Email Marketing List

Email is a powerful and effective marketing tool. It's incredibly affordable and extremely flexible. Used properly, it's unbeatable.

Used badly, it's a recipe for disaster. I see way too many small businesses that jump into it without understanding the most basic ground rules. And they pay the price.

So let's go back to school. Here are seven basic principles that should guide every email marketing campaign.

1. Get permission. This isn't optional. Spamming a customer will turn your business into a pariah. It can also get you sued if you violate the federal CAN-SPAM law. You can manage the permission process yourself, or you can work with reputable marketing partner.

2. Keep it clean. A "clean" list of email addresses will be targeted to your specific industry niche, product offering, or customer segment. The cleaner your list, the higher your response rates - and your ROI - will be.

3. Take your time. Many companies use "drip" email marketing campaigns to build successful, long-term customer relationships. These campaigns deliver value to the recipients (for example, a whitepaper or discount offer) while setting the stage for a series of additional communications.

4. Keep it simple. Some of your customers will respond to rich HTML or graphical email. Some dislike that approach - or they simply filter it out. Meet your customers halfway by allowing them to set their email preferences, or deliver plain-text email with links to rich-text versions.

5. Don't wear out your welcome. If a customer wants off your list, then of course you'll comply. But also consider removing a customer if they simply don't respond to your email over a specific number of messages or period of time. You're more likely to annoy them than you are to win them over with even more email.

6. Remember: Content is king! As I said in a previous post, quality content is the single most effective marketing tool most companies will ever use. Use email to deliver useful, interesting content - not a series of one-off, hard-sell sales pitches.

7. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Email is a wonderful place to try out new types of content, offerings, messages, and other options. This approach can be especially helpful if you're using a marketing automation tool that can capture and manage feedback from your email marketing experiments.

By John Leavy

Nurturing your prospects will double or triple your conversion rate. Just consider: The average click-through rate for pay-per- click ads is 1 to 3 percent. The average click-through from an e-mail campaign is between 1 and 5 percent depending upon the industry. Most of the people arriving at a website are not ready to buy. These are people that are showing an interest in your product or service but not purchasing or signing up. You can expect to harvest between 3 and 5 percent of those that click-through. If 10,000 people click on your Google ad and 2 percent or 20 people click-through to your offer, only 2 percent, or four people will actually purchase your service or product. Four out of 10,000 is only a .0004 percent conversion rate. To get the conversion rate up, you should entice more of the audience of 10,000 that click through to purchase your product or service. Remember, there is not an unlimited supply of prospects interested in purchasing any product or service.

Lead Nurturing

So how do you entice and persuade more people to click-through and make a purchase? According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50 percent more sales-ready leads at 33 percent lower cost- per-lead. Lead nurturing is a process by which unqualified leads are tracked and developed into sales-ready opportunities.

The marketing tactics used to turn these unqualified leads into sales-ready opportunities could be webinars, podcasts, whitepapers and other education-based materials, blogging, free trials, newsletters, or e-mail campaigns.

Thought leadership means you have to have something of value to say. Focus implies that each piece of collateral, whether an e-mail, blog post, or news article, needs to be centered around one specific pain point and include the remedy, benefit, and a strong call to action.

The subject line or story header needs to grab the reader’s attention in five to eight seconds. Don’t clutter the e-mail with extraneous links and other offers. Don’t get off subject when writing the blog post or article. Stay on message.

Natural progression means don’t rush the sale. Design an e-mail nurturing campaign or series of blog posts to take the prospect through a logical educational process. The nurturing campaign should be designed to cause prospects to move down the sales funnel at their own pace. The campaign should also be designed to cause the prospect to make a stronger commitment. For instance, at first the prospect gives her e-mail address. Later on during the nurturing campaign the prospect is asked for her company name, phone number, and a few pieces of information that will help qualify her as a potential buyer.

Measurement is the key to any successful inbound marketing campaign. Measurements give you the opportunity to fine-tune the calls to action, the offers, and the content, which in turn increases the click-through and conversion rates.

Keep in mind the difference between spam and nurturing. Spamming is when someone just compiles a list of names and e-mail addresses (who knows from where) and thinks there’s some benefit to jamming his message down the recipient’s throat. Nurturing a list of names means that those people have, in some way, touched the company in the past. Perhaps they took a free trial, signed up to receive a newsletter, or downloaded content (a case study or whitepaper) off the company’s website.

Nurturing campaigns need to be timely and consistent. Run the campaign over weeks, not months.

Running an E-Mail Nurturing Campaign

As an example, say you run a 17-day nurturing campaign while people are using a free trial of your software product. You’ll send out eight e-mails focusing on pain points, remedies, and benefits and how they relate to your product. The 17 days could look like this:

• E-mail 1. Sent out upon subscribing to the free trial. Confirms they have signed up.
  
• E-mail 2. Sent out on Day 1. Welcomes them to the free trial process.
  
• E-mail 3. Sent out on Day 3. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 4. Sent out on Day 7. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 5. Sent out on Day 11. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 6. Sent out on Day 13. Focus on a pain point/the remedy/the benefit.
  
• E-mail 7. Sent out on Day 15. Lets people know their free trial is expiring.
  
• E-mail 8. Sent out on Day 17. Tells people about a special offer if they decide to purchase the product.
  

In this instance, you write your blog posts ahead of time and schedule the posts to be published as your nurturing campaign unfolds. The posts concentrate on pain points, remedies, and benefits. This nurturing campaign runs for 20 days. People that have subscribed to your RSS Feed will automatically be notified each time a new post is published. A campaign might be:

• Day 1. You write a post that gives prospects the 10,000-foot view of your online service.
  
• Day 5. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 9. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 12. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 17. You write a post about a pain point, remedy, and benefit.
  
• Day 20. You sweeten the pot by offering the first month of service free to those that sign up within the next 24 hours.
  

It’s easy to see now that nurturing takes time, patience, and consistency. The returns will be greater than starting over with a new batch of prospects. Remember to treat these prospects as perhaps interested but not ready to make a purchasing decision.

John D. Leavy is the founder of InPlainSite Marketing, a leader in developing and delivering digital marketing strategies. John consults and presents to Fortune 100 and 500 companies. He is the author of Outcome-Based Marketing: New Rules for Marketing on the Web and a regular contributor to leading publications and nationally known speaker.

By Dennis Dayman

For anyone who ever thought international borders don’t exist on the Internet – think again. Current privacy legislation in the EU is causing quite a stir and carries the potential to influence marketing activities worldwide. The e-Privacy Directive, which mandates that companies acquire “explicit consent” for the use of tracking cookies, is slated to take effect in late May, and a “right to be forgotten” bill, in terms of online activities, is well on its way to following suit. So what does this mean for marketers as well as consumers?

The EU’s e-Privacy Directive should be nothing new to marketers. It simply emphasizes practices and principles marketers should have been following since the beginning – clarity and transparency. The value of tracking cookies is obvious for marketers. Cookies allow data to be collected on a consumer’s behavior and then marketers use this data to appeal to that person’s particular interests. There’s no reason, however,why this process should happen in the shadows. In the US, most companies already provide ways to opt-in for more targeted information at all stages in the user experience, as well as offering easy ways to opt-out at any time. Simple formatting changes including opt-in boxes, and clear disclosure statements will likely be enough to appease the directive’s requirements that users be fully aware of the information being collected through cookies and how that data impacts the content they receive.

For consumers, however, the directive may result in more noticeable changes. As the use of tracking cookies will fall under tighter regulations, some organizations will still try to skirt the rules and find alternative ways to acquire consumer information. The new law, for example, doesn’t address the use of data collected through web browsers, which can be completely accessible depending on a user’s browser settings. As a result, Internet users will have to be much more mindful of their overall security settings. Consumers may also see longer, more complex privacy and security check lists which bury disclosures and permission options in fine print. 

The “right to be forgotten” bill – though only in its infancy – poses a much greater impact on global marketers. Fundamentally, the act intends to ensure a user’s data stored on social networking sites, like Facebook, can be completely erased should the user wish to terminate his or her account. The hitch is that the bill will hold companies like Facebook – despite being based in the US – accountable for any privacy abuses for users in the EU. On a broader scale, this means that not only will organizations need consent to collect user data, but they will also have the capacity to completely clear that data at any time at the user’s request. Furthermore, the bill aims to shift the requirements for privacy compliance from the location of the organization, to the location of its customers.

Nevertheless, for consumer privacy, the bill would be a major step forward. The “right to be forgotten” would empower users in the EU to hold any company, website, online service, or other entity – regardless of where it’s headquartered – accountable for any unwanted use or withholding of personal data. Instead of solely government-enforced sanctions, users themselves will also have the capacity to sue offending parties.

Marketers need to be aware of these upcoming privacy and security laws as they may have a critical affect on global campaigns. Companies conducting business online must know the privacy laws and regulations for the nations in which they operate – there will be grave consequences for those who do not obey these laws.

Dennis Dayman has more than 17 years of experience combating spam, security issues, and improving email delivery through industry policy, ISP relations and technical solutions. As Chief Privacy Officer at Eloqua (www.eloqua.com), Dayman leverages his experience and industry connections to help the company's customers maximize their delivery rates and compliance. Previously, Dayman worked for StrongMail Systems as Director of Deliverability, Privacy, and Standards, served in the Internet Security and Legal compliance division for Verizon Online, as a senior consultant at Mail Abuse Prevention Systems (MAPS), and started his career as Director of Policy and Legal External Affairs for Southwestern Bell Global, now AT&T.

Photo by planetaryvisions

By JoAnn Mills Laing and Donald Mazzella

Emails are the best and worse of Internet marketing. At their best, they are an affordable way of reaching highly targeted audiences at low expense; and at their worst, they create negative feelings and feedback when they become an annoyance.

The number of emails sent and received is growing exponentially. In fact, one may argue that getting a message through in this age of spamming is becoming more difficult each day.

We have seen this medium grow from novelty to a vital force in today’s economy. At the same time, we have also seen successful efforts and those that have failed miserably. There are certain conclusions we can draw from all of these experiences. They include that: 

• New media need different ideas but some of the old rules still apply;
  
• The personal touch is still needed;
  
• Multiple online messages are needed to seal the deal;
  
• Brick sites still help in selling online;
  
• Brevity beats verbosity;
  
• Patience still has its rewards; and
  
• Generational differences abound.
  

 On the Internet, there are few rules and fewer barriers to entry. At the same time, small business leaders are still learning to adapt to this media as both a sales and purchasing channel. However, as an effective marketing tool to inform and motivate, email works. There are few secrets to emailing that can’t be learned quickly on your own. In the small business marketplace, they consist of: 

• Having the right list.
  
• Crafting an effective subject line.
  
• Providing actionable information.
  
• Creating an effective call-to-action.
  
• Posting a landing page that invites readership.
  
• Following up on all leads immediately.
  
• Posting fresh material on a regular basis.
  
• Sending additional emails on a regular schedule.
  

The subject line must be compelling, succinct and relevant. It needs to be viewed as the equivalent of a newspaper headline. If the headline doesn’t grab the reader, the rest won’t be even looked at. Over the years, we have tested many subject lines and approaches. Among the things we have learned are: 

• While “free” is a great direct mail postal word it seems to raise warnings on spam filters that block many messages with it in the subject line.
  
• Highlighting a negative, such as ‘10 Most Common IRS Filing Errors’, to small business owners seems to increase their open rate.
  
• Addressing a need with a solution works well.
  
• Fewer words lead to a higher open rate.
  
• Emotional words garner attention.
  
• Who the email is from is almost as important as the subject line words.
  
• Offering something of value in the subject line works well.
  

While it varied somewhat, the major subject line was: “Special Report: Reduce your healthcare costs.”

This subject line had a 28% open rate and 8% click-through to their landing page.

Open rates are often discussed in the context of emailing. The same group faced with differing subject lines will have varying open rates. We think that anything over 20% is good for the small business marketplace. Other authorities have differing numbers, but we view this as the threshold for good emailing. The subject line should not set off spam filters.  

The following excerpt was taken for the book, “The Janus Principle - Focusing the Company on Selling to Small Business.” For more information, visit http://www.thejanusprinciple.com./. JoAnn Mills Laing is the chairman of Information Strategies, Inc. and Donald Mazzella is Chief Operating Officer of Information Strategies, Inc.

By Mac McConnell

A lot has been written about marketing automation applications being just a technology tool. Much of this discussion wraps around the need for good process and alignment between sales and marketing in order to make the most of the investment. However, until the system is turned on these conversations are theoretical and it is difficult for decisions to be made.  If used properly, marketing automation becomes the backbone on which good process and alignment are built.

Having advised on and project managed many marketing automation implementations, BlueBird Strategies has identified three critical areas where companies become stuck - slowing the time to value of their new application.

1. Sources of fresh inquiries
   
2. Good content to offer leads
   
3. A well thought out lead scoring model
   

Feeding the beast: Continually add new names to your lead engine

Without a marketing automation system, tracking the success of a specific lead source (ie – tradeshow, content syndication, list rental) is more about gut instinct than hard evidence. This one piece, how to make smarter marketing investments, is driving a lot of new investments in this technology – especially for companies that can sync to a cloud based CRM system and gain 360 degree reporting.

You have bought marketing automation, now what? Throw out your comfortable marketing tactics and go back to the drawing board. Revisit tactics that may have been discounted because they were perceived to have a low return on investment. A perfect example is tradeshows. A BlueBird client that sells consulting services had given up on tradeshows, especially the mega-tradeshows where sponsorship opportunities can begin at $20k. With an average sale price of $200k per consulting engagement it would not take long to recoup any investment, but since they did not have good visibility into each tactic they chose to go the low cost route. With a marketing automation platform in place, they took a three prong approach to demand generation, making equal investments in list rental, content syndication, and one tradeshow. After six months of lead nurturing, qualification, and sales activity, the company had 2.3x more pipeline coming from the tradeshow leads than the other sources.

Now that you have your new application, cast a wide net and revitalize tactics that have fallen out of favor. It may take six months, maybe even a year depending on buying cycle length, to understand the results but at the end you will have your new demand generation plan pre-written for you. 

A well balanced diet: Useful content offers a 5x return

The biggest choke point in modern marketing is creating, relevant, content. Take your organization through a content audit and identify whether each piece serves you or your buyer. The easy money is on the majority of content being about your organization and its products and/or services. Content such as website copy, data sheets, and eBooks are often about getting the corporate message out. Forgotten is why would a buyer want to consume the message. The answer is simple, because it makes them look good to their boss and hopefully increases pay. “Look at me” corporate content does not help the buyer meet his or her goals.

You have bought marketing automation, now what? Start working on fresh content that actually helps your buyer meet their goals, not yours. Marketing automation opens up a whole new spectrum of content. No longer does every piece need to be 20 pages or an hour long. In fact, lead nurture programs are well served by shorter, more easily consumed pieces. Items such as check lists, executive briefs, industry overviews, even glossaries, are heavily consumed by potential buyers as they work their way through the buying cycle.

Leave a tip: Lead scoring is the secret sauce

Not using the lead scoring feature of your new marketing automation system means you have over paid for an email marketing service. A properly designed lead scoring model allows you to identify important attributes of a lead, ranging from demographic criteria to key qualification criteria for a product or service, mixed with behavioral signals that can identify buying behavior. When done correctly, a lead score tells a story of where a lead is in the buying cycle. Building lead levels (or lead bands) allows programs and messages to be targeted at specific segments of the lead generation funnel. For example, if there is a buildup of too many level 3 leads, a Buddha shaped funnel will develop, constricting the flow of leads to the sales force. If you can identify where leads are getting stuck in the development process, then specific actions can be taken to rectify the problem.

You have bought marketing automation, now what? Begin the process of defining how a lead scoring model should work for your organization. Bring sales and marketing together to identify the target market and key buying signals. From here, look at how leads should progress for your organization and begin setting some values for different criteria and behavior. Don’t be fooled, this will take some time and needs to be an exercise in consensus. Defining how leads will be scored is an all-company event that will bring with it the politics and pitfalls that slow many new initiatives. This is why it is critical to start early.

While the ink is still drying on your new contract, it is important to shift gears and consider what you are going to do to make the investment in marketing automation successful. Get a jump start on the process by considering these three items. Experience has identified them as critical choke points that cause trouble for new users of marketing automation, but starting early will provide the time to put in place a new demand generation plan with fresh content and a scoring model that will identify the best leads. 

The following post was published originally on Marketing Automation Software Guide. You can read it on their blog: You've Got Marketing Automation. Now What?

McConnell is the Managing Partner and Founder of BlueBird Strategies, an advanced lead generation firm.  He is also a member of The Software Advisory Board, which consists of property management and technology leaders, who contribute invaluable information and insight to the Property Management Software Guide.

Photo by Tim Hipps

 By Robert A. Geller

Despite rumors to the contrary (mostly from over-eager social media zealots), the press release remains a staple and important tool in the marketing and communications arsenal.  

Press releases were originally conceived as vehicles to get information out through the news media.  However, today, through the miracles of Internet, Google and press release distribution services, more press releases get more exposure online and allow companies to communicate directly with a wide range of audiences: their local communities, customers, investors, partners and job seekers.

Ideally, announcements are written in a news style and update the world on a company (and its products, services and operations), telling where it has been and where it is going.  Press releases and the overall PR effort should support the brand and the organization's broader objectives. 

However, many do not understand the proper role of the release, and hence fail to use this tool to its greatest potential.  E.g., they under-communicate announcements, or err on the side of issuing too many empty releases.

The following is a list of common errors and misperceptions that contribute to ineffective use of press releases.

Failing to Have a PR Strategy and Plan

Press releases should fit into the broader PR strategy and be a part of the mix of tools and tactics.  Ideally, there will be a variety, and they will - both individually and collectively - tell a story, hopefully one that shows forward movement for the business in the marketplace.  

Issuing Too Few or Too Many

The mistakes to avoid are going quiet for too long, or erring on the side of "press release-itis" and issuing too many.  What is the right frequency of press releases?  The correct answer depends on the company and marketplace it serves - how noisy is the playing field, and how fast-paced is it?  Is the company in its early stages or has it reached maturity?  E.g., at Fusion PR, we often advise our clients (most of which are B2B tech companies) that at least one per month is a good number, as a very rough metric.

Underestimating the Importance of the Press Release

An extension of the above is that some believe that press releases are a waste of time, and should only be used when there is really big news.  They over think their press releases and procrastinate.  My post Revenge of the Press Release countered the mostly social media-driven backlash against this form of communications, and cited facts that prove that press releases remain important for PR.  Amidst the din of social media and the Web, press releases are one way to help your information rise to the top - they package it into a pseudo-news format that gets favored by the search engines and into many news portals, assuming some newswire distribution service is used (see below).

Let's Not Announce it because It is not Really New

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it really make a sound?  And if your product, service, or company has been out there for a bit, but was never formally announced, did it make noise with the media?  

I am not big on existential questions, but am pleased to report that there are do overs allowed in the world of PR.  If you never formally announced your company or product, it is usually not too late to do so - it just helps to wrap some fresh information (such as a product upgrade or new company direction) into the release to justify calling it news.  

Striking the Wrong Tone (Flunking the "Is it News?" Sniff Test)

Perhaps the single biggest mistake is to strike the wrong tone and use press release as an extension of sales or advertising.  Toning down the hype language can ensure that your press release is picked up in more places.  The more it looks, sounds and smells like a real news article, the greater the chance that it will get picked up and published.

Assuming it is Just About News Coverage

On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with including a reasonable number of self-promotional press releases into the mix.  Some might counter that announcements about awards and marketplace momentum don't matter to anyone beyond the company, and its friends and families.  While the media will not likely write articles about the "news," the main point here is that press releases are about more than media coverage; they help support efforts to build mind share.  They remind the market, including influencers like media and industry analysts, of the great work your company is doing.  Those tracking the industry may well see the announcement and file it away subconsciously, even if it is not written up in an article.

To Wire or not to Wire

I almost always recommend putting press releases on the wire, i.e. using a newswire distribution service when budget allows.  There are a wide range of services - some are free, most of the better ones charge fees.  As I said in my post 41 Cheap or Free Press Release Distribution Sites, it is a simple fact that you get what you pay for in this area.  Paying for one of the top services, like PR Newswire, Businesswire, or Marketwire, will ensure that your press release gets the broadest possible distribution.  Google and other search engines favor newswire content, and including links back to your website can help boost search engine ranking.

Sending and Praying

Some assume that simply using a wire service and / or manually blasting the news out via email is all that is required to get attention and coverage of the news.  In the PR field, we call this the “Send and pray” syndrome.  Unfortunately, unless you are a large, publicly-traded company, or are otherwise well known, work needs to be done to draw attention to the news, generally via phone and email follow-up.  There is enough to say about getting coverage for news to justify another article; suffice it to say, you should use a PR firm or internal staff to follow-up with reporters and explain why the news is important and relevant to their readers.

In summary, the press release is an important part of the PR arsenal.  When used correctly, it can support your broader PR, marketing and businesses objectives.  Ensure the right mix and frequency of press releases, give them the care and attention that they deserve, strike the proper tone, use a wire service, and you will be well on your way to achieving the best possible results.

Geller is a Senior Vice President at Fusion PR and author of the blog Flack’s Revenge (www.flacksrevenge.com). He can be reached at bob.geller@fusionpr.com 

Contributed by Bill Newton

What follows is an example of how such a plan was executed for a Fortune 1000 IT services provider.

 THE CLIENT

The company has $1.8 billion in revenue and 16 thousand associates. It is based  in Texas, and has operations in India and several countries in Europe. The company made Forbes magazine’s “Platinum 400 Best Big Companies” list, and its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

THE CHALLENGE

The company provides IT services to several industries, such as healthcare, government, and the general commercial market, including homebuilding. The company had only two clients and very little brand recognition in the construction industry but wanted to pursue a promotional strategy to increase revenue in that market. However, C-level executives are particularly difficult to reach and impress in the homebuilding field, as they are constantly bombarded by marketing and sales messages from suppliers and subcontractors.

THE SOLUTION

Boxtopia collaborated with the company to develop a unique concept for a dimensional mail program focused on the homebuilding industry. A series of four historical watercolor paintings were commissioned by the company. Over a three month period, limited edition, framed prints of those watercolors were mailed in high-quality branded packaging to a targeted list of 47 C-level executives at the largest 18 homebuilders in the United States. Each print conveyed a theme—building the foundation, managing the suppliers, using the right tools, and satisfying the customer—that addressed specific pain points experienced by executives in the homebuilding industry in the late 19th century and still persist today. A brief letter accompanying each print explained how the company helps its clients alleviate that pain with effective IT tools and strategies.

 THE RESULTS

This innovative, efficient campaign made it past the executives’ gatekeepers, broke through the clutter, and produced measurable results for the company in a number of areas:

• Created strong brand awareness for the company among top-level homebuilding executives since a series of framed prints ended up hanging on the walls in the recipients’ offices and reception areas

• Opened several doors with targeted executives whom the company was previously unable to reach

• Inspired positive reactions from most of the executives who received the prints (including one executive who sent a personal thank you message to the company)

• Motivated a prominent national homebuilder to submit an RFP to the company, featuring a request for a significant IT consulting proposal

• Enabled the company to initiate and close a $7.5 million, multi-year IT contract with a large homebuilding supply firm

Bill Newton is the principal at B|NEWTON ASSOCIATES, an Austin, Texas-based marketing services provider that focuses on lead generation and sales promotion. He can be reached at bnewton@bnewtonassociates.com.

Strategies for finding new customers

Unfortunately, the half-day I spent getting those “free” leads, building a campaign around them and promoting exactly zero qualified customers to sales will be a half day I will never recover.

Purchasing leads

There are many different strategies for purchasing leads – and you can pretty much count on getting what you pay for.  List Brokers are a starting source for acquiring leads.  A list broker may in fact also be a list owner – selling a fixed set of data over and over again.  Or a list broker may act as a middleman between list owners and your needs.  This market place is wide open and filled with all levels of credibility.  Google “email list brokers” and you will find over 7000 different websites that will sell you email contacts.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is a great resource for learning the ins and outs of dealing with list brokers.  You can find out more here.

Other services offer a more refined and targeted strategy for researching and purchasing leads online.

Jigsaw, recently acquired by Salesforce.com, makes it easy to search a company and find contact info for specific job titles.  Searching is free, but getting contact info will cost you.  However, if you share leads into their system, you can earn credits to use on lead retrieval.

Even more advanced capabilities are available with services like Hoover’s Build-a-list.  Here you can specify many different parameters and filter across more than 150 million contacts at 68 million companies.

Did you know there are 3 people with the title of Marketing Manager working at construction companies in Des Moines, IA.  Nancy C. at The Weitz Company, I might have something interesting for you :-)

Sponsoring events

When you pass by a booth on the show floor that has someone sitting in the back – maybe surfing on her phone – you tend to read the placard and move on.  Opportunity lost!  The best booths have a schedule of responsibilities and a goal on lead collection.  They come prepared with short qualification surveys and offer some sort of raffle or premium to attendees in return for their contact info.

I’ve worked trade shows where our booth collected 300 leads and the booth next to us only collected 30.  The value is definitely in the hustle.

Social Graph

At my company, we have a marketing employee who is responsible for our social media.  He spends part of his day tweeting about interesting happenings in our industry and in responding to other tweets about our industry or company.  He has personally been responsible for steering numerous prospects to our products, just by starting an online dialog with them.

He also manages and curates our Facebook page and our Linked-In group.  Both of these are also good producers of leads.

We regularly drive members of our community toward education sessions – Webinars – and can successfully convert them into the pipeline from there.  Leveraging social graph tools takes intelligence, persistence and the right person to own it.  But it is becoming one of the most cost effective strategies we have in our arsenal for finding new customers.