Monthly Archives: May 2010

Better late than never, I hope. Sorry, Ardath.

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

Recently it was brought to my attention that the Section 5 Case Study in Definitive Guide to Making Quota contains a case study on Marketo that closely matches one of my favorite marketing books, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, by Ardath Albee.

I made a last-minute change and by hurrying, I failed to properly credit the source of this case study. The white paper was changed some time ago to properly credit the source, but that’s not enough.  I also believe I owe Ardath a sincere and heartfelt apology in public - via my very popular blog. Hence, this post.

I deeply regret publishing content that someone else created.

Sorry, Ardath.  My error. I’ll do my best to ensure it never happens again.

“If We Build It, They Will Come”

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

Field of DreamsIn a recent trip to San Francisco, I watched a local news report on the ABC station about how Silicon Valley is now focusing on “green technology.” They talked about how Silicon Valley hit hard times - the venture capital market shrunk by 37% last year and how the Governator and Federal Government is backing new programs to help these new “green” startups emerge and thrive.

Green is hot. Silicon Valley is poised for a comeback, right?

WRONG!

That story sounds to the Fearless Competitor (worked for Silicon Valley startups like Agile Software in the 1990′s) like the same “If we build it, they will come” mentality that’s plagued Silicon Valley for years.  The mindset there is

“We just need a great product (software, social network, green technology)and customers will buy in droves.”

This approach was made famous in Field of Dreams, (photo) when Kevin Costner created a baseball diamond in a cornfield, but it as a business strategy, I’ve seen company after company do the same thing, but unlike the movie, Shoeless Joe Jackson (buyers) never magically show up.

Instead, businesses need to embrace new ideas and approaches in marketing and lead generation.

  • They need to forget product features and gobbledygook words.
  • They need to get a lot better at engaging and enticing prospective buyers using remarkable content.
  • They need to learn to build trust and engage prospective buyers.
  • They need to develop buyer personas to attract interest.
  • They need to gently nurture prospective buyers and earn their trust.
  • They need to break down walls between departments - sales/marketing/channels/advertising need to work closely together.
  • They need to get their ears on (by implementing a social media platform (like Radian6 or Visible Technologies), listen to online conversations and score behavior, so they’ll know what’s on the minds of their potential buyers.

Then and only then will Silicon Valley make a comeback.

What do you think? Can “green technology” save Silicon Valley, or is a fundamental change needed?  We love comments!

What do you think? We love comments and people who share.

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Check out the online show every Friday at 11am ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.” Find New Customers is one of few lead generation companies in New York.

Find New Customers helps companies like yours (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) implement lead generation programs to improve the way you find and acquire high quality sales leads using best practices in online lead generation. Quality leads matter. In fact, a recent study found that sales teams with fewer, high quality sales leads closed more than sales teams with more leads of dubious quality.

If you wish to do sales lead generation online, contact the B2B lead generation experts at Find New Customers using the form below.






 

Simplify and entertain, Mr. B2B seller - a great example

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

(editor’s note: Met Kinaxis yesterday at the BtoB Social Media Breakfast and heard their remarkable results. So it’s a good time to revisit this.)

In the vast ocean of companies that sell products and services to businesses, all boats look alike.

“We’re the leading provider 0f (blank) software.”
“Our products are world-class.”
“We have the best people.”

Sure you do.  But there’s one BIG problem.

NO ONE CARES
(except you and your staff)

How you you stand out in that vast ocean? How do you get the attention of busy, skeptical executives?

My answer? Stop taking yourself so seriously and simplify your messages. Make it all about them.

Let’s look at an example. Andrew Spoeth, Director of Marketing at  Enquiro turned me on to one of their clients, Kinaxis, that did a fabulous job of engaging target buyers. I thought it would make a great story to share with readers.

Let’s examine the core element of what they did. They created a community. It’s simple, elegant…. and very funny.

learn, laugh, share, connect. Four words. Four ideas. Four things for the visitor to do.

Learn connects you with industry experts. Share takes you to discussions on supply chain issues. Connect let’s you connect with your peers.

Laugh is the most interesting section as they commissioned a humorous series of video clips that make fun of big ERP companies. Two egotistical software CEOs merge their companies.

“We just created the world’s richest software company. BilkERP and SoftMore are now BilkMore.”

Note from the image below that it is funny, slickly produced using a movie metaphor and very, very funny.

Here’s what the Company has to say about it.

Just the Facts:

  • BtoB Magazine’s inaugural 2010 Social Media Award honors Kinaxis, provider of the on-demand supply chain management service RapidResponse™, for their superior use of social media.
  • Kinaxis was also selected as one of the judges’ top 4 favorite entries from a tech company, making them eligible for a People’s Choice Award.
  • Kinaxis was honored alongside Cisco Systems and Microsoft Corp. in the category of Best Integrated Campaign from a Tech company.

Why Kinaxis?

The award honors Kinaxis for its multi-faceted ‘Learn, Laugh, Share and Connect’ program which includes:

  • the Company blog, The 21st Century Supply Chain, written by Kinaxis executives and employees;
  • the company’s LinkedIn activity as well as its use of Twitter; and
  • the Supply Chain Expert Community, which was launched last summer as a free, public forum for learning about and discussing supply chain. Since its debut, the community has quickly built a strong following and it continues to grow daily.

For your readers, please be sure to place your vote in BtoB Magazine’s Social Media People’s Choice award:
http://www.BtoBonline.com/vote

Voting ends this Friday (Apr. 23) and Kinaxis is one of the four finalists!

What do you think? We love comments (click Leave a Comment at the top of the post) and people who share our content. Thanks.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing.

Find New Customers is a highly regarded lead generation company that helps businesses develop and implement demand generation programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

60 Seconds with the Fearless Competitor - B2B demand gen…oops!

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

And let me add, EVERY company today needs a Chief Content Officer. Do you have one?

Check out our Thought Leadership Interview series.

Join us every Thursday at 8pm ET/5pm PT for Twitter chat about b2b demand generation. Just go to http://tweetchat.com/ and enter hashtag #b2bchat.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing (and he’s about to start on his third white paper) and holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Find New Customers is a lead generation company that helps businesses develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customersusing best practices in lead generation.

A Better Way to Do Demand Generation - Outsource It!

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

  2. A couple of earlier blog articles tell the story:
  3. 7 out of 10 businesses say high quality leads is their top challenge (MarketingSherpa)
  4. Outsourced lead generation gives 43% better results than in-house.

Put these together and it tells a great case why you should hire a company like Find New Customers to help you implement a lead generation program in your business.

There are two reasons why businesses get better results from outsourced lead generation.

  • Faster and better results — having done it for a long time with many clients and employers, an outsourced company has seen it all. They know the step by step process and how to handle every challenge and what partner(s) to reach out to. In many respects, lead generation is akin to building a house.  It takes time, but you need plans and to start with the foundation.For instance, one of the most important steps at the beginning is the development of buyer personas.  Not only do we have a documented process, we know people like TenTon Marketing, who specialize in personas and content marketing. The result: You get value in a fraction of the time it would take an in-house person.  And since we know exactly what we’re doing, you get much better results. Faster time to value means less cost too.
  • Lower cost — Just like one does not buy a wood chipper when you can rent a top-of-the-line one, demand generation is a service best left to the pros. Faster results and less risk means lower costs.

As a client said to me, demand generation is critical to their business.  Amen! But they reached the wrong conclusion - ‘we need it in-house.’ In reality, means more than ever, you need the pros like the ones at Find New Customers.

We should also qualify at the dollars and cents. Let’s examine the cost over three years of an in-house person vs. Find New Customers. We assume that our expertise could complete the job and set you up in as little as 6 months.

  1. Hire VP or Director of Field Marketing
    Salary: $125,000; Benefits: $50,000 = Three Year Cost = $495,000
  2. Contract with Find New Customers for 6 month program
    Cost: $90,000: Travel: $10,000 = Three Year Cost - $100,000

Three year savings = $395,000

Seems a financial no-brainer. What do you think? Are you convinced to outsource Demand Generation? We love comments.

Check out our Thought Leadership Interview series.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing (and he’s about to start on his third white paper) and holds a degree in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

3 Tips for expanding to/from the USA

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

(Updated version of an earlier post.)

In the economic downturn, many companies look longingly at the Far East, Europe, South America, etc. for expansion. They think they may find new sources of revenue and balance out the ups and downs of single countries.

Having once lead sales and marketing for a UK search marketing firm (a light that’s green) that struggled and failed in the USA several times, I’m uniquely qualified to talk about this. The reasons for their continued failures are a lack of planning and preparation.

The essential thing to realize is that international expansion takes military planning and precision.

To hire a local rep and expect him or her to succeed is like air-dropping a single soldier armed with a knife on Normandy Beach.  That is not what the Allies did in World War II. They planned the D-Day invasion extensively.

Here are 3 tips you can use.

  1. Study the area, go visit and network.
    Get a feel for the market. Spend some time there.
    You need to commission a study of the market — to develop ideal customer profiles, buyer personas and crank up lead generation activity — particularly, thought leadership, long before you staff up.  You need to invest here because you can save by having only a single rep to follow-up on sales opportunities.
  2. Plan for a long battle — much longer than you expect.
    Give at least six months of air cover (lead generation) before you begin staffing up. Don’t plan on closing business for at least a year.
  3. Invest in good communication
    It’s critical.  Make sure you have the best video conferencing equipment you can afford.  Keep in constant communications.

In an earlier post, I told the story of an Israeli company that successfully expanded to the USA.

Of course if you’d like to discuss your company’s international expansion plans, please call (516) 284-4930 or send an email to jeff.ogden at findnewcustomers.com.

You need a Chief Content Officer.

Check out our Thought Leadership Interview series.

Join us every Thursday at 8pm ET/5pm PT for Twitter chat about b2b demand generation. Just go to http://tweetchat.com/ and enter hashtag #b2bchat.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing (and he’s about to start on his third white paper) and holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

16 Things to Ask Before Starting a Content Marketing Initiative

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 posted a great blog article that I wish to share with my readers. So many businesses are finally getting the content marketing religion, but they are trying to figure it out.  This should help.

Joe talks about the B.E.S.T. methodology. See the diagram below. What does B.E.S.T. stand for?

Behavioral - Must drive action

Essential - Valuable and relevant to the recipient

Strategic - Not one-off, but rather part of an ongoing strategy

Targeted - It’s just for the reader

I invite you to read all 16 questions by visiting the original article 16 Things to Ask Before Starting a Content Marketing Initiative.

And let me add, EVERY company today needs a Chief Content Officer.

Check out our Thought Leadership Interview series.

Join us every Thursday at 8pm ET/5pm PT for Twitter chat about b2b demand generation. Just go to http://tweetchat.com/ and enter hashtag #b2bchat.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing (and he’s about to start on his third white paper) and holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Find New Customers helps businesses develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

Stop sending business emails on the weekend

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

Face it. Most of us use mobile devices for email today. I use a Blackberry.

There’s nothing that annoys me more than to get an email during Sunday night dinner with my wife and kids — sharing the latest news from Jigsaw or some other firm. My Blackberry buzzes. It could be very important, so I look — only to find it’s from Company XYZ and could wait till Monday.

I’m fed up. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.  (Okay, that’s from the movie, Network.)

If you sell to businesses, set your emails to skip weekends. Please.  It’s not hard. Here’s how to do it:

Let’s say our lead nurturing delay is set to 15 days. After 15 days, it’s time to send an email, but we land on a Saturday. We have the software check the day of the week (computers are good at this) and if it’s a Saturday, add 2 days.  If it’s a Sunday, add one day.

Find New Customers uses Genoo, and we got this done.  Find New Customers never send emails on the weekend.  Download one of our white papers like How to Find New Customers,  Definitive Guide to Making Quota, or Moving from Transactional to Conversational Email Marketing.  You’ll never get an email on the weekend. You can this too.

If this does not stop, I’ll start publishing a weekly Wall of Shame.

What do you think? Do you get Spammy business emails on the weekend too?  Does it annoy you? We love comments.

Check out our Thought Leadership Interview series..

Due to domain theft, we had to make some changes.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of three highly acclaimed white papers

  1. How to Find New Customers (sponsored by Marketo,)
  2. Definitive Guide to Making Quota, and
  3. Moving from Transactional to Conversational Email Marketing (sponsored by Genius.com)

as well the e-book, Prospect Driven Marketing (with Communication Strategy Group) and holds a degree in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame. (Notre Dame is teaching B2B marketing to the next generation using this content.

Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to drive more sales leads by improving the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

The One Thing EVERY Company Needs Today

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

is a Chief Content Officer.

If you’ve been following Fearless Competitor, you met such marketing luminaries as Joe Pulizzi of Junta42, Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology (picture at left), Jon Miller of Marketo, Trish Bertuzzi of the Bridge Group, Scott Mersy of Genius.com and Brian Kardon of Eloqua.

You also heard a recurring theme  around marketing content - content marketing, build a content factory, you need content.  As Paul says “Content is the final battle for marketing.”

Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer (a VERY popular article!) showed that B2B buyers today look for compelling content at every stage of the buying process.

In addition, content marketing expert Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers says “Content is the asset you create that becomes the foundation for your customer relationships.” Joe also says, in his “30 Content Marketing Truths for 2010″ “The Chief Content Officer is the CMO of the future.“

Paul also posted a great article at Buzz Marketing for Technology. “Who is your Social Media Lightening Rod?” Hey, social media is content too.

It does not take an advanced degree to see the conclusion here. The need for action is there.

You get what you measure.  You get what you focus on. Prospective buyers want content. You need to focus on content. You need a leader in Content Marketing.

You need a Chief Content Officer.

Create the position of Chief Content Officer reporting to the CEO and let her “own” ALL content — website, blog, social networks, eBooks, White Papers, Webinars, Podcasts, Events, Direct Mail, Search Marketing, and Sales Messaging, etc.

She would own the insights to gather, like Ideal Customer Profiles, Value Propositions,  Buyer Personas and key objectives.

She should work closely on your company’s demand generation program and build metrics to track results.

Consistency and simplicity in messaging are the hallmarks of great marketing today.  Without a single leader, consistency and simplicity are impossible. Your Chief Content Officer is the person who can own this mission in your company.

What do you think? Do you have a Chief Content Officer? Are you planning to hire one? How do you measure and compensate him? We’d love to hear from you.

Check out our Thought Leadership Interview series.

Join us every Thursday at 8pm ET/5pm PT for Twitter chat about b2b demand generation. Just go to http://tweetchat.com/ and enter hashtag #b2bchat.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing (and he’s about to start on his third white paper) and holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

60 Seconds with the Fearless Competitor - Episode 3 - Simplicity

Posted by Jeff Ogden on

Here’s the latest clip from the Fearless Competitor. Why simplicity matters.

Join us every Thursday at 8pm ET/5pm PT for Twitter chat about b2b demand generation. Just go to http://tweetchat.com/ and enter hashtag #b2bchat.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, How to Find New Customers and Definitive Guide to Making Quota, as well the ebook, Prospect Driven Marketing (and he’s about to start on his third white paper) and holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.