Data and Lead Nurturing
This week saw the welcome news that marketing spend across the UK is increasing again after two and a half years in the doldrums. This is a great development, but two key trends we’ve seen suggest that the pattern of any increased spend is going to be quite different to the model that prevailed pre-recession.
Having gone through the pain of the deepest recession in living memory, organisations are emerging with a razor sharp focus on measurability, ROI and cost effectiveness. This will inevitably mean that measurable channels with a provable return, such as digital and telemarketing, should see the lions share of any increase.
Two major trends that we’ve seen over recent months help to support the notion that marketers are spending their budgets more intelligently than ever before.
The first trend relates to data. The ravages of the recession have driven huge changes in many marketplaces, both in terms of prospect organisations and the decision making contacts within them. Data has traditionally been the neglected or ignored foundation of direct marketing, but marketers are now using our services to build and profile databases, establishing new decision maker names and contact details building a picture of their needs.
The second trend is a huge surge in the number of “lead nurturing” projects we are carrying out. These campaigns are characterised by extended, lower volume, highly targeted calling coupled with the careful and intelligent use of digital collateral. These types of campaigns provide great ROI for clients, delivering a steady drip feed of sales ready opportunities to sales teams (many of which are now busy, having been decimated during the recession).
The common theme underlying both trends is intelligent use of limited budgets, with a focus on quality rather than volume.
Niall Habba, F. IDM is the Managing Director at The Telemarketing Company, which specializes in outbound telemarketing.
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