MarketingProfs

In the spirit of a pre-game show, MarketingProfs thought it’d be fun to chat with Laura Patterson before Friday’s free virtual conference on lead generation. She is co-founder and president of VisionEdge Marketing and speaker at tomorrow’s Digital Marketing World.

1.  What’s something new and exciting happening in lead generation?
More and more organizations are realizing that defining the process from the inside-out is outdated. Companies that are using the customer buying process, customer personas, and segmentation to support their lead-generation efforts is what’s new and exciting.

2.  How would you best define lead generation today?
When organizations understand the landscape (buyers, users, influencers, etc.) in the prospective market, they will know which channels to best deploy and what messages will best resonate to engage prospects in order to develop opportunities open to considering their offer.

3.  Is lead generation caught in the past?
I don’t think the issue is that lead gen is stuck in the past, but I think there are three challenges marketing needs to address. First, chasing the next shiny toy; first, we chased websites, then email, then SEO, and now social and mobile. Understanding how to leverage new channels is important—but what we really need to understand is the customer and how to best engage with them. The second challenge is the ability to create collaboration with the sales organization and to work as partners. And finally, we need to refine the way we measure our contribution. It’s time to move beyond “counting” leads to “measuring” contribution to the pipeline, win rate, and sales cycle.

4.  What’s your favorite lead-gen story (in a nutshell)?
A company we worked with (that is very well-entrenched in the government space) had decided to pursue a quasi-government segment—without success—but was able to turn that around. They realized the buying process was completely different for this new segment. Once they took a customer-centric perspective and adjusted, they were able to gain rapid traction.

5. What can attendees expect to learn at Digital Marketing World tomorrow?
At the conference, attendees will learn about the importance of using behavioral definitions in the lead-scoring process to support marketing and sales alignment.

Laura will be talking about “Improving Marketing and Sales Alignment = Better Customer Acquisition” at the free lead-generation virtual conference tomorrow. Get the scoop on registration, other speakers, and sessions at Digital Marketing World.

Tags: customers, Lead Generation, Marketing, MarketingProfs, Strategy and Tactics