02 | December | 2010 | Fearless Competitor

One thing has struck me. Many CMOs think they are doing a bang-up job. And they are doing a fine job - unless you compare them to innovative companies like Hubspot, Marketo, Kinaxis and Eloqua. They pale in comparison.

IMHO, companies who have fallen into the trap include Endeca, Saba Software, NPD and dozens of smaller companies. This is why they should network with other CMOs, such as the CMO Club - to share fresh ideas and approaches. In fact, Aprimo, a client of Find New Customers often says to us “Hey, that’s a terrific idea.” Where do we get our terrific ideas? From savvy marketing companies like the ones above.

To learn more, visit Find New Customers, experts in business to business lead generation. Especially the Personality page.

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 a lead generation company in New York.

Find New Customers helps companies like yours (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) deliver low cost lead generation developing and implementing marketing lead generation programs to improve the way you find and acquire high quality sales leads using best practices in b2b 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.

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I want to follow-up on my comments for this article. And while you are here, I invite you to visit Find New Customers too.

Eloqua interviewed me for an article entitled “Demand Generation Predictions for 2011” Here’s how they introduced the article:

With a new year on the horizon, marketers are thinking about what trends are coming down the pipe. We invited a select group of thought leaders to gaze into the future and give their demand generation predictions for 2011. The results were wide-ranging and not always in agreement. Without further ado, here are six demand generation predictions for the next year.

Here’s what was quoted:

Marketing Automation Goes Mainstream: Jeff Ogden, Author of The Fearless Competitor

Marketing automation is nearing a tipping point already, I believe. CSO Insights found that quota achievement is at an all time low, and almost 9 out of 10 companies raised quotas. Jim Dickie of CSO Insights said this is like raising the high jump bar to 6 ‘ 7” when they could not clear 6′ 4″. This is a recipe for failure, according to Jim.

Hi Jump

When you think about it, if the standard prescriptions for improving revenue, like raising quotas, is no longer working, companies will be forced to look for new ways to improve revenue.

Invariably, their attention will turn to marketing automation software vendors.

Specifically, CEOs will pressure marketing heads to solve the problem, and, in their search for a solution, they’ll turn to marketing automation and it will hit the mainstream, becoming a “must have.”

Where did I come up with this? Check out the Sorry State of Sales Today which shared these numbers:

59% - the percentage of sales reps who achieved quota
86% - the percentage of companies who raised quotas

If you think about it, companies are raising quotas to achieve higher revenue targets. But when they find that ruling by fiat does not improve fiscal results, they will have to look elsewhere. I think they will look at marketing automation - to the benefit of Marketo, Silverpop, (Find New Customers is a Gold Silverpop partner) Eloqua and like vendors, as well as vendors skilled in business to business lead generation such as Bulldog Solutions, Nuspark Marketing, AcquireB2B, Bluebird Strategies and Find New Customers.

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

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Fun and 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 helps businesses (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) develop and implement demand generation programs to improve the way they find and acquire sales leads using best practices in lead generation.