BtoB Magazine recently published a study in conjunction with Marketo Inc. that found most companies don’t do a very good job of following up opportunities post-event.
Specifically, the study found that over half of respondents have some form of marketing automation system but the systems are being used primarily to deliver email invitations and drive attendance to events. Only 21% of respondents indicated using their automation systems for a process of lead scoring and only 19% employ a nurturing process.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite the improvements in technology to capture and track leads, event marketers are not putting automation to use in the post-event follow up process.
Reasons vary from lack of resources to low priority among management to lack of knowledge about event automation. But, really, can there be any acceptable reason for this? With 83% of respondents indicating that the primary goal of their events is to generate leads, doesn’t reason suggest that a secondary goal should be to track those leads?
I’m not suggesting that process will be the same for every marketer. Nor will it necessarily be easy. But surely more than 20% of us should have follow up programs in place to nurture and, ultimately, measure the value of the leads we’re producing.
Thoughts?