Inc. Magazine Highlights MIT / InsideSales.com Study “How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing Leads”
14 July 2011 — Ken Krogue
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Inc. Magazine has just become another major publication to note the importance of our research on responding immediately and persistently to inbound leads.
Eric Markowitz is a well known writer for Inc., Vanity Fair, and the Washington Square News and summarizes the research of Dr. James B Oldroyd, a former professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and our own CEO, Dave Elkington. His Inc. article on July 6th, 2011, is entitled “How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing Leads.”
Inc. Magazine links to the original downloadable MIT study here. It was originally titled “How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold?” and has been quoted now by hundreds of blogs, speakers, and publications around the world.
Original MIT Study by Dr. James Oldroyd & Dave Elkington
Every now and again you discover something that changes the world. This did for us.
At last count we have had nearly 70,000 companies access and / or download this landmark study. A more complete summary of all the research started originally by Dr. James Oldroyd and InsideSales.com is readily available at […]
The (Increasingly) Not-so-Secret Reasons You Need a Better Lead Generation Team
20 June 2011 — Ken Krogue
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The message of Monday’s blog this week is short and sweet:
If you’re a B2B sales organization, it’s more important than ever to have a dedicated lead generation and qualification team.
The Bridge Group’s Matt Bertuzzi showed recently that 43% of organizations surveyed by CSO Insights were increasing their sales team size by at least 10%, and 24.7% were increasing there sales force by 20% or more.
Our own research in 2009 showed that inside sales hiring in B2B was going to go up 7.5% a year through 2015.
In the same vein:
The Funnelholic recently provided a list of 54 things to do when building a lead qualification team.
Marketo’s Jon Miller provides Seven Ways that Sales Development Reps Drive Revenue.
Green Leads’ Michael Damphousse demonstrates that the “actionable” activity rate of phone vs. face-to-face prospecting is much closer than any of us think.
The point of all this is simple: inside sales and lead qualification teams drive revenue, period. As much as I respect and admire the work of marketing automation technologies, inbound marketing companies, search engine marketing, and the like, it’s becoming ever more clear that direct outbound prospecting, and fast, immediate response by a qualification team to inbound inquiries are a critical strategic advantage […]
Monday Quick Hit: For Marketing Sherpa’s Ann Holland, the Drum Beats On
20 December 2010 — Ken Krogue
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When Ann Holland from MarketingSherpa asked Dave Elkington and I to present InsideSales.com’s research findings with MIT and Kellogg back in 2007, I’ll admit we were excited for a chance to “show off” a little bit what we thought was some “pretty cool little research” on lead management and lead response.
To say that the response since then has exceeded our expectations would be a major understatement. That same research has practically spawned the the entire lead response management industry, and I’ve seen at least ten follow-up studies from other sources since.
So when Ann contacted me to let me know she was moving on from MarketingSherpa, I was both surprised and intrigued to see where she was going.
Ann’s had an ear to the ground, and her finger on the pulse of sales and marketing, especially in B2B, for a long time now. She’s an industry insider in the best sense of the word, and the work she did at MarketingSherpa helped make it one of the most respected thought leaders in professional sales.
One of her two new ventures, Which Test Won? is a fascinating take on split variant marketing testing. Using actual samples of marketing content, she […]
Inside Sales: Two Hidden Metrics of Prospecting That are Hurting Your Sales
14 July 2010 — Steve Watts
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Most of the common marketing and sales and metrics—click-throughs, impressions, sales cycle, revenue per deal—don’t really need an explanation. But there are two metrics where a lot of companies we’ve worked with have holes in their sales process.
How soon after a new Web lead comes in does a sales rep make the first contact attempt, and how long after it came in did they actually make contact? Every single piece of data we’ve ever researched shows that for Web-generated leads, immediate response is crucial . . . .
Sales Management – “Hello, Massive Disconnect? This is Your Friend, Crappy Performance.”
7 July 2010 — Ken Krogue
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I bumped into this post on The New Sales Economy, and thought it was a worthwhile read on inside sales best practices (thanks to Trish Bertuzzi for the link).
Using The Bridge Group’s data, author Chad Levitt asks nine highly relevant, incisive questions about the current state of professional inside sales.
I was particularly interested in one of the questions—”Is there a disconnect between
5 Ways to Rethink Your Marketing Niche – What Is Your (and Your Company’s) Real Expertise?
4 June 2010 — Steve Watts
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In our never-ending search for the “perfect marketing campaign,” we as marketers can occasionally get trapped into thinking that “outside the box” is better.
Sometimes, it’s simply better to focus on our core competencies. When push comes to shove, we as people, and as organizations as a whole, naturally gravitate to who we are and what we know best. We do this because it’s where our expertise lies.
Embracing the old cliché, “You are what you are,” isn’t always a bad thing in marketing—if who and what you are comes from a position of trust, integrity, innovation, and forward-thinking.
In business terms, “You are what you are” simply translates to, “Core competency.” We all have them, and they’re largely responsible for what make us the most money.
When we sell within our core competencies, we have the most success, and the least amount of resistance. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t step outside our core competencies, or that growth in other markets or verticals isn’t possible. But in the Digital Age of the “Long Tail,” growth into adjoining markets doesn’t happen if our own core competencies aren’t covered.
How do we monitor our success at our core competencies? The answers are basic, but bear reviewing:
Be […]
Technology has trained us to expect things, NOW. When I have a question I’ll Google it and millions of possible answers will be at my fingertips in .27 seconds. I forget that I used to have to go to the library or call a company by looking through the yellow pages.
I forgot my cell phone one day when I went to work. I was lost, unable to do things that not too long ago were impossible with a land line. I can call, text, email, tweet, find a restaurant, make a reservation, get turn by turn directions … hey there’s an app for just about anything.
A prospect who fills out a form on your website is looking for a solution, NOW. They have a problem and it’s unacceptable to contact them 2 days after or not at all.
inside|sales has done research with MIT professor, James Oldroyd, covering the topic of Lead Management with a goal to discover the best time to contact an interested prospect. The results surprised us, as we learned that companies don’t have the luxury of waiting 2 days to contact: or 2 hours. Whether you are a B2B company, or a B2C company, […]
What does it mean to manage a lead effectively? Listed below are the 9 steps to follow when managing your leads.
1. Lead Generation: any of a number of marketing or sales methods used to generate inquiries.
2. Lead Inquiry: a person provides contact information inviting a response.
3. Lead Capture: the method whereby contact information from an inquirer is gathered.
4. Lead Scoring: the practice of grading and prioritizing an inquiry prior to a response to a lead from your sales department.
5. Lead Routing: the geographical, skills-based, random, or other decision process whereby an inquiry is assigned to a rep for response.
6. Lead Distribution: the method used to send inquirer information to a rep for response.
7. Lead Response: the practice of responding immediately, consistently and at optimal times to optimize contact and qualification ratios.
8. Lead Nurturing: the practice of persistently marketing over time to increase awareness, education, and need using ‘permission-marketing’ strategies and tactics.
9. Lead Tracking: the process of gathering key performance indicators and metrics on sources of leads their progress towards sales closure.
We will be reviewing each lead management step in depth. If you have any questions or comments about any of these steps, please, leave them in the comments—we’ll be writing […]
3 Lead Generation Strategies – When to Call… When Not to Call
24 September 2009 — Ken Krogue
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Gerhard Gschwandtner – Founder of Selling Power Magazine
A friend of mine, Gerhard Gschwandtner, the founder and owner of Selling Power Magazine, just took some time and wrote a post on his blog about when is the best time to call back on leads.
The post he wrote came from our landmark research study conducted with Dr. James Oldroyd of MIT that was originally presented in October of 2007 at the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Summit 2007 in both Boston and San Francisco. This study was the genesis for the new industry called Lead Response Management; a subset of Lead Management that focuses on responding immediately, continually, consistently, and optimally to increase contact and qualification rates of web-based leads. The interesting information involves the incredible changes in your ability to reach people by calling on the best day of the week, time of the day and most importantly, calling back immediately; as in 5 minutes!
BEST DAY OF WEEK TO CALL
To quickly summarize Dr. Oldroyds research: Tuesday is the worst day to call, while Thursday is best. In fact, if you call on Thursday you have a 49.7 percent higher chance […]
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