Posted by: Erin Wilson, Account Coordinator

Many marketers struggle to find qualified online leads to pass along to their sales teams. In some cases they aim for quantity over quality hoping that a small percentage will eventually convert to a sale. Ideally, marketers should create and implement solid online lead generation programs that help bridge the gap between themselves and their sales teams.

Use the following questions to start thinking about ways you can create or improve your lead generation program.

90octane Partner Sam Eidson spoke about Lead Management Automation at the 2010 Integrated Marketing Summit in Denver, CO this summer. Watch part one of the program as he discusses the importance of establishing goals and metrics before developing a campaign strategy. And then visit the 90octane YouTube channel to watch the entire presentation.

You’ll learn about:

• Cultivating trust between your organization and its prospects
• Using a lead calendar to track and measure marketing and sales conversions
• Targeting prospects in critical phases of the buying cycle
• Giving your prospects the information they need to choose the best solution
• Creating a lead nurturing flow to qualify leads
• Scoring leads using implicit and explicit data

Posted by: Gloria Dutton, Senior Marketing Coordinator

When discussing the goals of lead programs with sales teams, we often get one message – volume volume volume. The ‘volume’ mentality has an obvious attraction: at least some of the many leads that come in the door will close. However, when we dig deeper, we all become convinced that volume is less important than delivering quality, closeable leads to sales.

So, what is the process for identifying quality leads before sending them to sales? Lead nurturing programs. They help qualify and guide prospects through the buying cycle by analyzing what offers they are interested in and the specific actions these prospects take. Through learning about prospects, we’re able to target marketing initiatives to be focused on their needs as they gather information and research, evaluate their options and ultimately make a purchase decision.

How do we identify when a lead needs to be nurtured and when they are ready for sales? Start by segmenting by preference. Provide multiple offers on your site requiring registration – everything from white papers and research studies, to pricing sheets and sales contact information.

Posted by: Sean Voorhies, Project Manager

Increasing response is the goal of any lead nurturing program, but it’s easy to get locked into a campaign that isn’t flexible once it launches. Here are three quick insights to use before you go live:

Leverage Learnings from Existing Site Analytics
If you have existing site data that speaks to your user’s behavior, whether it’s product offer preferences, patterns of site navigation or usability or communication frequency, make sure those are leveraged in building out a nurturing campaign. There can be a strong correlation between how users respond to similar offerings or information on your site and how they will initially respond during a lead nurturing campaign.

Use Prospect Profiling
Identifying prospect profiles and tailoring your lead nurturing program to specific user characteristics not only gives your campaign more flexibility from the get go, but it also allows you to provide a better experience for the prospects because it meets their unique needs. An easy starting point could be an existing product user profile and a new user profile.

Consider Progressive Registration
If your offers solicit a clear difference in user desire and intent then consider using progressive registration. By beginning the registration with standard fields and then progressively asking more detailed questions as the offer involvement grows, you’re able to capture a larger amount of leads up front and qualify your prospects further down the funnel with more detailed criteria.

Posted by: Kayla Wagner, Account Manager

A recent JupiterResearch/ClickZ survey of email marketers showed that 81% believed that their most effective tool for acquiring emails, both in quantity and quality, was their own website. Given this statistic, looking at how you drive people to your website in order to build those lists is pretty important. Whatever the channel, a prospect that sees your ad should have a clear call to action to receive more communications from you.

Further, be sure that once a prospect clicks from your ad, that there is an easy and clear path to sign up for your brand’s communications that is simple enough to make them want to fill out a basic form and submit their email.  Then, once you have that information, be sure to speak to your audience differently based on who they are. You can send a welcome email as soon as a person opts-in to start the conversation, and follow that with triggered messaging based on a prospect’s actions on your website.

Alternatively, if the user is a customer or client, you would want to send them a different message than that of your new prospect. The use of automated marketing tools can help you make this an easy process overtime.

If you spend the upfront time and strategic thought aligning your advertising – be it search, social, media or offline – with your approach to building your prospect list versus that of your current customer relationship program, you’re sure to see positive results. This isn’t an overnight trick, it will take time and investment, but it will certainly pay-off in the end.