[Posted by Jeremy Viault, Product Marketing Manager, Neolane]

When implementing a lead management strategy, marketers are challenged to find the most effective ways to engage and remain top of mind with their target audiences. Today, no other device is closer to people than their smartphone. Think about it: when, if ever, do you leave home without your smartphone? How often do you sleep with your smartphone on your nightstand?

Considering that Forrester predicts that nearly 80% of US e-mail users will access their emails via mobile by 2017, we can say that integrating mobile in your lead management strategy is not an option but a requirement! Here are five tips for doing so:

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[Posted by Ed Hadley, Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

According to Gartner, by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human.  Given trends in social media, you can bet a significant portion of these interactions will move away from the inbox.

The July 2012 “State of Lead-To-Revenue Management” report from Forrester Research highlighted this trend stating “B2B tech marketers have adopted lead nurturing as a best practice. However, very few we speak with claim to be using advanced lead-nurturing tactics. Many marketers are looking to advance from their current state of play: a single nurturing stream for all target audiences; touches that are about the company or its products; engagement primarily through email…”

In a B2B context, businesses don’t make purchase decisions, people do; and people are inherently multi-channel and perpetually connected these days.  Marketers that are relying on email alone to nurture potential customers aren’t optimizing their communications or maximizing the potential for revenue and market share.

This post will spotlight three different channels (outside of email) that can and should be incorporated into your lead nurturing programs.

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[Posted by Erin Collins, Field Marketing & Events Specialist, Neolane, Inc.]

Lead generation and lead management are the backbone of the sales process and remain vital to the overall marketing process as well. Effective lead management can allow your organization to optimize budgets, close more business, and gain a competitive advantage.

It’s critical that marketers are doing everything they can to track leads efficiently. However, with the growing number of marketing channels available, knowing where leads are coming from and who is behind these leads can be challenging. The following is a list of 5 ways marketers can track leads more efficiently:

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[Posted by Ed Hadley, Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

At times, it might seem like marketing moves at the speed of light.  Just when you think it’s safe to stop and take a breath, you realize you’re actually behind in 10 other areas.  It’s easy to set things on the back burner and rely on “the way it’s always been”.  But, as marketers, we have a responsibility to look for ways to improve and optimize our internal processes and campaign results.  You know you should probably focus a little bit more effort on lead management processes, yet, many marketers struggle to find the time.  According to MarketingSherpa, 68% of B2B organizations have not taken the time to document and identify their funnel.  65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing and 79% of B2B marketers have not established lead scoring.

Perhaps it’s not just a matter of finding the time, but rather finding the right questions to ask.  Questions that translate into a healthier pipeline and a more efficient lead management process.  Here are five different areas of lead management that every organization should be thinking about and a handful key questions that may help your organization identify some quick wins in lead management success.

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[Posted by Ed Hadley, Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

Over the last decade, adoption of lead management technologies has blossomed across a wide variety of industries including Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), and Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C).    Historically, the high-tech and software industries saw considerable early adoption growth in lead management.  But more and more companies across a wide array of industries are starting to realize lead management can deliver unprecedented automation, cross-channel communication, and ROI.   In industries like Financial Services, Healthcare, Sports & Entertainment, and Education, organizations are engaging lead management to help automate the cadence of communications, segment target audiences, and generally manage cross-channel customer engagement across digital channels more effectively than any siloed best-of-breed technology could.

Here are a few examples of industries that have showed a marked increase in lead management adoption over the last few years.  This trend is likely to continue given validation of return on investment in lead management from the world’s most recognized brands in non-tech industries.

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[Posted by Ed Hadley, Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

Engaging customers and prospects across a variety of marketing channels isn’t necessarily difficult.  But without methodically thinking through how customer interactions (regardless of channel) collectively educate, influence, and drive prospects to action, your lead management process may be doing more harm than good.  And how do new and emerging channels like social media fit into the mix?

According to research from the Social Media Examiner (April 2012, n=3800) 93% of B2B marketers used social media to market their business.  In fact, in a growing trend, over half of B2B respondents reported using social media for demand generation efforts.

In a complex sales cycle, social media gives buyers access to customer reviews, peers, colleagues, and competitors like never before.  It’s ultimately made buyers very savvy and, at times, maybe even more knowledgeable than your own sales reps.  But, social media also provides 24×7 access to real-time engagement with your brand – engagement that is highly relevant and timely given the specific needs of the prospect.  The trick is, learning to tap into the benefits of social media within your lead management processes.

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[Posted by Daniela Basile
Database Marketing Intern, Neolane, Inc.]

Enterprise marketing databases can include massive amounts of data relating to customers, ranging from names and email addresses to more specific data such as purchasing or browsing behavior. All of this data allows marketers to accurately define customer segments in an effort to deliver targeted campaigns and messages to the right recipients.

With all of this data available, oftentimes the hygiene of data becomes convoluted, resulting in high bounce rates of emails and missed opportunities to connect with prospects through a preferred channel. This post will offer some tips for cleansing your data as well as some reasons why doing so can result in more effective lead management strategies.

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Lead scoring is an effective way to objectively rank the relative quality of one prospect over another; it helps everyone on the team see quickly which potential clients are likely to become long-term relationships. There are numerous ways to reach prospects in the digital landscape, each with its own unique challenges. In this post, we will offer a series of lead management lessons by comparing the lead scoring process to a 9-hole, mini golf course:

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[Posted by Daniela Basile
Database Marketing Intern, Neolane, Inc.]

Too often, marketers are delivering messages via the old fashioned “batch and blast” system (i.e., sending messages to massive segments), which can lead to inaccurate or irrelevant messages for the recipients. With so many digital channels now available, appealing to the customer at initial contact is more important than ever. In this post, we will walk through 5 steps to switch from mass marketing to micro, ultimately resulting in more effective lead management practices for marketers.

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[Posted by Kristin Hambelton
Vice President Marketing, Neolane, Inc.]

Lead generation is the most important initiative in the B2B marketer’s list of responsibilities. The opportunity to improve and refine the volume and quality of leads is a never ending battle. That said, even as marketing technology, digital platforms, and customer behavior evolve, maintaining a firm grip on the fundamentals will remain critical.

To get a better understanding of the basics in lead generation that still need mastering, the team at Neolane asked several B2B marketing experts for their opinions on this question. Here are their excellent responses:

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