While lead generation and nurturing are core activities for any marketer, many marketers get carried away with such activities to the extent that they do not pause and take stock. Even if the marketer is doing a decent job in generating and nurturing leads, such efforts may become an exercise in futility or even counterproductive unless the marketer takes stock of the situation and brings the exercise to its logical conclusion.
Taking stock entails reviewing both the effectiveness and the rationale of the campaign.
The marketer reviews the effectiveness of their campaigns by considering various metrics such as net marketing returns on investment, cost per leads and other financials, all provided by a good analytics engine. A good solution partner would also allow the marketer to track the effectiveness of their campaigns on a qualitative basis by installing profile scoring and tracking prospect engagement and triggering action based on set thresholds.
Another dimension of reviewing the effectiveness of the marketing campaign is measuring the performance of individual tactics, to compare campaign performance of single and multiple communication modes. This helps in identifying the most effective channels and weed out ineffective channels, thereby optimizing the marketing efforts even more.
However, above all these considerations is the need to ensure that the marketing efforts sync with corporate policy and capacity. At times, production logjam may render the company incapable of providing the products or services to match the aggressive marketing campaign, requiring the marketer to stop generating new leads temporarily and slow down conversion of leads in the nurturing phase. At times, soon to expire or unsold inventory may require a shift in priority of the marketer to another product or service.
