The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY
CHOOSING YOUR
LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY
Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
A CRM tool is where your sales
teams track leads, opportunities,
closed/won deals, and customers.
Although CRMs are used primarily
by salespeople (and sometimes by
your customer service team), you
need to know how yours functions
and integrates with your other
technology solutions. CRM tools
integrate directly with marketing
automation platforms for closedloop
lead tracking and reporting.
Popular CRM systems include
Salesforce.com, Microsoft
Dynamics CRM, Oracle, SAP,
and SugarCRM.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation allows
companies to streamline, automate,
and measure marketing tasks. It also
allows marketers to create
workflows, increasing operational
efficiency and growing revenue
faster. Marketing automation features
include: email marketing, landing
pages, campaign management, lead
generation, lead scoring, lead
nurturing, social marketing,
marketing resource management,
marketing analytics, and more.
Basically, marketing automation
enables marketers to excel at the
business of marketing (and lead
generation)! Popular marketing
automation platforms include
Marketo and Eloqua (Oracle).
Social Media Management
If you are planning to have a
presence on social channels for lead
generation, you may consider
adopting a social media
management tool. This type of
technology enables your social
teams to easily post, schedule, and
engage on all of your social
channels. Social media
management tools allow you to view
multiple social channels at the same
time on one dashboard, effectively
streamlining your efforts. Popular
social media management tools
include Hootsuite, Crowdbooster,
and Argyle Social.
Social Media Tracking
Social media tracking tools provide
metrics, which makes them
particularly important for lead
generation. Through these
platforms, you can track and
measure your social interactions,
and respond to customer and lead
exchanges on all of your social
channels. Note that some
marketing automation tools, like
Marketo, also provide similar social
functionality. Popular social media
tracking tools include Radian6,
Sysmos, and Lithium.
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