Marketing Sherpa released findings of a Technology Marketing survey that include blogs and podcasts as two of the top 5 lead generation tactics for technology, hardware and software firms. Overall, the top 5 lead generation tactics were:
- Free Trials
- Webcast
- White paper
- Blog
- Podcast
Of course, if you’re a really good marketer, you would be able to tie in four or five of the above into one campaign, especially when integrated with a blog. Not that you need to offer all five to have a successful campaign, but providing options for how to interact or make contact with your company allows you to reach more of your target audience. A podcast may work for some people, a free trial or a white paper for others. One of the new features of this report is the 13 prospect personas of prospects such as CIOs, IT professionals and business owners.
It is interesting that newsletters are not on the list, especially since blogs and email newsletters are such complementary marketing tools. If you want a broader view of how companies are using blogs, take a look at the recent research from Porter Novelli and Cymfony where 76% of respondents reported increases in web traffic and media attention as a result of their blogs.
Another great resource for lead generation is InTouch CEO, Brian Carroll’s new lead generation e-book.
Full results of the Marketing Sherpa survey are available in the “MarketingSherpa’s Business Technology Benchmark Guide 2006“.
