Posted by Michael Damphousse on Wed, May 26, 2010 @ 07:55 AM
Since I was spouting all about LinkedIn at Chris Brogan's New Marketing Experience last month, he has recently been on a LinkedIn crusade to find all the tips and tricks burried inside. Although I love taking a little credit, his recent articles have been full of LinkedIn Goodness.
Use LinkedIn Effectively
Your Network News
Keep LinkedIn Clean
With all the momentum, I thought I would share another LinkedIn tip, use Google to search the public profiles. If contacts aren't in your network, they will still show up!
Google using the site:linkedin.com parameter. For instance, looking for Mike Damphousse,
google: mike damphousse site:linkedin.com
Not only will it find my profile, but it will find answers I have provided and comments in groups.
Let's try another one. Looking for companies in the field of Demand Gen that work with Appointment Setting?
google: demand generation appointment setting company site:linkedin.com
Trying to find a lead at a company that has a specific title, try something similar to this example where I'm trying to find someone at the director or VP level responsible for network security at company.
google: "network security" (dir OR vp OR vice) companyname site:linkedin.com
You think you can find some quality leads through LinkedIn now?
Posted by Michael Damphousse on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 08:43 AM
Most sales people today have found that using LinkedIn as a research tool to identify specific prospects has been a fantastic way to find the needle in a haystack of potential leads. However, LinkedIn doesn't always show you all the names of the individuals your search produces:
So how do you find this specific person's name? Just three more clicks according to Green Leads' BDR Mira.
- Click on the Title, which brings up the full profile.
- Remember the Title, and look to the right where it says Viewers of this profile also viewed... Once there, find a contact with a similar title/company -- In this case, Gerardo (hard to see).
- Now while remembering the title/company of the prospect you want "Research Engineer Intern at VW Electronics Research Lab", click on the name of the person with the most similar title/company that we found above, Gerardo.
- Up pops Gerardo's profile, now look to the right again, and find a contact with a similar title/company to Gerardo in the "also viewed" section -- this is most likely your prospect. So Tanya, expect my call.
If you have any LinkedIn tips, or Lead Gen Tips in general, please share them.
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Mon, Oct 05, 2009 @ 10:50 AM
I know my colleagues in the sales consulting industry are going to fill this page with comments telling me why their Lead Gen Tip of the day would be to craft the perfect voicemail script. My response is -- Don't Bother.
As a result of the recent question on Focus.com regarding "should we leave a voicemail?" we decided to conduct a LinkedIn poll asking only C/VP level respondents (our appointment setting targets) what they do when they receive a well crafted voicemail that is sales oriented:
The results were as I expected, so let the debate begin:
Want to know the mix by department? It's interesting that the geeks listen more than others:
What do you think? Leave one or Don't?
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Mon, Oct 05, 2009 @ 09:14 AM
This past week on Focus.com, there was an active discussion regarding if we Should or Should Not leave a voicemail when tele prospecting. The opinions are varied, but for those of us in the business, I thought we should put some stats behind the argument. Hence, time for a LinkedIn Poll. I've setup a non-targeted poll, below, and I've also paid for a random C/VP targeted poll. The results will be interesting. Clicking on the graphic below will bring you to LinkedIn to vote.
Take the Poll, then spread the word by Copying and Pasting the following on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Update, Your Blog:
RT @damphoux Contribute to VOICEMAIL Debate. Take the poll (please RT). Results Thu. http://ow.ly/sC19 #sales #b2b #marketing 
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Fri, Sep 04, 2009 @ 11:53 AM
A while back, I read an article by Chris Brogan that discussed 19 chores we could each do daily to help us maintain an online presence. I was already doing a majority of the list, but then it got me thinking. What if I had my browser setup so when I wake up in the AM all my daily tasks for maintaining my social media prowess were just lined up waiting for me to get my coffee? Here's my Lead Generation Tip for today.
I've never been one to clutter up toolbars in a browser, but this seemed like a great reason to do it. So I bookmarked the following links and turned on the bookmarks toolbar. This allows me to wake up, sip my Greenest Bean coffee (organic, locally roasted), and make my presence known. I come back to it during the day when I need a break and hit them again.
- HootSuite - been using this since I uninstalled tweetdeck for locking up my system every day. I've got it all decked out with columns, tabs, subjects, friends, you name it
- Google Reader - still the easiest RSS reader going. Read up, schedule the best for tweets on HootSuite with Send Later. Comment on a few relevant articles
- Hubspot Dashboard - finds daily chores for me to do around blogging, keywords, search rankings, etc.
- LinkedIn Q&A - to maintain my top Lead Gen Expert status and to accept invites and other LinkedIn goodness
- Personal Facebook - post some drivel
- Company Facebook Fan Page - post some value
- Fast Company Blog - share an article
- Smashmouth Marketing Blog - write an article
- FriendFeed - check out friends thoughts
- SocialOomph - vet my new twitter followers
During the process, I usually digg or stumble a few articles as well.
ps. Look at the other top experts in the Lead Generation section of LinkedIn. I'm in good company!
What other daily tasks do you do to keep yourself in the frontlines? Leave a comment
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Tue, Aug 25, 2009 @ 09:37 AM
Recently we conducted a poll on LinkedIn where we asked: Inbound Marketing & Outbound Marketing - What is your mix for lead gen?
- Mostly Inbound
- Mostly Outbound
- Both Equally
- Inbound Only
- Outbound Only
The target audience was Sales & Marketing job functions, from the industries of Computer Hardware & Software, Internet, IT and Tech Services, Marketing & Advertising. We used the LinkedIn Poll Application to conduct the study, as well as the free distribution of the poll to our network. It is not the results of either poll separately that are interesting, we expected the Outbound mix to lead, but the comparison of both the public (random marketing and sales execs) poll to our private network (heavily demand gen focused professionals) shows a clear trend that those of us that focus on demand gen have more of a balanced mix with “Both Equally” leading the pack at 43% in our network.
The experts balance Inbound Marketing with Outbound Marketing. So the random sales and marketing execs may want to pay attention to a few points:
- Most companies rely on a mix of Inbound and Outbound Marketing
- Outbound Marketing seems to have a larger portion of the marketing mix in general
- Demand Gen specialists balance their mix of Inbound and Outbound 30% more than generalists
- The mania of Inbound Marketing taking over the marketing mix is either just that, mania, or it is still in its infancy. Don't get caught up in the hype just yet.
- A balanced approach seems to be the mix of choice with a slight favor to Outbound activities
As a side note, a regular feature of my Smashmouth Marketing blog, which is focused on BtoB marketing and demand gen, are product reviews. So below is a mini product review of LinkedIn Polls:
The application is extremely easy to use, and the ability to promote it free to your network or paid through LinkedIn's systems provides incredible flexibility. We highly recommend using the paid LinkedIn poll feature for two reasons. First, it can be targeted to specific demographics. Second, it randomizes responses in a manner different than if you were to share the poll with your network. One feature missing though, is the ability to embed the poll on other pages (such as a blog, or corporate site). Having this widget capability would be huge.
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Wed, Aug 12, 2009 @ 11:16 AM
At one time or another, I've been asked by demand gen folks, Green Leads' clients and prospects, "So you set b2b appointments only with C/VP level executives?" So a LinkedIn Poll was in order.
A C Level meeting is the holy grail of outbound marketing, everyone wants to hear "Yes" and then implement a successful program. That said, the short answer is that if we did set only C/VP level meetings, we would set half as many, the cost to do so would be doubled, and our clients would miss out on half as many pipeline opportunities (sometimes more). Also, some clients are happy with mid-level meetings (do they know something others don't?)
We thought the discussion deserved a poll and some solid stats. We used LinkedIn's paid poll feature to collect the results. Our poll, targeted 500 C and VP level respondents at companies larger than 200 employees:
If your company wants to understand a new vendor's offering,
do you meet with them yourself or delegate down (Dir/Mgr)?
Executive Summary:
- 1/3 of C/VP level executives refer new vendors to Dir/Mgr for intro meetings
- A higher percent of introductory meetings with Dir/Mgr convert to ongoing sales activity
- Across functional areas of an organization, Marketing delegates more than any other department and Finance delegates less
We always start high, by working from the C/VP level down, but many times when we connect with a senior executive they want their company to learn more about the vendor, but they delegate the meeting to a lower level. In most cases, this is one level down from their title (C refer to VP, VP refer to Dir, etc.).
The numbers didn't surprise us. In fact they match, almost to the percentage, our tracking numbers of what titles we set meetings with. So even when we engage the C/VP level prospect, 33% of the time we will secure a meeting with a lesser title. Does this mean the meetings will be less valuable? Not at all.
I've published articles about how we measure appointment setting outcomes, and that the industry average is roughly 1/3 of introductory meetings move on to further pipeline activity. More, if additional marketing programs augment the program. We just sliced the data by title and found that meetings convert to ongoing sales activity slightly more with Dir/Mgr initial engagements, whereas C/VP convert slightly more to nurturing activities.
As an interesting twist to the data. Check out the variation of stats between departments. Finance claims to be more receptive to meetings. I'm sure there will be plenty of sales execs out there that will have differing opinions to that stat.
Final side note: Male respondents were 30% more likely to meet with a vendor than female respondents. Whereas females are 2X as likely to suggest a group meeting.
What have you found about the relative value of a delegated meeting versus a face-to-face with an senior decision maker? What makes sales ready leads?
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Tue, Aug 11, 2009 @ 11:52 AM
Please participate in our LinkedIn Poll this week. We are trying to identify some new shifts we are seeing in the b2b industry as it pertains to introductory appointments.
Weigh in your vote here.
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Fri, Jul 10, 2009 @ 07:57 AM
Last week we conducted a poll on LinkedIn where we asked: Inbound Marketing & Outbound Marketing - what is your mix for lead gen?
- Mostly Inbound
- Mostly Outbound
- Both Equally
- Inbound Only
- Outbound Only
The complete results were published today on the DemandGen Reports site. The short version excerpted from the article:
The experts balance Inbound Marketing with Outbound Marketing. So the random sales and marketing execs may want to pay attention to a few points:
• Most companies rely on a mix of Inbound and Outbound Marketing
• Outbound Marketing seems to have a larger portion of the marketing mix in general
• Demand Gen specialists balance their mix of Inbound and Outbound 30% more than generalists
• The mania of Inbound Marketing taking over the marketing mix is either just that, mania, or it is still in its infancy. Don't get caught up in the hype just yet.
• A balanced approach seems to be the mix of choice with a slight favor to Outbound activities
As a side note, a regular feature of my blog, which is focused on BtoB marketing and demand gen, are product reviews. So below is a mini product review of LinkedIn Polls:
The application is extremely easy to use, and the ability to promote it free to your network or paid through LinkedIn's systems provides incredible flexibility. We highly recommend using the paid LinkedIn poll feature for two reasons. First, it can be targeted to specific demographics. Second, it randomizes responses in a manner different than if you were to share the poll with your network. One feature missing though, is the ability to embed the poll on other pages (such as a blog, or corporate site). Having this widget capability would be huge.
Posted by Mike Damphousse on Wed, Jul 01, 2009 @ 07:23 PM
There have been a number of studies published about what marketing departments are spending budget on. We are looking at more of a granular study. What do people spend on Inbound Marketing and what do they spend on Outbound Marketing.
We'll followup with a blog article discussing the results.
Please spread the word. URLs to share
Copy & Paste the poll URL:
http://ow.ly/gAKK
Or Copy & Paste a Re-Tweet (or just click here to Re-Tweet):
RT @damphoux POLL What is your mix of Inbound and Outbound Marketing http://ow.ly/gAKK