I've always been a fan of John Doerr's articles and recently came across Top 10 Lead Generation Mistakes Made By Professional Services Firms.

Apart from the fact I love any article that starts with a quote from Glengarry Glenn Ross, John's top 10 lead generation mistakes had me nodding all the way through.

Many of them echo my thoughts in my article 7 Critical Success Factors for New Business Development, and are equally valid for firms across the broad business services landscape.

"Relying on one tactic only" and "Not integrating various marketing tactics well" are both key ones for me; integrated lead generation across multiple channels is essential for today's B2B marketing.

Also, "Dropping leads and failing to nurture leads" is right up there for me too. It's what we call pipeline management and is key to maximising ROI for lead generation.

For me, multi-touch marketing is exactly what lead generation is all about for professional and business services firms. It enables you to build a relationship and trust with prospective clients before there's an opportunity.

Think about it, if the first time you contact a prospect is when they are looking "right now" then you're probably (at best) an also-ran for any significant piece of work.

Most clients typically only go out to firms that they already, know which means you had better already be on their radar beforehand.

We have a number of strategies to help our clients open doors and engage prospective clients in a way that clearly positions their firm.

When this is built into a lead nurturing process it becomes a powerful way to develop new business opportunities within potentially major accounts.

Labels: b2b lead generation, integrated b2b marketing, lead nurturing, new business development, pipeline management, professional services, prospect marketing

I've been following a number of discussions recently on LinkedIn about the integration of telemarketing with email, online and direct mail campaigns.

When I compare these discussions with some recent articles I read around highly targeted DM campaigns aimed at senior decision makers and I'm starting to see a pattern emerging.

You see, all these sexy and highly creative B2B campaigns seem to rely on the rather un-loved tactic of telemarketing as part of their success.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't succeed entirely without the telemarketing element but I would say that it's a critical element seems to be hugely under-valued.

For example, in February's B2B Marketing Magazine there's an article about a highly targeted DM campaign aimed at 200 senior decision makers within a specific geographical area.

The DM piece was sent out, 3 days later an email followed up tied into the main theme of the campaign. Lots of sexy stuff about micro-sites, etc. Finally, 2 days later, an outbound telemarketing call was placed to those targets that hadn't responded.

Unfortunately, whilst the article gives an overall conversion of 20%, it doesn't give any specifics about responses at each stage of the campaign.

To me, this is typical how today's integrated campaigns are reported.

Whether it's following up a DM piece or responding to an online trigger, telemarketing is always seen as the final bit tagged on the end. All the clever work is done up front and, oh well, let's hand it over to telemarketing to wrap it all up.

Having worked on these integrated campaigns before, and followed up some very clever creative work which clearly had no impact, you'll forgive me if I'm a little cynical.

We've been involved in large integrated campaigns where it's been down to the telemarketing effort to literally pull it back from the brink. When no-one's biting suddenly it's "get on the phones and make it happen".

Because, after all the creative messaging and output is sent out you're into the rather messy world of dealing with diary clashes, PA's, firewalls and over zealous post-rooms.

I agree 100% that a smarter, more integrated approach is the way to go for all B2B marketing campaigns. But I'd suggest that telemarketing plays a larger part of the process than most marketing agencies will admit.

Perhaps it's because you don't win many awards for telemarketing :-)

Labels: b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing, integrated b2b marketing, prospect marketing