TechTarget, an IT media corporation, acquired KnowledgeStorm on the same day it announced its third quarter financial results.  The one should help the other; according to TechTarget’s chairman and CEO, Greg Strakosch, “Our preliminary internal projections are that KnowledgeStorm will contribute revenues of $12 – $14 million and adjusted EBITDA of $4.5 – $5.5 million during the first twelve months post-integration.”

Otherwise, the company’s financial news was a bit of a mixed bag.  On the less than bright side, net income was down, and TechTarget’s stock price has dropped by a tiny bit.  More encouraging is the fact that total revenue was up.

From a sort of historical business perspective, things also look positive.  peHUB reports that KnowledgeStorm’s investors included firms like Apex Venture Partners, Live Oak Equity Partners, and Sterling Partners, and TechTarget has ties to Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, and VeriSign.

TechTarget might not have achieved any brilliant successes in its third quarter, but with KnowledgeStorm by its side, the company seems well positioned to thrive in the future.

An excellent way to reach people early is by developing thought-leading content. Yet most companies lack thought provoking, educational content; instead, they emphasize sales content. Sales content is most relevant in the later stages of the buying process.

Your content should be specifically designed to help support and pull your potential customer through each stage of their buying process. How? By helping people find the answers to their questions and being a resource to them, regardless of their timing to buy. Also see: Using Thought Leading Content as a Lead Generation Tool

Podcasts are a great way to share your thought leading content which is why I found this report by KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann very compelling. They just announced the results of a joint research study on the emerging role of new media, particularly podcasts, on B2B technology purchase decisions.

Key Findings from the Study Include:

• 41 percent of survey respondents claim they have listened to podcasts on more than one occasion, while 13 percent stated that they “frequently” download or listen to them.
• 32 percent of survey respondents stated their usage of podcasts has “Increased” or “Significantly Increased” in the last six months.
• 72 percent claimed that they have downloaded or listened to podcasts on technology topics on more than one occasion; 23 percent do so “frequently.”
• Nearly 60 percent of respondents said that information on business or technology topics, currently delivered as white papers or analyst reports, would be more interesting as podcasts.
• 55 percent of respondents would be more likely to consume white papers and analyst reports if they were delivered as podcasts.
• 57 percent of the frequent podcast users stated their biggest challenge with podcasts is the scarcity of interesting content.
• 65 percent responded that they listen to podcasts for both personal and business interests.

To learn more about the Emerging Media Series study visit, Podcast Study Report.

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

Does your site cater to a vertical market? What expectations do you have for vertical industry search? Post your opinions on WebProWorld.

Amber noted the KnowIt search engine is in beta, and available for public testing. That engine taps KnowledgeStorm’s index of 2500 sites comprised of some 10 million pages.

In the KnowIt index, all results are organic-based. No pay for position there. KnowIt will add more features like job listings and business searches in the future.

(An aside to the folks at KnowledgeStorm: how about a FAQ about KnowIt?)

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

That amounts to literally billions of wasted marketing dollars. The speed of lead follow-up is a major contributor to this problem.

KnowledgeStorm and The Artemis Group just completed a benchmarking study of best practices for pursuing online leads (registration required). They concluded, “Leads get cold quickly, so it is vital that vendors implement prompt, effective lead follow-up processes.”

I’ve closed-the-loop on thousands of leads with clients and unquestionably, the speed of follow-up and the degree of lead acceptance by the sales people has a major impact on ROI.

One of my clients; centrally qualifies all their leads (via phone) against their universal lead definition standard with in 2-hours, distributes and requires their field sales force to follow up on web inquiries with in 4 to 8-hours.  They generate 12,000 inquiries per year, mostly via their website.

If a qualified sales is not followed up by the assigned sales person with in 24-hours, they can count on a call from their sales manager. If a sales lead goes more than 48-hours before being touched, that sales person risks having that lead assigned to someone else – someone with more selling time capacity.

Does that seem a bit too militant for your taste? Perhaps. For them it works. They have an amazing lead conversion rate, which is triple the amount of their industry peers. They are successfully beating three Fortune 500 competitors who are 50 times their size.

One final thought, If your sales team cannot turn leads back over for additional lead nurturing you are just throwing a lot of your budget on the scrap heap.

We have discovered that 30% – 45% of leads that were not considered viable opportunities by the sales team actually became sales ready opportunities within 12-months. They re-captured a $1million dollars per month in potential revenue by simply giving their sales team the ability to hand the baton back.

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.