Who Am I?

By now you might be wondering, “Who is David T. Scott? And how does he know so much about lead-generation marketing?”

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. . . .

I got into lead-generation marketing by accident. I attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Although I received a great education there, my MBA was in strategic management, so I didn’t concentrate much on marketing. But the few courses I took were about brand marketing. I don’t remember a single class being offered on lead-generation marketing at Wharton.

I was serving as vice president of corporate strategy for a $3.5 billion, publicly traded software company with a worldwide sales organization. Then the vice president of marketing got fired, and his job duties were passed on to me! In my new position, I was one of several marketing executives in charge of generating a weekly quota of quality leads for the president of my division, who was a former vice president of sales.

Like most lead-generation marketers, I had to educate myself on the job. My team was using multiple competing lead-generation tactics, on a limited budget, and I had to decide which tactics to concentrate on and which to use less. My background included corporate strategy and computer programming, two fields that emphasize mathematics and analysis. Lead generation requires a great deal of analytical thinking, so I was comfortable working with the lead-generation processes. But in the beginning, my efforts were mostly trial and error.

In my next job, as chief marketing officer for a billion-dollar mobile devices company, I had a bit more authority. I started to create testing and measuring tools to find out which lead-generation tactics were providing us with the most effective, actionable leads and to measure the cost-effectiveness of each tactic. Through trial and error, I learned how to coordinate different tactics, as part of an effective, integrated lead-generation strategy.

As I moved on to other marketing executive positions, I found I could easily transfer these strategies and measurement tools to lead-generation efforts at other companies. Originally, I’d thought that when I moved on to new companies, I’d focus more on brand marketing. Instead, I found that the more I understood lead-generation marketing, the more in demand I was to new employers.

Today, I’m the CEO and founder of a company that specializes in automation technology for lead-generation marketing. But in my conversations with other marketers, I’m often surprised to learn how many of them don’t really understand the lead-generation process or how to make the best use of it for their company’s needs and goals.

The science and analysis of lead generation have become very important for me to examine as a marketer. This book is about the tools I’ve created to test and measure lead generation. By using these tools, you can make your lead-generation efforts as effective as possible, and you’ll know which tactics are the best and most cost-effective for your company and your goals.