Big company, complex IT structure, stressed IT manager – what happens when he or she wants a day out of the office just to have fun, and learn something new in the same time?

If you, as an IT services provider are there to offer them the kind of professional stimulation  and relaxed atmosphere they need, all combined in an original event, the awareness you generate for your own solutions might bring sales leads, and even contracts. Best way to get to know IT people who are decision makers in their companies is to challenge them to interactive seminars where they can prove their skills and acquire additional ones.

What you need most of all to organize such an event :

• a well-known trainer in the industry of Service Management for example (most major companies have contact centers or client service departments)
• a good catchy story-line. An airport simulation is always a good idea, as it simulates a complex environment with multiple isses to tackle
• a good set of professional benefits to offer to participants, such as the possibility to develop their IT-business relationship understanding skills
• professional logistics (meeting hall, technical equipment, printed materials)

Benefits for your company, as an organizer:

• you increase your own awareness as a provider of IT services
• you get interesting network opportunities
• you have the possibility to acquire qualified leads
• ultimately, the leads you acquired have a very strong chance to turn into contracts

If you want to win the marketing game, here’s a tip: focus on closing the sale not getting the lead. One of the challenges with Internet marketing today is that sometimes it gets so many leads, most companies don’t have the resources to follow-up. So if you do have leads, you want to make the most of them, and follow them through. A B2B survey is a tool that can help you do that.

Using surveys in your lead generation process can get you quite a few benefits:

• Qualified leads
• Personalized future contact with that lead
• Correct identification of your target market’s decision makers

Also, you have the opportunity to collect important information about your product’s market and the people you’re trying to sell to. To be more precise, by using a B2B survey you can:

1. Identify the needs of your target audience

Find out what their problems are in regarding to your field of activity and propose a list of general solutions your company has, that might resolve their issues. Ask them to select the one they find more appropriate to help them overcome their challenge.

2. Effectively size your solution

After identifying what is the solution your prospect needs you have to determine the size he needs it in. You should try to find out the timeframe he or she wants the solutions to be implemented in, or the number of users his company would provide. This helps you with qualifying and prioritizing leads.

3. Collect contact information

This includes direct contact information, as well as indirect contact. You are interested in getting more personal contact information, but he’s not the only one you’re interested in. You also want to know what he reads, where he searches for information and how they research for products or services.

A useful piece of advice would be to conduct your survey online. You are guaranteed to get a higher response rate, as it takes a lot less effort to complete an online survey.

If the survey is conducted efficiently, a very important benefit is that you can use the information given to you to establish further communication with your perspective clients. Personal contact is easier, after the initial was made. You can use this opportunity to better introduce your services or products and finally close the deal. And if you don’t succeed at this, you’ve gathered important information regarding your target market, so you win either way.

Being in the lead generation industry myself, I am curious what the competition is doing. Since „classical” sales methods don’t seem to work so effectively in the last few months, it seems that lead-gen activities are the last resort for some companies to stay alive. However, you should be very careful with selecting your lead-gen solutions provider, and keep in mind that not everything they present on paper can become reality.

Their job is to pass as many qualified prospects through the sales funnel, as fast as possible, to bring you more sales and a bigger income. When they cannot make it happen, there are some main reasons they will invoke. Here they are, not necessary in the order of importance, and some ways to figure them out:

• Hard work in the ultimate thing in sales

They will tell you how many long and tiresome hours they’ve spent  to gather hundreds of contacts, and send them more or less compelling messages on your behalf. You should understand that what really makes a difference is that they only approach the right people in the first place, and try to cultivate a profitable relationship with them.

• Leads are qualified in the 2.0 era

In the past, lead-gen providers were looking for leads in mailings, trade shows, advertising, networking or newsletters. In the 2.0 era, all these turned into blogs, videos, eBooks, free reports, press releases, RSS feeds or  email lists. Even the names sound more pretentious than in the past, the reality is the same: these are not leads. Most of the times, they are just inquiries from people who want something for free. Digging deeper into these sources, your provider may actually find a prospect. Who is neither a business referral, nor a lead.

• Everything counts as a lead

Your lead-gen service provider may take pride in the number of e-mails or phine calls you receive. Still, some distinctions must be made. Inquiries are not leads. People who want to get something for free don’t represent leads. Leads are people who:

1. Have a genuine business need that your product/service can fulfil
2. Have a budget
3. Are really interested in talking directly to you about your products and services to see how you can help them
4. Match the ideal client profile

Leaving philosophy and terminology aside, the best possible leads are the ones you receive through a referral. When this happens, it means thay you already benefit from an amount of credibility and trust, and chances are that you will get a new client – more than 50% of the times, as I’ve noticed.