Some More On Lead Generation With Valuable Information

David Meerman Scott has just written a great atrticle on MarketingProfs about lead generation with educational content in e-books, entitled, "E-books: A Hip and Stylish Younger Sibling to the Nerdy Whitepaper."

The marketplace is changing. Buyers are not as receptive to pithces as they were 100 years ago. Also, solutions are more complex than ever before. Buyers need significant amount of education to find the best solution. Guess what? If you provide the education itself, you have a damn good chance to be asked to provide the service itself. It's plain psychology. Try it. You may get pretty surprised.

Lead Generation With Papers And Special Reports

The competition is intensifying in every industry. It’s becoming harder and harder for service companies to generate high quality sales leads in high enough quantities.

When sales leads dry up, most service companies desperately hire more peddlers and hucksters, hoping that using their innate charm and glib to manipulate people, they can land some new business. And this is where the problem lies. In their attempts to quickly drum up new business, they often end up antagonising their best prospects. They try to reach too quickly into their prospects’ purses, and, of course, prospects don’t like this approach.

Instead of these desperate measures, service companies could sustain a healthy rate of lead generation using valuable special reports and white papers, instead of burdening their target markets with their retarded pitches.

MarketingProfs has just published a brilliant article from Michael Stelzner, entitled "How White Papers Can Turbo-Boost Your Lead-Generation Campaign."

There is more and more proof that the best lead generation is done using valuable, educational information. It works basically in any industry. Read the article. I'm sure you'll find it very informative.

First Impressions On The Web

There is a brilliant post at Website optimization.com on how people digest information when they arrive at a new website, and how they form their judgements as to whether to stay or leave.

While I truly believe in the value of great content, there are some aesthetical considerations too. And these consideratinos may not be what your web designer recommends you (Most often, adding more and fancier graphics).

You will find some great examples for effective simplicity.

Free Report: "The One Piece of Advice You Can't Sell Without?"

Rainoday has published a new report entitled, "The One Piece of Advice You Can't Sell Without?"

This is a compilation of pieces of advice from a small group of highly successful entrepreneurs who reveal bits and pieces of their own sales methodologies.

The contributors are...

• Alan Weiss, author of Million Dollar Consulting
• Keith Ferrazi, author of Never Eat Alone
• Mike McLaughlin, author of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants
• Mike Schultz, Publisher, RainToday.com
• Paige Arnof-Fenn, CEO of Mavens & Mogels, columnist for Entrepreneur
• Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing, BearingPoint
• Sam Reese, CEO of Miller Hieman sales training company
• Seth Godin, author of Small is the New Big & Purple Cow
• and some others

You can download the report here.

Selling to Big Companies

Jill Konrath, the author of the popular book, Selling to Big Companies has just been interviewed by Steve Gershik, the Director of Marketing Innovation at Eloqua Corporation.

I've read Jill's books several times and I think it's the best book to help salespeople to break into large accounts. Well, buy the book, but first listen to the podcast. (right-click to save to your desktop).