Now is the time to leverage marketing to generate leads. In an economy where it takes considerably more leads and more times to make sales, moving quickly to keep the pipeline full is of the essence. Marketing should be helping you in the endeavor.

This article examines the five fastest ways to leverage marketing to generate and nurture leads. These tactics are designed to work in unison with more long-range marketing activities, and can be executed on an ongoing basis. They’re also meant to fit tightly with and enhance your selling process.

How do you choose the perfect marketing or PR agency for your company? Read on for some advice. And be sure to check out the four essential ingredients you’ll need before selecting a marketing agency.

The first three tips from part one were:

1. Delivery commitment

2. Seeing the big picture.

3. What’s the ROI?

Now on to 4 and 5….

4. Order up. No good agency will be content to simply follow orders. If the agency is tuned to your business objectives, they’ll want to do their part to help steer you to your goal. (And if they’re good, of course they’ll be tuned to your business objectives.)

Among the most sought-after strengths of a marketing firm are their creative prowess and innovative ideas. If you want their best, you’ll need to give them some freedom. Even the best agencies and creative pros will become apathetic and slip into order-taker mode if they believe their ideas aren’t being heard. This isn’t good for them—or for you.

5. Birds of a feather. You’ll want your agency to have a track record serving businesses like yours. If you’re selling to government, they must know that market. If you need to reach female consumers, your agency must have demonstrable expertise there. Find out where they’re strong and the difference they have made for those brands. If you’re looking for full service, find an agency that can and has delivered.

Check back soon for the rest of the five tips!

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the much-talked-about stimulus spending law, is estimated to bring $2.5 billion in spending to technology vendors. This is according to IDC Industry Insights, as reported by David Hubler in Washington Technology.  

This is a “once-in-a-lifetime flood of new technology money,” says IDC. They estimated $101.2 billion in technology spending will be generated between 2009 and 2012.

Among the federal tech opportunities that law is expected to impact the most:

● The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) National Computer Center data center modernization—$500 million.

● The SSA’s claims processing program—$490 million. 

● The Homeland Security Department data center, law enforcement communications–$340 million. 

● The State Department’s security and network assurance technologies—$290 million.

● The Institute of Education Science’s high-performance computing and predictive services—$250 million.

● The Veterans Affairs Department data center and information technology services—$50 million.

● The Agriculture Department’s Farm Services Agency data center and systems services—$50 million.

• Social media, other than blogs—68%
• Enewsletters/email—60%
• Blogs—56%
• Case studies—55%
• Online video—51%
• White papers—46%
• Microsites—43%

Federal research firm Input Inc. anticipates that the economic stimulus bill will generate $4.5 billion in new information technology spending from state and local governments in the U.S. This is good news for service providers who have been increasingly chasing those decreasing dollars.  

“We grew our business based on referral business from customers and business associates. We were going gangbusters. But now, a few years later, as we try and grow the company, the referrals aren’t keeping pace with our strategic goals.” 

This is a familiar story for growing small- and mid-sized businesses. It is especially familiar among business-to-government (B2G) companies. Does it have a ring of truth to you? If you fall into this camp, you may be among the many companies that have used referrals very successfully. You may have even been resistant to deploying marketing programs.

“We have grown and evolved a successful business without a concerted marketing engine,” you protest. “We’ve invested in sales, strategic alliances and relationships. We’ve developed repeat business in key government agencies or businesses and gotten significant referral business.”

This sound methodology has gotten you where you are today. No one can argue with the results of these business development strategies. But, consider this: Just because you didn’t need a coordinated marketing effort in the past doesn’t mean you don’t need it now.

Even companies with the best referrals eventually reach a point where they can’t continue to grow the company strategically. What now? This is where targeted strategic marketing comes into play. If your organization has reached this point, ask yourself what marketing programs you should be leveraging to raise your profile with your target audience.

Or, if you think you could be getting more referrals from trusted customers and partners, read:

Increase quality referrals

3 ways to get qualified referrals

3 more ways to get quality referrals

When costs are cut, executives look for ways to streamline marketing costs. If you’re reading this blog, we probably don’t need to state the case to you that webinars, or web seminars, are less expensive than events. The latter includes hotel rental, food and beverage, AV, etc. etc. And certainly, webinars are far less costly than a multi-city road show. 

Nielsen Online reports a 16 percent year-over-year increase in unique visitors to the top 10 newspaper web sites. This represents 40.1 million unique visitors in December 2008, up from 34.6 million in December 2007.

To top online newspaper site was NYTimes.com, with 18.2 million unique visitors. USATODAY.com and washingtonpost.com took the second and third spots. See the table below for more.

Here are the top ten finishers, courtesy of Nielson Online:                        

                                               Dec-08 UA   % Change

Top 10 Online Newspapers     40,093            16

 1. NYTimes.com                       18,187             6

 2. USATODAY.com               11,420           15

 3. washingtonpost.com              9,470           12

 4. LA Times                               7,963           73

 5. Wall Street Journal Online     7,235          34

 6. Daily News Online Edition    5,883          99

 7. Chicago Tribune                    5,235           35

 8. New York Post                      4,557           60

 9. Boston.com                           4,086            -6

10. SFGate.com                          3,503           26

Of the top 10 online newspapers, nine experienced positive year-over-year growth. No small contribution to this jump was the weakening economy, election cycle and new administration.