Demian Farnworth says, “In May 2013, a small company with fewer than 40 unusual employees made a historic lead generation move that resulted in stunning lead generation results. (I stress “unusual” in a good way.) The company with those odd employees, of course, was Copyblogger Media (now known as Rainmaker Digital). The story of what happened follows. The historic move: Up until that point, Copyblogger had been offering an email newsletter to attract and capture email subscribers. Pretty standard in the online business world. We wanted to up the ante. So we launched My.Copyblogger.com... [...]

Eric Siu says, “If you think that the brilliant mind behind LeadPages, one of the web’s easiest-to-use landing-page generators, comes from a hard-core sales and marketing background, you’d be wrong. Clay Collins, LeadPage’s co-founder and CEO, isn’t a sales guy at all. He’s a PhD dropout in developmental neuropsychology, a field from which he approached issues in psychology using a highly scientific perspective. But the science world’s loss is the software world’s gain, as Collins’ unique background allows him to translate his understanding of human behavior into tools... [...]

John-Henry Scherck says, “Digital marketing is a pretty introverted industry. This tends to make us a bit hesitant to embrace sales and outbound selling. There’s no beating around the bush: Sales can be difficult, scary, uncomfortable, and awkward — but if you want to grow your client base, it may require getting out of your comfort zone. Sales has a bad rap, especially with digital marketers. Even Moz’s founder frequently expresses how much he dislikes outbound. Let’s make one thing clear first: There’s a difference between spamming a scraped email list with offers for digital... [...]

Grant Davis says, “If there’s one thing software company Ebsta understands, it’s customer relationship management. The San Diego- and London-based company sells a $10 per month per user Chrome browser extension that syncs customers’ email accounts to the Salesforce database to streamline the onerous task of updating a CRM system. But finding new prospects for Ebsta is difficult and, as vice president of sales Bernhard Peters points out, expensive — especially for a company with roughly $1 million in annual revenue. “We’re still a tiny company,” Peters says. “We have... [...]

Marc Herschberger says, “When you first implemented inbound marketing for your business, you knew that you were building a system that utilized high quality content to help generate high quality leads from your website. Flashes of the film Field of Dreams probably kept running through your head as you optimized your website for conversions and started pumping out blogs and offers at a regular basis. If you build it, they will come. And boy did they! Inbound marketing has proven time and time again to be an extremely successful philosophy that can help generate leads for businesses through... [...]

Digital Marketing Depot team says, “According to a recent study, B2B companies are spending 50 percent of their marketing and sales budgets generating leads that are never pursued. It’s a classic sales dilemma: how often do you reach out to a lead before moving on to the next one? In this webcast, Barry Levine and Gary Gerber review the latest marketing and sales automation software and show you how to boost sales conversion, with or without automation, to maximize the return on every lead. Attendees will learn how to align their sales and marketing efforts to save time and money, how... [...]

Kyla Cobb says, “One of the most useful tools in the marketer’s workshop is content marketing. If utilized well, this strategy can turn even casual site visitors into potential prospects. However, how do you ensure that the right content makes its way in front of the right audience? That was one of the challenges Stephen Bruner, Marketing Manager, Vertical Markets, Precor, faced when he and his team sought to overhaul Precor’s nurture strategy and email tools. Precor is a manufacturer of fitness equipment and caters to a global audience. It’s also the second largest industry manufacturer... [...]

Leigh Hankin says, “Your offer can be the difference between making a ton of sales and making nothing. Literally. Your offer—or, more specifically, how compelling it is—will determine whether or not your target audience will gobble up what you are selling. Before all else, though, there needs to be a starving crowd in your marketplace that desperately wants what you’re offering. If there is no starving crowd that wants your offer, then you will make no money: No matter how good your product. No matter how many hours you slaved away creating it. No matter how talented the direct... [...]

Carly Stec says, “When I was tasked with creating my first SlideShare, I remember feeling especially eager to explore a new medium. I’d grown so accustom to writing blog posts that the change of pace was surely just what I needed. That’s when it hit me: If I needed a change of pace, our audience probably did, too. “They’re going to love this!” I thought. And they did. The best part? Years later, they still do. While there’s no question that SlideShare is a valuable platform for engaging audiences, many marketers still aren’t making the most... [...]

Tom Whatley says, “When it comes to lead generation, we often rely on the trusty eBook, especially in the B2B world. They’ve long been known to have highly perceived value and convert well. However, not much has changed over the years. A whitepaper is still a whitepaper. You fill in a form, you download it, you read it. How can we spice the trusty eBook up and make it more engaging? Interactive content is a marketing trend that many smart marketers are getting clued up on. Instead of exploring interactive content on a broad level, today I want to dig deep on how you can make your eBooks... [...]