On March 3, 2009 I had the pleasure of interviewing Trish Bertuzzi of the Bridge Group.  Below is a summary of what was concluded from the interview.

• What worked in the past for lead generation and qualification, as recent as 2007, no longer works. So a best-practices process of a few years ago is probably ineffective today.
• Today you need to look at your inbound marketing strategy first. Web/SEO/SEM, email nurturing, social networks, landing pages and forms etc. All of these things must tie into your sales and marketing strategy.
• More than ever before, sales and marketing have to be on the same page. Companies need to define their ideal customer provide and find their “voice” as it relates to buyer personas. Once that is accomplished then they can go out and speak to their buyers in a way they can relate to and that starts a conversation.
• Ideal customer profile is very important.  e.g. 100 leads with 60 who fit the ideal customer profile is a lot better than 100 leads where 10 fit
• What you don’t want to do is flagellate your prospect by blasting out emails and phone calls. Deep understanding is needed. Look at your prospects as people and take the time to understand what they are trying to accomplish. What do they care about and where do they look for information? This tells you how to talk to them and where and when to communicate with them.  More than ever before, content is king.
• Metrics have changed. They are the crystal ball that predicts success as opposed to the laggard indicators of performance. Old metrics are around activities – how many leads? How many calls? How many emails? New metrics focus on opportunity and movement – how many leads moved from Stage A to Stage B, how long does a lead stay in each stage, how many times do we touch a suspect before they become a prospect etc?
• Buyers are educated today. While BANT (Budget, Access to Power, Needs, Timeframe) was question 1 in the past, now it is question 3-4 or even off the table altogether during the initial stages of the conversation.
• Testing and piloting are back in vogue. We used to be in such a hurry to get our campaigns out the door. Now, with such limited budgets, we need to take the time to test messages against each other as well as different social media approaches etc.

Thanks to Trish for the great input and as always. call or write if you want to discuss my ideas.

For companies looking for best practices in b2b lead generation who wish to improve the way they acquire new customers, Find New Customers is the place to go.  CSO Insights says companies need to improve the way they generate leads and implement processes for business to business lead generation.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is a demand generation expert and sales leader, as well as the President of Find New Customers, alead generation company, who helps businesses create lead generation campaigns and continually publishes the best lead generation ideas, so his readers can determine the best lead generation strategy to find new customers.  He can be reached at (516) 284-4930 or mailto:[email protected].