Sales & Marketing Effectiveness

Need Some Expert Advice on B2B Lead Generation, Tracking, Nurturing and Converting?

If you’re looking for some solid advice on effective B2B lead generation, then you must check out BtoB Magazine’s 2008 Lead Generation Guide.

This guide provides valuable studies, expert columns and interviews, and b-to-b market statistics.  With over 35 articles covering current topics, such as; email, direct mail, integration, events and more, you’ll find a treasure-trove of advice to help you get your lead generation processes into top notch shape. 

Like this excerpt from an interview with Laura Ramos, VP, principal analyst, Forrester Research , “Balancing lead generation with activity to build loyalty and adoption will let b-to-b marketers learn who their best customers are, how they became their best customers, how they journeyed through the buying process and how to find more like them.” 

This is one of my favorite pieces of advice because she mentions how learning about your best customers helps to find more like them.  I’ve covered this issue in my last 2 posts: What You Don’t Know About Your Best Customers Equals What You Don’t Know About Your Best Prospects  and Too Many Marketers Have Too Little Customer Knowledge

If your job entails any aspect of B2B lead generation, then this guide is something you can’t afford to miss.

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Too Many Marketers Have Too Little Customer Knowledge

A recently released study conducted by the CMO Council in the last quarter of 2007, based on an online survey of more than 450 global marketers, revealed some disappointing results regarding marketers’ efforts to retain current customers and gain new ones.   

BtoB Magazine cited the study with an article titled “Marketers Look to Boost Customer Retention, CMO Council Study Finds Maximizing Existing Relationships Takes a Back Seat to New Leads.”   In their print publication of this article, they posted the following results complete with a graph showing the percentages of respondents’ customer knowledge.

- 6.8% have excellent customer knowledge
- 40.4% have fair customer knowledge
- 45.6% have poor customer knowledge
- 7.2% was split between good and not sure customer knowledge

(I’m not sure how any marketer can’t be sure, can you?)

The bottom line, as I see it, is that in order for any company to become or remain competitive and boost their business performance, their marketers need to strive toward becoming part of the  companies that have excellent customer knowledge. 

They MUST find more effective ways to capture and leverage their precious customer information.  This is vital for optimizing their sales and marketing effectiveness, so they can retain their current customers and focus on gaining new customers who are most like their best customers. 

And, the study called, “Business Gain From How You Retain”, definitely addresses that challenge.  It is packed full of vital information for every marketer and I highly recommend that you download and review it.   

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