Key Trends in Lead Generation
Lead Generation is of enormous significance in today’s business. It may not be new technique of obtaining prospects, but there has been a considerable change in the approach to lead generation. Most businesses are making the most of the worldwide web, by utilizing the opportunities provided.
In Lead Management, there has been the emergence of numerous innovative, cost effective trends, usually due to the increase in competition and a decrease in budgets. These trends offer businesses a promising platform to increase their ROI, and mostly revolve around marketing automation. And most of these trends revolve around marketing automation and the promising platform that it offers for businesses to improve their ROI. Here are some such commonly noted trends:
Shift to an Integrated Approach: Organizations today, understand the need for a cohesive approach, as against the disparate systems that were used earlier by the marketing teams for email marketing, CRM, web analytics database management and so on. This new method makes the marketing approach more measurable. Therefore, many organizations are integrating all applications into one, by shifting to automation platforms.
Web-Based Lead Generation: Increasingly marketing teams are leveraging web 2.0 applications including webcasts, blogs, podcasts, forums, and other rich media applications to reach out to the target market. Businesses are utilizing the immense benefits offered by these online channels.
Use of Social Media: Networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are now being widely preferred by businesses for marketing. And according to a Unisfair Survey conducted in May 2010, social media is the top emerging channel for lead generation among technology marketing professionals.
Customer-Oriented Communication: There has been a fundamental shift from brand/oriented communication to customer-oriented communication in the recent years. The focal point of marketing/ lead generation messages revolves around the interests of customers and their readiness to buy.
Technological advancement has induced Lead Generation to come a long way. It has evolved from handing out business cards and waiting for that call, to an art that marketers all over the world are trying to master. Though, the advent of marketing automation software has simplified the process of lead generation, the success of your campaigns will still completely depend on the channels you use to get in touch with prospective clients, how communicate to them.