Daniel Faggella says, “When we left off in Part 1, we were just getting into the brass tacks of generating consistent leads with your blog. Today, we’re going to go deep into the tactics, but I want to serve up a warning: If you haven’t read Part 1 of this series, you need to do that first. Tactics without the underlying strategy will not work nearly as well as having the complete picture. Let’s dive in. The Truth About Conversion When people come come to us at CLVboost (my employer), they almost always thinkthey need more traffic. It’s almost always not true. Traffic is like gas.... [...]

Rachel Sprung says, “What separates a qualified lead from an unqualified one? That’s the burning question we all have. We want to make sure we know the key factors that make someone qualified so we can focus on the creating and delivering the right content through the promotional channels that make these most sense. Once we establish that framework, we can then help our sales teams make the most of their time by providing them with the means to prioritize leads. And while that sequence of events is ideal, it’s often easier said than done. That’s where lead scoring comes... [...]

Andrew Carvenho says, “Leads are those magical things that can change a company’s fortunes. Good leads can transform them completely. Before we go further in our discussion about how to acquire more leads and better leads, let’s try and understand what a lead stands for in the first place. A lead is a consumer who has the potential to turn into a paying customer for a business’ products. Acquiring leads and building a solid pipeline of future leads is the most common stumbling block that stumps businesses. They spend all their time with just one or two methods that might have worked... [...]

Dan Steiner says, “To bring in deals, sales teams need a pool of potential clients to call or email. That pool must be regularly refreshed with new promising leads that fit a company’s ideal customer profile. Businesses spend a lot of money and effort acquiring contact information for targeted customers. However, the dirty secret is that businesses often actually have to spend even more resources researching, appending, and validating customer records once they have them in their database than actually acquiring them. Modern marketing and sales teams rely heavily on automation. Software... [...]

Billy Cripe says, “It’s no secret that social media is emerging as a significant tool in the development of online success and web presence. According to studies, approximately 58 percent of marketers using social media for three years or longer report that it has helped them boost sales. One of the most significant misconceptions regarding social media advertising is that it doesn’t drive quality visitors. In comparison to outbound marketing, social media has a lead-to-close rate approximately 100% higher. Even HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Report has discovered that social... [...]

Bill Cates says, “I want to talk about having fun with referrals. Yes, you read that right. You can actually have fun in the process of generating sales referrals. And when you make it fun, everything gets very easy and feels very natural. Let me give you a few examples. 1) Oh, I’ll Take About 100 People. Art is a financial professional in Baltimore. When he’s asking for referrals he says to his clients, “You know, I’m looking for about a hundred people,” and of course his clients laugh and say, “Art, I don’t even know a hundred people.” He replies, “Okay, okay,... [...]

Justin McGill says, “Being the founder of a company that specializes in cold email, we have seen everything that works and all that doesn’t. By “works,” I mean emails that generate responses and leads. We have several different formulas for cold emails, but one in particular we call the “QVC” formula. Q = Question V = Value prop C = Call to action (CTA)”. A Cold Email Formula That Gets Responses and Generates Leads Business.com  [...]

Kevin McGirl says, “There are many characteristics of a good sales person. According to research from Harvard Business Review, the key factors are a drive to succeed and empathy, and according to research that we compiled last year, being social, competitive and driven is what separates a good sales person from a great one. In truth, a sales pro will possess some or all of these characteristics, but no matter how good they are, it doesn’t make them psychic. With hundreds of customers to manage across thousands of product lines, maintaining a close relationship with each and every one of... [...]

Business.com Editorial Staff says, “Great news! Marketing has a shiny new lead for you. But not so fast—blink those dollar signs out of your eyes. It’s not time to seal the deal yet; you need to get to know each other first. Lead nurturing is the vital middleman between sales and marketing; it helps you build a relationship and gain the trust of your lead. By providing the information they need to make an educated purchase decision, you establish a relationship based on service and helping them achieve their goals as opposed to just selling them something. Oracle says it best: Lead nurturing... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Product brochures are the most common content type created by B2B marketers, but whitepapers deliver the highest-quality leads, according to a recent report from the CMO Council and the NetLine Corporation. The report was based on data from a survey of 213 senior B2B marketing leaders (primarily located in North America), with 46% working at brands earning more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Some 84% of respondents say their company creates product brochures; the next most-commonly created content type is slide presentations (79%), followed by whitepapers (78%), and... [...]