It will be no surprise to anyone that lead generation is becoming more and more digital-centric and taking an omnichannel tact.

High-performance brands are poised to use multiple channels to gain, qualify, and nurture quality leads at scale. These include in-person events (when circumstances allow), social media, email, SEO, content marketing, co-registration and linkout flows and even chatbots.

Based on these trends, marketers require a well-rounded gameplan, including both internal and external efforts, to maintain their competitiveness.

This is not about big eating the small, it’s the nimble eating the slow.

Here are some essentials steps for staying relevant and ahead of the competition in the CRM space over the short- to mid-term:

• Invest and develop technology that has omnichannel capabilities, and make sure the data from the various channels is actionable
• Create a work culture around data-driven decision-making
• Environmental scanning: keep track of and monitor how competitors and high-performing teams conduct lead generation activities
• Adopt a user-centric approach and understand how your community interacts with all your channels, then optimize and create efficiencies
• Brands are busy. They want to partner with a business that does the heavy lifting for them and delivers quality leads at scale that meet or crush their KPIs. You need to understand your partner’s business almost as well as your own.    

Brands need to ensure that their publisher vetting process identifies those publishers that have their proverbial crap together.

They should look for publishers that offer:

• Fully-managed, scalable and compliant lead generation solutions
• Working with CPL, CPC, and CPA models, to drive customers at scale and profits for their clients
• A targeted audience. Niche publishers can offer the best quality, but brands need to remember that with better quality there’s an inverse relationship with volume
• True marketing partnerships. Work with publishers that know their audience, have engaged consumers and can guide their partners to optimize their creative and offers
• Multi-channel opportunities that may include email, link outs, native adverts, custom content, etc

Nurturing leads can ultimately drive a positive customer experience.

Yet it can be an intimidating and complex undertaking. Getting started with lead nurturing, however, is a straightforward process if you have an effective game plan and clearly defined goals.

Again, this is where vetting publishers and forming a strong partnership can make a massive difference.

To optimize their CRM, brands must:

• Establish lead nurturing goals and develop effective lead scoring programs
• Segment their leads (i.e. in the pregnancy space, a brand would probably segment and build profiles to share tailored content around the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th trimesters)
• Create buyer profiles and develop personalized content
• Create lead nurturing campaigns, then measure and track the results of these campaigns to optimize over time

Technology and omnichannel are the key drivers to crushing lead-gen on a go-forward basis, so understanding how to use them will sort out the winners from the losers.