Sales lead generation

SUMMARY: There’s nothing like a 40% budget cut and staff reduction to make a marketing team focus on activities that have the biggest impact for the lowest cost.

Read how a team analyzed its marketing performance to determine which programs were really working – and which weren’t. Adjusting strategy based on those trends boosted total leads 12%, while increasing the value of opportunities in the pipeline by 65%. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: The right webinar promotion strategy can be the difference between a lackluster event and a lead generation bonanza.

We spoke with a team that's covering all the bases with a templated webinar communication plan that's driving live-event attendance and contributing to long-term lead generation. See how they combine outbound and automated email, a clever "refer-a-friend" campaign and an on-demand viewing option that's capturing contact info from 55% of viewers. read the complete article

SUMMARY: Not all contests and awards programs are created equal.

Dawn Brister, Manager, Integrated Marketing Communications, Cisco, says choosing the right contest or awards program can generate leads and boost brand awareness. Get Brister’s tips on fighting list fatigue while increasing the quantity and quality of contest entries.

Brister will be presenting the Case Study, “Boosting Demand Generation by Revamping Your Awards Program: How Cisco Increased Entries by 59%,” next month at MarketingSherpa’s B-to-B Demand Generation... read the complete interview

SUMMARY: What is the average length of your B2B sales cycle from lead generation to sales conversion, and how does it compare to the lengths of your peer’s sales cycles in the B2B marketing community?

Check out this week’s chart to view the length of B2B sales cycles, according to more than 1,000 B2B marketers. read the complete article

By Anne Holland, Founder

Thanks for all of your questions before and after our teleseminar, 'B-to-B Marketing: Top 10 Quick Fixes', last week. More than 100 Sherpa readers wrote in, and I and our senior reporter Sean Donahue are preparing answers to post with our compliments on Sherpa by next week.

In the meantime, I wanted to address one particular query which came up a few times: "Where specifically did Sherpa get that B-to-B marketing data?"

Here's... read the complete blog post