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Well, to some it is an appointment with anyone on a target list. To others, it is an appointment with a target contact in a target company that meets pre-defined criteria in a standard scoring model like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing). Some would say any inbound lead works. Another must have a qualifying conversation before considering something a "lead". The important thing is to not worry about what someone else calls a lead, define it for your organization. What is a qualified prospect? What are the demographic criteria? What are the key roles and responsibilities in a company that make a decision for your B2B solution? Does budget have to be allocated before you should engage? It's hard to sell something that is "nice to have" so what level of pain must be uncovered or quantified to call something a lead? It is critical to define these not only for your own organization, but also for any partner companies that are performing any marketing services, especially telemarketing services for you. If you can answer these questions for your company, you can define what you should work on in sales and what should be included in a lead nurturing campaign or discarded as not a fit. Apollo {Houston, TX - B2B Sales Leads, Marketing Campaign Development, e-marketing/eMarketing and Lead Generation Services} Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

So if the marketing assets in the previous post are the most valuable; how are they the valuable? Any B2B company serious about growth should be taking steps to increase their profit margin as they grow. One of the key ways to accomplish this is to reduce your cost of sale. If you can develop B2B marketing assets that will reduce your cost per lead over time and increase your close rate, you will earn more profit. Additionally, as with any asset, your net worth increases over time as you develop more assets. Studies show that 80% of sales people that fail in the fist year do so because they were not supported by effective marketing assets. Get more B2B sales leads over time and close a higher percentage - - not a bad deal. If you are interested in more, visit their website. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Database Booster Over 60% of sales leaders say that they do not believe that they know the correct decision makers and influencers in most of their target companies. We have found that if you have a prospect database of 2,000 contacts that is 2 years old; you have over 35% bad data. Did you think it would be that high? Here are some supporting statistics: * Up to 18% of all telephone numbers change every year.¹ * Up to 20% of all postal addresses change every year.¹ * Up to 21% of all CEO's change every year.¹ * 25-33% of email addresses in your in-house file will become outdated every year.² * In addition, up to 66% of people change companies or job functions every year!³ SOURCES: 1. D&B 2. Lyris Technologies: "Guru's Guide to Email Marketing Success" 3. Sales & Marketing Institute If you are interested in more, visit their website. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Aim at the right target with the right message! This is a simple but often forgotten axiom of lead generation and, for the most part, it's not hard - it just takes time. Who is your target? What companies most need your solution? Why do they need it? How do I get their attention? One of the best ways to answer all of the above questions and more is to ask your customers; ask your prospects; ask your employees. You may be surprised at how easily they break down what is at the core of your solution - the real value proposition - the unique value proposition. Even ask your lost sales. That's right, some of the best information you can gain is from those that chose NOT to buy your stuff. Hidden secret: not only will they be brutally honest and provide great information, they will respect you for inquiring and view your organization as a cut above the rest - - which may lead to boomerang business. You know, that sale that was lost but came right back to you after their experience was less than nirvana with your competitor. Ask these folks questions like: - What was the main pain/challenge or gain (reason) for buying our solution? - What stood out above and beyond the competition? - What was unique about our solution? - How do you see it impacting your business? - How did you justify the investment? - What could we have positioned more effectively in the sale or articulated more clearly? - Did you identify anything in our solution that applies specifically to your industry? Once you have asked them these questions, you will not only have great marketing messaging for your next marketing campaigns, but you should have some priceless quotes for your website. Now, you can do an effective job getting the right message for lead generation and lead nurturing programs and the intensity of the responses from your customers will tell you the best markets to replicate your solution over and over.

In Apollo's Flight Plan (The B2B Marketing and Lead Generation Playbook for Small-to-Medium Businesses), we have a comprehensive set of best practices checklists. One of the quickest checklists you can use for a litmus test on your latest B2B marketing campaign focuses on just three things: * List quality * Offer * Call to action It really goes without saying that your list must be accurate for your campaign to be successful. It also needs to be properly surveyed, qualified and targeted to ensure results. Your offer must be something compelling for your audience. Also, it should easily relate to your unique value proposition so that your sales cycle is properly positioned for progress and success. Your call to action should be crystal clear and you should only offer your prospect one call to action. While more than one offer can make it difficult to truly measure the effectiveness of the campaign relative to alternative offers, it also can confuse the prospect enough to keep them from taking any action at all. Apollo {Houston, TX - B2B Sales Leads, Marketing Campaign Development, e-marketing/eMarketing and Lead Generation Services} If you are interested in more, visit their website. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Have you been repeating the same sales and marketing strategies and activities each year hoping for a better result? Kinda like that movie Groundhog Day? Plug into Apollo's First 100 Days program and make this year different. Here's what business leaders said who responded in the last 30 days: "I called Apollo because we need to take it to the next level in 2011." "We're tired of what is not working. We need a system for lead generation." How did the first 100 days go last year? Looking for better this year? Plug into a proven, systematic approach ensuring that you get off to a quick and sustainable start. * Did you know that less than 33% of the SMB market has a written business development plan * Of that 33%, more than 50% admit that they do not track performance against the plan more than quarterly. Any surprise that the grand plans most companies start out with are rarely achieved? What should my first 100 days look like? Apollo's First 100 Days Program will help you achieve your best start ever. * Transition from working a dozen to a hundred opportunities. * We create a qualified community of ideal prospects and qualified buyers using direct marketing, eMarketing and Social Networking tactics. * Build/clean/augment your database with hundreds of qualified opportunities. * Gather essential qualification criteria for your top prospects. * Build at least 3 marketing assets that drive brand recognition and improve sales conversion. * Launch your nurturing communication strategy so that prospective buyers recognize your brand and value your services. * Get in front of decision makers and close business. …all within 100 days. If you want more out of 2011, let's have a conversation. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com

Target Booster Having trouble connecting with the decision makers at target companies? Get the meeting you want in front of your prospect's best decision makers. Many times sales people are able to get meetings with mid-level managers or overlay organizations with a company such as IT, but they are blocked from connecting with the decision makers, business users and executives that would approve their solution. Even if they are not actually blocked from having that executive meeting, have they really earned it? Do they know enough about an organization to be able to articulate that company's challenge and how their solution would apply? This program is designed to specifically target the hard to reach executive decision maker to grab their attention with relevant, intelligent communications based off of information gathered in the Intelligence Booster campaign. If you are interested in more, visit their website. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

The Trusted Advisor * Is able to effortlessly understand clients…their needs and requirements. * Always help clients see things from new perspectives. * Never forces the issue. * Doesn't panic or get over emotional. * Criticizes and corrects gently and almost lovingly. * Values relationships more than current issues. * Challenges client assumptions. * Acts like real people. * Are always honorable. * Remembers everything clients say even without notes. Derived from The Trusted Advisor, by David Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford; Free Press; 2001 Apollo specialized in working with professional services clients that thrive on their reputations as trusted advisors. Many of our clients utilize our Lead Generation for the Trusted Advisor campaigns to secure more of the right business from the right clients. Marketing yourself as a trusted advisor is different than what most people would consider traditional marketing or lead generation. It relies on educational themes and the willingness to trickle out some free consulting to demonstrate your value. Often this is not accomplished in the initial conversations with prospects but rather over time in an effective lead nurturing campaign that continuously drips on prospective clients the knowledge and value that you would bring to them if you were their trusted advisor. Apollo {Houston, TX - B2B Sales Leads, Marketing Campaign Development, e-marketing/eMarketing and Lead Generation Services} Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Providing credentials is the 1st step for building trust with your target market. Click http://tinyurl.com/yd2plpb for other requirements.

Secret #1 to Auto-Pilot Marketing: "Unique Value Proposition." Visit http://tinyurl.com/yloj2m8 to read more.

Relate to the Audience (specifically)! At first glance, this may seem a lot like "Be Crystal Clear" or "Aim at the Right Target with the Right Message" or even "Provide Proof Points" and it most certainly is in the fact that all of these Secrets work together to create killer B2B marketing messaging for your Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing campaigns. So, specifically what do we mean here? We mean, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. More specifically, if you are marketing to Law Firms, use relevant messaging for law firms. Use client quotes or case studies from law firm customers. State pains and challenges that they would relate to. Bad Example: "We specialize in working with companies large and small to streamline their document management processes, saving them up to 30% in costs." Better Example: "We work with small to medium sized law firms helping them save up to 30% in document management while virtually eliminating the headaches associated with file document control and eDiscovery." The second example has references to the audience and the specific environment the law forms live in each day. It takes time to get these messages tuned for each of the vertical markets you serve and for each of the audiences in each market. If your company is working hard to figure out how to improve SEO lead conversion, this is one of those areas to focus on. I'm reminded of the old fitness club TV advertisement where the model was finished working out and said into the camera, "Let's face it, if a great body came in a bottle, everyone would have one." It is the same with great, impactful marketing messaging. You have to work at it over time, testing and measuring; tweaking and adjusting until you get it right. Then, you set it on auto-pilot and count the leads.

Marketing Challenges - The TOP 5 Marketing Sherpa recently published their 6th annual B2B Marketing Benchmark Report. In the report, there were many very interesting findings. Among those, here are the Top 5 challenges for B2B marketers responding to the research: * Generating high quality leads * Marketing to a lengthening sales cycle * Creating perceived value * Generating a high volume of leads * Marketing to a growing number of people in the buying process These top five challenges strongly endorse everyone to focus on the following items in their marketing: * Marketing strategy * Custom list building - having the right contacts, keeping your database clean * Meaningful marketing campaigns - plan an integrated approach * Lead generation offers - content development * Marketing messaging to each of the different buyers - address their pains and challenges * Lead nurturing * Multi-channel marketing to reach as many target prospects as possible If you are interested in more, visit their website. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Search BoosterSM If a prospect is looking for your solution, do they find you online through search? Most companies seem to do a good job of getting one impression on the first page of a search for their solution, at least in local search. Most, however, are surrounded on that first page by the usual suspects of competitors. How more likely would a searching prospect choose to visit your site if the search engine rendered 5 of the 10 impressions for your company? Buyers conduct nearly 75% of their research/information gathering online Sirius Decisions 2009 This program combines the best practices in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media to ensure that you're not only on top the rankings, but dominate them with multiple rankings in the top 10. Read more about creating Marketing Assets to ensure sales success. If you are interested in more, visit their website. Apollo's central hub for up-to-date B2B marketing, lead generation and nurturing information and best practices: http://blog.apollosmg.com Apollo Sales & Marketing Group http://www.apollosmg.com

Be Consistent! Get started and don't stop. Let's assume for a minute that you have only been half as successful as you might have been working on your Secrets to Auto-Pilot Marketing. This still puts you miles down the road ahead of your competition. They, most probably, haven't even left the station, yet. (That's Secretariat winning the Belmont by 31 lengths in 2:24 in 1973) (His record still stands today) Keep pumping. Zig Ziglar gives the analogy of a water pump for a well when he talks about business development. He relates how all the hard work is done pumping the handle to get the water flow started. Once the water is flowing, all you have to do is maintain an even pace of pumping and you get all the water you want. But, as soon as you let up, the water stops flowing and you have to go back to pumping much harder to restore the water flow. This analogy will hold true for your B2B lead generation and lead nurturing too. In getting B2B sales leads, timing is everything. Be there with the right solution at the right time and you have a new customer. The buying cycles of your prospects cannot always be predicted or manufactured by visionary, consultative selling. How do you ensure that your message is in the right place at the right time? Be in a lot of places a lot of the time. If you let up and lose your consistency, your message will fall cold and your audience will cease to remember your company and your solution when their buying cycle starts. So, plan out a marketing calendar. Assign resources (internal, external - outsourced marketing, marketing consulting, marketing services) to accomplish each of the tasks involved. Find the right technology (CRM, SEO/SEM, marketing automation, email marketing, reporting, analytics, blogs, website) to execute and measure you success. That's it - 8 Secrets to Auto-Pilot Marketing. Best of Success!!!