The Funnelholic

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It’s amazing, it seems like every week I run into a Direct Mail is not dead seminar or blog post or article.  I just read the Go-to-Market Strategies article ‘Is Direct Mail Dead?‘  Typically I have stopped reading these last pleas to keep a dinosaur alive, but decided to read it today.  This is my favorite quote: “The DMA study released in June 2008 shows that 75% of marketers still use direct mail and that direct mail still surpasses email in the most important result of all–revenue generation.”  Look that does say direct mail is not dead, it still doesn’t mean it is not dying.

The Al Gore “Four”: The slow and painful death of direct mail.

1.    The Incovenient Truth–  Come on people…read the freaking news….you are killing the environment for a couple leads.
-Basically in the direct mail process you did the following:

1. Killed a tree
2. Used up expensive crude oil/gas (and funded terrorism)
3. There is probably a bunch of other environmental offenses you have done as well.

2.    Al Gore, the ‘inventor’ of this little thing called the internet –  Please join us in the millennium.  Yes, marketing on the internet takes work.  I still have some people I talk to who say the internet for lead generation does not work…those people clearly do not read my and other blogs and stories that the internet is a GREAT place to generate leads…you just need to have the right strategy to attack it.  Commit to the internet for god’s sake, it’s time.

3.    Al Gore’s reinvention to pure utter hipness –  Guys, seriously, you just look bad with the client.  If you are doing technology marketing and you send a piece of paper to an engineering guy, if he even gets it in his hand, he now hates you for sending him that.  Seriously, in verticals like tech marketing you are HURTING yourself by sending them mail

4.    Al Gore’s staff of people who read his mail – Look, your boy Al has a staff to read the mail, that’s right, they actually have a process for looking at it.  The rest of us, file through the mail and look for the bills we have to pay, not to read a letter from you on Endpoint Security or VoIP.

The “Direct Mail is not dead” movement sounds is a conspiracy run by people who still broker addresses and do direct mail.

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Can the B2B lead generation world accept whitepapers without reg forms?

Two pieces are talking about/with this company Docmetrics known better as the smart reg form:

1. Writing whitepapers blog article on smart pdfs
2. Podcast with Paul Dunay interviewing Vitrium Sytems CEO creator of docmeterics tool

The idea here is that these guys have created registration forms that are embedded in the PDF. Now, you don’t have to force prospects to fill out a reg form in order to access the whitepaper. Instead you can give the whitepaper and collect registration data as the reader begins to access the document. Docmetrics will tell you when the document is actually opened, how many pages were read, and how much time was spent on each page.

So now what?

First let me say, I love the massive innovations taking place today in the marketing world. This is an interesting idea that would seem to have tremendous benefits to marketers and, as such, I will watch closely.

Right now, the buyers potential frustration worries a bit:
1. Is this going to be a bad buyer experience? I mean, I personally will be really bummed having to fill out forms all the way along my reading experience, I wonder what buyers will say?
2. Whether it is eco-friendly or not…most people print the whitepaper and read it in the spare time including the toilet.

From the vendor point of view:
1. This concept is worth the test, primarily for sophisticated marketers who are doing dynamic lead scoring (ie scoring leads not merely when they enter your system but continually scoring after the lead has entered you system and has “interactions” with your various sales and marketing actions). Conceivably the disposition data you receive from docmetrics can be fed back into your marketing automation that will trigger the following:
a. A change to the dynamic score of the prospect.
b. An action like an email or a call

2. The concept that these leads are more sales-ready will lead to disappointment. This tool should be used to help a Lead Development/Inside Sales rep whose job it is to qualify leads before they go to bag-carrying reps. In other words, the “I don’t remember downloading it” or “I haven’t read it” issue may go away but another objection will arise. Lead Development reps overcome those types of objections, sales reps use them against the marketing folks. So YES this is a great tool, but NO this doesn’t open the flood gates to send white papers to sales reps.

3. On the other hand, what about using this as a post-contact tool for sales reps? That is, passing a docmetrics whitepaper for followup…Half the battle on the sales side is the connect and as part of the connect, figuring out where to spend your best time. If we know a guy read what you sent and when, that has real strategic value to both lead development and sales.

Believe it or not, some INTERESTING stats on white papers.

I found this great blog that I read ALL the time, Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers. As you can imagine, the premise of the blog is about the art of creating and marketing whitepapers which he calls the Educational Marketing Revolution. He is really smart and writes some great stuff. People ask me what I recommend all the time, and I for one still recommend whitepaper syndication. (By the way as part of a marketing mix along with webinars, etc).

One thing about whitepaper marketing is that it is actual a bit ‘old school”, its been around for awhile and whitepapers certainly continue to face new lead generation types such as webinar, video, etc.  Nonetheless, marketing spend continues to support whitepapers.  Stelzner’s blog excerpted a quote from Don Hawk of TechTarget:  “The number of orders for white paper-related programs increased by over 60% in Q1 ‘08 versus the first quarter of last year. “

Does this surprise you?  When I was in lead development and inside sales management, I HATED Bitpipe and Knowledgestorm whitepapers leads.  Those were the old days.  If you or your sales people are still complaining about whitepaper leads, it is likely because you are processing them wrong and/or under the wrong expectations for these types of leads.  What you need to know is that the best technology companies in the world ALL spend millions annually on whitepapers for lead generation and awareness, and that nurture marketing programs and lead qualification processes have given these companies the confidence to invest in whitepaper programs heavily.  If your sales guys complain about whitepaper leads it is because you are actually sending them straight to them instead of nurturing them -  and that my friends, is the bottom line.

I grabbed some cool statistics off his site about whitepapers:

A study by KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa found that users and marketing folks rank whitepapers as content they would register for. In fact, 79% of users said they will register for a white paper.  That’s number #1 in the marketing mix according to the study.

Here is the breakdown. Nearly 2400 readers ranked their willingness to register for items as follows:

• White paper (79%)
• Case study (62%)
• Analyst report (56%)
• Product literature(45%)
• Demo (38%)

Interesting but not surprising, 72% of users said they were lured by a detailed pre-reg summary of the paper.  Only 25% of the marketing professionals agreed. (Hello disconnect.  By the way, Mr. Marketer, that statistic better be equal next survey or that proves that whatever one thinks about you, you live in La-la land)

What does this mean?  Whitepapers still work as a form of lead generation.  So when you say a “program didn’t work for us”, I hope it is measured after having gone through the proper lead qualification/nurture processes.

Disclaimer: InsideCRM is one of the core websites of my company, TIppit. Either way, our CRM webinars with Microsoft have been really good. If you are looking into a new CRM system or you are in charge of the CRM system at your organization, this should be a great watch. Live version means you get to ask question. Sign up here