Lead Gen Tools

"I hve worked with Penton Media on several projects over the past year. As my primary contact, Liz has time and time again demonstrated superior knowledge, client service and professionalism. She is extremely responsive, professional, and most importantly, results-oriented! Liz has contributed to the success of myself and my group - I would highly recommend her!"

Danielle Connall, Marketing Specialist North America, PTC

Liz.Stott@penton.com

Are you in the “business to make leads, or

Make Sales (with QUALIFIED Leads)?

The traditional concept of the sales funnel is gone. If you're still thinking only about volume as a factor in the sales equation, you're missing the conversion to buyers being in control of their buying process.

List Building (Lead Gen) and eMail Marketing Best Practices

You know that the best email marketing – in fact, the only approach that builds a strong brand – requires permission-based relationship with an audience. You understand that each communication should convey something about your brand. And you recognize that every email you send is a two-way transaction: your reader gets value, and you get the reader’s attention.

Our recommendation is to focus on “Privacy Protection” – let your prospect CHOOSE YOU - vs. other magazines and organizations who are giving away names and email addresses for any clicks that ads/PR receive – in order to woo the marketer and provide you “volume” of what they call “leads” (really, just a name and email address). But beware.

Companies who are just renting lists of unsuspecting people and then reselling them to you - those who seize and sell such private information - are doing no favors for anyone but themselves. (See B2BOnline article: "Four Shady List Buidling Tactics to Avoid") These names and email addresses have not requested information from anyone, on anything.

If you buy into this short-term practice of acquiring and contacting names (not “leads”), you could eventually damage your brand because your prospects will be annoyed – they just don’t have the time to be harassed. (It’s a different story if in fact the prospect has KNOWINGLY provided YOU all of his contact info in exchange for something of value – see “Lead Nurturing” suggestions/report.) Further, over time, engineers will probably just stop clicking or opening all newsletters or emails, because they have such a bad taste in their mouth.

Lastly, think about your sales reps and the value of their time. If you keep feeding them cold, junk “leads”, pretty soon, they will stop chasing any and all of the “leads” you provide – even though there may be a few that are golden - and will blame marketing. You must provide your reps QUALIFIED, engaged leads.

A more effective approach, one that shows greater respect for the time and intelligence of engineers, is to place educational information in an environment where they’re known to go and learn, realizing that if they need what they’re seeing, they’ll come running to the source. Give them something of value (white paper, eBook, CAD files, etc) and in exchange, yoiur prospects will knowingly provide you their contact info and invite you to begin a serious sales dialogue.

Download Here: Lead Generation Considerations