Best practices for lead generation, marketing automation and revenue generation topics.

Lead Liaison

Building Referral Programs using Marketing Automation

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Building a Referral Program using Marketing AutomationThe dynamics of buying and selling are complex. Buyers have a hard time making a purchase if they don’t have much to go off of. For example, no reviews to look at, no other customers to talk to. Sellers have it just as rough too. Closing deals is not easy, especially if you’re starting a relationship from scratch. It’s much harder to convince prospective buyers to make a purchase if they’ve never heard of your company or solution before.

As a buyer myself, I think about the recent experience we’re going through with a house renovation. We’ve got a three car garage and the third by in our garage is about to be converted to a mother-in-law suite. We thought that would be better than the attic ;-). I couldn’t tackle the project by myself, so we needed a general contractor to do the job. We contacted five general contractors. We found all five off of the Good Contractors List, on our own, with no references. Unfortunately, we didn’t know anybody that recently used a general contractor or went through a similar renovation project. If we did, and someone said – hey, try these guys out, they were great and we had a wonderful experience, you bet your bottom dollar they’d be our first call. Doing all the outreach and going through the process with these five contractors is painful and time consuming. When it comes down to it, people get lazy about all that research and most people will take the short route, which is the referral from someone else.

Building referral programs for your business using marketing automation is easy. It’s something every company should do, especially since:

  1. People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend – Nielsen
  2. 65% of new business comes from referrals – New York Times
  3. The LifeTime Value of a new referral customer is 16% higher – Wharton School of Business

You can see why it makes a lot of business sense to set up a good referral system. Here’s a four step plan to take to build your referral program with marketing automation:

1) Engage Customers

Engage customers through email and/or direct mail campaigns created and delivered with your marketing automation system. Your marketing automation system should have an easy way for you to segment your database to target customers only. This is one way to go back into your database and get a touch point out to existing customers. For new customers, set up a trigger-based automation to have your marketing automation system detect new customers, then fire off the email or direct mail message asking them for referrals. You might want to consider timing your referral request for about 3 to 6 months after they’ve become a customer.

2) Provide a Landing Page

When your referral request goes out you’ll want to send your customer to your purpose-built landing page. Once the landing page is submitted by your customer, you’ll be able to track who is making the referral using this landing page and form built with your marketing automation system. Moreover, when the form is submitted you’ll send an introductory email created with your marketing automation system to the person being referred introducing your company.

3) Trigger Incentives

The web form submission serves as the “trigger” for other actions. When the trigger happens an email or postcard is automatically sent to the referral with a concise and beneficial call to action: “try us”, “free trial”, or gift card. Your marketing automation system can match the appropriate incentive with the referral’s demographics (role, job title, etc.) if needed, setting the table for more precise and relevant communication. Tracking kicks in and the referral’s interaction with your company is monitored. Based on engagement, provide the new prospect with the appropriate level of nurturing.

4) Nurture

Using automation, nurture people that were referred but did not respond so that your business remains top of mind when service is needed. Nurturing is a great way to automate touch points and systemize the referral process.

We hope you enjoyed this guide on building referral programs using marketing automation.

Download this free brochure on Building a Referral Program using Lead Liaison and stick it up on your wall! It will help you stay on track with setting up your referral program.

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Lead Liaison

What You Need to Know Before Implementing Marketing Automation

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What You Need to Know Before Implementing Marketing AutomationSo, you’re thinking of giving marketing automation a try. There are certainly many excellent reasons to do so. Marketing automation can help to make your workload much more efficient while also delivering a positive return on investment. On the flip side, marketing automation can also increase your workload and be a drain on your budget, if it is not handled properly. The difference lies in how well you plan the implementation of marketing automation.

Develop a Plan for Implementation

The most important step you can take before adding marketing automation to your current projects is to ensure you have a plan for implementing it. While this might sound simple enough, this is a step that is too frequently ignored. Far too often, business owners get carried away with all of the many benefits that marketing automation can provide. That may be true, but in order to take advantage of those many benefits you must make sure you have a high-level plan in place.

Begin by ensuring expectations are established. In the past, marketing and sales were often completely different functions. Today, the line between marketing and sales has become blurred thanks to marketing automation. More and more, tasks that were previously handled by sales is now being moved to marketing. This also means that marketing and sales divisions must understand and agree on how their responsibilities will be handled. Try using a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to align sales and marketing.

Start Off Small

Additionally, it is important to make sure you start small. There can be a lot of excitement surrounding the implementation of marketing automation. It can be tempting to want to go big and take advantage of everything marketing automation provides at once. Even so, trying to implement all of the features provided by marketing automation as soon as you get started will usually only result in failure. It is much better to start slow and small by choosing one specific audience and working to build your first marketing project around that audience. Testing is a common practice in the world of marketing and it maintains its importance in marketing automation. The information you glean from your first trial run with marketing automation can prove to be invaluable to the success of later campaigns.

Remember that organization is the key to succeeding with marketing automation. If your operation is already inefficient, marketing automation is not going to change that.

Know What You’re Going to Do with Leads

It is also imperative to ensure you have a system in place for handling the leads that will inevitable result from your marketing automation efforts. This is the ideal time for Marketing and Sales to work together to determine priorities and goals. If your company already has an effective sales team in place, they probably already know how to handle new leads. If not, this may be an area you need to address.

While the prospect of implementing marketing automation might be overwhelming, the right help can make all the difference. Find out more about how you can effectively implement marketing automation today.

Lead Liaison

Tips for Succeeding with Marketing Automation

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Tips for Succeeding with Marketing AutomationThe benefits provided by marketing automation can be truly phenomenal. Allowing you to create successful marketing campaigns and then automate the process, marketing automation provides virtually unlimited capabilities. Among the most important factors involved in determining exactly how successful marketing automation can be for your business is the set-up process. These tips for succeeding with marketing automation will help you ensure the best possible outcome when implementing marketing automation.

Pay Attention to Your Customer Relationship Management

Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is of vital importance for the success of your marketing automation campaign. When your marketing automation software synchs with your CRM, it is imperative that your list be as clean as possible, otherwise you are likely to end up with duplicate lists that you will need to untangle. Take the time to delete any duplicate records and ensure all account names are correct. This may mean merging, deleting, and purging, but it will be time well spent in terms of ensuring optimal success for your marketing automation program.

Are All Email Addresses Correct?

Imagine uploading contacts only to discover you have a high bounce rate due to wrong email addresses. This could be a very real possibility, if you do not run your email addresses through an email verification service. AccuWebHosting.com provides a good article here on email validation services, comparing multiple providers. Here’s another good resource from the Marketing Tech Blog on email validation. There is no need to run the risk of experiencing deliverability issues and potentially having your IP blacklisted, which could happen if you fail to clean up your database and verify emails prior to importing. Take the time to ensure your email addresses are correct before you get started.

Work with Your Sales Team So They Know What to Expect

Marketing automation may provide many benefits, but it also dramatically changes the processes you already have in place. This includes processes utilized by your sales team, so it is important to work with your team to let them know what to expect and answer any questions they may have about marketing automation. For instance, marketing automation could change the way in which leads are assigned to your team. You also need to work with your team to ensure there is a process in place for handling leads as they arrive. Make sure you conduct ample research and work one-on-one with your sales team prior to rolling out your marketing automation campaign. Here’s a good reference for achieving sales and marketing alignment.

Be Committed to Ongoing Education

Do not make the mistake of underestimating how much time it may take to learn everything you need to make the most of marketing automation. This may mean making a commitment to continually educating yourself about marketing automation integration, best practices, usage, etc. Although this does mean committing to additional time on top of a schedule that is likely already packed, it is well worth it.

Marketing automation can be incredibly powerful for your business, but you must learn how to make the most of it. Following the tips above can help you get off to a great start. Find out more about how you can operate a successful marketing automationcampaign.

Lead Liaison

Mistakes to Avoid with Marketing Automation

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Mistakes to Avoid with Marketing AutomationWhen handled properly, marketing automation can turn around even the most ineffective marketing programs. Unfortunately, as is the case with anything else related to marketing, it can be easy to make mistakes with marketing automation. The power of marketing automation cannot be denied, but it is only as good as the effort you put into it. If you have noticed that you are not getting everything from marketing automation that you would like, you may be making one of the following mistakes. Here are some helpful tips on mistakes to avoid with marketing automation.

No Strategy in Place

One of the most common mistakes made by many companies when implementing marketing automation is not having a documented strategy in place. This is rather akin to trying to hit a target in the dark. The goal of your strategy should be to link the goals of your company with the activities and techniques you will be using. With a solid strategy in place, you will be able to ensure you are headed in the right direction. Start by creating a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between sales and marketing.

Not Using the Full Potential of Marketing Automation

Failing to harness the full power of marketing automation tools is another common mistake. Marketing automation has an incredible amount to offer, including the potential for lead scoring, search engine optimization, landing pages, reporting, and more. Unfortunately, many brands make the mistake of using their marketing automation tools solely for email marketing. While marketing automation tools can help you make the most of your email database, it is important to recognize that you can do much more with them.

Not Generating Enough Quality Content

Content always has been a vital part of all online marketing efforts. That does not change with marketing automation. Despite the many benefits offered by marketing automation, if you are not producing enough high-quality, targeted content, your marketing efforts are likely to suffer.

Tracking the Wrong Metrics

Are you sure you are tracking the right metrics? Today, we have the opportunity to take advantage of a dizzying array of data, particularly from marketing automation tools. The problem is that it can be easy to become overwhelmed by all of that data. Eventually, you may fall into the trap of tracking the wrong metrics and even overemphasizing certain metrics, such as social shares and traffic when you should be focusing on customer conversion rates. In order to ensure you are leveraging the full power of your marketing automation tool, it is important to identify the metrics that matter the most for meeting your company’s goals.

Thinking You Can Put It on Autopilot

Marketing automation can provide your company with a great number of benefits while also making your marketing campaigns easier to manage. With that said, you cannot put marketing automation on autopilot and simply forget about it while hoping for the best. You must continue to make the most of everything that marketing automation gives you.

Find out more about how you can make the most of marketing automation and avoid some of the most common mistakes.

Lead Liaison

How Marketing Automation Levels the Playing Field for Startups – Marketing Automation for Startups

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How Marketing Automation Levels the Playing Field for StartupsAll companies can be vulnerable, but startups can be particularly vulnerable as they experience the pains of the growth stage. In the past, there were relatively few ways to level the playing field, giving startups the ability to compete with the big boys in business. Technology; however, has changed all of that and is now making it possible to minimize growth pains while providing even startups with the ability to compete with much larger companies. Introducing marketing automation for startups.

Marketing automation, in particular, is proving to be incredibly beneficial for startups. By giving startups the ability to operate much in the same manner as established businesses, marketing automation provides the opportunity to target audiences with accurate messaging with only a minimal amount of effort. When handled correctly, marketing automation provides entrepreneurs with the chance to make the sales process far more consistent and ultimately more successful.

Avoiding Potential Downfalls in Marketing Automation

If there is a potential downside to marketing automation it is that too many entrepreneurs look at it as a get rich quick strategy that doesn’t require any work at all. While marketing automation can help to level the playing field, it is important to separate fact from fiction.

First, it is important to understand that marketing automation is not some type of magic ATM that will deliver qualified sales leads without any effort. Marketing automation can be effective, but it will only automate what you tell it to do. If you have not already taken the time to target your audience or completed your content mapping strategies, there is not much that marketing automation can do for your business.

Another common misconception when it comes to marketing automation is that it will generate results overnight. Marketing automation works by compiling information based on lead scores, buyer behavior, and sales feedback. This is not a process that takes place overnight. Meaning, you cannot expect rapid results. Marketing automation should be viewed as a long-term investment.

It is also important to understand that while marketing automation is effective in terms of process management and lead nurturing, it does not actually generate leads on its own. Basically, it warms up the leads you give it.

Marketing Automation Strategy Tips

In order to make the most of everything offered by marketing automation, including the ability to compete with larger companies with more resources, you must make certain you have a plan in place. Furthermore, this plan should be scalable and capable of growing with your business as it matures. When planning your strategy for marketing automation, keep these tips in mind:

  • Always think ahead and ensure everything is scalable.
  • Ensure you have enough resources to avoid becoming bogged down.
  • Commit to a documented process strategy.
  • Create a long-term strategy calendar.

Strongly consider marketing automation for startups if your buisness is in this category. Developing a plan for how your startup can benefit from it can help you leverage the power of marketing automation regardless of the size of your business. Find out more about how your startup can benefit from marketing automation.

Lead Liaison

Bridging the Gap Between Content and ROI with Marketing Automation

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Bridging the Gap Between Content and ROI with Marketing AutomationIt’s well known in the world of marketing that content provides the fuel necessary for successful marketing. That is no less true with marketing automation. Ultimately, you cannot expect a positive ROI, if you do not have a solid content strategy. Even the best marketing automation program in the world cannot resolve a lack of quality content. Determine ROI with marketing automation.

Despite the importance of content, many businesses continue to struggle with implementing quality content for their marketing automation needs, with their ROIs suffering as a result. Below, we go through several critical steps you can take to bridge the gap between your content and your return on investment.

1. Analyze your Content Plans

Quality content does not develop on its own and it does not happen by accident. In order to feed your marketing automation program quality content, you must first stop and analyze your content plans as well as what it is that your target audience actually wants to see. Of particular importance in terms of marketing automation, is mapping the customer journey and ensuring that your content plan aligns with that journey.

2. Think More in the Long Term than the Short Term

Far too often, many marketers focus more on the short term than the long term when it comes to their content development goals. In order to ensure you are making the most of content within the context of marketing automation, you need to pay attention to any gaps that might exist in the various stages of the buyer journey and ensure you create highly targeted content to address those gaps. This means you must stop thinking in the short term and think in the long term.

3. Develop a Content Development Calendar

Do you create content as it is needed or do you have content on reserve based on your objectives? The problem that many business owners encounter is that they create content only when they need it. In order to succeed with your marketing automation strategy, you need to have a solid plan in place. Creating a 12-month content plan can help you to do that.

4. Evaluate, Evaluate, Evaluate

Marketing automation can help to automate many of the processes related to your marketing campaign, but it cannot do everything for you. The same is also true for your content plan. You must take the time to analyze how you are utilizing your marketing automation system and how well your content is working for you. Make a commitment to evaluating your current systems at least once per quarter.

5. Make Improvements

Analyzing only works if you take the information from your evaluations and put it to work for you. After evaluating the data generated by your marketing automation system, determine what is working, what is not working and make changes to generate necessary improvements to boost your ROI.

Want a copy of our Marketing Content Map (MCM) document? Contact us with a brief note requesting the MCM and we’ll send it to you.

Marketing automation can drive a higher ROI. By implementing the steps listed above, you can bridge the gap between your content and your ROI. Learn more about how you can benefit from marketing automation today.

Lead Liaison

Enliven Your Social Media Presence with These Social Media Strategies

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Enliven Your Social Media Presence with These Social Media StrategiesSometimes, it can be a challenge for a marketing department to keep a business’s social media presence engaging and relevant in order to be an active tool for generating and encouraging leads to convert. It can be even more challenging if your business isn’t providing a service that is normally looked at as being a “sexy business”. However, no matter what industry you’re in, a creative marketing team should be able to craft a social media presence that adheres to your brand values while being an engaging advocate for your business. If you’re wondering how to do that, take cues from other business’s social media strategies in order to enliven your social media presence.

Look for Successful Examples in Strange Places

If you’re struggling to find a good example of successful social media strategies, start with some of the big boys. Sports teams have large, diverse audiences that want constant updates on what’s going on with their team. Every major football, basketball and baseball team works to keep their fans engaged and entertained even in the off season. How do they do it? Sports teams work hard to make sure their posts are consistently funny or very relevant, while always broad enough to appeal to an extremely diverse market. In addition, they also show a lot of gratitude for their audience. Every major team’s social media is dotted with posts in appreciation of their fan base, which is an easy attitude for any business to adopt.

Look for Examples in Parallel Markets

Another great way to get good inspiration is to find a parallel market to your own and see what those businesses are doing. See if the leaders of a field you’re not competitive with are doing anything exciting and take notes. Another great, low cost and very easy way to gain access to a market that you may not have much interest in is to engage one of the larger figures in that market via social media. Your Twitter or Facebook post may show up to a large group of individuals who otherwise would have no reason to think about your company.

Take Advantage of Marketing Automation Tools

Using tools provided by marketing automation software companies such as Lead Liaison, use integrated social media tools to schedule your social media posts to fit easily within a long-term, large-scale social media campaign. Take all the guesswork and complicated timing out of rolling out a social media campaign by scheduling posts months in advance to deliver company announcements and messages on time and on point. Not that the ability to schedule your posts should distract from running a dynamic and engaged social media presence, but it can certainly help organize everything.

By using these techniques and marketing automation tools, you should be able to find a way to enliven your social media presence in no time. Visit Lead Liaison’s marketing automation resource blog to learn more about using your social media presence to benefit your business.

Lead Liaison

Alternate Content Marketing Strategies besides Email

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Alternate Content Marketing Strategies besides EmailEmail has the ability to deliver a large amount of content quickly and its traditionally strong response rates. It’s probably the king of direct marketing strategies, but don’t forget that there are many other ways to reach your leads. There are other online options, such as through social media networks and mobile devices, and offline options, like direct mail or promotional materials. If you’re wondering how your company can take advantage of all these different ways to reach your leads, keep reading to learn how marketing automation companies such as Lead Liaison can provide a comprehensive alternate content marketing strategies that will benefit your business.

Social Media

Social media is becoming an increasingly vital element of any company’s online presence and overall marketing strategy. However, many small to medium sized businesses end up largely neglecting this important medium. There’s a large time investment required to cover multiple social networks and the demand for constant supervision. Lead Liaison’s social media management tools can help your business by allowing you to schedule your social media posts, removing the day-to-day upkeep that can bog marketing departments down. And if you simply can’t keep up with the content required to maintain a healthy social media presence, don’t worry! You can outsource your content creation needs to Lead Liaison, who can deliver quality content on topic and on time.

Text Messaging

While directly text messaging marketing materials is certainly a bit more aggressive than an email campaign, it gets results. Text message marketing receive a 98% open rate, which is substantially higher than the numbers email can provide. Using the data collected from your marketing automation tools and social intelligence software, you can narrowcast marketing materials and hit the right demographic at the right time to make the sales you need.

Direct Mail

While it may seem a little old school for a marketing automation strategy that relies on instant communication and data collection from the internet, direct mail remains an incredibly effective way to get a lead’s attention and get him/her interested in your product. A fact in the marketing world is that different leads react in different ways to different types of marketing material, and a lead who has generally ignored your email campaigns might finally become intrigued when a piece of marketing material lands on their desk.

Promo

Another old school method of marketing your company and your products is through the creation and distribution of promo materials. Nothing helps people remember your product better than seeing it on their desk with branded promotional materials!

If your company doesn’t have the resources or connections to arrange a large scale direct mail campaign or produce promotional materials, Lead Liaison can help. We can organize mailing campaigns and point you in the right direction to design promo items that reflect your company’s brand, and will help you convert leads to sales.

To learn more about how Lead Liaison and how marketing automation can help your company, visit Lead Liaison’s marketing automation blog online.

Lead Liaison

Great Strategies to Improve Efficiency of your Marketing Automation System

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Great Strategies to Improve Your Marketing Automation’s EfficiencyMarketing automation is one of the most important new technologies to influence modern marketing in recent years, and if your company has already adopted it, then you are already ahead of the competition. However, marketing automation is a system with a lot of different tools, and if one tool is used incorrectly, it can be damaging to the entire system, ultimately making your software inefficient and costing you conversions. Take a look at some of these best practices described below and compare them to how your company is using its marketing automation software. Don’t be surprised if you see some significant improvements to your marketing automation’s efficiency after implementing these practices!

Improve efficiency of your marketing automation system using these three tips:

Lead Qualification

Marketing automation can generate a great number of new leads for your company in a short amount of time. It can generate so many new leads, in fact, that it can become overwhelming for your sales team to attempt to pursue them all. One of the most important things to implement in your marketing automation program is lead qualification. Lead qualification analyzes a leads behavior and any available data about the lead’s profile and assigns a lead score to each prospect. Using this system, you can ensure that your sales team is focusing on the leads most likely to be converted – not wasting their time pursuing leads that are uninterested.

Lead Nurturing

One of the most important ways to turn cold leads into qualified leads is through a successful lead nurturing program. You need to make sure your marketing team can craft a program that engages your leads, educating and informing them while not being too pushy and scaring them away through overselling. The key is to focus on educating, not selling. A successful lead nurturing program should be consistent with your company’s brand, and should be tailored to a lead’s interest level, as assessed by the lead score assigned to the lead. And likewise, your sales team should be in tune with how leads are progressing through a lead nurturing program, so they know when a lead has become qualified and is ready to be contacted by a sales rep.

A/B Testing

Another vital way to improve your marketing automation’s efficiency is by implementing effective A/B email testing. You may think you have a great lead nurturing program in place, but it doesn’t take very much effort to test it against a different strategy. The results may surprise you and your marketing team, and even if you don’t find a strategy that is entirely more effective than your current tactics, you may find one element of it that you can incorporate into other marketing materials. Marketing automation software such as Lead Liaison has built in tools that will let you see exactly how your leads are responding to your marketing materials so you can construct the best, most effective content possible.

These are just a couple of the many different important strategies you can use to improve efficiency of your marketing automation system. Visit Lead Liaison’s marketing automation blog online to learn more.

Lead Liaison

How to Reach Out to a Lost Lead Using Marketing Automation

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How to Reach Out to a Lost Lead Using Marketing AutomationIt can be disappointing when a lead officially moves over to the lost pile. Considering how the internet and marketing automation has increased sales and marketing teams’ ability to quickly acquire large amounts of new leads, it can be tempting to simply forget about lost leads and move on to the next set. However, those leads were once considered possibilities, and marketing automation software makes it an easy thing to casually contact leads without wasting any of your employees’ efforts. Keep reading to learn how you can reach out to a lost lead using marketing automation without costing you any time or money.

How a Lead is Lost

Leads become inactive and effectively lost for various reasons, although those reasons can generally be grouped into two broad categories, which happen at two distinct spots in the lead funnel. The first is distraction, which usually occurs at the top of your lead funnel. It simply means the lead didn’t have an opportunity to engage with your marketing materials and wasn’t hooked by your product. They may know who you are, but they aren’t interested enough to pay attention.

The second, and more difficult to overcome, is when a customer knows about your company and your services, but does not think you are the correct provider of a solution to their problem. This typically occurs much further down the sales funnel, and can be more difficult to overcome.

How to Regain a Lead’s Interest

If you have lost a lead due to distraction, then attention grabbing marketing automation solutions can yield great results. Social selling is a great way to get a lead’s attention, and a quick follow up with a limited time offer can create urgency and inspire a lead to renew their interest in your products or services.

If you lost a lead further down the lead funnel, the process can be a little more involved, but you still have some great options to reach out to that lost lead using marketing automation. Educational lead nurturing can help you regain a lead’s interest. Nurturing helps deliver unobtrusive, well-timed, direct communication that focuses more on educating a lead about different problems and their potential solutions as opposed to simply selling. An annual follow-up is another great way to remind a lead that you’re out there because people can get new titles, budgets can shift and problems can change over time.

If you opt for one of these routes, remember that a multi-channel, multi-touch solution such as what marketing automation providers like Lead Liaison can implement can be incredibly effective. Spreading communications across email, direct mail, text messages and promotional material ensures prospects don’t feel spammed by repeated and unrequested emails. And different people respond to different mediums – someone who isn’t on top of answering every email that comes their way may be much more receptive to a text message.

All in all, you should never truly give up on a lead, and with marketing automation, you don’t have to. Learn about more lead acquisition and marketing automation strategies on Lead Liaison’s marketing automation resource blog.