ORLANDO — Picking up where DMA president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen left off, panelists at yesterday's DMB conference said providing relevant content is one of the most important things for lead generation.
“That's always been the most important thing, but now that information is packaged in a fresh new way on the Internet,” said panelist Russell Kern, president of Kern Direct.
Other participants were Ken Burke, founder/president of Multimedia Live; Nick Parham, senior manager for Internet and direct marketing at Cisco Systems; and Fred Young, chairman, president and CEO of Black Box Corp. Wientzen led the moderation, “B-to-B Marketing in a Multichannel World.”
Parham said the key to lead generation is not only providing relevant information to people, but putting it in a place where they will see it.
“Content syndication is important,” he said. “We have to put that information where people work, live and play on the Internet.”
As for multiple contacts through e-mail, Parham said he is seeing more people opting out because of the amount of e-mails they are receiving.
“We are throwing too much at them,” he said. “It's going in the wrong direction. If you are going to contact people on a frequent basis, the e-mails have to eye-catching and use things such as multimedia.”
The entire panel agreed that it is possible to send people e-mails on a daily basis as long as the information is relevant and will help them do their jobs.
Response rates for direct mail promotions are not going through the roof, Kern said, but they are maintaining as is the quality of leads generated by direct mail campaigns. E-mail response rates are holding but showing signs of declining as is the quality of the leads they are creating.
