And they do

Dennis Foreman

From there we’re onto subpages, and I agree, placing multiple links to signup forms, and tracking where they came from is certainly important to capture.

Nice article.

We are a lead centric company.

We used to have extensive forms but after testing out various forms we have arrived at forms that are simpler and convert better.

Regards
Ranjana

Thank You,

The columns Bryan writes for ClickZ demand brevity and are geared to a specific audience as you recognize. You’ve read “Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?” and our other work so you know that we’re mostly in agreement with you. You’re welcome to air your ideas here, especially since they are good ones. However, please don’t present your ideas as controversial at our expense. Your buttering up convinced me you know we’re not at odds with you.

Best regards,

Jeffrey

That is why I continue to be disappointed when you touch on areas related to B2B revenue generation. I realize that your community is primarily web design professionals; however, they need to be aware of best practices in companies selling complex solutions to other businesses.

Nothing in your post was necessarily wrong – it was just inefficient and outdated. May I respectfully submit the following?

1. Statistically, B2B salespeople generate 50% to 70% of the prospects that result in contracts. They are much more productive than marketing because they execute “prospecting and prospect development” as opposed to “lead generation”. Prospect development is a 1-to-1 relationship building exercise, lead generation is a mass marketing, advertising based, skimming of potential customers. 30% to 40% of your ideal prospects are trashed because they are not ready to engage with a salesperson. FORGET LEADS AND LEAD FORMS – THINK RELATIONSHIPS AND DIALOGS.

2. The problem with your approach, and the approach of 95% of B2B marketers, is that the business prospect now performs much of his buying process on the web, long before he is willing to engage with a salesperson. Therefore, your website is involved in the SELLING PROCESS. How many of your community members have ever “carried a bag” or even attended a formal sales training class? IT’S ABOUT SELLING.

3. And what does research tell us are the key elements to highly productive selling?
a. Relationship building (Customer perceptions and emotions)
b. Dynamic formal sales process (Strategic dynamic multi-step dialogs based on listening to your customer)
c. The Science of Persuasion (What actions should your prospect take?)
d. Activity Level (Touches)
IF YOU ARE NOT INTERACTING AND LISTENING TO YOUR PROSPECT YOU CAN’T SELL.

4. And what is the web equivalent to interacting and listening? Its analytics driven dynamic multi-step web interactions, i.e. Sales 2.0. All of your suggestions are the poor (or ignorant) man’s answer to dynamic multi-step interactions. Why? Don’t your community members have marketing budgets? These on-demand services are inexpensive. It’s the persuasive design that’s expensive. Perhaps you should spend less time critiquing Marketo’s persuasive architecture, and more time understanding the positive impact their technology delivers for improved prospecting activity, sales process and relationship-building. IF ALL YOU OWN IS A HAMMER EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE A NAIL.

5. What do you mean by “Aggressively Optimize Your Lead-Gen Process”? In aggressive B2B sales companies, improvements in conversion rates and leads generated are the fast lane to unemployment. Ask the CEO what is important in marketing, prospecting and sales and he will tell you. IF IT DOESN’T IMPROVE SALES PIPELINE, REVENUE OR MARGIN – WHY DO IT?

Brain, I sincerely thank you for your insight and your willingness to entertain different views and perspectives. I offer these comments to stir controversy and discussion. I will entertain any polite, scientific, data-driven discussion on the opinions I have offered here. Anyone who wishes to take this offline can reach me at bbutler@moredemand.com. Also, our company has a placeholder website that we threw up (good choice of words) when we started our prospecting productivity research. Ignore it. http://www.DigitalSalesAssistant.com will be the new blog/web site.

Brock Butler, CEO
MoreDemand LLC

For one of our clients we have helped deliver exceptional ROI by providing 2 lead generation forms on the primary lead generation page.

Form 1 asks the visitor for minimal information, so that they can get back to doing their job quickly, whilst our client receives just enough information to begin the sales process with them.

Form 2 asks for much more detailed information from the visitor about their requirements. This provides benefits to both visitor and client – the visitor gains full confidence that the company they are contacting have taken full consideration of the type of order information they would like to provide, and the company get much more qualified leads which drastically speed up the sales process.

By presenting these 2 alternatives to the visitor they simply need to choose which form fits their time constraints and general requirements, and away they go. Even if they choose the basic form, they are aware of the type of detail that the company is looking for in the more in-depth form, which again
reflects positively on our clients understanding of their customers wants and needs.

In wrapping up, your post has prompted me to plan in an article on this very subject on our usability blog – thanks Bryan!