MMO 6: The four forces and lead management

The last few emails have discussed various aspects of the ‘four forces’ of marketing technology: centralisation vs. decentralisation, and automation vs. humanisation. We have discussed the challenge of finding the right balance, and how this is crucial to harness the advantages of each force.

This is easy in theory, but in practice, how does it affect day-to-day marketing operations, such as lead nurturing and management?

Marketing technology, and other aspects of modern automated marketing operations such as use of analytics, can be extremely helpful in lead management. A ‘lead’ is anyone making contact with the organisation in any way. It is therefore essential to have some way of ‘qualifying’ them to identify those that are genuinely interested in your products. It is also important to segment people by their stage in the buying cycle. This means that you can send appropriately-tailored emails, which fit both the customer and the stage of the buying cycle. This is crucial when you know that over half of potential customers stop engaging if they receive irrelevant communications.

This approach is driven by automation, and particularly analytics. However, it is important not to forget the human aspect of lead management. Social media can be a very good way of remaining lightly in contact with potential customers. This builds the necessary human connection and relationship, and keeps the organisation at the forefront of customers’ minds. As we have said before, it is all about balance between the four opposing forces.