Marketing Profs

The glory days of high-tech marketing have faded. The oceans of revenue and resources that used to pour into marketing departments have turned into trickles. We've found this to be especially true for those who mine for marketing gold in the promised land of the Internet.

While resources may have shrunk, expectations of higher standards certainly haven't; in fact, they've grown exponentially. These days marketing professionals have to be smarter about their programs and more creative than ever when it comes to finding and using the right tools to mine golden sales leads--and close deals.

The good news is that the technology that allows you to market via the Internet is far from reaching its full potential. Much of the early energy in online marketing was spent finding ways to distribute marketing messages in new ways. Now, much of the online marketing energy is spent collecting information about prospective customers--literally mining information that will help you fine-tune your marketing efforts and generate a maximum return on investment.

We've outlined five new uses of technology that will help you get the most out of your existing online marketing programs.

1. Identify anonymous Web site visitors

Currently, Web site registration is the leading tool for gathering information about potential customers and generating leads through your Web site. As long as every potential customer completes the registration process, it's a great tool. But many of your potential customers never register, or don't finish registering because they get the jitters for one reason or another. They use your Web site to collect information about your products, but they never take the time to register their contact information so you can collect information about them and follow up.

In the past, there was no way to follow up with these unregistered visitors. They often became lost sales instead of newfound customers. In fact, 80-90% of your potential customers are disappearing into cyberspace, like water running through your hands.

Today, there are powerful tools that can identify visitors to your Web site even if they do not register while they are visiting your Web site. These tools automatically lookup visitors IP addresses so you have are presented with a compiled list of identities of the anonymous companies--and thus potential customers--who are visiting your Web site.

While some IP addresses cannot be linked to an individual company, our research shows that you can identify the company affiliations of more than 50% of the anonymous visitors to your site. And once you know the names of the companies, you can follow up and nurture their interest.

2. Arm sales with insight into prospects interests