Pardot's Prospect Insight An On-Demand Web Marketing Automation Suite SOLUTION SNAPSHOT: Pardot's Prospect Insight is an on-demand web marketing automation suite that helps sales team focus efforts on the best prospects, maximizing ROI. Advanced micro-level web analytics and automated technology allow Prospect Insight to capture all relevant prospect activities and determine the most sales-ready leads while nurturing less qualified prospects throughout the buying-cycle. Click here to read the full report>> EDGAR Online Quadruples Lead Gen Pipeline Results, Raises Bar On Close Rates By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor As a provider of interactive business and financial data on global companies to financial, corporate and advisory professionals, EDGAR Online was looking to speed up its own internal flow of intelligence to its sales team. The Atlanta-based company historically had been generating the majority of their sales leads through the standard “contact us” page on their website, but the names generated were not proving to be qualified. Click here to read the full report>> Eloqua Marks 500th Customer Milestone, With 50 Added In Q2 Eloqua recently announced that it surpassed the 500th customer milestone at the close of the second quarter of 2008. During the quarter, the supplier of automated demand generation applications for BtoB marketers signed more than 50 new customers. Further supporting the company’s rapid growth, Eloqua also announced that it had achieved numerous revenue milestones during the second quarter of 2008, including the highest revenue quarter to date, the best bookings quarter to date, and the highest new customer Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) quarter to date. Click here to read the full report>> Marketo Raises $8 Million In Series B Funding, Set To Drive Expansion Lead management software vendor Marketo announced that it has secured $8 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Storm Ventures, with participation from existing investor InterWest Partners. The funding is earmarked to expand sales and marketing in North America and internationally, continue to fuel Marketo’s product pipeline, and invest in customer operations and services. Click here to read the full report>> IDC Analyst Stresses Critical Role Of Marketing Performance Measurement By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor Since marketing is now included in weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting and strategic planning process meetings, Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM) processes are becoming an essential tool to create a well-communicated cadence with sales and corporate management. According to a recent presentation by Michael Gerard, vice president of research, executive advisory group & CMO of advisory practice at IDC, MPM process is imperative to communication, collaboration, and coordination within marketing. As part of the recent IDC webinar titled "Marketing Performance Measurement 2.0," Gerard highlighted the elements of an effective MPM process and its relevance to success alignment between marketing and sales. Click here to read the full report>> Bronto Software Sees Spike In Conversions; Doubles Qualified Opps By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor Sorting through a high volume of leads to determine which are valuable and /or sales ready is a common problem among many BtoB marketers. Bronto Software found itself inadvertently passing over important opportunities as it was difficult for the marketing team to sort through the clutter of leads being passed into their Salesforce.com CRM system. Click here to read the full report>> DemandGen Report's White Papers Click here to read the full report>> RSS Advertising Emerging As Targeted Traffic Driver, Lead Generation Tool As marketers continue to expand their content library of blogs, white papers and other thought leadership, RSS advertising is emerging as a media platform for targeted lead generation. With research showing more than 50% of internet users are now using RSS feeds, many of the big brands in the tech sector are driving web traffic and leads by placing on advertising on targeted feeds. “It has quickly developed into another arrow in our quiver,” says Howard Sewell, president and founder of Connect Direct Inc., (CDI) a leading direct marketing agency specializing in demand generation for high tech companies. “It is not a fit for every company, but for those brands that are putting out a lot of content and looking to attract a targeted audience, it can be an ideal media.” Click here to read the full report>> Rapid Growth of Lead Databases Posing New Challenges For BtoB Marketers By John Gaffney, Senior Analyst The average lead database for a BtoB company contains more than 50,000 entries and is expanding at a rate of 30% to 50% per quarter or 5% to 10% per month, according to a quarterly lead management benchmarking study conducted by Vtrenz. The study of a cross-section of BtoB companies found tremendous growth in some cases for company’s lead databases, but a great deal of inefficiency in executing on those leads. And a big part of that inefficiency may be coming from decidedly 1990s email practices. According to Bryan Brown, Director of Product Management and Development at Vtrenz, some companies have tracked as high as 160% quarterly growth in their lead databases. But the database growth is not correlating with overall revenue growth, so something in the sales funnel is broken. Click here to read the full report>> Author Warns Marketers To Get A Head Start On 09 Campaign Plans, Due To Soft Economy By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor Although fall is right around the corner, many marketers are so focused on reaching lead gen quotas for Q3 and Q4, that they haven’t even started to think about campaign planning for 2009. However, industry insiders caution that given the current state of the economy, slating out the primary marketing objectives and getting your key players on the same page early will streamline be critical to success. “In times of economic concern, you have to go back to the primary objectives,” says Mike Gospe, co-founder and principal of KickStart Alliance, a virtual team of marketing and sales executives focused on BtoB technology companies. “As marketers, we have such a tendency to think short-term because the sales folks are always driven by the current quarter. Think about what long-term marketing objective your company is trying to reach and then determine what programs and budget are required to reach that objective.” Click here to read the full report>> Sophisticated Search Strategies Showing More Support For Lead Gen Activities By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor While spending on search engine marketing (SEM) has been rising steadily over the past few years, many organizations are now getting a leg up on the competition by refining their search strategies to generate more targeted leads and support specific campaigns. Using advanced tactics such as ad groups and negative keywords, companies selling complex solutions are seeing improved search results and identifying prospects earlier in the sales funnel. According to the “2007 State of the Market” report released by SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), the North American SEM industry grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding the earlier projections of $11.5 billion for 2007. North American SEM spending is now projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011, up significantly from the $18.6 billion forecast a year ago. Click here to read the full report>> New Survey Shows Firms Focusing On Demand Generation Are Outgrowing Their Competition By Amanda Ferrante, Assistant Editor Companies with effective lead generation strategies are more likely to outgrow their competitors, according to the findings of a recent research study conducted by Marketing Profs and the Lenskold Group. The report titled “BtoB Lead Generation: Marketing ROI & Performance Evaluation Study,” explored the practices companies are utilizing to measure the performance and return of their marketing efforts. According to the study, more than half (57%) of those surveyed expect to outgrow their primary competitors in the upcoming year. The survey also pointed to a direct correlation between lead generation capabilities and the growth of an organization, with a combined 58% of those companies outgrowing competitors describing their lead generation performance as much more or somewhat more effective than competitors, compared to just 20% of those whose growth was lagging behind competitors. Click here to read the full report>> DemandGen Report To Recognize Top 10 Firms For Driving Pipeline Optimization DemandGen Report is seeking nominations for its first annual DemandGen 10 Awards. Presented in September 2008, the DemandGen 10 Awards will recognize ten leading companies who have utilized sales & marketing automation to fuel corporate growth iniatives. Winners will be selected from a variety of industry verticals, including technology, professional services, telecom, financial services, health care and others where pipeline optimization has helped to drive complex selling cycles. Click here to read the full report>> Featured White Paper: Ready to Boost Revenue by Up to 10%? It's easier than you think. This white paper gives you five actionable ways to unite Sales and Marketing. Filled with specifics, how-to's, and best practices, this paper provide insights from actual customers, actual numbers, and step-by-step instructions to stop the endless blame game. Your CEO will thank you for it. Download now From Cold to Hot: Lead Nurturing That Generates Sales Transform cold leads into hot prospects with powerful strategies and tactics that nurture leads through the buying process and help sales to close the deal. Silverpop's latest white paper shows you how. Silverpop's Vtrenz Solution. Download now Featured Web Seminar: Developing Brand Loyalty Via Marketing Automation and Customer Communities Learn how marketing leaders are using online customer communities along with marketing automation systems to extend their traditional lead generation efforts, and ultimately adding velocity to their pipeline by building stronger relationships with their customers and prospects. Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Time: 2pm EST Register Now 10 Ways to Improve Your Conversion Rate By Jay Bower, President of Crossbow Group Ok, you got your prospect to raise his hand. Now comes the hard part: turning him into a customer. Here are 10 ways to address the challenge in the age of accountability. Click here to read more>> Tap Into Inbound Inquiries To Insure Relevance Of Outbound Campaigns By Akin Arikan, Dir. of Marketing, Unica Corp We all know that things have changed -- buyers, not companies, are in charge and marketers are on the hook to play to customers' terms. And the terms that customers dictate require marketers to be prepared for being helpful with inbound inquiries to satisfy and persuade their prospects. That requires not only things like online search engine marketing to be found when customers are looking. It also requires multichannel customer analytics and intelligent systems to present the next best (i.e. relevant) offers on the spot while customers are inquiring by phone or still browsing the web site. Click here to read more>> M2O: Matching Market & Media To The Right Offer Accelerates The Pipeline By Dan McDade, President, PointClear Even in an eroded U.S. economy that makes finding juicy deals harder and harder, about 94% of generated leads are not pursued by internal sales organizations. Pared-down sales organizations, reduced to their best performers and eager to close, are frustrated by the very thing that marketers are rewarded for: a mountain of leads. Rather than sort through a motley group of prospects – some not qualified, others not sales ready – they abandon all but the most obvious and substitute their own, usually less successful, prospecting. We use a discipline called M2O – Market, Media and Offer –to pinpoint a client’s best prospects, build familiarity with their organization and need and use that intelligence to craft messaging that directly targets their state of readiness. Click here to read more>> The First Word On Tracking Last Touch Attribution By Guy Powell, Principal & Senior Consultant, DemandROMI Have marketers been measuring effectiveness all wrong? Has measuring lead source been all wrong all this time? Should we stop asking our leads where they heard about our offer? Uh oh. There is a new marketing concept entering marketers’ vernacular called last touch attribution which is supposed to help get a handle on improving the measurement of marketing effectiveness. The fun part of this term is that it is both right and wrong at the same time. It can help marketers make the right decisions or, if applied incorrectly, the wrong decisions. Let’s see how. Click here to read more>> 7 Tips For Increasing Conversions On Free Trials To Customers By Howard J. Sewell, President of Connect Direct The recent explosion of SaaS (hosted) solutions has brought about a resurgence in software vendors utilizing free trials as a primary means of acquiring new customers. Fortunately for them, these companies can now take full advantage of today’s sophisticated marketing automation technology that enables automatic, personalized, rules-based, follow-up e-mails to all trial registrants. However, even the best technology on the planet can’t convert prospects to customers if the underlying lead nurturing strategy is suspect. Click here to read more>> DemandGen Report To Recognize Top 10 Firms For Driving Pipeline Optimization DemandGen Report is seeking nominations for its first annual DemandGen 10 Awards. Presented in September 2008, the DemandGen 10 Awards will recognize ten leading companies who have utilized sales & marketing automation to fuel corporate growth iniatives. If you would like to nominate your own company, or one of your customers or partners that meet the above criteria, please contact Amanda Ferrante, via email at amanda@demandgenreport.com or via phone at 201.257.8528. More info here | DemandGen Blog | Contact Info | ©2007 DemandGen. All rights reserved.