I’ve recently been involved in an ongoing online discussion regarding marketing automation, lead generation, and lead management (including lead nurturing).  During the course of this dialogue one of the participants made the following statement: “I guess I would add that neither lead nurturing nor marketing automation solves the core problem that most marketers actually have – getting more new leads. Neither help you get more fresh leads into your database – which is critical because most contact info expires at the rate of 20-30% per year”. MORE >>

Tweet B2B marketers, stop focusing on generating leads. By sending them only qualified leads. Most leads aren’t qualified. Leads are only qualified when they fit your universal lead definition (ULD).  Before you do any more lead generation, make developing one your highest priority. Start by reading this: Universal Lead Definition: Why 61% of B2B marketers are wasting resources and how they can stop. Option #2 – Disregard the leads they get from Marketing and focus on the deals they know will close. How do you do that? MORE >>

More and more B2B marketers are turning to lead scoring as a way of optimizing lead management. Many of us will remember when we used to process raw Excel lists, handing over hundreds of names with job titles and companies to our sales department, only to find that leads weren’t being followed up on. It wasn’t possible to know which leads were the most interested in your company, and wasn’t easy to see which matched your target buyer. In a recent episode of the weekly #B2Bchat on Twitter, we dug into questions surrounding lead scoring. What is lead scoring? MORE >>

Smart marketers apply some type of lead scoring to leads generated from website, SEO, and email initiatives. recommend ranking trade show leads using the point-system outlined below – the higher the ranking, the hotter the lead. While useful to build your marketing database for lead nurturing, a trade-show registration list is the least-qualified lead source because some aren’t remotely interested in your solution. If the trade show closely aligns with one of your solution offerings, then the quality of these kinds of leads will be better. MORE >>

While some marketing teams are facing cut backs and spending freezes or reductions, they still need to hit their goals which may include generating X number of leads, Y amount of influenced pipeline and/or Z amount of influenced sales. While many may label this as “lead nurturing”, it goes well beyond lead nurturing. Inactive or Dormant Lead campaign. m not referring to a lead that sales forgot to follow up on but this program may include those contacts as well. By education programs, I’m referring to the traditional lead nurturing campaigns. Chad H. MORE >>