Blogging

Fishermen (fisherpeople?) choose their bait based on the type and quantity of fish they hope to catch. On the lakes of Minnesota, worms and small leeches are great for catching sunfish, and if find a good spot, you can catch a lot of them in a short time. However, it’s likely that you’ll also end up throwing many of them back because they’re too small to be “keepers.” Bait such as sucker minnows or spinner lures will attract larger, more exciting prey like northern pike. These larger fish are more elusive, so you likely won’t end up catching many, but each one will be larger and more fun to catch than a small panfish.

The same principle holds true in b2b lead generation. Different types of b2b lead generation programs can be used to draw visitors to your landing page, but once there, your incentive for response is the bait that determines the quality and quantity of leads you’ll “catch.” The greater the involvement you require of respondents, the lower the quantity but the higher the quality. Several examples are shown in this illustration:

Sweepstakes require very little involvement; a site visitor gives you their basic contact information in hopes of winning an iPod, a trip to Hawaii, or whatever. They are great for collecting a large quantity of names, but often few actual sales leads.

White papers are a popular and productive incentive for response. They weed out the pure prize-seekers attracted by sweepstakes because anyone willing to take the time to download and (hopefully) read a white paper at least has an interest in the particular technology area addressed. White papers also have far more branding value than sweepstakes. They are one of the most commonly used response incentives because of the balance of relatively high quantity and quality they provide, although sales will still often end up “throwing back” many of these leads.

As the level of involvement required increases, so does lead quality, but the numbers get smaller. A respondent willing to sign up for a free trial and actually use a software product—particularly in a corporate environment where IT approval is needed—has a relatively high probability of becoming a buyer (assuming the software actually works as promised). And at the far right of the diagram above, if the only incentive for response on a landing page is to be contacted by a sales person, the conversion rate will usually be very low, but the leads generated will be serious prospects.

The diagram above shows just a representative sampling of incentives for response that can be used; there are many other creative incentives that can be offered. The point is that the level of involvement required of the visitor is the key to estimating both the probable response rate and quality of the resulting leads in your bucket.

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Fishing for B2B leads? Choose the right bait.

Do wireless carriers abuse their power to infringe on the free speech of competitors and controversial groups? Is their revenue model reasonable? Is Verizon in 2008 the equivalent of AOL in 1995?

Jared Reitzin, CEO of digital marketing platform provider mobileStorm, uses humor, logic, passion, and one or two inappropriate words to blast mobile carriers for censorship, inefficiency and short-sighted business practices.

He makes an insightful and very timely argument, particularly given the spate of news articles over the last six months or so from sources like RCR Wireless News, Wireless And Mobile News and TechCrunch about free, ad-supported wireless calling models currently being tested. Why is this relevant? Because in the late 1990s, free ad-supported Internet access was all the rage. There were even companies that offered free computers, along with free web access, supported by advertising. Although those models ended up failing spectacularly, they did help push the dominant ISPs to move from $X-for-Y-hours-of-use pricing plans to unlimited access flat rates. A similar trajectory could happen in wireless.

Check out Jared’s rant.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Go here to read the rest:
Wireless Carriers Unplugged

Following up on my recent post on The 4 Ps of Effective Business Blogging, here are six more Ps to keep in mind for business blogging success.

Platform

There are a wide array of options for building and hosting your blog, from the big 3 online options—Blogger, TypePad and WordPress—to software applications and content management (CMS) systems with blogging features. The topic of which platform is best has filled numerous blog posts, including inpholust’s Blogger vs. TypePad vs. Wordpress, Blogger vs. TypePad: Some Questions from Blogging Basics 101, and TypePad vs. Blogger from The Blog Squad, as well as forum discussions.

The bottom line is: as long as the platform you choose makes your blog recognizable as such by search engines and provides RSS feed capability, it will work.

Prodigious

One of the original 4 Ps of blogging was persistence—writing new posts on a regular basis. Being prodigious refers to the frequency and volume of posting. Writing one new post per month, every month, would qualify as being persistent, but it certainly wouldn’t be prodigious. Assuming one’s writing has merit, there is a fairly direct relationship between prodigiousness and readership: posting three times a week will draw more traffic than weekly posting, daily posting will draw more traffic than 3X per week, etc.

Practical

The best posts are the ones that help someone to do something better. An occasional off-topic rant or musing is fine, but the “meat” of any successful business blog is information that your readers can use.

Positive

The old HR advice to “praise in public, criticize in private” holds true for blogging as well. It’s fine to be objective—pointing out both the strong points and limitations of a new product, for example—but avoid pure invective. First, there is no profit in making enemies. Second, negative posts provide little if any value to your readers. And third, the fact that a blog post is forever means it is best not to write something today that you may regret later.

Peculiar

“Unique” would actually be a better word, but it doesn’t start with P. While it’s fine to comment on industry news, and extremely good etiquette to link to other blog posts, make sure you are providing new knowledge, a unique perspective, thoughtful critique or something else of unduplicated value. Posts that are purely derivative won’t provide you or your readers with much value.

Patience

Don’t expect huge traffic overnight. It takes time to build up a following and to generate a significant amount of content for the search engines to notice (though Guy Kawasaki provides excellent advice on how to generate substantial traffic to a blog within four months in The 120 Day Wonder: How to Evangelize a Blog). Don’t be discouraged if your first few posts, brilliant and insightful as they may be, draw only a few readers when published; remember that search engines index these and those posts will be drawing traffic long into the future.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

More:
The Other 6 P’s of Blogging

WebMarketCentral, the portal site with resources for interactive marketing professionals, continues to expand with the recent addition of marketing, sales and CRM-focused webcasts and videos powered by Insight24. This is the place to see the latest expert rich media presentations from sources like Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies; the Business Intelligence Network; HubSpot; Microsoft; Entellium; and SalesRoundup. It’s a one-stop page for marketing-focused intelligence from market leaders.

A valuable resource for sales and marketing practitioners, the new webcasts and videos page is likely to join the web’s most comprehensive marketing events calendar, directory of advertising and marketing trade publications, and Marketing, Advertising and Sales Career Opportunities as one of the most-visited pages on the site.

Looking for engaging content from leading sales and marketing experts? Check out the new Webcasts and Videos page on WebMarketCentral.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

New on WMC: Marketing Webcasts and Videos