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As new marketing platforms and the agencies that deliver them continue to take quantum leaps of progress and potential, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered the buzz of social and mobile media in your day-to-day life.

What might not be as obvious (yet), is that these marketing tools are ready to be adopted by IT VARs and vendors, and become a standard part of IT marketing strategy.

Augmented reality, QR codes, mobile sites and custom Facebook applications are just a few of the new terms buzzing amongst early adopters who are excited to be bringing these solutions to new and existing customers. These platforms are mobile-friendly, tech-savy and socially aware, and have the potential to host a plethora of customized content and pack a powerful punch with your consumer base in an engaging and ongoing way.

As your customers increasingly work from a range of mobile devices and wireless environments, why not meet them out in the field, wherever they may roam? As we embrace this age of information and self-published online content, you can clearly demonstrate your authority and technology expertise by establishing a presence in social media and a strong blogging voice in your chosen field.

Working with a marketing company that can help you establish that authority, engage with your customers and even inject some personality into your company brand by working with you to provide you with relevant content and even publish it for you.

Consider a marketing solution that reflects the level of technology you offer to your customers and, in doing so, ensure that your presence and customer perceptions in the marketplace are synonymous with the cutting edge technology company that you really are.

“A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy..” That line has been stuck in my head ever since I heard Alec Baldwin say it in the movie Glenngary Glen Ross. Then I thought to myself a prospect does not take our surveys and answers positively if they don’t want to buy. All of the questions we ask on our surveys always have an option of “N/A” so they can choose that option 100% of the time but many of them don’t.

The sales data that gets generated should be intelligent enough to let us know where the customer is in the buying cycle. Every sales persons dream is to know if the prospect is thinking about buying. Let’s take this scenario..

MJ: How have your leads been so far?
VAR: They have been mediocre, I mean we know what type of equipment they have but no luck in knowing what they need right now.
MJ: What would you say if I can get you fully verified leads with pain points they are experiencing in their IT environment and what stage of the buying cycle they are in, what would you think of that?
VAR: Where do I sign?!

What I do everyday is produce Glenngary Glen Ross leads! I think I am going to watch that movie again this weekend.

First, lets define “success.” Actually, let’s define the antithesis of success. Success is NOT pretty pictures or cool designs. Yes, sometimes marketers can smoke and mirror their way through life, but tricks are for kids (someone wise once said that). Success in demand generation marketing is NOT the number of leads. The definition of good vs. bad leads is too subjective and wildly unpredictable. Success is NOT the number of meetings. Unless you are charging the prospect a fee to attend the meeting, a meeting in and of itself is nothing more than two people talking. So what is success in demand generation? It’s simple. Success is the amount of revenue you enable a sales executive to identify from the targets in your programs. I’ll say it again. Success is the amount of revenue you enable a sales executive to identify from the targets in your programs.

The reason I define success in such a manner is because it’s at this point at which the marketer begins to lose direct control of the actual sales process. The marketer still has influence and indirect control (helping provide reps with data sheets, case studies, and other sales tools to aid them in their journey with the prospect) but it’s still the point in that process where the 80/20 rule of control flips. As long as you have at least 80% control, you have the ball. Its where that responsibility ends, where you “make the hand off” that you need to hold yourself accountable, and where the metric for success should be defined. Read the rest of this entry »

Sales intelligence is vital to winning new business. Without a sense of what a prospect needs and how your company can help, you’re left with nothing more than a cold call. Gain some information on your prospect, however, and you’ll have a much easier time identifying and proposing solutions.

Here are four ways you can get better sales intelligence:

1. Start with a survey: during your lead generation efforts, be sure to include a survey that aligns with the types of clients you are looking to attract. A survey is a great way to get your prospect to self-disclose the information you need to bring the sales process to a successful conclusion.

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The use of social media to market a company is usually linked to brand initiatives first, despite obvious application for lead generation and cultivation. It makes sense, though. The brand propagation uses of social media are straightforward and can be incredibly powerful.

The latest research from MarketingSherpa shows that the three most effective uses of social media are: influence brand reputation, increase brand awareness and improve search engine rankings, with respondents saying they’re “very effective” coming in at 39 percent, 37 percent and 38 percent, respectively. Respondents indicating that social media is “somewhat effective” for achieving these branding goals are 53 percent, 54 percent and 49 percent, respectively.

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What are the IT marketing challenges that keep you up at night? Well, if you’re anything like other marketers in the broader B2B space, it’s generating high-quality leads – which has become more important year-over-year.

The latest survey results from MarketingSherpa reveal that 78 percent of respondents saw this as a challenge in 2010, up from 69 percent last year. A distant second was “generating a high volume of leads,” up from 35 percent last year to 44 percent this year. Concerns about marketing to a lengthening sales cycle increased slightly, from 39 percent of respondents to 41 percent of respondents.

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It’s the marketing mix that leads to better demand generation — not a focus on one particular approach. To fill your sales pipeline, it’s best to use a combination of new and traditional marketing techniques. Don’t ignore social media, but at the same time, be sure to build in some direct mail and telemarketing. The key is to pull it all together into an integrated go-to-market strategy.

Instead of thinking about marketing tactics, start with your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? This can include revenue goals, new account wins and existing client penetration. Once you’ve figured out what you want to reach, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to get there.

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Do you spend a lot of time knee-deep in Google Analytics, looking at the rise and fall of pageviews, unique visitors and referred traffic? While it pays to know your audience, focusing too much on the numbers isn’t the best use of your time. To gain more value from your marketing blog, think less about organic traffic growth and more about the impact of your blog on your pipeline.

A corporate blog’s success isn’t measured in pageviews or any other traffic metric. Why not? Well, your objectives are totally different. You aren’t trying to amass impressions to generate advertising views, which is the prevailing model used by most of the blogs you probably read. Rather, you want to attract attention that will translate to inquiries from prospects, who you then hope to advance through the sales cycle.

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Sometimes it seems like IT sales professionals treat a full lead pipeline as a security blanket. They like to know it’s there … but they don’t do anything with it. The sense is that just having lead available means the future is secure. After all, they can pursue them anytime they want, right? Unfortunately, leads don’t get better with age – especially the hot ones. Eventually, someone will meet a prospect’s needs, taking away the near-term opportunity and giving another company the chance to turn it into a long-lasting relationship. In the end, a full pipeline actually provides little security, if it isn’t approached with swift action.

Of course, there are other reasons why leads are left dormant. Some sales professionals prefer to chase leads that have big tickets, not recognizing that a small client now can become a big one later. And, every rep has his or her favorite accounts, which provide a consistent flow of revenue with little opportunity for growth. In some cases, fear is involved: nobody wants to chase an opportunity and lose.

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Most IT sales professionals know what it takes to close a deal. Put one in front of a well-qualified prospect, and the rest takes care of itself. The problem, of course, is getting those meetings. Without effective marketing support, sales teams are stuck cold-calling, hovering at networking events filled mostly with job-hunters instead of decision-makers and otherwise trying to find very small needles in incredibly large haystacks. The odds against success are high.

The situation is made worse by a tendency – in both sales and marketing departments – to focus only on the present. Even if you can rack up enough appointments for this month, what happens next month? Next quarter? Next year?

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