Demanding Views

By Erich Flynn, TreeHouse Interactive

If you struggle with lead generation, you’re not alone. A recent study on Lead Management and Social Engagement, by research firm CSO Insights, found that poor data quality for both prospects and customers — and the fact that sales personnel feel they don’t receive the right tools from marketing that they need to close sales — topped the list of sales and marketing pain points in 2014.

How can companies turn these problems around and reach their top marketing objectives of capturing new accounts, optimizing cross-sell/up-sell and new product introductions, and improving renewal rates? While web design and content, data quality management, and social media were reportedly the three top areas where companies plan to increase lead generation investments over the next year, the study found that email marketing campaigns were the most effective method for engaging prospects, delivering both the highest quality and quantity of sales and marketing leads. In fact, almost 55% of leading companies surveyed discovered a surge in lead conversions when they used lead nurturing.

By Tricia Heinrich, Sr. Director, Strategic Communications, ON24

Shakespeare might have asked “to be or not to be,” but the question “to gate, or not to gate” has inspired some heated debates in our halls, as I imagine it has yours.

Two schools of somewhat opposing thought exist within marketing. Demand generation-focused marketers tend to believe that most content — webinars, white papers, case studies, analyst reports, and product spec documents — should be gated. The more information these marketers can capture about their prospects, the more quality leads they can generate.

By Doug Camplejohn, CEO and Founder, Fliptop

In sales and marketing, we’re constantly in pursuit of the “perfect” lead. While the specific attributes of this profile will vary greatly from company to company, at the most basic level, the perfect lead is someone whose characteristics indicate a high propensity to buy.

These “indicators” can be both demographic and behavioral but, before attempting to define what exactly your ideal prospect looks like, it’s worth considering whether the perfect lead actually exists… or if it’s simply a pipe(line) dream?