It’s that time of year again. In about 7 weeks we will be hosting our Online ROI Summit for about 300 marketers in Burlingame, California who want new insights on what’s working and what isn’t online - You can apply at www.TechTargetSummit.com.

However, before I plan the agenda for these conferences I make sure to check in with the marketers themselves about what they want us to cover — what is plaguing them the most when it comes to their online campaigns. And, no surprise, what keeps coming up is their need to know the latest best practices around “tightly” managing lead gen efforts and follow-up.

We all know “scrutiny” and “prove ROI” are the expectations du jour for the technology marketer and as economic times have tightened up focus on these aspects of their job have as well…

In rolling up trial and error stories from our actual technology customers what stands out is something that could appear as a huge contradiction but in reality makes sense, and that is the reality that the smaller the company, most likely, the tighter or “closed” is the process they have to stay on top of the leads they generate. The bigger, and often times more bureaucratic the company, the more complex it becomes. And so what we are left with is to figure out how do it the best regardless of company size. No easy feat but one we and our marketer participants will take on.

Check out the link to our Summit www.TechTargetSummit.com and if you want to hear what we all have to say please join us…  October 27th is only a blink away…

A recent MarketingProfs survey, Marketing ROI & Performance Evaluation Study determined that 60% of marketers have lead quality objectives and 40% of marketers objectives are defined around lead quantity. Why do we have to think of quality and quantity as mutually exclusive? 

When discussing potential media buys, some clients say “I need the lowest cost per lead and largest number of leads you can deliver” or “I need highly qualified leads, who are further along in the purchase cycle and want to hear from our sales team”. In my opinion, one reason for these separate goals is to either satisfy senior management (quantity, low cost) or sales (quality). My advice is to work with your publishers and create campaigns that have both goals in mind.

Here are some tips to drive quantity AND quality from your lead gen campaigns:

• When determining metrics of success for your campaign, select both a primary and secondary goal. As an example, we recently had a client request a primarily lead guarantee based on a targeted named account list (quality). In addition they requested a secondary goal of a high volume of leads to fill their pipeline. They gave us assets positioned for both goals, we created two different promotional plans based on the different target audiences and delivered a low CPL along with a bucket of highly qualified leads.

• Your choice to use qualification questions will impact the quantity of leads and subsequently your CPL. Our recent Google/TechTarget research reveals that 61% of users are willing to provide contact information and qualification data once they are ready for purchase. Therefore, when you launch a campaign, it may be advantageous to utilize pre-populated demographic questions and remove qualification questions to increase the quantity of the respondents. As a result we see conversion rates grow 25% and CPLS decrease 25%.

• Take advantage of automated re-messaging capabilities. To maintain growth in quality of leads, always create (or take advantage of) some sort of nurturing program. When you are launching a campaign, it’s the start of a relationship. As our research states, users will not want to hear from you until they are ready. Therefore, it’s important to build their trust through re-messaging and personalization. Furthermore, while you re-message, append additional qualification questions such as time to purchase or being contacted by the vendor. The stronger the relationship, the more apt the user will be to provide qualification data.

• Have content available that drives both quantity and quality of leads. Be sure to syndication and promote content types that require lower level engagement (white papers, webcasts, videos) to satisfy your need to drive high volume of leads while also syndicating trials, demos that attract those further along in the purchase cycle. This also allows for seamless integration of a re-messaging strategy. Always pay close attention to the distribution of your media mix as it should always be determined by the maturity of your particular market.

• Segment your lead delivery. When using a publisher, request your leads be delivered or uploaded based on whether they satisfy your quality or quantity requirements. Request segmented spreadsheets on a daily or weekly basis. Also be sure to request reporting that highlights multi-touch leads. Delivering leads effectively and efficiently is half the battle when trying to prove ROI.

I’m curious.  Anecdotally, is your success judged by quantity or quality of leads?

In light of the economy, more and more marketers are concerned with late-stage leads. These are the leads that are almost ready-to-buy and are far more likely to provide an immediate ROI. While marketers know that leads in other stages may become useful down the line, they often don’t know what to do with those leads in the meantime and count them as “bad leads.” What many of them don’t realize is that it is critical to nurture those leads now, so they add to the ROI of a program down the road.

While many marketers won’t discount these leads entirely, they will stop messaging them on the theory that they are too early on in the sales cycle and should be contacted again later on. This is a huge mistake. By the time these leads are contacted again they may have already decided on another vendor.

Alternatively, other marketers may continue to pressure a lead who is not yet ready to buy. This can result in frustration by a lead who is still in the awareness or consideration phase of the buying cycle and may discount this vendor when it comes to making a short-list.

The key is to consistently message these leads with relevant content in order to move them along the buying cycle. The exact method of re-messaging will vary from company to company and from lead to lead, so it’s extremely important for marketers to take their company’s buying cycle into account, along with different ways of re-messaging to different types of leads. This means getting rid of the one-size-fits-all emails being sent each month to all potential leads.

Nurturing a lead may happen in many different ways - it may involve phone calls, emails, printed mail, or invitations to events. The key is to figure out the process that makes sense for your product/solution and to make sure that leads are being targeted not just consistently, but correctly. Ideally, the communications should feel like resources and help leads as they move through the process.

At times this process may be frustrating, and there will always be leads that are never converted, but it’s important as a marketer to never lose a sale because you gave up halfway through the battle.

As marketers, we all realize the importance of continuing to fill the sales pipeline - but it becomes especially important during times of economic downturn. It also makes it that much more difficult. Every sale matters and every marketing dollar must be spent wisely in order to yield the highest return.

If budgets are tightening across the board, they are definitely tightening for marketers in smaller businesses as well. I came across a recent blog post from Marketing Studio which takes a look at how smaller businesses have been impacted, and it found that 60% of the respondents stated webinars, case studies/article and blogs are the most difficult lead generation tactics to execute.

I think it is safe to say that executing such lead generation tactics during this recession is a tough job for small/mid-sized/enterprise businesses alike. However, I would think it hasty to move lead generation resources away from “difficult to execute” tools such as webinars/webcasts and case studies.

TechTarget recently conducted its 2009 Media Consumption Report which observes how IT pros are consuming media during the recession. The following slide highlights the report’s findings showing that webinars/webcast & case studies are of use to IT pros during both the consideration to decision phases of their buying process.

Key findings from this report also concluded that given the recession, IT pros need content which will:

• • CUT TO THE CHASE - Be efficient - tell them what they need to know, in order to help make their research process faster.
• • SHOW OFF SUCCESS - Highlight content showing the proven product success or case study/vendor comparisons.
• • BE ON THE SHELF - Maintaining presence is key given search is one constant medium which IT pros rely on throughout ALL phases of their buying cycle.

While marketers may find it more difficult to execute on lead generation tools such as webinars/webcasts and case studies - I would have to agree that they can be very effective tools during a recession. In fact, I have noticed an increase in the use of case studies in technology-focused lead generation campaigns. Often times in the form of syndication or as offers incorporated into display advertising.

What are your thoughts? How are you currently highlighting your organization’s success stories?

An old boss once told me that success happens when preparation and opportunity meet. This also holds true for targeting an audience with your marketing campaigns. I’ve been thinking about the evolution of targeting and how it has and, in some cases, has not progressed. As marketers, we often default to the basics of a targeted audience’s make up: title, industry, role, technical characteristics and so on. Why not first think of project, responsibility on the buying team, interest level, purchasing stage…  Because targeting is not just about capturing the right audience at the right time, it is also about the investment you make and passing on the most likely opportunities for sales to engage and close. Helping sales save time, effort and hard costs and focusing efforts on the opportunities that really matter could move those opportunities along faster as well as save budget and resources.

So, how do we do this? Employ a targeting strategy that takes into account activity, content and context at least as much as demographics. Finding an active, interested, engaged audience can help your marketing campaign by providing a better starting point for your qualification and selling efforts. How you use the intelligence from the activity, content and context can also better shape the follow-up approach to lead qualification. Think in context of the enterprise technology buying team. All the leads that you capture may not have ultimate authority or the need may be latent, but knowing their role can help with qualification by determining the type of questioning and relationship that sales would want to build. This type of strategy can help you identify the urgent, actionable leads that inside sales and field sales can jump on quickly and can put the proper emphasis on the leads that matter.

Marketers spend a lot of time on content creation, really thinking through what they want to offer the audience to educate them on products or services. More time goes into a catchy or succinct title and promotional copy that will act as the hook to reel the leads in. Everything in place, great content, strong title, informative copy and then…there is the “Registration” page. It can be a marketer’s best friend or worst enemy.

Demographic questions are typical and most respondents are used to providing answers to them in return for content. In addition, many sites have pre-populated registration pages for return users. But what is your strategy with additional qualification questions? On the one hand, qualification questions can give marketers a large amount of information about their prospects. It can help them bucket the leads for their sales teams - offering the hottest ones first and highlighting leads that need more nurturing. However, it’s important that you have a sound strategy behind each question asked.

In our experience, people collect qualification data in several ways. Some options include:

• • Make questions mandatory
• • Make questions voluntary
• • Ask questions in steps, as prospects download more information, ask more questions
• • Don’t ask any questions until your sales team or telesales contacts them

If making questions mandatory, make sure that the question asked is deemed important for qualifying leads for sales. Having mandatory questions increases the rate of abandonment, so the quantity of leads will decrease, but valid responses can lead to a quicker sales cycle. Keep in mind that our recent Google/TechTarget study revealed that only 30 - 40% of respondents provide valid information. They are more likely to share valid qualification data the further along they are in the buying process. Bottom line, be sure you are asking the questions for the right reasons and have a sales strategy in place that will make the most use out of this information. Do not use registration questions as a survey or if the lead is going to be called on regardless of the answers.

Making qualification questions voluntary is an effective way of collecting reliable information with decent conversion rates. In this Pardot blog there is a case study of a company who tested this option and had some surprising results.

Asking questions in steps, as Adam Blitzer of Pardot outlines in his blog, can help build a greater trust between the marketer and the prospect. Also called “progressive profiling” this strategy allows an interaction or relationship to build between the vendor and the lead. Prospects feel they are offering their information, but also getting something in return be it a white paper, webcast, case study, etc.

Another option is to not ask any qualification questions. This option would increase conversion rates and would use a lead nurturing strategy to truly qualify the leads further.

Therein lies the question - Do you put a strategy in place in which marketing and sales work together to define what is a “HOT” lead or if a lead is a lead is a lead, do you collect as many leads as you can and call them all?

Today’s economic climate is definitely impacting how IT marketers are measuring their online marketing programs.  There is so much pressure to deliver qualified leads in a timely fashion that will ultimately convert into opportunities.  I know that in my conversations with my information security clients, this is definitely top of mind for them.  However, it seems to me that because of this pressure by senior management, marketers are losing sight of the basic fundamentals of a successful online program.

As I’m sure you’ve all heard before the old saying that ‘content is king’ and the foundation to a successful program.  Now, that is truer than ever.  I was recently talking to one of my security SIM vendors  about the challenges they were facing - trying to establish themselves in their technology market, make a name for themselves and differentiate themselves from their competition - in addition to generating qualified leads that they could pass along to their sales team all while proving ROI in a timely manner.

Not an easy task… However, what I’m discovering is my clients want to reach these end stage decision makers - who doesn’t - but are utilizing content assets that are in the early phases of the buying cycle and attracting users that are in the research mode.  This really gets back to mapping content to the stages of the buying cycle.  If you utilize content that is educating people about a technology, you are bound to attract users that are trying to educate themselves and aren’t close to creating a short list much less make a purchase.  It’s very important to stay in front of people that are creating their short list of vendors with the appropriate content but if you want to reach the end stage buyers, you must give them the content that will appeal to them.

Our Google research provided tremendous insight into how users are searching when they are in the end stage of the buying cycle utilizing comparative phrases to learn more about the vendors’ solutions that are on their short list.  Creating content that compares your solution to your competition is easy to do and simple ways to reach the prospects that are either researching your solution or your competitions’ solutions!  So, if your marketing objectives include researching these end stage prospects - and I’m sure that includes all IT marketers - be sure to create content that speaks to this audience.

Budgets are tight, the need for measuring ROI of your marketing investment has never been greater, and as a technology marketer, we can use all the help we can get. With the mantra of “Doing more with less,” we need to have an approach that can not only get us through these tough times but can put us in a better position than our competition when we get to the other side. Here are a series of tips for IT marketers to help market successfully in this tough economy:

10. Monitor the competition and the market. If your competition is cutting back, consider adjusting your marketing budget and attacking the market with your message. This will provide a great opportunity to capture - and retain - market share. A recent post on the MarketingProfs blog refers to a study of 600 b-to-b companies by McGraw-Hill Research.

In this study, they found that businesses that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession, averaged higher sales growth during the recession and in the three years following. By 1985, sales of aggressive recession advertisers (those that either maintained or increased spending) had risen 256% over those that cut-back on advertising. In 2001, another study found that aggressive recession advertisers increased market share 2 ½ times the average for all businesses in the post-recession economy.

Thinking post-recession maybe hard to imagine now but companies that do will reap the benefits. I found some good information from StrategicOxygen’s blog on this topic that you might find useful.

9. Focus on lead generation efforts with direct-response techniques. In email and online campaigns, use hard-hitting copy with simple benefit-oriented, convincing language, an informational offer relevant to the prospect’s topic interest, and a strong call to action. Focus on the problems that you solve for your customers and how you uniquely address them.

Lead generation is where the rubber meets the road and with this economic situation, you need to focus on the basics of the audience, your message, offer and the call to action. Getting focused so you have the right audience responding in the right way to the right offer taking the right steps will help your efficiency as well as effectiveness of your program and get you the results you want.

Providing leads to the right person at the right time is what opportunity management is all about. You can categorize leads according to territory, product, lead source, level of urgency, or new vs. existing customers. Leads can also be escalated if, for example, they have a short timeframe in which to make a decision, or a ready-approved budget, or if they have a particular urgency or a high value associated with them. With the right technology infrastructure, companies can automate the distribution of leads according to predetermined criteria. This removes the burden from the support staff, and ensures that leads really do reach the right person at the right time.

Best Practices for Opportunity Management include:

•  Marketing should continue to engage with Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) - The marketing process does not end with the hand off to sales.
•  Define the level of ownership, responsibility and accountability when Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) transition to SQLs.
•  Connect the marketing system used for tracking and reporting in Inquiry Management and Prospect Management with the sales forecast system to establish seamless closed loop tracking and reporting for deals closed and revenue realized.
•  Document the process from marketing to sales and sales activities post transition.
•  Consistent follow-up by marketing with sales on leads passed and status within the process.
•  Must resolve the timeframe issue of the handoff of MQLs to sales acceptance of SQLs; one solution could be to automatically populate the MQL to the sales forecast system after a defined period of time, for example 3-7 days.
•  MQLs rejected by sales go back into the nurturing process until they are identified as MQLs.

Track, Measure and Improve - Key to Long Term

Disciplined, constant analysis and reporting while a program is live is the key to demonstrating success, or perhaps identifying what needs to be improved while a program is live. With Sales and Marketing going through a planning process at the beginning of a program, everyone should understand what is being measured, the milestones, and the key success metrics. This information should be tracked, measured and benchmarked against other campaigns. When the ROI at each stage from each campaign is accurately reported, trends and patterns start to emerge to help develop future programs and improve the overall lead management process.

I am hearing from many technology marketers that — in a time in which marketing activities need to deliver tangible results within a tighter timeframe — it is imperative that marketers allocate a portion of their budget dollars toward campaigns which capture more late-stage, actionable leads.

To accomplish this, marketers often use pay-per-click programs that point towards product trials and online product demonstrations.  While these types of programs result in marketers competing for a relatively small pool of leads, they do generate significant results because they reach potential buyers in the late stages of the research and purchase process - the “ready-to-buy” prospect.  

Recent TechTarget market research indicates that “try-before-you-buy” programs are particularly effective in the Application Development software space, because the developer community is immersed in the types of tools and products that they are encountering or implementing on a daily basis.  In the developer community, we see that implementers have a high degree of influence on the IT purchase decision.  The “try-before-you-buy” method is very important in building their loyalty and trust, and provides the IT marketer with an opportunity to demonstrate both the quality of the product, and, in many cases, showcase the quality of the customer service supporting the product.

Also, because the developer community places a high value on peer feedback and product recommendations, marketers can leverage social media to reach this group by providing a platform for experts within their organization to engage prospects in discussions about market trends, not just to gain exposure for their product, but build a rapport with — and establish a degree of trust within — the community.

Finally, although there is a significant benefit to offering downloads and trial versions of software to generate leads from prospects in the final stages of the research and purchase process, it is important that this not be the sole focus of your marketing efforts to the detriment of campaign elements supporting your branding efforts or reaching potential clients at the early and mid-stages of the research and purchase process.  You still need to maintain program elements to generate leads that will generate sales over an extended period of time.

While there is no “silver bullet” formula for what percentage of your marketing budget should focus on long-term or short-term leads, it is important that your plans include a mix of elements - like topical whitepapers to reach IT professionals at the very start of the research process, Webcasts and Webinars to reach mid-stage prospects, and virtual tradeshows to facilitate direct contact with prospective buyers.