Smashmouth B2B Blog: Sales & Marketing Demand Gen

Election Day: SLMA's 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management

The Sales Lead Management Association has opened up voting for the 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management.  I'm on the list, so if I've earned your respect in the world of demand gen and lead generation, I'd love your vote.  

The list is vast and full of some fantastic peers of mine, and you can only choose 3.  So choose wisely.  Members of SLMA and non-members are allowed to vote.

Here is the list.  If you find someone you want to vote for, click through and place your vote.

Trish Bertuzzi - The Bridge Group 
Karla Blalock - PointClear 
Bob Bly - Bly.com 
April Brown - Rubicon Marketing Group 
Michael Brown - Purple Pig Consulting 
Michael A. Brown - Business to Business by Phone Troy Burk - Right On Interactive 
Brian Carroll - InTouch 
Jep Castelein - LeadSloth 
Elisa Ciarametaro - Exceed Sales 
John Coe - The Sales and Marketing Institute 
Greg Coleman - LeadQual 
Lisa Cramer - LeadLife Solutions 
Richard Cunningham - Right On Interactive 
Mike Damphousse - Green Leads 
Debra DeCosta - Direct Marketing Partners 
Mary Dedrick - Performark Inc 
John Doerr - Wellesley Hills Group 
Mike Falkson - eti Sales Support 
Bob Felsenthal - BtoB Magazine 
Phil Fernandez - Marketo 
Susan Friedmann - The Trade Show Coach 
Andrew Gaffney - DemandGen Report 
Sanjay Gala - SMARTe Inc. 
Bill Goldsmith - BP Productions 
Pete Gracey - AG Salesworks 
Bernice Grossman - DMRS Group Inc. 
Gerhard Gschwandtner - Selling Power 
Ann Handley - Marketingprofs 
John Hasbrouck - NewLeads C
arlos Hidalgo - The Annuitas Group 
Jay Hidalgo - Annuitas Group 
Christopher Hosford - BtoB 
Tom Judge - Direct Marketing Partners 
Russell Kern - The Kern Organization 
Russ King - LeadMaster 
Victor Kippes - Validar 
Jill Konrath - Selling to Big Companies 
Hilarie Koplow-McAdams - salesforce.com 
Jim LaBelle - LeadTrack 
Cliff Langston - Leads To Sales 
Joe Lethert - Performark 
Dan McDade - PointClear 
JT McDonald - MarketNet Services Inc 
Laura McGuire - Saligent dba SmartTracks 
Mac McIntosh - Mac McIntosh Inc.  
Mark McIntosh - Interlink1 
Robert B Miller- Miller Heiman Inc. 
Dan Morefield - Leads360 
Ken Murray - VanillaSoft Inc 
Bill Nussey - Silverpop 
Kirtan Patel - LeadOrganizer 
Joe Payne - Eloqua 
Jeff Pedowitz - The Pedowitz Group 
James Pennington - Anderson Direct Marketing 
Maria Pergolino - Marketo Barbara Pfeiffer - Nurture Institute Debbie Pierce - NitroMojo 
Eric Rabinowitz - Nurture Institute 
Sam Reese - Miller Heiman Inc. 
Bill Rice - Kaleidico 
Jose Raul Rodriguez - Aon 
Dan Rogers - SmartLead by The AdTrack Corporation 
Anneke Seley - Phone Works LLC 
Tibor Shanto - Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.  
Karen Sheehey - interlinkONE 
Gary Skidmore - Harte Hanks 
Jeff Solomon - Leads360 
Paul Staelin - Birst 
Jim Steele - salesforce.com 
Drew Stevens – Drew Stevens 
Ruth P. Stevens - eMarketing Strategy 
Chris Tremblay - Event Technologies 
Tann Tueller - Harte Hanks 
Frank van Veenendaal - salesforce.com 
Jenny Vance - LeadGen 
Mari Anne Vanella - The Vanella Group 
Chris Williams - Compusystems 
Keith Wolf - Virtual Appoint 
Steve Woods - Eloqua 
Fred Yee - ActiveConversion 
Scott Zimmerman - The Cyrano Group

If you don't see the name of your favorite Lead Gen Experts, drop us a comment...

Poll: Demand Gen Experts Use Equal Mix of Inbound & Outbound Marketing

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.