Chatalytics:  The Be Greeted Blog

Below are five brief considerations, all essential, for B2B marketers planning a media-driven lead generation promotion with social media and Web 2.0 in mind.

1. Market planning - develop strategies that leverage existing marketing assets. Identify, at the onset of the planning process corporate and channel assets to deliver your message.

2. Sales personalization - Personalizing messages when possible will drive performance. Make sure that critical content is being delivered by subject matter experts, whether they are in-house or credible third parties. Always follow up with any communication and support your efforts with strong 360 customer contact.

3. Branded media - Branded media is the anchor for any media-driven lead-generation campaign. Branded media should be considered the primary audience acquisition strategy to cast a wide net around prospects. Large media companies offer extensive reach through a range of publications with databases of subscribers of magazines and online newsletters across specific niches. Even relatively small marketers can improve their audience acquisition efforts in a big way by partnering with publishers in a more strategic manner.

4. Supplemental lists and opportunistic buys - make sure to tap into buying networks and partners to get the word out. This is where ad word purchases, banner placements and other non-branded sponsorships fits to drive an audience. Here, too, make sure to link to any social media programs that are in place.

5. Database development and analysis - make sure to catalog as much data as it is possible to collect. Associate the data with the individual prospect, keeping in mind prevailing privacy best practices. This data helps create smarter campaigns by tracking how well the elements work and those elements include media placement.

Marketers who develop programs that engage the customer will find themselves best able to take advantage of these opportunities.

Be Greeted is thrilled to be able to tap into the insights of industry leaders Joe Pulizzi and Brian Massey for our upcoming Webinar, "Right Content. Right Response", we'll hope you'll tune in too!

As Brian wrote in his blog, "We're unscripted and we're going to dig into the nitty-gritty with examples and case studies; you know, stuff you can use.  Get out your hard questions and join the conversation."

HubSpot's Mike Volpe and I recently spent some time in Austin at the SEM for SMB conference (awesome event by the way). 

Mike conducted a short vid interview with me and recently posted it on their blog.  We spent most of the time on how to launch successful webinars. 

HubSpot is a great example of a company that eats its own dog food ... in just a couple of years they now rank in the top 10 for "Internet Marketing."  These same tools are available to marketers and the agencies who support them with SEO and PPC.  Check it out ... wouldn't you like your company to be ranked in the top 10 in your industry?  In full disclosure, Be Greeted is a HubSpot customer and since we started using the tools, we have risen to top 10 for our industry -- "chat lead capture."

Great article "Lead Nurturing Best Practices: New Data, Charts, Tips to Put More Punch in Your Cultivation Tactics" at Sherpa's site.

One of the best takeaways:

"MarketingSherpa estimates, in fact, that more than half of the leads in the typical marketing database are viable, qualified leads - even if those prospects aren't yet ready to buy."

What that means, as well, is the more data you can gather at the onset in terms of your prospects and what they really need, the more you'll be able to convert those leads later to success.  As I see it, it's all about engagement.  Brian Haven the former Forrester social media analyst put it in perspective in his report Marketing's New Key Metric: Engagement report:

"Using engagement, you get a more holistic appreciation of your customers' actions, recognizing that value comes not just from transactions but also from actions people take to influence others. Once engagement takes hold of marketing, marketing messages will become conversations, and dollars will shift from media buying to customer understanding. "

With engagement, or especially in light of engagement, the Sherpa article goes on to address the actions taken once that information is gathered.  They cite research from from a study by David Elkington of InsideSales.com and Prof. James Oldroyd of MIT.  The study looked at the time it takes for a company sales representative to follow up with a lead who completes a contact form form.  The chart below illustrates that 44.1% of companies follow up within 24 hours.

The study revealed that the odds of making contact with and qualifying a Web lead decrease dramatically the longer you wait to place that follow-up call.  The MarketingSherpa article highlighted the following:

• Calls placed within five minutes of receiving a Web lead have the highest likelihood of making contact.
• The odds of contacting a lead drop 10 times within 30 minutes of that prospect's online registration.
• The odds of contacting a lead drop another 10 times if you wait one hour.
• Waiting more than 20 hours to call a Web lead actually hurts your chances of qualifying that lead.

The lesson in all of this:

1. Be proactive ... engage in a ways that help you gain insights about your site visitors.

2. Use systems to capture and catalog data to guide conversations ... on-line and follow up sales calls.

3. Be responsive by following up in a timely manner.

4. Be relevant ... use content marketing to address the market needs of your audience ... people don't want to buy your product or service, they want to but your leadership.

We love this video!  We came across it at the MarketingProfs B2B Conference when David Meerman Scott presented it in his keynote.  It is everything a high performance Sales & Marketing organzation should NOT be. 

We hope you get a kick out of it because you understand something the folks in the video don't get:  The power of effective website conversion. 

In a world where 98% of website visitors leave without taking action (making a purchase or completing a request form) INC Magazine writes about the impact of chat on improving website performance. 

  Be Greeted likes "meat and potatoes" marketing.  These are tools and techniques that drive effective B2B lead generation. 

Webinars, White Papers, e-Mail Marketing and Search are at the top of the food chain when it comes to meat and potatoes lead generation tactics. 

Joel Granoff, Be Greeted's President and CEO recently wrote a Marketing How-To Guide for MarketingProfs.   You may request a copy by following this link:  "How to Produce a Web Seminar and Use it for Lead Generation."