In uncertain economic times, Market Development Funds (MDF) can be a precious resource for channel partners (resellers, distributors, ISVs) looking for budget to fund sales and marketing activity. Yet industry surveys report that as much as 60 percent of available MDF funds go unused. By some measures, that may add… Read More
Category Archives: lead generation
How Should I Market to Purchased Lists?
A client asks: “What’s the best way to market to purchased lists like ZoomInfo? We have a debate between our marketing and sales teams on whether the best approach is marketing emails, sales outreach, or something else. Curious as to your opinion?” First, let’s dispense with the inevitable question of… Read More
Meeting the Needs of the Self-Serve B2B Buyer
Just when you thought B2B buyer habits couldn’t change more dramatically, along comes the COVID pandemic. The sudden, wholesale transition to remote work and virtual teams has only accelerated trends that were evident pre-COVID, led by younger generations of digital consumers who brought their buying preferences to the office (even… Read More
8 Surprising B2B Use Cases for Chatbots
If you ask most B2B marketers how they use chat platforms like Drift, the immediate answer would most likely be: converting Web visitors. And indeed, increasing Web engagement and Web conversion rates is still a primary use case for chatbots in a B2B context. However, chat is also a powerful… Read More
The Case for Allowing Personal Emails on Lead Gen Forms
Should you allow prospects to enter a personal email address when they fill out lead gen forms? B2B marketers seem divided on the question. In a recent LinkedIn poll, almost half of the respondents (46%) indicated they’d rather force prospects to enter business emails on forms, even if it resulted… Read More
Marketing Success & the Accident of Timing
An old boss once commented: “75% of marketing is just being in the right place at the right time.” You can quibble with the percentage, but, overall, she had a point. For more companies than not, marketing success is rarely about convincing a given individual, on a given day, to… Read More
Why a Hybrid Demand Generation Model is More Important than Ever
The current crisis reinforces why most B2B companies are best suited for a hybrid demand generation model that combines both ABM and more traditional, funnel-based tactics. ABM was born of a time when (in hindsight) we marketers had it good. A major driver for the advent of ABM was the… Read More