• Most marketers (71%) cite brand building as a main objective of their digital marketing.
• Online marketing (including search engine optimization and search engine marketing) is predicted to grow to 13% (from 12%) while print advertising will decline to 8% from 9%.
• Direct mail still represents 17% of the overall marketing budget, which is larger than the share held by any other media -- yet e-mail may slightly surpass direct mail in the next 12 months. Catalog is expected to decline from 10% to 9%. For B2B marketers, direct mail currently handles the most targeted messages (29%), followed by e-mail (22%).
• B2C marketers also use direct mail the most (32%), followed by e-mail (24%). In the next 12 months B2C marketers do not expect to change significantly what they are doing in terms of the media used to target messages. The one exception is that catalog usage will drop and mobile ads will increase.
• The most used media platform at this time is social media. Some 88% of B2B companies and 82% of B2C companies use social media. The most widely used social media for B2B companies are professional social networks (69%), microblogs (53%), and blogs (47%). For B2C companies, the most widely used social media were general social networks, such as Facebook (62%), microblogs (54%), and blogs (40%).
• Discussing findings from this report, George Orme from David Shepard Associates, who wrote the report on behalf of the DMA states, "First, most marketers today are using digital media to both sell and nurture a stronger bond with their customers. But the study also underscored that very few companies have mastered the analytics and found ways to accurately measure the incremental effect of each media within a multi-media campaign."

Build a Bridge Between Marketing and Sales Activities

One way that the marketing team can better support the sales team is by adding the skill to call and qualify the needs of prospects and clients. This goes against the grain, because marketing typically doesn't follow up on leads. But the key message here is recognizing that it's not a good investment of the sales reps' time to follow up with prospects who have not been qualified. Many companies, Fortune 500 included, are looking at leveraging the time of the sales team as an area of great opportunity.

Here are several examples of how using lead qualification specialists-whether developed in-house or outsourced-can further process leads, leverage the time of the sales team and open opportunities for sales leads:

Event Marketing-Prospecting work needs to be done in a short window around webinar and seminar dates. A large number of calls must be made to generate interest and registrations before the event, and then more calls need to be made to follow-up immediately after the event. Often, even though marketing did a great job on the event, the follow-up calls after the event can be poor to non-existent. Two issues that can cause poor follow-up are 1) too many prospects that are not qualified and 2) the short window after the event. There is still work to be done before giving these leads to the sales team.

At trade shows, many companies stop by the booth just for the giveaway. Second, often the right company stops by the booth but not the right decisionmaker. Third is that the window of opportunity closes quickly right after the show. It's no wonder that 80 percent of trade show leads are never followed up on. The marketing team should call to follow up on the leads to beat slow-moving competition, make sure that no sales leads fall through the cracks and qualify needs to keep the sales team from spending any time with unqualified prospects.

Traditional Direct Marketing-Not every person who downloads a whitepaper is a qualified prospect. Many are doing research, writing a term paper or looking for competitive information. Before handing the inquiries over to the sales team, the marketing team should call each prospect to learn why he downloaded the whitepaper, identify if he's a decision-maker or influencer, qualify his need and motivate those who have a need to meet with a sales rep.

Product-Focused Campaigns-The marketing team can call to qualify each prospect's need to prioritize the best opportunities for the sales team. In addition, it can develop the rest of the prospect universe by capturing decisionmaker names and e-mail addresses, and identifying where there are opportunities down the road.

Industry-Focused Campaigns-The marketing team should call to identify the right decisionmakers, introduce the company and its vast offerings, and generate appointments with the leads that meet its company's criteria. Then the sales reps can focus their efforts on meeting with qualified prospects.

Dormant Clients-Marketing follow-up with this group is important to open the communication lines, learn why the companies stopped buying and rekindle the relationship to stimulate future sales opportunity. When the marketing team identifies a client who is interested in reengaging and wants to make a purchase, an appointment is made for the sales team.

Nurturing Open Territories-The marketing team should make calls to provide touchpoints to let prospects and clients know that its company cares about their business. The team can identify the needs within the territory and prioritize them for the covering sales rep.

Hopefully, these examples provide a better view of how the marketing team can have a tremendous impact by qualifying leads to leverage the time of the sales team. Separating the sales opportunities from the non-prospects will produce better results and energize the sales team.

Source: Mike Drohan is the president of Lead Generation Solutions, of King of Prussia, PA. mdrohan@LeadGenerationSolutions.com.