Food for thought for B2B marketers, or even marketers of high-ticket, complex consumer items:
If you have an online campaign to generate leads, decide ahead of time
- are they really going to be leads or just inquiries? More and more,
we see online "lead gen" campaigns that are actually "inquiry
campaigns" -- generating interest, yes, but sales-ready leads? No.
And
if you go in thinking you are doing lead gen, and then just have a
bunch of inquiries, you are going to think you failed (or, to the point
- your sales organization will think you failed). A successful lead gen
campaign is going to be very different than an inquiry campaign.
Think about the last time you filled out a form online. Were you really
sales-ready? Or were you just interested? Maybe you were just filling
out the form to get the whitepaper or content behind the form.
Expressing interest, yes. Ready to sign on the dotted line, no.
Lead gen that starts online has to be a process, that combines
effective online and offline tactics to nuture and qualify an inquiry
until it becomes a lead. Define your strategy and process ahead of
time, and incorporate it into your campaign. It will ultimately make
your campaigns much more effective.
-Anna Talerico
