10 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Lead Generation: A Q&A

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		January 2009, Issue 59

Lead-Generation Best Practices
10 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Lead Generation: A Q&A
Q&A from 10 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Lead Generation, with Bill Leake of Apogee Search and Rob Solomon of Bulldog Solutions

On January 14, 2009, Bill Leake, president and CEO of Apogee Search. and Rob Solomon, CEO of Bulldog Solutions led a live Webinar, 10 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Lead Generation. Attendees asked the following questions during the live event. Bill and Rob answered some of the questions then, and some after the event. Here are their answers.

Want to learn more about how to generate leads during a recession?

The questions in this Q&A were asked during a live Webinar. For more information about the topics in this article, view the on-demand version of this Webinar: 10 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Lead Generation.

Q: What are some successful tools for establishing credibility and reaching your C-level executives?

Rob Solomon: First, let me throw the word "tool" out. The impact we see is when you involve management in strategic planning. Management and sales often seem disconnected from the strategic planning around marketing, around lead generation. Bringing the C-level into the discussion about who are your customers, what are the messages that resonate the best, what are the hot topics, and how are we going to find those people, is really the best way to get support at the highest levels.

Bill Leake: This is a great question because a lot of the CEOs out there cut their teeth before this (online marketing) even occurred. A lot of them are not doing the bulk of their research online before they buy. So in some cases, there is a re-educational challenge. A lot of CEOs and CMOs will say "I'm spending 5% of my total marketing budget online. I don't want to spend a lot of my time on this because it's only 5% of my budget."

There are a few different ways to cut through the clouds. One is stressing the market research aspect. In a lot of cases, online can be market research that actually makes you money. This concept of using online as a place to test and refine things before doing the really big offline buy sometimes is a way of cutting through the clutter.

One thing we've seen with a couple of marketing departments is building a relationship with finance. Online is one of the few parts of marketing that can kind of communicate "spreadsheet to spreadsheet" with the finance team and often make them very happy. So there are some interesting corporate allies with that credibility.

Q: Can you share some insight about messaging and content that inspires a response during an economic downturn?

Rob Solomon: Bottom line: Fear works better than anything to drive calls to action. Today there is obviously a lot of apprehension and fear everywhere. We do a lot of message testing with our clients, and we've found in the last several months that fear-based messaging that has some real depth behind is has been really effective.

Bill Leake: Free and discount and cheap still work. Especially the closer you get to the small- and medium-business sector. The closer you get to SMB, the more they behave like consumers. Value is a strong word to stress. Figure out ways to bundle things so your perceived value is more than the other folks out there. Safety. It's related to fear but a little bit different. See what you can do to be the safe choice. Historically we've seen clients use the message "be a hero" or "best practices" and those would convert better in the SMB space. If they change that to more of a "protect yourself politically," "avoid mistakes," or a common pitfalls message, something with a fear and safety message, it will perform better in large enterprise and government sectors.

Q: How far can you go without rock-solid business processes to gather and analyze the data needed to optimize?

Bill Leake: Pretty far, on an ad-hoc and manual basis. It's not scalable, but it can get you to where you need to be to start affording the more robust infrastructure. Google Analytics is free, certain CRM tools are free. If you already have a Web analytics tool, and you already have a CRM/Salesforce automation tool in place, you can do a basic integration between the two of them for less than a couple of days of developer labor time.

Q: What are some key questions you would use for scoring leads?

Rob Solomon: Lead scores are designed to measure the strength of each prospect and their intent to purchase. They provide analytic (rather than merely anecdotal) data generated from a campaign. So in order to determine which questions to lead score, you first need to collaborate with your sales team on what constitutes a "win." Use whatever data you have to validate this. Is it company size? Geography? Specific pain points that you solve? Once you have an understanding of what kind of leads your sales team considers qualified, the lead scoring should reflect that. Bill gives some specific examples below.

Bill Leake: Questions that draw out information about how close they are to a purchase decision and whether they already have a budget. And certainly you want an idea of the magnitude of the company and the magnitude of their budget. Lead scoring can also include behavioral factors, such as how many times they have visited your Web site.

Q: If you do have a limited budget and resources, what is the best practice on identifying those most successful keywords? Is there some online tool to measure which words get looked up the most?

Bill Leake: I'd start with https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Combine that with creativity and a good thesaurus, and you're off to the races.

Q: What are some successful tools for establishing credibility and reaching your C-level executives?

Rob Solomon: First, let me throw the word "tool" out. The impact we see is when you involve management in strategic planning. Management and sales often seem disconnected from the strategic planning around marketing, around lead generation. Bringing the C-level into the discussion about who are your customers, what are the messages that resonate the best, what are the hot topics, and how are we going to find those people, is really the best way to get support at the highest levels.

Bill Leake: This is a great question because a lot of the CEOs out there cut their teeth before this (online marketing) even occurred. A lot of them are not doing the bulk of their research online before they buy. So in some cases, there is a re-educational challenge. A lot of CEOs and CMOs will say "I'm spending 5% of my total marketing budget online. I don't want to spend a lot of my time on this because it's only 5% of my budget."

There are a few different ways to cut through the clouds. One is stressing the market research aspect. In a lot of cases, online can be market research that actually makes you money. This concept of using online as a place to test and refine things before doing the really big offline buy sometimes is a way of cutting through the clutter.

One thing we've seen with a couple of marketing departments is building a relationship with finance. Online is one of the few parts of marketing that can kind of communicate "spreadsheet to spreadsheet" with the finance team and often make them very happy. So there are some interesting corporate allies with that credibility.

Q: Can you share some insight about messaging and content that inspires a response during an economic downturn?

Rob Solomon: Bottom line: Fear works better than anything to drive calls to action. Today there is obviously a lot of apprehension and fear everywhere. We do a lot of message testing with our clients, and we've found in the last several months that fear-based messaging that has some real depth behind is has been really effective.

Bill Leake: Free and discount and cheap still work. Especially the closer you get to the small- and medium-business sector. The closer you get to SMB, the more they behave like consumers. Value is a strong word to stress. Figure out ways to bundle things so your perceived value is more than the other folks out there. Safety. It's related to fear but a little bit different. See what you can do to be the safe choice. Historically we've seen clients use the message "be a hero" or "best practices" and those would convert better in the SMB space. If they change that to more of a "protect yourself politically," "avoid mistakes," or a common pitfalls message, something with a fear and safety message, it will perform better in large enterprise and government sectors.

Q: How far can you go without rock-solid business processes to gather and analyze the data needed to optimize?

Bill Leake: Pretty far, on an ad-hoc and manual basis. It's not scalable, but it can get you to where you need to be to start affording the more robust infrastructure. Google Analytics is free, certain CRM tools are free. If you already have a Web analytics tool, and you already have a CRM/Salesforce automation tool in place, you can do a basic integration between the two of them for less than a couple of days of developer labor time.

Q: What are some key questions you would use for scoring leads?

Rob Solomon: Lead scores are designed to measure the strength of each prospect and their intent to purchase. They provide analytic (rather than merely anecdotal) data generated from a campaign. So in order to determine which questions to lead score, you first need to collaborate with your sales team on what constitutes a "win." Use whatever data you have to validate this. Is it company size? Geography? Specific pain points that you solve? Once you have an understanding of what kind of leads your sales team considers qualified, the lead scoring should reflect that. Bill gives some specific examples below.

Bill Leake: Questions that draw out information about how close they are to a purchase decision and whether they already have a budget. And certainly you want an idea of the magnitude of the company and the magnitude of their budget. Lead scoring can also include behavioral factors, such as how many times they have visited your Web site.

Q: If you do have a limited budget and resources, what is the best practice on identifying those most successful keywords? Is there some online tool to measure which words get looked up the most?

Bill Leake: I'd start with https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Combine that with creativity and a good thesaurus, and you're off to the races.

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Bill Leake is president and CEO of Apogee Search. Rob Solomon is CEO of Bulldog Solutions.

Marketing Watchdog Journal is a monthly newsletter from Bulldog Solutions, a lead optimization and lead management company dedicated to helping our clients generate more, better leads and turn them into revenue. We welcome your feedback on this newsletter's content and design, and encourage you to share your ideas for topics you would like us to cover in future issues. Please send your comments or questions about Bulldog Solutions to Amy Bills, Director of Field Marketing.