B2B Conversations Now

It’s been an extremely hot summer here in Maryland with many days exceeding the 100 degree mark. While most people get excited talking about their vacation destinations, there is no rest for the folks that have to manage all that time off for large companies. They are the unsung heroes of summer.

I’ve worked for large companies in the past, and I never realized the effort that goes into balancing associate time off with company objectives…until I talked with Terry Schilling at Tugboat Software.

Tugboat Software specializes in Labor Scheduling and Vacation Scheduling Software for medium to large companies. To properly set up their EchoQuote instance, I needed to understand as much as possible about Labor and Vacation Scheduling Software, and how customers purchase it.

Labor Scheduling Software

The variables in Labor Scheduling are endless. For typical labor scheduling, one company has a requirement to move employees from job to job on an hourly basis; it reduces worker boredom and improves cross training. The software must handle that.

Vacation Scheduling Software

For Vacation Scheduling, organizational priorities must be blended with employee self-service functions. For example, the organization may designate some vacation blocks as “first-come-first-served” with instant approval. Other requests must be reviewed and approved by management based on seniority, vacation credits or other criteria. “Key staff” roles further complicates scheduling.

Of course, Tugboat’s Vacation Scheduling Software is built to handle a variety of requirements. The difficult part, according to Terry, is the upfront definition of the rules that govern time off. This is where Tugboat’s years of experience pays off.

So, before you leave on vacation, thank the person whose job it is to schedule your time. Remember that while we’re vacationing, it is their *busy* season. Even though your time off is well deserved, it must balanced with an endless set of rules and objectives to keep the organization on solid ground. The schedulers make it look easy, especially if they are using Tugboat software.

Is it Fall yet?

Tags: B2B Marketing, Podcasts by daleu
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Want to accelerate the quantity and quality of lead conversions on your B2B site? If so, you may be looking for a “fast lane” lead conversion strategy.

B2B lead conversion is a critical first step in a solid lead nurturing process. Paul Dunay (Buzz Marketing for Technology) and I discuss how to augment a lead nurturing system by creating a fast lane conversion process to capture sales ready leads.

While we discuss one specific way to implement it using EchoQuote, it is certainly not the only way and there are no silver bullets. Choose what fits for your organization and target customers.

The key to implementing a successful Fast Lane Conversion strategy boils down to the strength and value of the *offer*.

A strong B2B offer:

• … has high-value for your target prospects
• … appeals to serious prospects more than casual ones, regardless of their buying time frame
• … appeals to prospects early in their buying cycle, when their decision criteria can be influenced the most
• …. is scarce and is available only from your website to eliminate search abandonment
• … is easy to act on by a serious prospect with minimal friction to avoid abandonment

Thoughts?

Thanks again to Paul for providing this platform. I just picked up his Facebook Marketing book and it is fantastic.

Tags: B2B Marketing, Lead Conversion, Lead Generation, Podcasts by daleu
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Jim Logan at B2BRainmaker just posted Here’s how I define the perfect lead generation system and I think he nailed it.

What’s interesting is that Jim, like myself, spent years selling high-end technology so he offers a the sales person’s perspective. B2B marketers that want to help their sales teams can learn a lot from Jim.

Per Jim:

“I define the perfect lead generation system as a system that passively brings prospects to me that have a need and interest in my products or services.

By passive I mean it works for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, without me having to do a thing once it’s launched.

By qualified I mean a system that only brings me prospects interested in exactly what I have to offer — their presence self-identifies them as a qualified lead.”

Short, sweet, and powerful. That’s Jim’s style.

Tags: B2B Marketing, Podcasts by daleu
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I’ve always really liked the team over at FindandConvert, which offers first-class internet marketing services like SEO, PPC and Social Media development. The CEO, Bernie Borges publishes an excellent blog, “Web Marketing Strategies, SEO, Social Media Marketing and Podcasting”.

Bernie just published a podcast with me discussing B2B conversion strategies.

Here’s a summary of the podcast from Bernie’s point of view:

When a visitor comes to your website due to your well planned SEO or SEM strategy he or she is not necessarily ready to convert into a buyer, or to fill out a form, or ready to talk to a salesperson. This is especially prominent in B2B websites.

Buyers have many options when they do their research on the web and therefore, they are harder to engage. Many marketers struggle with how to engage a website visitor.

Marketers must look at their website from the customer’s point of view. Visit your website as a prospective customer. Ask yourself if your website content and calls to action are engaging for visitors at different stages of their buying cycle.

Most marketers have not done a good job of engaging visitors based on where the visitor is in their buying process. Some of the calls to actions marketers have offered such as white papers, are not very compelling or they are sometimes freely available. They often don’t address needs of the buyer at the current stage when they visit the website.

EchoQuote is a group of IT sales people. They came up with a method to provide a website conversion through self service budgetary pricing without displaying pricing on the website. By offering the website visitor the promise of budgetary pricing without having to contact the company or talking to a salesperson, many visitors are willing to engage.

Often a website visitor wants to know the general price range of your products or services. By offering the ability to provide budgetary pricing the request rates can be very high. But, just because someone requests pricing information doesn’t make them a qualified sales prospect.

When someone asks for pricing info using a link from your website to EchoQuote, the first detail captured is an email address. Therefore, this email address can be nurtured for future sales potential. This method is a good way to build your email list.

Once someone requests pricing they are a “suspect” and it’s a good idea to have a sales person contact the visitor to explore their criteria in order to avoid a situation where they scope your products or services without your input.

EchoQuote is a patented system whose clients are businesses interested in B2B lead generation. Most of them sell a complex product or service with a direct sales force or a knowledgeable channel partner.

EchoQuote client example: a 20 year old company who traditionally does a lot of email marketing. They had noticed a drop in leads from the contact form. When they implemented the EchoQuote self service pricing their lead form conversions picked up by 30%. The client attributed it to giving visitors the ability to receive budgetary pricing in a self service model.

Dale summarizes the podcast interview by pointing out that all situations are different but suggests that all marketers visit their website with your customer’s perspective and assess if you’re providing compelling calls to action relevant to different stages of the buying cycle.

Listen to the podcast for the full interview between me and Bernie.

Tags: B2B Marketing, Lead Conversion, Podcasts by daleu
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Paul Dunay (Buzz Marketing for Technology) and I recently discussed how to augment a lead nurturing system for sales ready leads. Here is the podcast as posted on Paul’s site.

Tags: Podcasts by daleu
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