$58 Million Buys a lot of Suspects

KnowledgeStorm, an Atlanta startup made good, was just acquired by Tech Target for roughly $58 million. KnowledgeStorm hosts white papers for vendors and guarantees a certain number of leads (from white paper downloads), each of which must register for the site before accessing any content.

Though these leads are hardly prospects (and indeed at the point they are transferred, they are really “suspects” at best), KnowledgeStorm has built up a sizeable business in lead generation.

Companies who take advantage of leads like these must realize that they are most often far from sales ready. The white papers they downloaded did not even come from the authoring company’s website. The suspects may indeed be quite surprised if followed up with by a sales rep.

It probably makes more sense to do a little lead nurturing or qualification first, whether that is through an automated system or a marketing coordinator. Only once they have started to show some buying signals should they be handed off to the sales department. Companies incorporating nurturing programs will see the most value from the suspects they purchase from third parties.