Reach out again: Drake Morton

Re-Engaging Your eMail Non-Responders

by Richard Rushing , Monday, March 30, 2009

Much has been made recently about what to do with your email non-responders. These are subscribers who continue to receive emails, but have not opened, clicked or otherwise responded in a long time (if ever). For many marketers, this is a significant portion of their lists, and what they usually do is either to keep mailing on a reduced schedule, or stop mailing entirely after a time. But it’s an error to frame this dilemma purely in the context of a mailing schedule. Before deciding on a course of action, marketers need to find out why subscribers are no longer responsive. (more…)

If you’re in sales “Read This”: Drake Morton

Optimizing Sales Lead Management In The

Industrial Marketplace

by Angela Hribar , Thursday, March 26, 2009

Some research studies show that up to 80% of sales leads within an organization can be ignored, then lost or discarded, translating into unnecessarily wasted resources. Some leads may be ignored or discarded by the sales team because the target customer is not properly defined or the lead properly “qualified.”  Salespeople often complain that marketing is not generating the “right” type of lead.  Yet even if there is universal agreement on the term “sales lead” for your company and leads are generated through marketing programs, the process of managing these leads might be flawed.
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Well Stated, Excellent: Drake Morton

A Primer For Selling Online Engagement

by Kevin Mannion , Thursday, March 26, 2009

Since I have been writing for MediaPost, I have focused most of my columns on various facets of engagement, hoping to contribute to the industry dialogue on this topic, by suggesting ways that we can think about engagement in a way that enables advertisers and digital sellers to buy and sell more effectively. And so I thought it would be a good idea to offer a primer (disclosure: ex-college & high school teacher on the loose) that pulled together some of the central ideas I have been writing about here for the past 15 months or so.
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A Must Read: Drake Morton

Targeted Distribution Of Online Video Pays Off

In today’s world of multichannel media consumption, you have to play to the habits of the empowered user and find the user through targeted, decentralized video distribution versus pushing them to view site-locked content.

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 You Must Get This One Right: Drake Morton

Moving From Interruption To Involvement

by Dave Jackson , Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The advertising model, as practiced for the last hundred years or so, has been one based on interruption. It’s a consistent tactic across TV/video, radio, and even print. It continues because it works. And, in the digital video arena, pre-stream and mid-stream commercials will continue to exist for some time, because they work to help marketers achieve their goals.

However, marketers have also begun In a shift in tactics, applying their resources to create content to get their message across. A number of marketers are doing this now. Red Bull comes to mind as a great example as it syndicates its ” extreme sport” athletes video endeavors across the Web. (more…)

Keep In Mind!: Drake Morton

BT And Consumers: Transparency Crucial

To Gaining Trust 

by Phil Leggiere , Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Publishers and advertisers by now have internally devoted enormous investments in money, time and intellectual capital to behavioral targeting platforms. Yet when it comes to consumers themselves, most brands still like to pretend that behavioral targeting doesn’t exist, treating it like a secret vice to be locked away, hidden from the public that simply “can’t handle the truth.”

A study issued last week by Trust(e), an independent nonprofit online privacy advocacy organization, documents why that is precisely the wrong message for brands to be communicating. (more…)

Excellent Read From Jill Konrath

What am I learning at the Sales 2.0 Conference?

Definition of Sales 2.0, as per David Thompson, CEO of Genius: Sales 2.0 combines customer-focused processes with Web 2.0 productivity technologies to enhance the art and science of selling while creating customer value.

It’s all about driving more revenue, more quickly, through the pipeline.

According to Thompson, it’s all about Marketing & Sales:

• Being in alignment with the customer throughout the buying and lead life cycle.
• Working collaboratively to approach buyers when they’re ready, extracting timely and relevant insights and sharing customer intelligence.
• Accelerating and optimizing every phase of the sales funnel by connecting with the right prospects at the right time.
• Measuring and improving the lead-to-opportunity conversion equation and sales performance.

Thoughts from Scott Santucci, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.
Santucci covered the entire lead generation & sales process - what’s broken & what needs to be done. Key points include:

• The salesperson IS your company to prospective customers. Most companies are asking their sellers to learn so much! What’s broken right now is the conversation between the buyer and seller.

• Both buyers and sellers are suffering from complexity problem. Customers are suffering from too much info, vendor fatigue, more stakeholders involved & longer decisions. Sellers also have complex portfolios, random acts of enablement and changes in their company.

• Need to flip the focus of Marketing/Sales: Model it around customer problems/decision process; Map it around the problem portfolio. Then, Match sales tools to this process to support customer conversations.

Key take-aways from Jim Dickie, CSO Insights:

• Lead generation #1 sales effectiveness initiative this year. Recent study: qualified leads that turn into discussion now at 39%; down from 55% .

• Need to recognize Buying 2.0 too! Customer now get all sorts of information about your products, services, capabilities - way before they talk to a seller.

• Recommended customer engagement objectives for 2009: 1) Optimize prospect intelligence; 2) Develop enhanced messaging; 3) Create enhanced sales/prospect engagement tools; 4) Nurture sales leads and 5) Integrate lead management/CR analytics.

• Companies must make existing lead follow-up more effective. They don’t have big enough marketing budgets to keep generating more leads.