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I count it as good fortune … a big part of my job involves talking to dozens of different marketers every week about lead generation. Lately, I have kept my ears open for signs of downward second half ’08 pressure on budgets due to the economy. And while my report is hardly scientific, I am happy to say the majority of companies I’m in touch with seem to be in tune with the fact that the best formula for sales and marketing success (in any economic situation) is:

Sustainability + Execution + Accountability = Marketing ROI

In real world terms, if you’re driving somewhere, you’ve got to keep your foot on the gas and your car on the road at the same time. Marketing accountability (direction and measurement) are equal to those white lines we all strive to stay between no matter how fast or slow the speedometer says we are going at any given time during the trip. So when companies do knee-jerk reactions to economic news and paralyze their sales and marketing efforts by raiding the marketing budget, I’ve always equated it to driving by those bad planners along side of the road who have run out of gas …you feel bad for them, but at the same time you can’t help but wonder how in the heck they let that happen. Did they really think they could get to where they wanted to go, without keeping enough fuel in the tank?

Taking the gas analogy one step further – in an economy where responsible marketers need to be doing more with less – I equate an over reliance on tradeshows for lead generation to rushing out and buying a Humvee. Sure, the “let’s have a parade” factor is there. The big tires, shiny grills and overhead lights look cool. You can paint logos on them and go like a bat-out-of-hell for two days. You’ll have plenty of conversations with lots of bleary-eyed people about how rugged, yet chic it all looks … but at the end of the day, poorly executed trade show campaigns are about the most wasteful thing I can think of from a lead generation perspective.

I’m keenly aware that trying to steer some folks away from over relying on trade shows for leads almost means talking them into a complete redo of their very persona on a professional level. The success of too many marketers are gauged by how tricked-out booths look, or how efficiently they can ship dozens of boxes from one city to the next. Most large companies have full time employees who do nothing but register for events, manage shipping and logistics vendors and fight - oops, I mean “coordinate”- with the sales team about who to send to this or that event with exhibit hall passes, matching $60 golf polos and thousands of dollars worth of bags and trinkets that everyone forgets in their hotel room on checkout day. Then finally, the two hour meeting with finance weeks later about whether sales or marketing is going to pay for the expense reports. Sound familiar? You know who you are.

For these people I’d like to I’d propose a few things that can be done as part of your trade show production to ratchet things up accountability-wise. The goal is to go beyond counting how many business cards are in your fishbowl, or the number of badges you’ve scanned with your $300 per event “rent-a-scan.”

1. As far in advance as possible, begin processing event attendee registration lists as if they were an operational database. That is, weed out irrelevant contact data, then research, segment and prioritize relevant targets. Add this data to your CRM and marketing automation systems. Then direct pre-show, at-show and post-show calls-to-action at them with embedded “key driver” messaging. It’s really about knowing who you want to speak with before your team goes to the event, instead of passively waiting for people to visit your booth after the show has started.Many events these days offer incomplete contact data for trade show registrants and/or have limitations about how it can be used. As this trend grows, a good approach is to use custom contact database builders like ReachForce to quickly research the companies who are sending attendees and provide you with names and contact information of those who are most relevant to your sales efforts. Very often these results track to same people who have registered. If not, it’s still nice to have the right names when you speak to their co-workers to arrange getting your sales people networked in.
2. Game-plan each event as if you were a basketball coach. Consider the entire exhibit floor as the field of play with the understanding that no basketball team ever won a game with all 5 players standing under the hoop (in this case, around the booth). Depending on how many people you have going, you at least need 1) a good Point Guard (someone working the entire court, driving activity toward the goal/booth 2) a good Defensive Forward (someone working the entire court, talking to competitors, their customers, media contacts, consultants and analyst) and 3) a solid Center (someone – not a booth babe – who can deliver value proposition, demos, etc. in an intelligent and memorable way. Think of this as someone who instills confidence, with whom the visitor would want to personally do business.)
3. Once you have these players in place, make sure they all have measurable objectives to shoot for. Give them a leader and mission and make known in a post show report to executive management whether or not objectives were achieved. In other words, have a solid event execution process that holds people accountable for their individual assignments. This is a good way to avoid the perception that trade shows are junkets.
4. Rather than doing free-form sales pitches at your booth, strive to quantify what visitors think of your product or offer (usually after a demo) by using an ‘asked and answered” approach. A kiosk-based survey system can be used to pose “key-value” and “key-driver” questions with multiple choice questions. Assign point values to each response choice and tabulate them in a way that can be mathematically analyzed after the event to “score” each visitor. If you’re going to give away trinkets make them good ones, and give them to survey-takers.
5. Set media coverage objectives for each event (by doing proper preparation work, setting interviews, etc. with attending media contacts upfront) and measure effectiveness in terms of ad value equivalency. I.e. measure what same coverage would have cost if you bought an ad from each outlet. This is not really a pure lead generation issue, but tradeshows are useful for creating thought-leadership buzz, if done correctly. It’s important to craft a compelling, newsworthy pitch such as a new product launch, or stories linking important key drivers with how your company is positioned to address them. And if you don’t have a couple of client/promoters who are willing to be a part of anything you pitch to the media, don’t even waste your time. I don’t know too many reporters willing to write a story unless there are solid use cases and customer testimonials to back your claims up.On this same note, try to coordinate the timing of your more meaningful press releases with your event schedule. A strong story released with a dateline from a major industry event is a good way to compel media contacts to meet with you there. It also helps give your presence at the event a theme to work with, which is also helpful in creating buzz.
6. As a final dig (I just can’t help myself) always bring a fire extinguisher to each event. That way you can put out the flames from all the budget dollars you are burning when it starts to get out of hand.

Internet purchasing is nothing new in the B2B world. But the recent marketplace site Pudgin.com has added what was missing: responsive interactions between buyer and seller that match real-world trading.

“It’s a new concept that makes Pudgin.com ultra-dynamic, beyond being just a marketplace portal” said Business Development Manager Stéphane Denoux “What’s different is that buyers can influence the price, and small and medium-size businesses can join together to make group purchases.”

“As a result, buyers get the best possible deal, and sellers can unload their surplus rapidly,” Denoux asserted. The trade cycle on Pudgin.com is 72 hours, giving participants rapid access to suppliers and prospects.

Pudgin.com was designed to enable buyers and sellers to influence each others’ offers. With the site’s reverse auction feature, sellers can modify their unit price to remain the best seller, helping ensure a sale. When the 72-hour time limit on a trade lead expires, the seller who proposed the lowest price gets the leads.

Buyers can use the Group Buying feature for greater savings by adding their requested quantity to one or more existing trade leads. This, together with the reverse auction feature, allows buyers to influence price and quantity–just like in real-world transactions.

“Both buyers and sellers receive responses to their trade leads within just 72 hours,” said Denoux. “That means everyone saves time while making viable contacts that end in transactions.”

Pudgin.com’s buying cycle is operational between 8 a.m. and 12 a.m. GMT/UTC, Monday to Friday. Once the trade lead expires, the interested parties receive an email alert and have 48 hours to confirm their engagement.

Two pages on the site clearly describe the selling and buying process. Pudgin.com also keeps members informed about business opportunities without flooding their in-boxes. After selecting categories of interest in their membership area, members receive one email a day listing trade leads that interest them.

Source : www.practicalecommerce.com

When you want to conduct business with Europe's largest B2B market place, the best site to check out would be Trade Europe Global. This market offers both imported and exported products which range from vehicles, to automobile accessories and parts, household items, clothes, and hundreds of other products. Whether you are residing within the continent or you are a foreign supplier of products, you can trade at this market place. What is more, it does not matter what you are offering. You can sell cars, goods, and services here. You can even sell beauty products at Trade Europe Global.

If you are a seller and you want to trade at Europe's B2B market place, you are provided with several categories of products. Some of these categories include arts and crafts, accessories and apparels, beauty and health products, paper and packaging products, chemicals, and machineries. You can even provide consumers with services such as publishing and printing services, business services, protection and security, and telecommunications. If you are into real estate, you can also post your offers at Trade Europe Global. Whatever type of merchandise you are specializing on, you can trade it at this market place.

One of the categories that you can delve into when you want to take part of this Europe import export market place is agriculture and livestock. When you are a farmer and you want to sell your products in an open market where there are thousands of buyers, check out Trade Europe Global. You can offer agricultural products such as dried and fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, cereals, grains, pulses, animal oil, and vegetable oil. This category is not limited to your crops. You can also choose to sell your livestock if you want. This is very suitable for ranch owners who are looking for interested buyers of livestock.

Real estate investors and agents are also welcome at Trade Europe Global. If you want to venture into the property market, this B2B market place is the right place to start your business. You can choose to offer residential or rental properties to interested clients. Or else, you can provide buyers with office building spaces. When you are selling forest or farm lands, you can post these at the site of Trade Europe Global. Real estate projects are also welcome for marketing at this import-export market. If you want to lease your shop, all you have to do is inform buyers about this by posting your offer online. When you are a real estate agent, you can also sell your services to potential home sellers and buyers.

Trade Europe Global is not limited to products such as machineries and household items. If your company is manufacturing beverages and foods, you are always welcome to sell your products. Whether the foods that you produce are processed naturally or not, you can sell these at Europe's B2B market place. You can even provide buyers with desserts, snacks, and confectionery. If you are selling ingredients for foods, vegetable and animal fat, honey, and dairy; you can post these offers freely. The food and beverage category also includes instant foods such as noodles and macaroni. Nuts, kernels, bakery products, and biscuits can also be sold here. There are some sellers who market perishable goods such as poultry, seafood, and meat.

Every year, Indiamart.com gets these internal ideas within the company to convert themselves into more than what they already do. Sometimes, it is to do with their online presence. Some forces declare that they should always have more online payment systems and henceforth convert themselves into an also B2C company. The highly successful B2B portal running on a highly data intensive Oracle database, has got two more feathers in its cap.

One, it has established itself as an unparalleled platform for B2B players and has as a result become a focused platform for advertisers to high income small and medium enterprises. Two, it has achieved to establish the number one gifts portal in the world's virtual space. Coming back to the other feather in Indiamart's cap; Indiamart's specialised focus on small and medium enterprises have borne fruit.

Microsoft Corporation India has chosen Indiamart's home page to advertise on the benefits of legal Microsoft Software. Microsoft Corporation India has gone through many phases regarding their presence in India and Asia. In the beginning they had even encouraged piracy by turning a blind eye so that Windows becomes all-compassing as far as the operating system industry goes. Now with a new CEO at the helm it has embarked on a campaign to weed out all pirated versions of Windows in India.

One such effort is to advertise on the home page of portals such as Indiamart to reach the maximum relevant target audience. Even the ad is telling of Microsoft's sense of communication and design. It says in very few words: "Use Original Microsoft Software" and then five options are given. They are: With a new PC, Buy Online, Dial-a-software , Locate a store and Volume License. Once you have chosen the route you want to take, the site takes you to the relevant area where you can pursue the purchase.

Started with an objective of managing online media for the benefit of businesses, Indiamart Intermesh Ltd. (IIL) has always seen Internet as a business facilitator rather than a technology phenomenon. In fact, the company, which considers itself to be a business promotion agency focussing on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), is one of the two dotcom companies in the B2B model that not only survived the dotcom bust but also is raking in the profits. The other company is other than trade-india .com, which is half the size of Indiamart.

"Our success mantra for surviving the dotcom bust is that we relied more on direct sales rather than doing million-dollar advertising campaigns. Nor did we have any investor putting in millions in our company," says Brijesh Agrawal, COO, Indiamart. In fact, what explains the company's notable presence in India is that when most of the dotcoms got carried away in the advertising frenzy Indiamart's relied more on direct marketing; its sales team went knocking on doors of traders convincing hem to put up catalogues on their portal.

"What a B2B portal needs is a strong buyer-seller base and word of mouth marketing. How we've managed to so is through direct sales, through word of mouth promotion and by participating in international trade shows," Agrawal says. Besides, the company plans to launch two trade publications by August this year. "For a B2B portal it's important to educate suppliers on the benefits of E-commerce . Hence our initiative to launch trade magazines so that we can educate sellers of the benefits of E-commerce as well as keep them abreast of the latest trends in the field," says Agrawal.

Source: economictimes

LUND, Sweden & COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Apptus, a global provider of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) solutions, today announced that the major directory service of Denmark, De Gule Sider, has successfully implemented Apptus platform to launch their brand new site Allbiz.dk, a business to business directory service.

"We’re very excited and proud to accomplish our vision to develop a state of the art B2B directory. This has been possible thanks to the Apptus Theca Platform, set to give deep, precise and highly structured search results," says Patrick Mesterton, Online Marketing & Sales Director, DGS.

Allbiz.dk focuses on B2B customers and services exclusively. It is an excellent tool for small and medium sized companies when searching for new suppliers, customers or partners. In one single place Allbiz.dk provides information that is essential for development of B2B relations such as key financial figures for evaluation of companies.

The search engine behind allbiz.dk is highly flexible and capable of accommodating the most advanced search queries of our users. This has been made possible thanks to the great technical expertise at Apptus. Thanks to the flexible mind of their employees we have a solution that meets our market requirements, says Pernille Eiberg Brocks, Product Manager, DGS.

Allbiz.dk is the latest search solution that Apptus has created for DGS during the last few years. DGS has with the help of Apptus turned their site into a first-rate service which has doubled the amount of data, users and performed searches, whilst keeping the same platform thanks to the Apptus Theca® flexible and advanced solution.

For us it’s stimulating and rewarding to work closely with an advanced company such as DGS and the Allbiz.dk project, says Michael Atlevi, CEO at Apptus. It’s a company that moves in new directions on the market. Furthermore it’s a proof of the excellency of our Apptus Theca® platform. It is scalable both in volume load and complexity and handles a company in serious growth. Apptus Theca® is continually being refined and developed at a pace that ensures and strengthens our customers’ leading positions over the years.

About Apptus

Apptus is a private company, headquartered in Sweden with offices in Canada and England. As the Nordic leader within the field of search and database technology, Apptus provides solutions and products that ensure accessibility for customers with growing data sets and strong demands for search logistics, relevant results and connections to the customer's own business. Apptus primarily supplies solutions to customers within the fields of e-directory and e-commerce. Among the customers are Bokus, CDON, De Gule Sider, Eniro, Hitta, Lokaldelen and Lunarstorm. Apptus conducts research in search and database technology. Apptus’ keywords are quality, result and growth. For more information, please visit www.apptus.com.

About Allbiz/De Gule Sider

De Gule Sider® is the leading information service in Denmark with more than 374 million look ups per year in 101 telephone directories, at degulesider.dk, allbiz.dk, mobil.dgs.dk and information service 1811. De Gule Sider A/S is the largest publisher of telephone directories in Denmark with an annual number of copies exceeding more than 7 million directories. De Gule Sider employs approximately 600 people. De Gule Sider is a part of European Directories S.A. - one of Europes largest directory publishers with companies in several European countries.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://newsroom.cision.com

Source: (BUSINESS WIRE)

IndustrialLeaders.com, publisher of industrial auctions, directories, on-line trade shows and engineering blogs for manufacturing and industrial professionals, announced today the two Web sites ForeignTRADEX and Worldwide Industrial Marketplace have joined the Industrial Leaders group. The company said the three-way partnership will enable all Web sites to feature an Industrial Classifieds marketplace hosted by IndustrialSAVER at http://www.IndustrialSAVER.com/classifieds/

According to Heidi Pearson, spokeswoman for the group, the classifieds marketplace is also integrated with a number of industrial auctions focusing on a wide range of industrial and manufacturing machinery, machine tools, industrial MRO supplies, material handling equipment, general industrial supply products, construction and building materials and heavy equipment. All auctions are accessible at http://www.IndustrialSAVER.com/auction_directory.html

Ms. Pearson said the Industrial Leaders group now consists of various industrial supply directories, trade portals, social media networking sites, B2B forums, on-line industrial auctions as well as a virtual-based expo known as the International Industrial Trade Show (IITS). "From industrial supplies, equipment and machinery to woodworking tools and construction equipment, the Industrial Leaders group connects industrial buyers and suppliers in over 54 countries," says Pearson.

About ForeignTRADEX

ForeignTRADEX.com is an industrial trade directory connecting manufacturers, distributors, exporters, importers and end-users of industrial products with emphasis on the UK and EU markets as well as Australia and New Zealand at http://www.ForeignTradeExchange.com

About Worldwide Industrial Marketplace

US-based Worldwide Industrial Marketplace is dedicated to connecting manufacturers, exporters, importers, distributors and end-users of industrial products all over the globe, primarily in Asia and the Middle East at http://www.WorldwideIndustrialMarketplace.com

About Industrial Leaders

IndustrialLeaders.com the 'American Industrial Marketplace' connects buyers and suppliers of industrial supplies, equipment and machinery throughout North and South America with emphasis on Canada and the United States. The primary focus of Industrial Leaders is to promote American manufacturers overseas at http://www.IndustrialLeaders.com