Comments for Acquiring Minds

Comment on Segmentation for the Nation by Kevin Campbell

Kevin Campbell — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:40:55 +0000

That’s a good explanation of segmentation and a great resource for companies trying to better understand where they have the best opportunity to succeed in both their marketing and sales activities. One additional process that we find helpful with customers is the creation of use cased. Having individuals from across the company create short explanations of how customers are actually using the solution helps create a clear picture of where the value exists. It can also help as you said, identify trends across customers. What’s important in this process is to look at the holes in your use cases to find out which industries segments are not using your product or solution and why. That is often even more revealing as to where your best segments exist.

Comment on Segmentation for the Nation by Ian Fallin

Ian Fallin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:52:44 +0000

Well written Robert! I hope you are doing well!

Comment on Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to Create New Sales Opportunities by Gautam Tandon

Gautam Tandon — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:58:39 +0000

I agree with you Robert. One of the most important factors we have seen is the time for sales to follow up and nurture the lead affects a lot on whether the lead will finally get converted into a customer.

Interestingly, it’s more a mix of art + science… if you do too much follow up and too quickly, that scares the other person.. and if you don’t follow up for days/weeks, the relationship goes stale…

Good article.

Thanks,
GT

Comment on Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to Create New Sales Opportunities by Tweets that mention Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to Create New Sales Opportunities -- Topsy.com

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 07:49:55 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Robert Lesser and Gary M. Katz, Tony Karrer. Tony Karrer said: Lead Generation: Digital Strategies to Create New Sales Opportunities http://bit.ly/dV1ikr [...]

Comment on The Risky Business of Exclusive Reselling by Tewks

Tewks — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:41:33 +0000

Great points all. I think another important point is the focus of the VAR itself…

- Bucket shops – serves the role of extended implementation team. Not much value add, branding, or differentiation. I’d say these are very high risk in terms of vendor dependency, but are also low risk in terms of startup costs.

- Distributor. They take ownership (up front payment) of software and resell it to clients on their own. Not as prevalent yet in the marketing automation space, but certainly present in others – namely MSP’s. Here, the distributors actually have quite a bit of relative power because they are buying in aggregate.

- Agency – focused more on solving a business problem than the tool. Tend to be tool agnostic. They have less risk tied to the tool because of the focus on the client relationship.

Reflecting on the marketing automation space, I think the focus needs to be on being an agency. From a technology standpoint the platforms are very similar. Sure, they each have their own unique special sauce, but not so to make a big difference. What is a big differentiator, however, is the consulting relationship to build value with the tools. The role of an advisor is huge.