Zina Manda, director of Mardev, shares her advice on making your lead generation strategy a success and impressing the financial director Credit crunch marketing has seen a considerable move in budget over the last 12 months from traditional advertising to lead generation. There are however a large number of lead generation channels and vast array of possible outcomes. How can you ensure that you are generating genuine value for your company from this type of activity? Defining a leadA marketing-defined lead may recognise a click through on an email, a download of a white paper or registration for a webinar as...

Is social media an effective tool for data enhancement and cleansing? If so, how should it be conducted?...

What are ‘personas' or 'profiles' and how are they useful in better database marketing? What factors should marketers consider when seeking to develop and use them? ...

Is it possible to gather relevant marketing data from the web? What are the issues with this approach to database management and what factors should marketers consider when seeking to use it?...

What's the most efficient and effective way of building a marketing database from scratch? What factors should marketers consider?...

I hope I am starting or at least being a part of something, a revolution of sorts. On the 20th October this year I tweeted “People who complain about receiving too many emails. Opt Out from the ones you don't read, instead of deleting them” http://twitter.com/edweatherall/status/5020730534 I also then started telling people at events “ http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/blogs/in-business-blog/make-more-time-your-life-unsubscribe-spam “ Today I got a tweet about a Return Path blog http://savvyb2bmarketing.com/blog/entry/346771/how-to-improve-the-unsubscribe-process-yes-this-is-something-to-think-about Too often people sit with their BlackBerry or iPhone in hand saying “I hate email as it rules my life, I get so many messages”, to which I respond, “Opt Out it's your inbox, or get...

These days, consumers have more choice than ever before, through more diverse channels - from storefront to mail order to online. Expectation is higher than ever. Companies that fail to live up to that expectation find customers leaving without comment - the majority of dissatisfied customers will not complain, they will simply change suppliers. Those businesses that introduce an exceptional level of customer service are differentiating themselves from the competition in an increasingly saturated marketplace. Which is why it is so surprising that business, to a large extent, is still failing to address the issue of customer service. According to...

Are all B2B data vendors the same? Is all B2B data the same? What factors should marketers consider when seeking to buy B2B data?...

Do modern CRM systems help or hinder the process of managing marketing data? What steps should marketers take to ensure they maximise the potential benefits and minimise the disadvantages?...

Let’s be frank, building customer loyalty and gaining share of wallet are strategic imperatives for all businesses. Most marketers should be very aware that research highlights that an increase in customer retention by only five per cent can lead to a significant uplift in profitability. Combined with the fact that acquiring a new customer is five to 10 times more costly than retaining an existing one, it is no surprise that many companies are desperately looking into retention strategies. The challenge lies in combining excellent retention activity while maintaining acquisition activity – fundamental for long term business survival.To achieve this,...