CALL FOR PAPERS
Journal of Selling – Special Issue
(Formerly the Journal of Selling and Major Accounts Management)

The 1st Third of the Sales Cycle:
Lead Generation, Prospecting, Lead Nurturing and Pre-Approach Research

One of the primary responsibilities of sales representatives is to “acquire new customers by pursuing marketing and self-generated leads” (Sabnis et al. 2013 p. 53). An increasing number of these marketing generated leads are generated by company websites and company hosted social media sites. Further, in the Marketing 2.0 era, buyers are more knowledgeable about available product and service offerings and are choosing to engage sellers later in the buying cycle. What are the implications of this changing environment to the marketing and sales functions?

This special issue seeks to publish high-quality research addressing issues related to the “1st Third” of the sales cycle in the Marketing 2.0 era. The 1st Third of the sales cycle includes lead generation, the marketing generated lead to sales function handover, prospecting, lead nurturing, lead scoring and pre-approach research. Papers providing novel theoretical insight and (or) managerial insight are welcomed. While empirical papers are preferred, conceptual and thought pieces will be considered for publication. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• The role of the Sales and Marketing functions in lead generation
• The importance of sales technology and CRM systems in the Marketing 2.0 era
• Pre-approach research
• Approaches to lead scoring
• The role of “Big Data” in the 1st Third of the sales cycle
• Proper control systems to manage the marketing to sales lead handoff process

Submission Information

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with Journal of Selling author guidelines found at http://www.cob.niu.edu/jsmam/. Papers should be emailed directly to the special issue editor:

Mark D. Groza, PhD
Assistant Professor of Marketing
Northern Illinois University
mgroza@niu.edu
815.753.6228

Submission deadline: September 1, 2014
Reviews back to author: November 1, 2014
Revisions due: February 1, 2015
Final Decisions Made: March 15, 2015
Publication: 2nd half of 2015

Reference:

Sabnis, G., Chatterjee, S. C., Grewal, R., & Lilien, G. L. (2013). The Sales Lead Black Hole: On Sales Reps’ Follow-Up of Marketing Leads. Journal of Marketing, 77(1), 52-67.

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