Marketing management 'vital' for lead generation

Moving leads back from the sales to the marketing department is one area that firms need to improve in order to boost the effectiveness of their lead generation, it has been suggested.

New research by Marketing Sherpa has indicated that over half (53 per cent) of companies do not plan to introduce a system for transferring leads that are not yet sales worthy between departments, with 28 per cent having such a process in place now.

The news source noted that "closely aligning" the two departments is "essential" to generating new business effectively, adding: "Not having process to handle this is a missed opportunity by allowing these future sales to fall through this gaping crack in the pipeline."

Marketing Sherpa's statistics also suggested that lead scoring is now a very important factor in the process of using marketing to close sales, with 44 per cent of firms having a system in place for rating the quality of the results of their lead generation campaigns.

However, the report also found that many of these have become overly complex as they have evolved, meaning that some firms are not using them effectively.

Earlier this month, Ray Jones of the Chartered Institute of Marketing said that increased use of technology is helping smaller companies implement "much more scientific" marketing strategies.

Written by Julian Poulter and Copyright "Selling People 2009"