TechTarget Launches Lead Management Services to Help IT Marketers Increase Conversion of IT Leads to Sales

TechTarget LeadPRISM Service to Help IT Marketers Generate More Sales, Shorten Sales Cycles and Boost Marketing ROI

NEEDHAM, Mass. – June 16, 2005 – Information technology (IT) media company TechTarget announced today the launch of TechTarget LeadPRISM, a comprehensive suite of lead management services that helps IT marketers:

Generate more sales from the same number of leads by applying sophisticated intelligence against the problem of lead prioritization. LeadPRISM's lead-scoring function marries TechTarget proprietary engagement intelligence with each lead's supplied demographics and qualification information. The results are matched against campaign-specific lead criteria to develop an accurate assessment of each lead's readiness to purchase.

Enable sales teams to respond immediately to field-ready leads by accessing leads in real time and exporting them directly to sales force automation (SFA) applications.

Market more effectively to every lead using marketing action plans that identify recommended next steps based on custom-developed criteria, TechTarget historical benchmarks, and industry best practices.

Helping Technology Marketers Drive Sales

LeadPRISM applies TechTarget proprietary technology, online engagement intelligence and strategic campaign management services to the goal of helping marketers convert leads to sales. In a December survey of business-to-business marketers' 2005 strategic priorities by trade magazine BtoB, more than half of respondents identified “customer acquisition” or “driving sales” as their top priority, a 20% increase over 2004. Studies show, however, that marketers are failing to achieve these goals: Experts say as much as 80 percent of all leads languish without follow-up or remarketing (Yankee Group, 2002). The costs of poor lead management are considerable: According to a recent survey by the CMO Council and the BPM Forum, business executives place the opportunity costs of such lead loss at between 10 and 20 percent of all sales.

TechTarget will release new LeadPRISM services throughout the year, starting today with the release of the LeadPRISM Lead Center . Powered by TechTarget's LeadIQ™ intelligent lead-capture technology, the LeadPRISM Lead Center is a lead-delivery and -profiling portal that gives clients real-time, 24x7 access to leads generated by TechTarget media buys. The LeadPRISM Lead Center service is available to all clients at no additional cost. LeadPRISM Lead Center clients can enhance Lead Center with LeadPRISM SFAconnect, a service that facilitates lead export to client SFA applications.

TechTarget Again Leads the Industry in Enabling Advertisers to Achieve Greater ROI

The launch of LeadPRISM extends TechTarget's leadership in delivering ROI-focused services for IT marketers, including such industry-first services as strategic campaign management, creative review, performance tracking and ROI reporting. TechTarget is the only IT media company to offer a full-time client consulting services department whose sole responsibility is helping clients manage, measure and improve the performance of their TechTarget media buys.

“Like all b-to-b marketers, IT marketers are turning their focus from lead generation to the strategic priority of increasing conversion of leads to sales,” said Marilou Barsam, vice president of TechTarget client consulting services. “But marketers tell me—and conversion statistics show—that they face enormous hurdles in reaching this goal. To better segment leads and identify the best communication streams for follow-up, marketers need inputs enriched with better intelligence. To better assess lead readiness, they need to measure lead profiles against criteria that are strategically important to them and specific to each campaign. But only a handful of marketing organizations have the bandwidth to do this quickly enough to prevent leads from growing cold. LeadPRISM is a comprehensive set of services that will enable our clients to address these challenges and generate immediate bottom-line results.”

“When IT marketers were searching for more efficient means of generating highly qualified IT leads, TechTarget was the first IT media company to step up to the challenge.” said TechTarget CEO Greg Strakosch. “As a result of TechTarget's success, our targeted media and ROI-focused lead generation programs have become the standard against which advertisers measure competitors' offerings. Today, with the announcement of the LeadPRISM suite of ROI-focused lead management services, TechTarget has embraced the challenge of bringing ROI to IT lead management. Just as TechTarget's media delivered unmatched ROI in lead generation, LeadPRISM will set a new benchmark for helping marketers convert those leads to sales.”

LeadPRISM Features

Strategic Criteria Development: Designed to ensure the capture of lead information that aids conversion to sales. Clients work with TechTarget client consulting services, using historical campaign data, proprietary TechTarget engagement intelligence and client goals to enhance inputs to subsequent LeadPRISM processes that develop lead profiles, prioritize leads, and identify appropriate marketing actions.

LeadIQ Intelligent Lead Capture: Enables marketers to increase the number of leads they generate from IT professionals who access sponsored content on TechTarget Web sites:

Multiplies the number of leads by capturing lead information from downstream readers of vendor-sponsored documents. TechTarget embeds its LeadIQ lead-capture technology into every portable document stored as a PDF. When an IT pro downloads a vendor-sponsored document and e-mails it to a colleague or stores it for access by others, LeadIQ prompts all subsequent readers to register. As a result, LeadIQ multiplies the number of opt-in leads sponsors receive from qualified IT professionals and enables an unprecedented view into an organization's constellation of decision makers.

Captures more leads by facilitating quick completion of registration pages. LeadIQ pre-populates registration-page fields with any contact and demographic information the prospect has previously supplied to LeadIQ. TechTarget data indicate that LeadIQ's pre-population capabilities reduce the rate of registration-page abandonment by as much as 50 percent.

Lead scoring: Helps marketers identify leads that need immediate follow-up by sales and appropriately segment the remaining leads into proper categories for remarketing. Lead scoring uses analytical tools to evaluate each lead's supplied demographics and qualification information against TechTarget proprietary engagement intelligence. Based on the resulting scores, leads are placed into categories for immediate export to SFA systems or for remarketing with LeadPRISM's marketing action plans.

Marketing action plans: Enables marketers to draw on the experience and best practices of TechTarget client consulting services by identifying recommended next steps for every classification of lead. Plans combine targeted messaging with recommended documents and marketing materials (for example, white papers or Webcasts).

Direct export to sales force automation (SFA) and CRM applications: LeadPRISM's SFAconnect feature offers marketers a simple way to move all leads into their organizations' SFA and CRM applications, eliminating the opportunity costs associated with delayed follow-up on sales leads. TechTarget works with each SFAconnect client before campaign launch to ensure data compatibility. LeadPRISM currently supports direct export to the leading SFA application, Salesforce.com. TechTarget will announce support for additional SFA applications throughout the year.

About TechTarget

TechTarget is a leading provider of specialized online content that brings together buyers and sellers of corporate IT products. We sell customized marketing programs that enable IT vendors to reach corporate IT decision makers who are actively researching specific IT purchases. We operate a network of 35 websites, each of which focuses on a specific IT sector, such as storage, security or networking. IT professionals rely on our websites for key decision support information tailored to their specific areas of responsibility. We complement our online offerings with targeted in-person events and three specialized IT magazines that enable advertisers to engage buyers throughout their decision-making process for IT purchases. As IT professionals have become increasingly specialized, they have come to rely on our sector specific websites for purchasing decision-support. Our content enables IT professionals to navigate the complex and rapidly changing IT landscape where purchasing decisions can have significant financial and operational consequences. Since our founding in 1999, we have developed a broad customer base that now comprises more than 1,000 active advertisers who placed business with us in 2006, including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Research in Motion, SAP and Symantec. More information about TechTarget is available at www.techtarget.com.

- # # # -

Contact:
Marilou Barsam
Senior Vice President, Client Services & Corporate Marketing
617-431-9368
888-274-4111 x 9368
mbarsam@techtarget.com

Chris Olive
Director of Corporate Marketing, Events and Public Relations
617-431-9374
888-274-4111 x 9374
colive@techtarget.com