In my last entry, I addressed how the “green” affect can actually have an impact on the ‘red’ within your company, in regards to the bottom line. I also stated that by being a web and audio conferencing company, ReadyTalk is very engaged in being “green”.
The next logical question to follow up with might be, “How exactly does this green approach work?” Well, I’ve come across a few articles that address this topic and have summarized the important points below:

• More than 25% of the population in the US today sees themselves as “green consumer” in the market. That twenty-five percent represents a hefty amount of revenue that a company can potentially reign in if their practices truly align with green requirements and ideals. http://www.earthnowexpo.com
• Capturing a consumer that becomes an advocate for your company and brand can offer a huge return on your bottom line. The payoff for the relatively small investment in some ‘green’ corporate practices can substantially boost the kickback you receive from that investor in the long run. It will begin to breed loyalty among your current clientele. http://greenoptions.com/tag/customer-advocacy
• Even if the initial thought of ‘going green’ seems daunting or unaffordable, paying attention to what your competitors are doing doesn’t cost you a thing. If they are downsizing or reducing budgets, opportunities may emerge for you. Instead of dwelling on the deficiency, consider the prospective business that may arise – your competition is probably doing the same. http://greencollartech.com/going-green-improve-bottom-line.htm

In the green frenzy that’s taken over corporate American in the past 5 years, is the bottom line really just the bottom line? Not necessarily, but finding ways to save money, increase profitability, and maintain credibility or even boost your image as a socially responsible business is.

Where does one start? Continuing down this green path in the next few blog posts, I will be giving you a glimpse into what we are doing here at ReadyTalk as web conferencing company to be “green”. I will also provide some examples of what other companies are doing to commit to more environmentally sound practices & ultimately turning a profit in the process.

As you can tell, I have been thinking about content creation a great deal over the past couple of weeks. We are still in the process of implementing marketing automation software and I am getting excited about the prospect of being able to properly nurture, track and score our prospects. The other day, I shared with you my framework for our content creation plan.

Today, I wanted to talk about something else that I have been thinking about: namely, allowing the content medium to impact the lead score. Take this example: Two prospects come to our website. The first prospect downloads a whitepaper entitled, “Creating A Successful Web Seminar Series” and the second prospect signs up for our web seminar entitled the same. Which prospect is closer to a purchase decision? Which prospect can be considered a hotter lead?

I would argue that the participant in the web seminar is most likely closer to a purchase decision. A seminar is not anonymous and by nature is more committing. Researchers wishing to stay anonymous download whitepapers and read blog posts. Researchers approaching a purchase decision will be more willing to engage and lift the veil of anonymity.

Does your company distinguish between content mediums when scoring their leads?

Technorati Tags: B2B, lead scoring, lead nurturing

Again, another post by Brian has me thinking. Today, he links to Michael Stelzner who has a video about how he generated 60,000 qualified leads through free education. He did this against the advice of his business partners and decided to give away his trade secrets in a whitepaper in the hopes of establishing himself as a thought leader.

We do similar things here. We run a Web Seminar Series that is free and we book expert speakers on a variety of business topics. We even run seminars on how to conduct a successful webinar even though we have a events team that does just that - runs successful webinars.

As you can tell, I am in full agreement with Michael and his methods. Establishing yourself as a thought leader helps shorten the sales cycle and cuts down on truly cold leads. In a B2B world, most people want to hire someone that can do the job more efficiently and with better results. The majority of B2B purchasers, do not want to reverse engineer a solution. They simply want to choose the best solution for their business and let the experts take care of the rest.

It is not a surprise to me that Michael was so successful. However, what interests me the most is where Michael promoted this whitepaper to receive such an overwhelming response. Unfortunately, he does not share that secret with us. Was it paid advertising? Was it organic search? PPC? Forums? Blogs? I would be very interested in knowing.

Technorati Tags: whitepapers, Michael Stelzner, lead generation

I love these types of posts. Eran Livneh, over at the MarketCapture Blog, tells about how a webinar they conducted for one of their clients helped close some deals as well as bring new leads into the pipeline.

This is the power of the webinar in action. It is a great tool for any part of the sale process. As a lead generator, the webinar worked well for their client; over 30% of their attendees were new and qualified prospects. In the case of the salesperson who closed a deal as a result of the webinar, it was used as a nurturing piece that resulted in a sale.

Obviously, at ReadyTalk, we believe in webinars as critical sales and marketing tools. They are a cost efficient way to produce persistent content that your sales team will be able to use at any point in the sales process.

Check out all the ways our web conferencing service can help.

Technorati Tags: webinars, web seminars, web conferencing

I came across this post today from Mike Volpe on his HubSpot blog. The post takes a much talked about program, in this case lead nurturing, and uses a real life experience to draw out the lessons. To me, this is always more powerful than theorizing.

What I really liked about this post is that Mike uses technology to assist his relationship not hinder it; as can be the case today. We have so aos many tools at our disposal that we often confuse “e-mail drip” as nurturing. Mike used technology. Admittedly, he used facebook, his blog, salesforce and a webinar. However, the difference was he injected the human touch into each of these technologies. Not once, did Mike resort to mass communication with Kristen. Each contact he had built upon their previous contact - he gained momentum and traction with each post.

We are implementing nurturing programs here at ReadyTalk and I am trying to find that balance between automated communication and personal touch. I believe to be efficient and effective a proper mix of both is needed. What area some of the ways you mix automation with the personal touch for your nurturing campaigns?

Technorati Tags: B2B, lead generation, Mike Volper, HubSpot