Do lead-generation campaigns capture the right data? Some do but some are an example of how the changing nature of business clashes with the way marketing has long viewed the world.

Increasingly less and less work is being done by employees, with a single employer, working in one country, let alone in one location, for one brand, with just a few communication channels. (Remember when we all just had a phone number – maybe followed by an extension! – and a physical address?

Now there are plenty of freelance or agency staff at all kinds of companies. Many people work from home, temporary office facilities (not just cafés), on the road – wherever. Many have several job descriptions and company sizes because they have several ‘jobs’ at several companies.
What does that mean for classic capture forms?

Fields such as ‘Name’ still work. But how about ‘Company size’, ‘Location’, ‘Sector’ and even – ugh – ‘Telephone (landline)’.

‘Email address’, especially something like ‘Primary email address’, still mainly does the job. But what if someone prefers contact in some other way? It’s no accident that the Collective Content newsletter asks for a Twitter handle too. Other people still prefer other ways to be reached – other social media or text messaging, for example.

This is an issue for many marketers. It isn’t insurmountable but those who design forms need to never give a respondent that none-of-those-is-relevant-to-me moment.

What do you think? Is getting a name and email address enough? Let us know if you have an answer to this conundrum.

*Photo credit: shindoverse via photo pin cc
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