Marketing Profs

This article is excerpted from the newly released book, Marketing Campaign Development: what marketing executives need to know about architecting global integrated marketing campaigns.

Not long ago one of my clients asked me to take on the role of an interim director of field marketing. This medium-sized Internet security company enjoys a solid customer base and rich product offerings. But, with fierce competition and a lengthy sales process, it had difficulties producing well-qualified leads in a timely fashion.

To meet 2007 business objectives, the marketing team would have to stretch its limits. As is common with marketing teams everywhere, the fast pace of business continues to increase, meaning that the team members are almost always busy executing.

This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Unfortunately, with so much going on, the overall strategy behind the lead-generation activities (e.g., what is the definition of a "true" qualified lead? Who are we targeting and why? How are we nurturing these leads?) had been lost.

The Importance of Developing Lead-Generation Blueprints

The first project I inherited was a webinar scheduled to take place in three weeks. The team had signed a contract for turn-key webinar services from Ziff Davis. These services included everything from list management, to ensuring a minimum of 250 people registered, to hosting the actual event. While the mechanics of the actual event was well taken care of, the strategy behind the event and how to use it effectively as a lead generation vehicle was sorely lacking.

To get a sense of the marketing assets at our disposal I asked a few key questions and received the following answers:

Q: What activities are driving people to the webinar?

A: Ziff Davis is driving people to the webinar from their Web site.

Q: What happens after the webinar?

A: We'll send all registrants, whether they attended or not, to the inside sales team for follow-up.