Sales 2.0 Author Commits a Foul?

We recently ran an e-mail campaign to our contacts announcing the availability of my book, Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology. Following Sales 2.0 practices, I thought, I used Sales 2.0 marketing automation software from Marketo to manage the campaign.  Marketo includes landing pages with forms used to capture information about people responding to e-mails. In our case, we asked for basic information including name, title, and company, but only an e-mail address was required to access a free book chapter download.  Following Marketo’s recommended best practices, we e-mailed the download link to validate the e-mail addresses entered.

I immediately got an e-mail response from one of our contacts questioning my judgment as a Sales 2.0 expert in using the qualification form. He said,”As a huge promoter of 2.0-type practices, I thought I would pass along one thought. One of the tenets of new sales thinking is not asking people to register for things like free content because it lowers the barrier and engages more prospects, who if they really are interested can then choose on their own to engage further. It makes marketing information harder — you don’t know anything about some of your browsers, but it’s been proven by companies like Red Hat that the volume of prospects goes way way up.”

I asked Bill Binch, VP of Sales and Customer Success at Marketo, how he handles this objection.  He replied: “An interesting debate: do you want more volume of unqualified/unknown prospects or a lower volume of qualified/known prospects? I don’t think there’s an exact answer, but Marketo falls on the side that we’d rather engage with interested prospects.  For example, the best practice we recommend for downloads is to capture the email etc, and then SEND the asset; that way you are validating the email is legit.  I think there are arguments for both sides, but the value of any lead management system is to help you understand your prospect’s behavior, activities, and demographics.  If you don’t know who the prospect is, then the value of that data is limited in your ability to market to that person.”

Sales 2.0 is complex in that it combines art and science, left brain and right brain.  There are no exact success formulas, so we need to experiment to find the approaches that produce the best results for our customers and our businesses. Should we err in favor of openness and trust or measurement and accountability? What do you think?

Tags: e-mail campaigns, landing pages, lead management system, marketing automation, Marketo, Sales 2.0

3 Comments to Sales 2.0 Author Commits a Foul?

1. 

   Anneke,

   No harm, no foul, I say.

   I wrote about the same topic a couple of months ago on my blog (http://tinyurl.com/b4xrz8), and in fact referenced the same Red Hat example your critic did. Bottom line – if your goal is lead generation, not requiring registration for any kind of download is pointless. If you’re Red Hat and if you’re in the business for giving away stuff for free – fine, but for the rest of us, a short simple registration form is the way to go. Given that you only required an e-mail address on your form, I’d say you were well within best practices. Regards,

   Howard
Howard Sewell on February 1st, 2009
2. 

   Anneke,

   I don’t believe this one has ONE answer.

   I noted in his last webinar David Meerman Scott suggested removing registration forms but a company he I know he knows quite well Hubspot uses them very successfully. I’m not the expert here but I suspect this one is up for debate.

   I’d say not even a “yellow card” for you.

   Nigel
Nigel Edelshain on February 2nd, 2009
3. 

   The idea of Sales 2.0 is to engage in a friendlier, more authentic way, but its purpose is to engage and this requires some kind of contact information that will allow follow up. The idea is to provide additional information in which the client sees value via several e-mails over a period of time. The process gives them time to “warm up” to your company. It also allows them time to learn about your product/service in bite sized pieces instead of being overwhelmed with large amounts of information all at the same time. It is the automated version of the “warm up” in a sales presentation. Without the repeated contact, this crucial step cannot be achieved. As for myself, I don’t mind giving my e-mail address to receive useful information and I often appreciate the follow up e-mails that are usually more helpful than I expect. I can always ask to be removed from the mailing list if the information is not useful. What I don’t like is having to give my telephone number. With e-mail, I don’t have to pay attention if I don’t want to — I’m in control. If I give my telephone number, I’m going to have to deal with a barrage of phone calls for which I don’t have time. In addition, I do appreciate when a site polls me for level of interest and I can answer “just curious” when I just want the information and don’t plan on an acquisition. (Once I “warm up” to the idea I may want it, though). With the results of the poll, both sides can plan accordingly but it makes the transaction less threatening and you probably won’t lose the lead. I believe the e-mail plus poll version really is the softer, friendlier, less intrusive, and best Sales 2.0 approach we’re looking for. However, I do believe that e-mail alone is perfectly acceptable. There is NO foul here!
Rick__S on February 4th, 2009

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