Customer Reviews

The Lead Generation Handbook: How to Generate All the Sales You'll Ever Need -- Quickly, Easily, and Inexpensively

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Robert Bly puts out great marketing books... and this is no exception. He is particularly great in this book when he talks about business-to-business marketing. He covers how to make "offers" in your copy... particularly the tried-and-true "Free Booklet" offer. You will become an expert in these after reading this book. I also very much liked the section on marketing via seminars... and even marketing on the internet. I didn't bother reading the telemarketing chapter as I have his telemarketing book that was recently published. I recommend you pass on the telemarketing book... but DEFINITELy get this book. I have heavily underlined my copy. Here's a quick quote from his book on audio cassettes: "Audiocassettes are the easiest and least costly audiovisual medium to use as information bait pieces. Some marketers using audiocassettes think that briefer is better and limit the message to 10 or 20 minutes. But if the tape contains pure, useful information, it can be much longer. I have been successful promoting both my seminars and my consulting and copywriting services using cassettes on marketing and sales topics that are 30 to 90 minutes long." He goes on to point out that cassettes can be used to promote (sample) seminars at less than $1.50 per cassette. OK, there's lots of good stuff here. Well worth the $60. Bly is greatest in the printed mediums... but also understands how to integrate the other mediums quite well. He's just not an expert on telemarketing. Again, this book is rated a "MUST BUY." He is the master of the "Send for Free Booklet" offer... and that's what sales leads are all about. John Dunbar, Dunbar & Co.

If you've read some of Robert Bly's other books on Direct Mail --you've read this one. As for chapters other than on Direct Mail, such as "Lead Generation on the Internet", I get the impression that this was written 10 internet years ago. Bly has some good points but you might want to look at his other books in paperback that will be more cost effective.

A search for books on "direct mail marketing" on Amazon turns up only a single item dating after 2007. A glance at some small business marketing books using the preview feature reveals that the subject, while not totally absent from recent publications, is usually reduced to a single chapter and increasingly treated as a historical curiosity that is progressively being phased out like the fax machine. In view of this, reading Robert Bly's "Lead Generation," published 12 years ago, can feel a little like firing up the DeLorean to take a spin with Doc. After all, the book predates social media and the Web 2.0. In an inversion of the current status quo, direct mail techniques occupy the bulk of the book and e-mail marketing is relegated to a single chapter ("the Internet... is revolutionizing the way computer users communicate"). Moreover, the chapter on techniques to reel in prospective customers via e-mail reads eerily like a recipe for cooking up a little spam and wasting a few instants of your fellow human beings' finite time on Earth: "Telling a story in your e-mail instantly engages the reader and creates the perception that the message is from someone you know rather than an unsolicited advertisement," (p. 216). Hmmmm.... You can just picture scammers diligently taking notes.

OK, that was a simpler time, before Monicagate and anti-spam laws. My question is whether the apparent abandonment of direct mail as a topic by the publishing industry is closing a potentially useful marketing avenue for freelance professionals and small businesses. I wonder whether e-mail and Internet marketing is hogging all of the attention because of its obviously lower cost per impression. My two cents is that this book is still worth reading by the 21st century freelancer. For instance, one of the most original tips in Judy and Dagmar Jenner's "Entrepreneurial Linguist" is to write a press release about your business to drum up some press coverage. An intriguing recommendation that is, however, only lightly sketched out. A book such as Bly's provides a wealth of detail from a copywriter's viewpoint about how to produce and distribute eye-catching press releases. Prior to reading this book, I thought that the Jenners' idea, while original, was just not right for me. But now I am starting to think that there might actually be a few contexts in which I could give the technique a try.

Therefore, yes, a book like this has aged, but I would not rush to relegate it to the dustbin. A new medium does not make old ones obsolete but rather enriches the way we communicate. Similarly, I wonder whether our instinctive rejection of "snail mail" as "sooo nineties" blinds us to a potentially rich avenue for getting the word out there. Indeed, I would not be surprised if snail mail and other traditional media offered a higher "cost per impression" but also a higher response rate and (perhaps) a higher lead quality. Of course, I can't actually prove this hunch. But at the very least I would not dismiss a book like this out of hand, since it contains a nugget or two of useful know-how.

I speak around the world on lead generation and marketing strategy. Bob as with his other books did an outstanding job crafting "The Lead Generation Handbook" to give you a roadmap on how to master lead generation.

There are few resources I can think of where you can "easily perfect" your lead generation techniques for Business to Business marketing.

Bob gives you a step-by-step plan that anyone can follow in their quest to excel at creating leads for their products or services.

Joe Heller, Trust Cycle Selling