A recent study of business-to-business high-tech enterprises in the US found that there exists a disparity between sales and marketing functions.
Conducted by Televerde, the research suggested that despite having access to sophisticated tools and best practices concerning B2B lead generation, data management, sales lead nurturing and so on, there is a general failure among organisations to clearly define leads, differentiate between different types of leads and appropriately track them.
Such problems in demand generation could result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of sales revenue each year, the researchers suggested.
The report stated: “Changing buyer behaviours underscore the importance of clearer lead definition distinctions and cleaner hand-offs between marketing and sales, but it is clear that some fundamental sales and marketing gaps remain wide.”
Around two-thirds of the firms polled indicated that their B2B lead generation had “leakage”. In other words, some leads were lost because they are never followed up. A total of 61 per cent of respondents recognised lead leakage as a problem, while 40 per cent revealed they did not know the conversion metrics utilised by their enterprises or indicated that such metrics were not applicable or calculable.
Donna Kent from Televerde said: “While many organisations have adapted to new methods and better practices for lead generation, lead nurturing, contact data management and tracking of results, there are still far too many that appear to be unnecessarily lagging and need to realise the ineffectiveness of their enterprises by not addressing these issues.”
She added that “nurturing relationships” is among the most “basic tenets” of marketing.
Because market conditions remain tough for many organisations, it is arguably more important than ever that they maximise demand generation and ensure that all leads are followed up appropriately.
Failures in such areas may ultimately result in serious problems for companies and could eventually lead to their demise.
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