DemandGen Report

After coming off a disappointing fourth quarter, Harte-Hanks executives say the company is poised for faster growth heading into 2012 – including a series of efforts that have expanded the company's position in the B2B marketing and demand generation space.

For the fourth quarter, the company reported operating revenue of just under $225 million, or a 4.8% decline from a year before. For the year overall, Harte-Hanks reported operating revenue of about $851 million, or about a 1% decrease from its 2010 total revenue.

"While there were many bright spots in 2011, we are not satisfied with our profit performance," said Larry Franklin, Chairman, President & CEO, Harte-Hanks. Franklin also noted, however, that restructuring efforts during 2011 impacted the company's revenue and income, yet the changes also poised the company for faster growth during the coming year.

2011 was something of a tipping point year for B2B marketers. Connecting with prospects on a growing list of mobile devices and across social media platforms were just a few of the challenges added to the list of traditional campaign initiatives.

In an effort to uncover some of the secret sauce that helped leading B2B organizations fuel efficiency and growth last year, DemandGen Report surveyed more than a dozen demand generation experts to find out “what’s working” and why.

As marketers focus deeper on the funnel and look to impact the revenue cycle, there was more of a focus on the tactics and strategies that helped to convert qualified leads into opportunities, as well as new content formats that helped to break through with today’s time- and attention-starved buyers. Additionally, marketers are increasingly turning toward marketing tactics centered on social, inbound, integration and data management to maximize campaigns initiatives.

At MarketingSherpa's B2B Summit in July 2011, MECLABS released results from its 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Study. This infographic highlights how B2B marketers are optimizing their demand generation efforts. According to the survey, 31% of respondents cite web site design, management and optimization "very effective" for demand gen, while 46% primarily use a multichannel messaging strategy to create engaging content. See our "What's Working in Demand Generation" feature this week to hear directly from vendors how they are fueling their demand gen efforts. 

HubSpot, a provider of integrated marketing solutions, has added the Ifbyphone LeadResponder to the Hubspot App Marketplace. Designed to address the gap between web inquiries and sales follow-up, LeadResponder gives marketers the ability to instantly deliver inbound web leads to sales representatives as a phone call.

Ifbyphone's integration with HubSpot is designed to enable marketing and sales to streamline efforts by more quickly following up with prospects who complete a web form. LeadResponder connects a user's sales team with qualified prospects by phone while prospects are still actively engaged a web site and the solution provider is top of mind. When a qualified prospect fills out a web form, the software triggers a phone call to find an available sales rep. Once a prospect is identified, the sales rep receives basic information about the qualified prospect and is immediately connected to the buyer.