Why Marketing Outsourcing is Growing So Quickly

February 22, 2012 Leave a Comment
business_-_team_working

In a recent blog post, we reported on the rapid growth of marketing outsourcing. http://fearlesscompetitor.com/2012/01/26/the-rapid-growth-of-marketing-outsourcing/

That post showed that marketing outsourcing, which not mainstream yet, is growing very, very fast.

Why are companies looking to hire outside talent for demand generation, content marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, social media marketing, etc.?

To understand why, we need to contrast the process of hiring talent vs. the process of outsourcing. I recently wrote a letter to the Chief Marketing Officer of a west coast software firm. I’ll share with you what I shared with her:

Let’s consider your choices and the steps to completion:

  1. Hire in-house
  2. Sort through hundreds of resumes.
  3. Struggle to narrow it down to 2-3.
  4. Conduct phone interviews with HR.
  5. Cut to final 2.
  6. Conduct second phone interview.
  7. Invite 1 or 2 to visit HQ.
  8. Meet to discuss. Hopefully, you find a good candidate. If not, start over.
  9. Agree on offer Extend offer. Hope it is accepted.
  10. Negotiate salary, benefits, vacation time, etc.
  11. Pray it sticks. The odds are not good.
  12. If the person does not work out, deal with a painful separation and start over.

“Even the most rigorous interview process and entrance exams can only provide a small snapshot of how a person performs in an organization.” Christopher Collins, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Outsource to Find New Customers

  1. Analyze the offering.
  2. Write a small check. Get started.

No salary, no benefits, no social security, and no vacation time. And since we’ve interviewed the best in the business for Mad Marketing TV, we’re uniquely qualified to bring in top talent needed. For instance, a great demand generation program starts with Buyer Personas. I interviewed the top expert on buyer personas twice and she is a dear friend.

 

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How to Find New Customers – the superb, classic and free white paper

February 22, 2012 Leave a Comment
lightbuild-inspiration

Lead Generation Made Simple – and a true classic

How to Find New Customers

Looking for improved business results in 2012? Need to grow market share and profits?

Here’s the white paper everyone’s raving about.

How to Find New Customers

How to Find New Customers

“Don’t know how I got connected with Jeff Ogden, but he’s the author of the hot white paper “How to Find New Customers.”  He asked me to read it and I liked it a lot. There is so much being written about demand generation, but most of it doesn’t make demand gen simple to understand. Ogden’s white paper does just that. That makes it a must-read, and Ogden a “must-interview.”

Craig Rosenberg, The Funnelholic
Lead Generation expert

“I think Jeff Ogden’s whitepaper (How to Find New Customers) is excellent”
Jeff Gaus

This white paper is GREAT! I’m going to tweet and re-tweet it as much as I can!”
Paige O’Neill, VP of Marketing at Aprimo

Just click the image of How to Find New Customers to download this classic white paper on marketing lead generation for free.

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

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Find New Customers is one of few lead generation companies in New York. Please follow Jeff on Twitter.

Find New Customers helps companies like yours (with 150 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.


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Breaking Out of the Funnel: A Look Inside the Mind of the New Generation B2B Buyer

February 21, 2012 4 Comments
BuyingProcess

Dinosaur comets

The incredibly popular post, Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer, has been updated with new data for 2012 from the latest DemandGen Report White Paper “Breaking Out of the Funnel: A Look Inside the Mind of the New Generation B2B Buyer”

There’s been lots of discussion about how the B2B buying cycle has changed, but this presentation used actual data — they surveyed B2B buyers. I’m a bit of a data junkie.  Love hard facts.  Hope you do too.

Should this matter to YOU?

Only if you care about revenue results, such as a CEO, Board Member, Head of Sales, or Head of Marketing.

Let’s share a few takeaways — which I show as false assumptions, but first I’d like to share a bottom-line observation:

This is not your Dad’s (or Mom’s) world of sales.

The way he sold back in the 70′s and 80′s or even 90′s for companies like IBM, SAP and Unisys is over.  Done.  Kaput.

Just like the comet took out the dinosaurs, a comet (named “the Internet”) forever re-engineered the way people buy.  Unless you want your business to go the way of the dinosaurs, take note.

How You Sell How I buyThe problem is that so many things we did in the past — that worked well — no longer work.  Let’s look at these:

  1. Assumption: Need more leads. Pick up the phone and dial for dollars. Crank up outbound.
    Reality: Cold calling has virtually disappeared.  Only 3 out of 100 buyers said they responded to a cold call. 8 out of 10 said they found the buyer. Only 3% of buyers in this report said they first engaged with a cold call.
  2. Assumption: Qualify with BANT questions. Budget, Authority, Needs and Time-frame.
    Reality: Only 2 out of 10 executives said they set budgets at the beginning of the year.  More than 8 out of 10 said they did not follow the traditional path of establishing a budget, setting criteria and issuing a purchase order. 4 out of 10 documented the business case and won the deal – though the project was unbudgeted.
  3. Assumption: Show the value of our products and buyers respond.
    Reality: Buyers are talking to peers and researching options long before they talk to sales. Problem oriented content like white papers and e-books are particularly well-received.
  4. Assumption: Great content and vendor comparisons will win the day
    Reality: The peer network is growing in importance. Almost 8 out of 10 start with informal information gathering. Almost 6 out of 10 engage their peers. Nearly 1/2 follow industry conversations. You must establish credibility in the industry.
  5. Assumption: Win the deal and we own the customer.
    Reality: 6 out of 10 buyers share their experiences and learnings with others after the fact. One on one conversations were most common but blog postings and Linkedin discussions are growing.

The reality is that buyers move back and forth though a buying process and come up with budgets in an ad hoc approach.  The nice and neat process of the past is dead.

Assuming you read this far, and you are responsible for revenue results, you’re thinking “Wow!  The world has really changed.  What should I do now?”

I think you should learn as much as you can about B2B lead generation and related topics. Fortunately, Find New Customers is filled with great content.

A good starting point is the free Education page at Find New Customers. Spend some time there reviewing the well organized content.

For even more, I suggest our white paper (free) How to Find New Customers.  You should also check out MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.  There are many others and I ask readers to suggest their favorites and recommendations.

In addition, you ought to learn about content marketing, social media and buyer personas. We recommend you check out experts on those topics appearing on Mad Marketing TV, the marketing show hosted by yours truly.

What do you think?  How has your business changed?  What are your concerns?  What are you trying now?

I want to hear from you.

Please note that our wonderful free “cheat sheet” on lead nurturing “The 7 Keys to Lead Nurturing Success” is a small taste of what you get in our terrific white paper, How to Find New Customers.

Jeff Ogden is President of the B2B lead generation consultancy, Find New Customers. We help companies with between 150 and 5,000 employees who sell complex products to businesses to implement world-class lead generation programs. As companies struggle to create quality sales opportunities, they turn to lead generation companies like Find New Customers.


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There’s a Brand New Find New Customers Coming Soon!

February 21, 2012 Leave a Comment
Website_Under_Construction

It’s coming and it’s going to be better than ever! An all new Find New Customers.

Find New Customers is brimming with great content on B2B lead generation, content marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring and more – but in 2012, it’s too much. And too confusing – especially our wordy home page. It’s high time for a change.

We’re now striving for simplicity.

A brand new company website, found at www.findnewcustomers.com is coming within weeks.

We’re building it in WordPress, just like this blog. It will be really, really simple. And it will have a crystal-clear Call to Action. Designed by the same professional who redid this blog.

Want to see the kind of site we’re thinking of? Check out Copyblogger. Clean, simple and elegant.

Lastly, we’ll connect it to Act-On Software, Marketing Automation for the Fortune 5,000,000 and the host of our Mad Marketing TV show. Great software firm. (We’re dumping our current marketing automation software vendor (shhh!))

But in the meantime, we took shears to the home page at Find New Customers  – cutting it from 550 words down to just 28. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Stay tuned.

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

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Our Home Page Work-Over at Find New Customers

February 17, 2012 2 Comments
Pruningshears

I cannot wait to redo the home page of Find New Customers – simple, few words and a clear call to action. It will be beautiful too, just like CopyBlogger.

But I cannot wait for the professional to finish, so I did what I could and took pruning shears to Find New Customers. The result: A 95% reduction in words.

What do you think? Are the changes good or did I prune too deeply?

After (28 Words)

Find New Customers helps companies rapidly grow revenue by transforming how they attract, engage and win new customers.

Grab our awesome free white paper, How to Find New Customers!

Before (550 words)

If you’re a business with between 150 and 5,000 employees who sells complex products to businesses, we ought to talk.We also invite you to check out our world-class blog, Fearless Competitor, as well as our weekly B2B marketing show, Mad Marketing TV.

Find New Customers is a global marketing company that helps companies like yours dramatically improve fiscal results (revenues) by greatly improving your ability to engage and earn the trust of prospective customers. By outsourcing to us, you get results.

“The leads we get from marketing suck. Please give us more of them.” – that’s the lament of sales everywhere today.

Use the form below to schedule a free 30 minute business review. We won’t blow out your budget – the call is free, so cost is not an issue.

  • Need help creating lead nurturing and scoring? We can help. (Takes more than telemarketing today.)
  • Struggling to design and map content and messages to buying processes and personas so people subscribe? We can help.
  • Want to improve the relevance of your marketing content and make it more engaging? We can help.
  • Struggling to update your blog and use SEO? We write one of the most popular b2b marketing blogs in the world.
  • Need help with the alignment of sales and marketing? (Looking for Mr. Right, vs. Mr. Right Now). We can help.

Please take your time and look through this website as it is filled with great tips, good ideas and information on optimizing lead generation. Think of it as your guides to business success where great insights can be learned. For instance, on the Get New Customers page, you’ll find superb white papers on optimizing lead generation, sales and email marketing. On the Thought Leadership page, you’ll find articles, webinars, ebooks and more to help you execute and deliver better marketing results. The How We Help You page shares our services offerings.

If your business has expensive salespeople calling and emailing target companies – running their own campaigns, we ought to talk, as we provide results. Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer found only 6% of deals came through cold calls – so it’s not an effective form of prospecting. You need a better way.

Use the form below to schedule your free 30 minute business review.

You’re probably thinking “Who are you?

I’m, Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor and President of Find New Customers, the btob lead generation company. Companies outsource to Find New Customers to rapidly grow revenue and improve performance. As the Fearless Competitor, I believe we should all work hard and play hard. But most importantly, I aim to live by three letters.

ABH Always be helping. Because generosity is the greatest gift in the world.

Have you given away today – asking nothing in return?

You can email me at jeff.ogden at findnewcustomers.com, follow us on Twitter at @fearlesscomp or call (516) 495-9350. And you call also check out our company description on Linkedin, Jigsaw or visit our Facebook fan page.

Or use the form below to schedule your free 30 minute business review to discuss B2B lead generation in your company.

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Laugh and Learn with Find New Customers – Mac vs. PC updated

February 17, 2012 1 Comment
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In his weekly B2B marketing show, Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers shares an important marketing lesson using wit and humor. Jeff Ogden is the President of the B2B demand generation and global marketing company Find New Customers. He’s also the host of Mad Marketing TV on YouTube.

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How to Get Optimal Results from Twitter

February 16, 2012 1 Comment
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Twitter has become one of the best ways to get company messages out and share valuable content. But how can you get the most out of Twitter? Jeff Ogden of the B2B demand generation and global marketing firm, Find New Customers, wants to share some new insights.

The data shows that the best time to Tweet is on afternoons and weekends. (Thanks to Dan Zarella, Social Media Scientist at Hubspot for crunching the numbers.)Timely logo

Dan’s key point is that your message gets though when the room quiets down. That, in the social media universe, is afternoons, nights and weekends. But what are you to do – stay up all day and night? NO!

For quite some time, Find New Customers has used Hootsuite, which has the ability to schedule publishing at a future date and time. But you manually select the day and time you wish to use. Trial and error.

DemandForce has a very useful (and free) tool called Timely. What Timely does is really cool. After you connect to all of your social media accounts, you enter a tweet and click on Schedule. You’re done. Timely looks at the tweet and using its own algorithm, it calculates the “best” time to send the Tweet. Better yet, the most you use it, the smarter it gets. As people share your tweets and you attract new followers, Timely adds that data to its calculations. Unlike the trial and error of Hootsuite, it is constantly working for you.

I think Timely.is belongs in the b2b demand generation bag of every marketer today.

What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social media.

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10 Reasons NOT to Talk to Find New Customers

February 15, 2012 Leave a Comment
Mission Accomplished

 

Top 10The B2B lead generation consultancy, Find New Customers is not for everyone. We tried to think up some reasons why it’s not for you. (And we wanted to have some fun with it too. Thank you, David Letterman!) Watch this video.

Here are 10 reasons why you don’t need to talk to us. What do you think?

10. Prospective customers are beating down your doors to buy

9. Your salespeople are saying “Enough already. We can’t handle any more business.”

8. Management just dramatically lowered your quota

7. Your products are so damned good, they sell themselves

6. Your computer crashed and you lost everything

5. Your CEO just gave you the year off | “Mission Accomplished” (Maybe he’s related to George W. Bush)

4. Your Chief Marketing Officer said “Don’t sweat it. I’ve got you covered.”

3. Your phones died

2. You made your yearly nut already and booked a cruise

1. You’re tied up, bound and gagged

What do you think? We love comments. We love people who share. We love subscribers too!

Jeff Ogden is President of the B2B lead generation and global marketing consultancy, Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies not experiencing these 10 reasons to rapidly grow revenue by transforming how they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or by emailing sales at findnewcustomers.com

We help companies with between 150 and 5,000 employees who sell complex products to businesses to implement world-class lead generation programs. As companies struggle to create quality sales opportunities, they turn to lead generation companies like Find New Customers.

Filed Under: Marketing

The Goal of Marketing – Trust

February 13, 2012 1 Comment
Trust-in-PR2

We can talk about integrated marketing, social media and content marketing till the cows come home. It doesn’t mean a hill of beans. What marketing is really all about, boiled down to its very essence is this:

Earn the Trust of Prospective Buyers

That’s right – it’s all about trust. I believe when we embrace the need to earn trust, we can re-think how we do marketing in the first place. Here are our four keys to earning trust.

Need for deep understanding

CMO.com just published a survey which shows that buyers want companies to understand them – do research rather than advertising. (Forget Advertising, Do Market Research by Karl Greenberg, 1/17/2012)  Seth Godin once said “Forget email. I want ME-mail.” The need to understand buyers and truly listen is greater than ever.

Accept the Fact You are No Longer in Control

Buyers today are firmly in control. Paul Gillin, author of Social Media for the Business Customer told me “This is the single biggest change recently. When a 22 year old recent college grad can bring Bank of America and Verizon to throw in the towel, the balance of power has truly shifted.

Be Everywhere

Your company needs to be everywhere online – not just a website, but an active, frequently updated blog (the heartbeat of the business), Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, delicious, Twitter, and even Google Plus. The idea is quite simple – when a prospective buyer looks to solve a problem, it could be any time day or night. You have to be there.

Be Different

The world is more noisy and chaotic than it has ever been. As a results, you need to strive to be heard. You could use humor, like Kinaxis’ award winning SuiteMates series.(www.suitemates.com) Or you could engage thought leaders in your industry. You could even do a weekly online TV show like Mad Marketing TV (www.madmarketing.tv) as Act-On Software did. The bottom line for us is to use the line we love “Let Your Freak Flag Fly”

The bottom line is that your company needs more than ever to EARN the trust of prospective buyers. Focus on earning trust – not campaigns – and watch your business grow.

What do you think? We love to read your comments and appreciate when you share our posts on social networks.

Image Source: iStockPhoto.com

Jeff Ogden is President of the B2B Lead Generation Company Find New Customers.

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Leaping from the Content Ocean – Mad Marketing TV with Doug Kessler (@dougkessler)

February 13, 2012 1 Comment
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Doug Kessler of Velocity Partners appears on Mad Marketing TV with Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers.

There’s a reason I’m such a fan of Doug. His insights on content marketing are brilliant. Watch this show!

At the very end of the show, if you watch closely, you’ll see “Connect with Find New Customers”  http://www.findnewcustomers.com but it goes by very quick.

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