I encourage CMOs at big advertisers and directors and chief executives at middle market ones to consider this a modern-day version of the computer hardware / consumer electronics industry.

Only today the focus is on software applications.

Economics dictates that supply of lead sources / technology increases faster than quantity demanded, price is driven downwards.

This is why you see plenty of advertisers pleased to see the lead acquisition costs go down, however, who is to say – when that advertiser calculates costs per lead and follow-up the close / transact new business ratio is enough to net a suitable profit margin?

In layman’s terms – more and more digital avenues keep bringing leads to the market place, thus driving their products (internet leads) down.

A smarter, leaner solution exists for in-house sales lead generation. Especially in specialized B2B products / services at higher price points marketed to sophisticated end-users.

Because of my experience having done lead gen and retention marketing for Merck & Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, New York Life, John Hancock USA / Manulife and AXA Equitable Life Insurance plus over four years in consumer behavior research at Nielsen Publishing, medium-sized advertisers usually go about consulting me after they:

1. grow disappointed with their investments in a marketing service / agency to drive sales leads / demand

and then

2. a marketing VP realizes how challenging / time consuming the decision to save money and manage sales lead / demand generation becomes before long.

As the info-graphic above points out, the bigger the advertiser, the more money they want to throw at the problem.

Many times, I assess the competitive landscape and lead acquisition cost and piece together a way to generate sales leads without writing bigger checks or abusing the client / advertiser’s Mastercard.

It has less to do with creative ideas and brand awareness and more so with smarter, leaner lead gen programs the client / advertiser controls themselves.

Corey Weiner, Advertiser-side demand / lead generation.
@weinercorey (888) 913 – 1419

Thanks Jesse, I think the challenges are more complex, orgranizations are more complex, and solution ecosystems are more complex. So it’s really the whole ecosystem that has driven the increase in time and people involved.