Lead Generation Checklist – Part 3: Develop and Intensify Your Ideal Customer Profile

One of the biggest mistakes companies can make is to try and be all things to all people, going after all possible customers out of fear to miss out on revenue opportunities. Among all possible prospects, some companies are a better fit for a vendor's solution and have more to gain by purchasing it than other customers. They are more likely to pay a premium and prefer the vendor over less ideal competitors. This translates into higher closing rates and higher lifetime customer value. The increase in revenue from focusing on ideal target segments often far outweighs the loss in revenue from abandoning less ideal segments.

But how do you identify your ideal customers? The concept of the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is designed to help marketers identify the attributes ideal customers have in common that separate them from other less profitable segments. Attributes used for segmentation include demographics such as industry and company size, psychological characteristics such as technology adoption patterns (innovators, early adopters, early majority, etc.) as well as trigger events such as the hire of a new chief executive or approaching compliance deadlines for regulatory legislation. In part 3 of his lead generation checklist, Brian Carroll explains how to develop and itensify your ideal customer profile. Check it out.

How to Call to Action

While marketing strategy and planning are critical to success, marketing often fails on the execution side. Take online campaigns, for example. Here you can often see campaigns break down not because of lack of a compelling offer or properly segmented audience but because the call to action is not powerful enough to trigger a response. The best offers never get consumed if your call to action doesn't convert the visitor to even get to the offer.

Anne Smarty posted a great article with best practices for improving your call to action on her blog "SEO Smarty". From choice of colors and words to the optimum position of your call to action on the screen, this gets you started on improving your call to actions to boost conversion - go check it out.

What are your secrets for making your call to actions work?

Lead Generation Checklist - Part 2: Sales and Marketing as One Team

Here comes part two of the lead generation checklist series by Brian Carroll. The first part was about engaging prospects and customers in conversations and taking a consultative rather than transactional approach to marketing. Part two focuses on the chasm between sales and marketing that is common in many organizations. How long has it been since your marketing and sales teams got together for a really productive meeting? In many if not most organizations, sales blames marketing for not producing a sufficient number of truly qualified leads, and marketing points the finger at sales for not following up on the great leads that were produced.

In my opinion, sales and marketing alignment is one of the most critical aspects of lead generation and breakdown in the relationship between the two hurts revenue growth. Unless both sales and marketing teams work hand in hand and agree on the lead generation goals, process, and qualification criteria, your lead gen money and efforts will go to waste. Click here to read the complete post.