The Seven Pillars of Lead Gen

Businesses that depend on salespeople for lead generation cannot grow rapidly or steadily.

Salespeople aren't good at it. 

While slow, uncertain growth may be—in fact, is—just fine for most business owners, for the rest lead gen is the job of marketers.

I'm aghast at the number of marketers I encounter who don't grasp lead gen's fundamentals, perhaps because they've never had to do more for a business owner than "make us look pretty."

Those marketers need to master the seven pillars of lead gen, if they hope to avoid tomorrow's scrap heap of outmoded jobs.

The seven pillars are:

• Email. Of all the pillars, email has the best ROI; but it's overdone and threatened with extinction on many fronts. And many marketers have no clue how to write compelling emails, or leverage prospect lists.

• Events. Events are expensive, but unbeatable for generating leads and accelerating conversions. But many marketers don't grasp the importance of speaking at events, engaging attendees, or following up. They believe it's sufficient merely to show up.

• Telemarketing. Outbound telemarketing. although not cheap, has the highest response rate. But many marketers shun it, due to its unfortunate association with "boiler rooms."

• Direct mail. Out of favor for over a decade, postal mail is the Comeback Kid, because it delivers leads at high rates. But many marketers aren't even familiar with the basics.

• Content. Content is marketing, the secret sauce the generates leads—and SEO. But too many marketers lack the imagination and discipline to produce and publish quality content—whether written, recorded, or illustrated—at a regular pace. And too many don't know how to syndicate content.

• Advertising. With the targeting tools and niche websites available today, web ads have become solid sources of leads. But many marketers don't know what makes an ad click-worthy.

• PR. PR isn't dead, it's just different than it used to be. It's still storytelling par excellence and a powerful lead-gen tactic when used correctly.

Finish Every Day

While Emerson’s daughter Ellen was away at school, she wrote her father to say she was haunted by a past mistake. He replied:

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.

This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Who Attends B2B Events?

According to American Express' 2018 Global Meetings & Events Forecast, five kinds of folks show up at B2B events.

Knowledge Seekers. These attendees want to improve themselves. Content and speakers drive their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Target your content to them
• Invest in a high-profile speaker
• Offer lots of choices
• Provide for note-taking and session-materials archiving in your app
• Offer creative meeting-space set-ups
• Include sessions that feature attendee-speaker interaction
• Provide great post-event information

Tech-Savvy Networkers. These attendees value relationships. The volume of opportunities to connect drives their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Include features in your app that ease connection
• Gamify your event
• Provide tons of networking sessions
• Offer speed networking sessions
• Supply the attendee roster before the event
• Keep conversations going post-event

Inspiration Seekers. These attendees crave purpose. The volume of experiences drives their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Include motivational speakers and self-help and coaching sessions
• Offer brainstorming and co-creation sessions
• Offer chances to become immersed in the destination
• Use alternate venues that remove them from the traditional one
• Offer community outreach or CSR experiences

Social Butterflies. These attendees love meeting new people—and sharing the experience. The volume of meet-ups drives their decision to show up. To woo them, you should:

• Offer tons of opportunities for interaction in breakout sessions
• Offer informal meal settings, to encourage socializing
• Pack your event with entertainment and leisure activities
• Ask Social Butterflies to be your advisors
• Give them opportunities to be influencers through your app

Reluctant Attendees. These attendees are introverts. Professional obligations—and nothing more—drive their decision to come. To woo them:

• Make the professional benefits of attending clear in promotions
• Offer ice-breakers early during the event
• Include lots of breakout sessions
• Point out content that is forward-thinking or research-based
• Include ample free- or down-time
• Include a recommendation engine in your app
• Provide a virtual version of your event

Brand Fanatics. These attendees are devoted followers. Opportunities to get the "inside scoop" drive their decision to attend. To woo them:

• Include plenty of gadgets
• Provide access to key brand representatives
• Offer chances to win exclusive merchandise and experiences
• Provide product demonstrations and early access to new products
• Hold focus groups to allow them to share their insights and ideas
• Showcase the brand end to end

Ross Macdonald Redux

Both sides of the tracks are the wrong side,
if you live close enough to them.

— Ross Macdonald

That the Coen Brothers plan to turn Ross Macdonald's Black Money into a film is reason to go on. 

Although only one of Macdonald's 18 "California noir" mystery novels, it's a ripper—as are nearly all the books forming the Lew Archer saga, the adventures of an LA detective who's more poet than policeman, more psychoanalyst than private eye.

I rarely let a year pass without rereading one or two of Macdonald's masterpieces. His observations of people trapped by undeserved wealth and poverty are ceaselessly humane—and as accurate as any you'll find in genre fiction.

As in life, no one in a Lew Archer mystery is without sin—neither the oligarchs nor the outcasts; the matriarchs nor the mobsters; the cops nor the con men; the hippies nor the hucksters; the surfers nor the starlets. And the prose is delicious—the key reason Library of America this year enshrined 11 Lew Archer novels in its collection.

"Macdonald matters because he’s one of the finest fiction writers in American literature, not just detective fiction," says biographer Tom Nolan.

Macdonald learned to write in graduate school from teachers like W.H. Auden and Cleanth Brooks, who taught him that not only every word, "but every line, every sentence, every little block is integrated into the whole, and everything should have equal weight to create a unified work of art and beauty," Nolan says.

"The things that are most interesting and appealing about him, and valuable to people still, are the beauty of the expression, of the language, the beauty of the prose, which has poetic qualities and is informed by a great lyric talent."

Banking on Brevity

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and
a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.

― George Burns

New-media company Axios, launched in January by former Politico staffers, intends to distinguish itself among the legions of online newsletters by "writing short."

There's a lesson in this for business bloggers, egged on by experts to blather for SEO's sake.

“Journalists are writing for journalists. That’s the biggest problem in media right now,” says Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei. “People don’t want the pieces we’re writing. They’re too damn long.”

Ad-free for now, Axios will generate revenue eventually through $10,000 subscriptions, the founders hope.

"Smart brevity" is the key to attracting those subscribers. The newsletter's website describes the idea:

If you think about your evolving habits for consuming news and information, you realize you have less time, and a shorter attention span. Our content, our ads and our platforms are designed specifically to adjust to these new habits and demands. We aim to make the experience more substantive and meaningful—and therefore more valuable. When we pull this off, it will free people up to spend time on content truly WORTHY of their time, on our platform or elsewhere.

Axios, you might guess, is Greek for "worthy." By writing short, VandeHei plans to steer clear of the "crap trap"―the dead end publishers turn onto when they forget readers come first.