B2B spending on online lead generation is anticipated to grow at 17% through 2012. Though we have more b2b lead generation options today than ever before, online b2b media sites are not doing enough to take advantage of this projected growth in spending. There is not enough innovation in business lead generation products. The media channels are weak, measurement capabilities are frequently lacking and b2b companies do not have the resources to nurture, score and track the performance of the lead generation programs.

Here are the 3 keys to building a successful business lead generation pipeline:

1. Objectives – When examining the lack of B2B lead generation success using online media, one of the core hurdles I have found is that B2B marketing executives are unsure how to measure, score and nurture their lead generation pipeline. Sure, b2b lead generation strategy is different for every industry and business, but I would argue that every B2B marketer needs to define the objective of their lead generation programs before spending a single dollar on them.
2. Strategies – Once the overall objectives have been determined the marketer needs to identify the right media strategies and mix. Each industry and each niche will have a set of online media sources,types of programs and tools. You need to first identify the media sources and mix for your business even before allocating the marketing budget to them. Unless you spend the time to identify the media sources and mix that are required to achieve the overall objective, half the money you spend on the online media will be wasted; the trouble is, you won’t know which half…
3. Measurability – Finally, B2B marketers need to track the performance of their lead generation campaigns based on the objectives. For example, if the marketing objective is to reduce cost of sales, the marketer needs to able to measure the sales conversions by media source to determine the return on investment (ROI). On the other hand, if the objective is to create product or brand awareness. Then, I would argue that there are more effective ways to achieve your marketing objective, including standing up a website, section or portal with videos, webcasts, relevant content etc. and driving traffic to it via pay per click or SEO.

Many executives and small business entrepreneurs are of the opinion that China is growing into a major threat. IT services, Energy and Manufacturing industries are particularly concerned about the unfair competition due to China’s undervalued currency that has been artificially pegged to the US dollar to help prop Chinese exports to US and Europe. A G-7 meeting in Canada will most likely be a forum for discussing remedies for global currency imbalances, with a focus on the yuan. But can outsiders really do anything to influence China’s exchange rate?

China has also made signifcant changes in its education system. English language has become part of their core syllabus and students are much more fluent in English than a few years back. Add to it the advantages of subsidized government infrastructure, low cost labor, friendly taxation rules, and qualified young talent – China is most definitely a competition to take seriously for outsourcing services such as payroll, call centers, medical billing, answering services, etc.

Products and equipment are being manufactured in China and sold at lower costs than the cost of raw materials to manufacture in the US or Europe. Mining equipment, toy supplies, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment, and a slew of other products are manufactured on Chinese soil and exported all over the world to US, Europe and Asia. Recently, China just became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world overtaking Japan and Korea.

At the same time, China’s purchasing power has increased over the years, and in the global marketplace that is good news for all businesses as China becomes a consumer market for US companies and businesses to sell their products an services. However, can the rest of the world simply afford to wait for Beijing to make the decision to revalue the yuan and open its markets?

 America’s economy has been driven by its entrepreneurial spirit. Let there be no mistake, it is the spirit of its entrepreneurs and the infrastructure that made US an economic super power and juggernaut for the past century. However, the American entrepreneurial spirit is driven by freedom of expression, value creation and the betterment of our lives while Chinese entrepreneurs work within a social framework that includes an element of government control and lack of self expression. We just recently witnessed Google’s commercial retreat from China highliting that freedom of speech and privacy has limits in China. The US State Department has had talks with the Chinese Ambassador in Washington regarding the troubling issues related to cyberattacks on Google and that a “blanket denial” by China on the issue would not be helpful with regards to the broader aspects of US-China relationship.

However, the Google-China spat is unlikely to have any adverse impact on US’ broader relationships with Beijing…It is far more stable than it has been in some time. There are a range of issues where the countries have disagreements. But, there were many facets to the US-China relationship and a cross-cultural understanding could create healthy co-opetition which could help speed up a global economic recovery.

One of the greatest challenges faced by every business today is finding qualified business leads. You need to have a well thought out business strategy for generating leads to be successful today. There are a few critical steps you need to consider so that your lead generation efforts are successful.

The first step with lead generation is identifying your target market for your products and serices. You should consider hiring external market research companies to identify your target market – Is it the fortune 1000 companies, the 14.6 million US small businesses or the 300+ million US consumers? The market research should also be able to identify who is the decision maker, is it the CEO, CFO, CIO, individual consumer or the home maker. Market research is critical in determining the next steps in establishing a successful lead generation program for your business.

The next step is to use the market research data to analyze the online and offline behaviors of these decision makers so that you can determine where they spend their time while making purchasing decisions for your products and services. Why is it importnat to focus on both online and offline behaviors? Because users are spending 15% of their time online and the internet has made it very easy to do research before making a smart buying decision.

The third step is to identify these online destinations such as search engines, content sites, blogs, social and business networking sites or physical locations such as tradeshows, industry conferences and events that have become the CEO, CFO, CIO or indivdual consumer’s trustworthy resource for decision making. The media outlets and channels that these decision makers use may vary based on the type of business, industry, distribution channels and geographic locations. This is why a focused market research is important so that you can identify a few media channels to target your lead generation efforts as all of them may not work for your business. Also, it is not wise to reach your target customers through just one media outlet as you risk putting all your eggs in one basket for the most important aspect of any business – sales.

Once you have identified the media outlets where your target customers are seeking information while making these important business decisions you can start launching lead generation campaigns by creating different messages to draw the target customers as close to the point of sale as possible so you don’t have to qualify and nurture the sales leads before they convert into sales. This is an important step for you to get ahead of your competition as lead generation is a numbers game and by shortening the sales cycle time from when you generate the qualified business leads to closing them into sales you can leave your competition in the dust.

Finally, you need to constantly review and stay on top of your lead generation programs from identifying  the media sources, creating effective campaigns to sales conversions so that you can stay ahead of any shift in the market trends. Effective sales lead generation will require sinificant amount of your dedicated time and attention to help build a sustainable business. However, Tradeseam has just simplified the business lead generation process for every business owner, partner, CEO or President so that they can stop overspending on programs that don’t deliver an ROI for their business and can now focus their precious time on building the business by taking the higher profit margins fromleads gnerated by Tradeseam and re-investing it in the business for future growth.

To make sure your business lead generation efforts pays dividends, you need to focus on the media channels where your target customers are spending their time both online and offline, create messages to capture the potential customers as close to the point of buying as possible, qualify the leads to shorten the sales cycle time from the creation of the business leads to closing them into sales so that you can get a high ROI from your lead generation programs.

The volume and the quality of sales leads  are critical for every business to keep the “lights on” in any type of economy. If you can’t generate a sufficient volume of business leads you won’t be able to stay in business for very long. However, if you comproise on the quality of leads you will spend more to generate these leads than you will make in sales. It is very important that you always have a consistent and reliable source to generate qualified sales leads as it is the only lifeline of a sustainable business. Today every business owner realizes the importance of business leads and it is important for you to continously allocate monthly budget to new sources to establish a reliable source for quality sales leads. There are many ways of acquiring business leads today and not all methods work equally well for all businesses even if you are in the same industry. Therefore, you need to test different programs and identify the cheapest sources for qualified sales leads for your business.

With web 2.0 and new online networking platforms such as blogging, social networking sites, marketing your products and services including b2b lead generation has become easier and more cost effective for small businesses. If you want to generate sales leads from your website, you must promote your website via pay per click, SEO or in online blogs, social networking and community oriented websites. Many small businesses have started to use blogging as one of the best approaches for driving traffic to their sites with the goal of generating business leads. With the social media traffic growth, it has become easier to drive more traffic to your websites via social networks than blog posts. Although you cannot engage in aggressively selling your products or services on social networking websites, you can certainly promote your brand name by including it in your online profile and social communications with your network. For your social media marketing efforts to be successful, you must select the right social networking platform. For example, if you sell consumer products or services you should focus on promoting your website on facebook and myspace. For businesses networking, you should focus on linkedin and tradeseam. Twitter can be used for both b2b and b2c businesses.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Tradeseam. Don’t miss out on this business opportunity! Lead generation has never been easier and more effective for businesses, both large and small. With Tradeseam, you can acquire new customers while sitting on your couch, without having to do any work at all. You don’t need to manage  pay per click campaigns, write content for blogs, build your network on social networking sites, nuturing the leads from lead brokers etc. Acquiring a consistent and reliable flow of high quality sales leads has never been easier. Tradeseam generates not just sales leads but real business opportunities, these are real buyers and customers looking for your products and services online. More importantly, Tradeseam will always be the cheapest lead generation provider for your business because you get to set your own lead price that you can get the return on investment you need for your business.

You can now build your business on Tradeseam and rest assured that you’ll never have to worry about when or where your next customer will come from….

The climate change conference in Copenhagen will go down in history as one that generated so much hope from all over the globe but was unable to deliver on any of the key issues facing our planet.  Nicknamed “a city that engenders hope and goodwill”, Copenhagen’s green credentials as an environment-friendly city were a big plus which gave everyone attending the gathering something to take home.

Before the summit, the burning issue was how to get every country to come to an agreement that would extract a commitment from developed countries to help reduce the ravaging impact of a distorted environment resulting from industrial activities.

No country, no business and no individual is without responsibility. We need to take measures within our work places and homes to conserve energy, implement  practices towards “greening” our  business environments. The internet can help businesses increase customer outreach while reducing waste and conserving natural resources. 

A little caution in office day-to-day practices, internet marketing strategies, effective web design, and credit card processing services not only enable businesses to project the image of a responsible and forward thinking company but also improve its bottom line.

Conserve energy with small changes in the work place

Businesses are supporting the green cause by implementing simple changes within their offices such as using recycled paper, turning off lights and equipment when not in use, scanning and emailing documents instead of paper faxes, installing energy-saving office equipment, email instead of snail mail, and so on.

Use Internet marketing  instead of traditional advertising

An increasing number of small businesses are using internet advertising to promote their business. Online advertising is more targeted and measurable than traditional advertising and also conserves resources by doing away with print advertising.

Effective web design

Small businesses can build websites to reach customers online so that customers can review  their product brochures, collateral online and  even purchase their products with a few clicks reducing the carbon footprint required for businesses to sell products and or services today.

Online Credit card processing saves wastage

Online Credit card processing is not just a convenience. It cuts down on paper and ink usage. Invoices can be sent to customers via emails instead of printing paper and mailing it in envelopes.

It is every business’ responsibility to do its share in conserving the environment. These simple cost-effective measures help small businesses make good on their implicit promise to serve the local community. The environment is the newest subject on everybody’s mind and businesses can make the simple changes to win the favor of their customers.

Welcome to TradeSeam, the world’s first business network where you can connect with customers, get qualified business leads, find suppliers, compare products or services to get the best deals, saving you time and money on your most important business decisions.

Watch us evolve over the coming months, as we will continue to make our business network the best places on the web for businesses, both small and large.

So start using TradeSeam today. Click here and tell us what you like and what you don’t like about Tradeseam. We promise we’ll not only listen but write you back as well.