Demand Generation

By Alicia FIorletta, Associate Editor

It wasn’t quite Donald Trump’s boardroom, but four industry experts were put on the firing line this week as part of the MarketingSherpa B2B Summit 2011 in Boston, Massachusetts, September 26-28. During the panel titled Lead Gen Apprentice – Quick Hit Tactics to Boost Your Lead Gen, the panelist gave three-minute pitches on their lead gen solution to “the CEO.”

With the television program “The Apprentice” as the panel’s inspiration, moderator Dan Burstein, Director of Editorial Content for MECLABS Primary Research, presented real-life scenarios for the experts to provide quick-hitting tips and tricks on how to maximize lead gen efforts regardless of team size and budget. Panelists included: Cheemin Bo-Linn, CMO, NetLine; Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo; Jim Williams, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Eloqua; and Bryan Brown, Director of Product Strategy at Silverpop.

By Bruce Wagoner, Digital Wavefront

Too often companies silo marketing from sales when it relates to goals, strategies and tactics. In reality, they belong under the same roof and need to be collaborative, especially throughout the lead nurture effort.

Nurtured BtoB sales leads are nearly nine times more likely to result in sales appointments than cold calls, according to a recent internal study conducted by Sales Engine International, a BtoB integrated marketing and sales acceleration firm.

For the study, Sales Engine International tapped into the same BtoB marketing sales “road map” that it implements for clients. The company used itself as an example to analyze how marketing can be leveraged to drive sales appointments. Paul Rafferty, Founder and CEO of Sales Engine, noted that that the company’s predictions of the number of nurtured leads to sales was more pronounced than expected.

As content messaging plays an increasingly critical role for prospects in the buying process, marketers are uniquely challenged to provide relevant value at every possible touch point. That said, it has become imperative for BtoB sellers to simultaneously focus on the buyer and adopt an operations mindset. This requires organizations to implement new frameworks for internal consistency and better overall market positioning. These and other tactics are explored in the new book “Balancing The Demand Equation,” by Adam B. Needles, Chief Strategy Officer at LeftBrain DGA, a Silicon Valley, CA-based demand generation agency.

DemandGen International, Inc., a global team of marketing automation and lead management experts, today announced that a dozen of its clients have been named finalists in the fifth annual Markie Awards. Sponsored by Eloqua, the annual Markie Awards honor outstanding accomplishments in marketing impact and revenue generation. Twelve DemandGen clients placed as finalists in 13 of the 20 categories. Winners will be announced on October 20, 2011 at the annual Eloqua Experience user conference in San Francisco, CA.