When considering what might be an obstacle in the adoption of online marketing tools (you know, marketing automation, lead generation, lead nurturing tools on the market today), what are the barriers to having greater adoption of these technologies?
I think that beyond executive management, and sorting through vendors, that it is really a matter of understanding how to put together an online marketing strategy (or a lead generation and nurturing strategy) and the content necessary to keep it effective and productive. Once you have that, you can select tools that will work for you.
So many of the companies that I talk to are grabbing leads, and tossing them to sales, and that is it. Companies are only starting to realize that there are much more effective ways to proceed that will yield higher results and improve the ultimate goal - increase revenues and contribute to growth.
Some of this is fairly simple to evaluate:
1. When your target markets search for your company -- do you come
up in the search results? If not, there is work to be done -- because
80% of customers surveyed said they found their vendor, not the other
way around. So either you will work to come up naturally given your
high priority search terms, or you will use Paid Search strategies to
put you on those pages. A combination of both is optimal.
(note: there are a lot of ways to get yourself optimized -- whether
that's through a single site, or a microsite strategy, blog, etc), the key is to ensure that you are optimized.
2. Do you have relevant and engaging content at your site once a prospect finds you? Do you have eBooks, whitepapers for download, or webinars to attend that will enable you to capture lead interest? Can you easily manage the content and lead capture forms at your site?
3. Once you capture a lead, do you send them other relevant materials and track their response so you can determine whether they are more likely to be sales ready, or continue to nurture them until they fit the "sales ready" profile?
4. Do you have a way to easily segment your leads into their interest areas so they receive messages from you that are relevant and interesting to them? Can you easily create the drip campaigns so this is easy to accomplish?
If you have that sort of an approach laid out, then conversations with vendors, or free trials that you can utilize will provide you with the information you need to understand which vendor will deliver what you need, and which vendor will provide the best "bang-for-the-buck" given how you want to drive your efforts.
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