After reading Joanne’s post yesterday about recession proof selling, I saw this posting about recession proof marketing. Uh oh, it looks like almost everyone is agreeing we’re headed into a recession. (Unless you’re part of the tech industry in Boston, but I digress.)
Brian and Joanne both agree that one of the key areas to focus when economic times are tough is lead generation. Joanne gives her 5 tips for salespeople to improve lead generation through referrals. Brian tells marketers to, “…direct their budgets away from traditional awareness building campaigns that quickly eat up budget and instead expand and optimize lead generation programs that bring measurable results.” And he points to an IDC study that says that 80% of marketing expenditures on lead generation and collateral are wasted because the leads are ignored by sales people.
The Marketing department in a recession needs to focus on those tasks that generate valuable leads for the sales reps. So valuable that these leads are equal in value to the sales rep’s own lead generation through referrals.
Actually, marketing’s lead generation programs should be doing that even when times are booming!
All About Referral Selling 
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