BtoB Media Business - November 2007 - (Page 12) LEAD GENERATION New technology helps bridge six degrees of marketing separation C scription basis. Hoover’s has created a BY MARIE GRIFFIN strategic partnership with Visible Path huck Richard, VP-lead analyst at to develop Hoover’s Connect. consultancy Outsell Inc., has The Visible Path serbeen following the vice starts with digital indevelopment of lead genformation from a person eration within the b-to-b (the subscriber) who media. Media Business seeks to meet a targeted asked him what the leadcontact, for example, ing edge of lead generaSteve Ballmer, CEO of Mition looks like today. crosoft Corp. With the The latest Web 2.0 subscriber’s permission, permutation of lead genthe application analyzes eration uses social his or her contact networks to connect a management system and seller with a potential Hoover’s Connect uses Visible e-mail to compile a profesbuyer via personal Path’s technology to track sional social network. connections, Richard down contacts. Hoover’s Connect said. “If you have the would then try to match people in the right name and contact information, but that person won’t take your call, it’s not a subscriber’s network to one or more persons who have a relationship with very good lead,” he said. Ballmer—or who have a relationship Richard said a good example of this socially powered type of lead generation with someone who has a relationship with him—using Hoover’s database of is being offered by Hoover’s, a unit of names and titles at corporations. Dun & Bradstreet, that provides Richard said the Visible Path model information about companies on a sub- also uses criteria such as the frequency and recency of the communications within the subscriber’s network to estimate the closeness of relationships along the path of separation and maps the best relationship-based route between the subscriber and the target. Not all the individuals along this path have agreed to be personally identified, so Hoover’s Connect acts as a gobetween and e-mails the subscriber’s request for help to the people who can make the introductions. Also, the subscriber’s name needs to be recognizable to the first go-between, at minimum, because of some prior communication. As each person in the chain agrees, the subscriber’s request is passed along to the next, until it reaches the target by way of someone they know. Another company offering a similar service, Richard said, is Generate Inc. American City Business Journals, a division of Advance Publications, is an investor in and a strategic partner of Generate. 12 | Media Business | November 2007 | mediabusinessonline.com http://www.datajoe.com http://www.datajoe.com http://mediabusinessonline.com
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