential performance indicators or ROI measures are associated at key points throughout the process?

Just like taking a road trip, best practice says you should have a map before you take off.

Lead Generation/Acquisition – the following elements are absolutely necessary to provide QUALITY leads:

• Have you agreed with your sales team on what a qualified lead looks like?  Any of these sound familiar?
• Clearly define and know your target market.  An effective lead generation process always begins and ends with knowing the audience.
• Use effective lead generation tools.
• Optimize landing pages and forms.  Be clear on the action you want your audience to take and focus the content on just that action.
• Use accurate and reliable campaign metrics for tracking, reporting and testing.  This keeps everyone involved in the process honest .

Remember – the secret with any lead management system is to maximize the efficiency but not lose the impact of a personal customer experience. I think this is a great point!  As we continue to use automation to be more effective and efficient we have to remember that people buy from people.

Thanks again to MarketBright for contributing this week.  Now go download this whitepaper to ensure you are set up for success.

Thanks again to Maria for the Marketo post earlier this week. As an add on to her post we wanted to make sure our B2BLead readers check out this onDemand webcast, Marketo’s Secret Sauce.

Jon Miller, Marketo’s VP of Marketing, has a done a great job of explaining how they have set up and work their marketing and sales funnel to drive success. And it’s obviously working. Just last week they announced surpassing the 200 customer mark in only 15 months. My guess is most of these customers originated in marketing.

Any B2B Marketer out there looking for guidance should watch this and be sure to take notes. I promise, it’s worth your time.

Here’s some of the things covered in the 45 minute webcast:

• Marketo’s demand generation funnel
• Growth in our organic awareness
• Effectiveness of various lead generation channels (paid and organic): % qualified, % sales-ready lead, % opportunity, cost per lead, etc.
• How we use lead nurturing to develop relationships with prospects that are not sales ready; the ROI of lead nurturing
• The exact lead scoring rules we use (demographics and behaviors) to identify sales-ready leads
• Our 21 day lead follow-up process
• Metrics and conversion rates for every stage of the demand generation funnel
• How we present marketing forecasts to the board

No forms, just click here to get started.

ReachForce has teamed up with MathMarketing to offer Funnel Academy, a 2-day B2B marketing training, on August 10-11, 2009 in San Mateo.

Author of The Leaky Funnel and B2B Marketing Funnel Master Hugh Macfarlane, will focus on how to select tactics that move buyers and how to size the funnel for success.

This training was designed for both those who set the tactics at a strategic level and those who roll up their sleeves and execute.  During this 2-day session you will learn how to:

• ensure your marketing dollar delivers a return, with emphasis on tactics like email campaigns and search engine marketing

• get buyers that leaked out of the funnel, back in

• determine the most critical levers of your funnel: volume, size and velocity, and what affect each of these has on success

• build a model funnel with different rates of effectiveness

The standard price for this training is $2,500 per attendee however, ReachForce would like to offer a special discount price of $1,250.
Places are limited, so if you would like to attend, go here for more info and to register.

P.S.  I attended this 2-day training in April and was VERY impressed with the content.  The Funnel Academy team does a great job of sharing proven best practices along with actionable tactics and take aways.

Lead and Prospect -  Two words we hear a lot in marketing and sales roles so I decided to ask around and see how other people define a lead and a prospect.  Here’s what they said…

Dean Cruse, Internet/enterprise software VP of Marketing @deancruse:
Prospects are people who have shown some interest in your product or service, either by responding to a campaign, finding you through an inbound link, organic search, etc. They could also be subscribers to your blog, followers to your Twitter account, etc. who have an interest in your company’s point of view, or the market you serve. They could also be existing customers for one/some of your products who could be prospects for additional products. Prospects have opted-in to your message – until then they are just contacts on a list.

Leads can also come in from one of the above sources. Prospects can also be nurtured into leads through a variety of content-related programs (blogs, whitepapers, newsletters, events, articles, …). A lead is a person that has been qualified to a point where a sales person can take it over to work. Sales and marketing must agree on the definition of a qualified lead and it will vary based on the business.

Brande Bradshaw, Strategic Enterprise Sales Executive @bcoltb:
A lead is not yet a prospect.  Leads are people who you have some information on, you think they could potentially be a good fit, needs nurturing, someone you are cold calling and emailing with relevant information to get a meeting.

A prospect on the other hand is someone you’ve had a meeting or initial conversation with and this person can be categorized as a good fit.  Still needs nurturing and some coaching but they are engaged and moving through the sales process.

Mike Pilcher, SaaS VP Sales and Marketing @mike pilcher:
A lead is an individual contact with a person at a company who has the potential to purchase, or influence the purchase of your product. Usually in-bound focus.

A prospect is a company that has multiple stakeholders (hopefully represented by multiple leads) with the potential to purchase your product. Usually outbound focus.

In both cases a “lead” and a “prospect” are proxies for deeper definitions that change with your business cycle. Any definition needs to be company-specific incorporating concepts such as sales cycle, budget, existing customer, new product, product value, etc. @jonmiller2

Jon Miller, SaaS VP Marketing @jonmiller2:

This webcast from Marketo (presented by Jon) is actually what got me thinking about this.  Check out Marketo’s definition of each and be sure to watch all of this 45 webcast; it is PACKED with great information.  It’s worth your time, I promise.

Interesting…Which one do you agree with?  Or what do they mean to you?  And would your marketing and/or sales counterpart have the same definition?  Please share your thoughts!