Alongside a more detailed set of critical success factors, our review suggested 4 key attributes essential for creating lead management programmes (each then breaks down into several competence questions in a kick-off process):

1. Detailed knowledge of the business objectives and capabilities/needs of different teams in the business/external partners
2. Insight into target individuals, their typical needs and decision/purchase journeys
3. Expertise in the strategies, content, and hooks that drive forward the audience journeys
4. Working understanding of the technologies of lead management, nurturing and CRM (technology must not come first, but understanding the different capabilities of Eloqua vs Silverpop vs Oracle vs Marketo vs Aprimo vs Neolane vs Microsoft Dynamics vs Salesforce etc etc will ensure rapid time to value)

Only by balancing these 4 factors is it possible to take the 4 actions necessary to build the best performing programme (while these 4 are distinct and each have several sub-actions, they can’t be treated in isolation as each has an impact on the other):

1. Identify areas of potential for greatest business impact from lead management (and set the right targets/measures)
2. Correctly set the process and scoring for management/handover of different levels of opportunities and for management/improvement of ‘marketing’ data in the nurturing process
3. Design the right journeys, create enticing content (or ‘wrap’ existing content), identify appropriate triggers/personalisation opportunities
4. Select the best areas to launch the programme, implement rapidly and scale up appropriately

It would be interesting to hear if anyone has spotted any other headline factors responsible for lead management success…

The interviewees paint a consistent and compelling picture of what lead management can deliver:

• Healthier pipelines (both better qualified and higher in volume as more leads are nurtured through to opportunities)
• More accountable marketing (consistently planned, measuring the right things and drawing out valuable intelligence)
• Greater efficiencies (more re-use of content, smarter contact strategies, less blanket comms)
• More appropriate communications (a better experience for customers and prospects)

What’s particularly refreshing (for a paper sponsored by a technology provider) is how much emphasis is given to getting the lead management and content creation process right before selecting the technology platform to use.

It’s exactly as we’ve seen across long term lead nurturing and relationship programmes – the technology is essential (whether that’s Salesforce or Siebel, Eloqua or Silverpop or even just Excel) but there are so many other factors that need to be considered first:

• Building the necessary alignment with sales
• Setting valid goals and designing the overall process
• Understanding the audience (to reach them, meet their needs, and score them)
• Creating the content that will make a difference to the audience
• Designing the campaign components to distribute the content (and mapping these into communication flows that take contacts on the right journey)
• Defining how issues like data quality and sales handover (in both directions) will be managed in the ongoing programme

After all of these (and there are several useful models to consider in the report), comes the right technology solution. There’s rarely just a single answer – far more often it comes down to the ability to integrate different platforms to make the desired process possible.

One major element that the report begins to highlight is the importance of the human factor. In our experience, there are very few processes that can be fully automated – this is where the ideal lead management process needs to account for things like efficiently handling inbound responses and making the most of opportunities for personal interaction like initial sales workshops. Above all,  it demands a new skill-set from B2B marketers to conceive, deliver and operate a lead management process.