Thursday, November 13, 2008

B2B Online lead generation/Offline follow up

I attended a presentation yesterday with ten of my undergraduate internet marketing students on B2B online lead generation with the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing. One of the presenters was Robert Lesser, the President of Direct Impact Marketing in Toronto. I found it interesting that Chicago is in the top tier of the "Blog Belt," and not surprising that Chicago is central to an expanding network of those interesting in internet marketing. Much of Chicago's business community is focusing on direct and internet marketing. The top sources of online leads are search and email, with blogs and webinars next. One of the most interesting things Lesser mentioned was the use of telequalification of online leads. Salespeople always complain that leads are not qualified and marketing, by using a telemarketing force to contact leads that come online, can 'nurture' that lead until it becomes a true prospect (according to this presentatino it takes 18 touches to nurture a lead to create a prospect) to turn over to the sales force. In my internet marketing class I teach online/offline integration and this presentation just demonstrated the continued importance of that principle. Good news for those in the call center business!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Online and offline

In my classes I preach the importance of integrating online and offline strategies. In working to increase the profile of our interactive marketing area of study here at Northern Illinois University. I see continued evidence that the internet is not enough in all cases. We recently launched a new web site at http://www.interactivemarketing.niu.edu/. In the process we again search engine optimized the site to see how we could get employers to the site to look for grads and post resumes. Our analysis indicated that it seems job and intership seekers were searching for us, but not employers. We are tracking some keywords that we think will help drive employers to our site to learn about our talented grads that are trained in web design, SEO, internet marketing and direct marketing. However, one of the main ways I still get the word out about the program is by attending meetings of our local direct and interactive marketing associations like CADM, AMA, BMA and CIMA. I take the contacts I meet there and put them in a database and contact them via Exact Target and regular emails to build the relationship. We are currently in the midst of a permission-based email campaign to fill some openings on the advisory board. Response has been good with the online media but without that personal touch and connection beforehand, the program would not work as well. Internet and new media are important but face-to-face and other traditional media are not going away. The challenge of the internet is going to be for the forseeable future figuring out how to make all channels work together effectively. This result reminds me that the more things change the more they stay the same. I was involved at MCI with developing programs that integrated the sales force with direct programs that had a great deal of success. It's not just one channel, never has been, and everything needs to be integrated.