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

Lead Liaison

What Makes Content King?

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What Makes Content King?In a previous blog on How to use Lead Nurturing Content to Convert More B2B Customers, I mentioned that content is king when it comes to lead conversion. I only touched on the topic briefly, but decided the subject is worthy of its own post.

Content Creates a Connection

Most marketing automation strategists focus on the sheer volume of leads and the speed of automated software when they are promoting their services to new businesses. Although these are beneficial to the success of a marketing automation campaign, they do not actually create a connection between the company and the consumer.

Lead nurturing content is a company chances to build a lasting relationship by communicating directly with the lead. It has to give the reader real value to keep them interested. Unfortunately, even clever and helpful content will still be useless if it is never read. That is why there also needs to be an emphasis on effective content marketing.

Promote Content on Discussion Boards

Content marketing will require strategic networking with other people in your industry. Spend time establishing your online authorship by posting compelling quotes and tidbits from your nurturing content on other forums and discussion boards. Make sure to create clear links back to original blog posting to encourage two-way traffic.

Content Marketing with Social Media

Millions of articles are shared every day on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter. Marketing automation strategist will create content worthy of being shared and then use a combination of different social media sites to distribute and promote the information online.

The techniques for approaching social media users vary depending on the site. LinkedIn and Google+ are ideal for professional business content while Facebook and Twitter should have a more entertaining or educational aspect to the article.

Understand Your Target Audience

How and where you promote your content will depend on your company’s unique target audience. Start by using website visitor tracking and lead profiling to gather valuable information on your potential leads. Look for similar interests and online behavior that will help you understand their needs and interests. This will allow you to create lead nurturing content that answers their questions and help you promote it in the places they are most likely to look.

Online consumers are aware they have an abundance of choices, which gives them higher expectations. They expect real engagement, free advice, and useful resources. Lead nurturing content is necessary for creating a more meaningful connection with potential leads and content marketing is needed to spread word of your valuable content and attract new visitors. Successfully combining these two marketing strategies will show you exactly why content is the king when it comes to lead conversion.

Lead Liaison

5 Marketing Automation Best Practices

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Best Practices for Marketing AutomationMarketing automation is here to stay. While we’re ecstatic that companies both large and small continue to adopt MA at a frenetic pace, we feel it is important to remember that effective marketing using an automation platform should follow some fundamental best practices. We’re delighted to present to you 5 marketing automation best practices.

1) Start small and build

Avoid deploying a huge campaign when you start out with MA. The temptation may be to run multiple campaigns as quickly as possible. But programmed marketing takes time to master – and you don’t want to risk alienating your markets. Develop a deployment strategy that includes all features but open with a few small campaigns and learn to master tactics before rolling out to a wider audience. You’ll minimize risk by starting small.

2) Create MA campaigns that build profiles and strengthen marketing practices

Effective automated marketing campaigns should qualify leads as they relate to a specific offer or opportunity, but deploying MA is also beneficial in discovering market behaviors through content consumption. The digital footprints your leads leave behind while engaged through marketing automation helps shape your customer persona. Use that data to develop stronger campaigns.

3) Don’t set to auto-pilot

It will be tempting to “set-it-and-forget-it” but campaign management is still required – especially early on. Though marketing automation creates efficiencies through automated functions, it’s important to stay on top of ongoing campaign results and tweak app settings, messaging, or other elements to maximize your results.

4) Create great content

Buyers are constantly getting targeted by content intended to attract and persuade. Having that content delivered routinely via MA is not going to instantly convert. Marketing automation, though an important and rapidly adopted technology, is but a tool. The key to effective MA campaigns is to provide content your markets want and need. A mix of formats is important. Deploy video, email, social posts, and other assets. Most importantly, project a consistent image across all your MA channels.

5) Test and test again

Not every MA campaign will achieve desired results. One of the strengths of MA is the ability to segment and target audiences. Prior to a general distribution, make sure messaging generates response for each market segment. Use A/B testing for each asset deployed through your MA platform to gauge click through, site time, conversion, and other KPIs. Marketing automation can reduce marketing costs and improve close rates but the effectiveness of the platform you use will depend on establishing best practices that work for your company. For more best practices, check out our other blog categories.

Lead Liaison

Why Marketing Automation is Essential for Lead Qualification

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Why Marketing Automation is Essential for Lead QualificationB2B lead qualification is a process of determining suitability for sales engagement, right? Actually, lead qual is just the opposite: it’s determining as quickly as possible if a lead is NOT interested in you at the moment and, furthermore, if you are NOT interested in that lead enough to devote sales resources to pursuing that lead. The way provide your sales team with the highest quality, most qualified leads is to manage leads through a marketing automation platform.

In ultra-competitive industries where 80% of leads are not worth pursuing at the first touch point, an effective lead qualification strategy manages leads in a way that delivers the hottest leads to sales first, nurtures others who may be interested in your solution until they are ready to buy, and ignores leads that appear unqualified to purchase. This allows your sales team to focus on the most likely candidates.

One of the strengths of deploying marketing automation is that the application segments and nurtures leads without directly engaging the sales team. The system can quickly indicate which leads are worth pursuing and which are just curious. Traditional practices have sales determining whether a lead is suitable to be a prospect, now marketing automation enables that process.

Marketing automation platforms, including our Lead Management Automation™ application, are designed to score leads as they engage with your brand. A lead threshold can be set that marks when a lead becomes marketing-qualified and ready to migrate to a CRM for sales engagement. The process puts the most likely buyers in front of sales. During the qualification process, leads accumulate scoring based upon demographic attributes and digital behavior. A good platform will manage leads as they become qualified at different paces.

B2B qualification these days is achieved more often by inbound marketing techniques. This allows prospects to qualify themselves. The key to merging inbound marketing and automated qualification is to translate initial interest into actionable data that sales agents can use when they engage with leads. Through MA the sales team is typically more efficient because reps aren’t chasing unqualified leads.

Inbound marketing allows you to let the prospect indicate how ready to purchase he may be. Inquiries such as ad clicks, website visits, email messages, and webinar registrations qualify leads by indicating their level of interest in your solution.

But there are two important questions that must be answered that marketing automation cannot provide. These questions must be answered during sales engagements.

  • Do they NEED your solution? People search online often with the desire to buy but may not have the need. It can often be more challenging to sales to convince a prospect of need when she realizes that a purchase fulifills only a desire to acquire your solution. Typically, these cases involve frequent and repeated objections.
  • If they need your solution, can they USE it? Does yoru prospect have the capability of implementing your solution or will implementation require investment in other areas? Often, a purchase makes sense in a standalone situation but if there are capital requirements beyond the purchase, a sale may actually move the customer to hold your brand in a negative view if money was wasted because a solution cannot be implemented without costly investment.

Lead qualification can take weeks or months. Without a marketing automation platform, lead qual will continue to be costly if handled by your sales team.

Lead Liaison

How to “Spark” a B2B Conversion

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How to "Spark" a B2B ConversionThat first touch. That first look. That first sound. That spark! We often remember first impressions when something significant happens. It’s no different for business-to-business sales. In this case, though, we’re not talking about attributes like a snazzy website or a funny TV ad, we’re talking about timing, response, and good old-fashioned value. That first impression can come from how quickly you respond to a sales lead and what you deliver when they inquire about your brand.

We’ve created the spark that can transform the curious to the converted and can help you spark a b2b conversion.

A Spark is a real-time event trigger in the Lead Management Automation™ (LMA) application. What events can be triggered, you ask? Anything from adding the lead to a contact list to creating a CRM task in Salesforce.com. The value in automating these events is in the rapid response you can provide each sales lead.

What constitutes a Spark? A Spark happens when a visitor to your website uses a specific search term to reach you, has visited multiple pages on your site, or other activities. The Spark can be the start of a long-term relationship with that lead through a nurturing process. By quickly responding to an “inquiry” (a user-defined request), you provide value that can lead to a conversion from prospect to customer.

Here are some examples that are used as sparks:

  • A prospect submits a web form, which triggers an email sent to the prospect with more information and distributes the lead to your sales team
  • A link within an email is clicked, which triggers and alert to the lead owner and creates a task in your CRM for that lead owner
  • A hot prospect (measured by lead score) visits your pricing page, which triggers an email to the lead owner.
  • A lead is converted in your CRM from Lead to Contact, which updates the fields and status in your CRM

A Spark can trigger multiple activities, reducing redundant processes and increasing your spectrum of response. Research has shown that prompt response and value delivery rank high among reasons buyers purchase from a vendor. Using Sparks to trigger events in response to inbound activity shows your leads that your brand acknowledges their interest and wants to provide value in their customer experience.

Lead Liaison

How Can I Effectively Nurture a Lead?

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How Can I Effectively Nurture a Lead?Lead nurturing is one of the most fundamental components to a successful marketing strategy. Today’s consumers are more educated and willing to take the time to thoroughly research their purchases. They will spend hours searching online for customer reviews, testimonials, and helpful articles before making any decision.

Lead nurturing content helps potential consumers make informed decisions by answering their questions and concerns. Your web content, articles, and newsletters should all be designed as clever and discreet sales pitches that offer information that would be beneficial to your typical consumer.

Here are a few tips on how to effectively nurture a lead:

1.       Understand Your Leads

The first step to effectively nurturing a lead is establishing a comprehensive lead profile. Marketing automation uses website visitor tracking software to monitor a lead’s online behavior. It also promotes online registries and questionnaires to extract and track a lead’s demographic details. All of this valuable information should then be used to create more personalized lead nurturing content geared at their personal interests and behavior.

2.       Understand Their Needs

Consumers are not looking for a specific product; they are looking for a solution to a specific problem. Focus the lead nurturing content on the obstacles they face and offer sincere advice on how to resolve their issue. Take for example a website that promotes an all-natural herbal dietary supplement. The lead nurturing content should discuss the difficulties associated with being overweight and then offer many different solutions like dieting, exercising, and of course, taking your dietary supplement.

3.       Do Not Over Sell

Instead of approaching your lead nurturing content as a marketing piece, focus on it being a helpful consumer guide. A web page can go on and on about the benefits of your product but your lead nurturing content has to have more depth. Using the example above, I would not recommend sending out an article that only discusses why they should take your herbal supplement to lose weight.  Consumers will view it as a sales piece and not take the advice seriously.

4.       Do Not Under Sell

Your lead nurturing content still need to highlight the attributes of your product or service otherwise it is not doing its job. To effectively nurture a lead there should be 20% to 25% of the entire copy that directly references benefits of your product or service.

You can discover more lead nurturing tips that are specific to B2B customers in my earlier post on How to use lead nurturing content to convert more B2B customers. Lead nurturing can be a powerful revenue generating tool if it is done right.

Lead Liaison

Email Marketing is NOT Dead

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Email Marketing is Not DeadThere are those that might be predicting the death of email as a marketing tool. Gmail’s new tabs might spell doom for a lot of marketers but those who know how to deploy email marketing effectively will still thrive in the coming new email delivery paradigm. We’re here to tell you: email marketing is not dead – if you know how to use it.

First off, those who understand that email is one marketing tool in a suite that includes search marketing/SEO, social media marketing, display ads, apps, and several more. Email should not be the sole source for outbound marketing efforts rather it should be deployed when and where it makes the most sense.

It starts with your list. Too many marketers rely on buying email lists or using implicit modes to gather email addresses. By “implicit modes” we’re referring to using an event such as completing a form to download a file or register for a webinar and having your email address used to send promotional emails without permission. Marketers often fail when they try to sneak a promotional email in without being approved to do so. Always get specific permission to contact your leads via email. One simple way to do this is to include a checkbox that reads “I would like to receive updates, offers, and news about (your company or its products)”.

Secondly, email is a more intimate touch point. You are in their space when you enter their mailbox. It’s incredibly important to honor that position and not waste their time. If a lead has given you permission to contact him by email, your brand has been elevated to the “interested” position in his mind space. Don’t ruin it by shooting “spray and pray” messages that end up providing little value. Use messaging that not only connects with your lead at an individual level but also gives him a reason to spend time with your brand. The reason should offer value in terms of acquiring knowledge, saving money (but avoid hyper sales tactics!), or providing a beneficial opportunity to improve his company.

Thirdly, stand out within box. Subject lines should not be misleading and provide immediate value. Buyers should know when they scroll through their box exactly what the message is and why it is important to open it. Avoid using personal names your leads won’t recognize – they almost always get sent to the bin. One tactic is to set up distinct addresses to display in the sender field. All email programs display the sender in the mailbox inventory; an email from “wevegotyoursize@fashionista.com” to a lead who used a sizing plugin on your retail clothing website can catch the eye of a lead scrolling through a crowded email box.

So don’t give up on email marketing – it’s not dead. Just figure out how to use this tool effectively.

Lead Liaison

Why is SEO Necessary for a Marketing Automation Strategy?

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Why SEO is Necessary for a Marketing Automation StrategyI was reading this great article on What B2B SEO Professionals need to know about Marketing Automation and it got me thinking about how closely related search engine optimization (SEO) is to marketing automation. SEO is used to draw more leads to your website. Marketing automation software is used to capture, profile, nurture, and convert leads after they have landed on your site. On the other side of the coin, an effective marketing automation strategy will enhance your SEO efforts. An important aspect of marketing automation is developing personalized and informative lead nurturing content. Posting and promoting relevant content will help to boost your search engine ranking, which in turn will send even more qualified leads to your website.

Higher Ranking = More Traffic

It is estimated that over 15 billion people conduct product searches online each month and that 70% of the world starts their buying process by researching their options online. There has never been a larger audience gathered in one place; there has also never been so much competition in one place. A high search engine ranking is the only way to keep your company ahead of your competitors. Think about the last time you conducted an online search. Did you look at any websites on the second or third page of the results? Unless someone is doing extensive comparison shopping, they will only look at the first few websites on the list. It pays to be on the first page of the results.

SEO + Marketing Automation = Success

Companies need to focus on SEO before they employ marketing automation software. This will increase the number of leads the software is able to track. The software will then profile the leads and rank each one based on their likelihood for conversion. Leads that are showing signs of conversion will be immediately past onto the sales team. A marketing automation strategy should also involve nurturing any leads that are not ready to be passed onto sales. This could be done using customized email campaigns, newsletters, or helpful how-to articles. To continue the flow of new traffic, lead nurturing efforts must take SEO into consideration. Any content connected to your website is an opportunity to improve your search engine ranking using relevant and strategically placed keywords and meta-tags.

Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

In today’s competitive marketplace, businesses need to employ any and every marketing technique that will give them a competitive advantage online. Their marketing strategy should always include SEO, social media marketing, and a complete marketing automation strategy. All of these strategic components will complement each other and enhance one another’s campaign results. They can even double or triple a company’s existing sales when they are effectively combined. That is why SEO is so necessary to the success of your marketing automation strategy.

Lead Liaison

How Marketing Automation Redefines Deadlines

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How Marketing Automation Redefines DeadlinesMarketing automation is all about making the sales-to-closing and general advertising practices of your business easier while allowing you to put everything on a timetable or deadline. If you haven’t really explored the world of marketing automation and how it can change your business, now is a good time to take a look.

When you’re creating a new brand for your company (and it may well be time to do that) you might find a messy affair ahead. This is particularly true if you’re the principal in your business. Who has time to handle customers, work on your website and new graphics materials and keep the business running? With marketing automation, you do.

Marketing Automation Makes Rebranding Easier

Putting a new website in place gives users an opportunity to interact with you in an organic way. Users who previously visited your site have brand new materials to look at. Hopefully by the time your new site is up, you’ve made it more interactive with contact forms, a good trail of information that will allow users to spend more time to your site, and other methods to contact you like phone or email.

Marketing automation allows you to identify specific users who visit your site. Once you have this information, deadlines start to come together. Advertising campaigns can go out at a particular date based on the way you see visitors using your site. You also have the ability to tailor specific advertising campaigns to particular groups of users.

Advertising on a Deadline

Once you have this type of business intelligence information, it becomes much easier to set up more accurate sales funnels and campaign management using your site’s data. One action should trigger another very specific reaction – for instance, if a known user fills out a form and you know this customer likes to be called, your sales team should receive a prioritized note letting them know the customer should be called within a specific timeframe. Marketing automation then allows your sales team to create new deadlines to ensure that customer’s needs are serviced – and future sales will happen as a result.

You can also use marketing automation to determine when the best time to send out campaigns might be, then build deadlines based on those new campaign dates. If you find most of your customers open emails on a Tuesday – but certain customers buy more on a Thursday – you can change your marketing messaging to go out to different customers on different days as needed.

Analyzing the data to determine the best deadlines for marketing actions is advanced technology that traditional analytics methods just won’t give you. To learn more about how marketing automation can benefit your business, visit leadliaison.com.

Lead Liaison

7 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

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7 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing CampaignMarketers have been flooding social media channels for over three years now. Some brand leaders have effectively embedded social campaigns into their marketing strategies. But many companies are still struggling with making social effective. Why? After several days of research, we’ve uncovered several common mistakes companies are making in their social marketing practices. Here are some thoughts on how to deploy your social media marketing effectively.

Maintain a dialogue – Don’t simply post links to blogs or company web pages. Social media sites are for being “social” (conversing and sharing) so balance informative posts with conversation generators. Pose a thought-provoking question every now and then to get followers to truly engage with your brand.

Uncover what your social circles/followers are doing – find out what interests them, what they are talking about, or what they are sharing. As with any marketing campaign, success starts with knowing your audience well. Take the time to learn about what is important to your followers before posting, tweeting, or “liking”.

Follow others and connect on their social pages – Gaining followers is not a one-way proposition. Buyers, brand advocates, and other stakeholders want to feel they are important to you. If someone elects to connect with your social channel, connect with their channel.

Visit your competitors’ social pages – What better way to find out what your competitors are up to than by monitoring their social pages. Posts on their social pages may reveal common problems your market is having or provide opportunities to address their shortcomings on your social channels. More importantly, you may be able to uncover their strategies.

Join a conversation – Hashtags and other tags allow you to connect with leads that are interested in specific topics. By embedding a hashtag, you join a conversation about common issues, challenges, attitudes, and more. Doing so not only provides an opportunity to link to a specific audience but can signify that certain topics share importance to you and your followers and that you wish to provide more information to your leads.

Use the appropriate strategy for the appropriate social site – Not all social media sites are created equal. For example, Pinterest is for photo-sharing – use images that will generate sharing. Select your photos carefully. Shots of employees or someone using your product may be of interest to your company but won’t likely pick up many followers. Choose images that are funny, cute, awe-inspiring, or memorable in some other way and connect the image to your brand. Facebook has yet to develop hashtags effectively, so deploy hashtags on Twitter or Tumblr instead.

Share responsibly – Things have kind of gotten out of hand with the hashtag craze. Now any phrase under 140 characters can be a hashtag. Make sure to deploy hashtags that are useful to your social circles; they should be relevant to your audience, common enough to be part of a larger conversation, and connect your prospects’ minds with your brand.

Our automated posting feature can be a great way to connect with your audience – if used properly. For more information on integrating social media with marketing automation, connect with Lead Liaison!

Lead Liaison

Using Marketing Automation to Enhance Customer Engagement

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Using Marketing Automation to Enhance Customer EngagementI was reading an article on Unlocking the Power of Retail Marketing Automation to gather new ideas for enhancing the techniques used at Lead Liaison and I was particularly impressed by how they approached the importance of customer engagement. In today’s competitive world-wide markets customer engagement is the key to conversion and marketing automation makes it significantly easier.

It also made me realize just how intertwined marketing automation really is to customer engagement. Marketing automation doesn’t just nurture leads, but it taps into their buying process and allows you to connect with them on a more personal level. It has the ability to build real and lasting relationship with potential leads prior to them making a purchase. In summary, it’s a good idea to start using marketing automation to enhance customer engagement.

Website Visitor Tracking

Marketing automation begins with website visitor tracking. Every lead that is captured on your website is monitored as they move from page to page. It also records any demographic information that is volunteered through online registries and feedback forms. Their online activity and characteristics are used to create a comprehensive lead profile.

Marketing automation strategists compare the information received during website visitor tracking with the behavior and attributes of existing customers to identify trends and determine their purchasing potential. This ranking and qualification process gives marketers a better understanding of a lead’s pre-purchasing behavior, which will improve their chances of creating a real connection. This will also make it easier to identify triggers and customize nurturing content.

Customized Lead Nurturing

Leads that are not ready to make a decision are given further nurturing using informative and relevant email and newsletter campaigns. A customized nurturing approach that is based on their personal profile and interests will strengthen the emotional connection between the content and the customer. Customized lead nurturing content is one of the most effective ways to inspire greater customer engagement.

Most marketing automation professionals will first segment leads into groups before they create the customized content. Marketing automation software captures an abundance of leads and it is too difficult to cater a unique approach to every single lead in your database. Lead segmenting will group together similar leads, so content can be directed at segments of leads who share the same needs.

Faster Response to Customer Concerns

Marketing automation immediately notifies your sales and marketing teams whenever there is a question or concern from a potential customer. Customers will sincerely appreciate the fast response and personal attention they receive. Your sales team will also be sent a notice the moment a lead shows any signs of conversion. Responding to customer’s issues as they occur or when they are ready to make a purchase will significantly increase customer engagement and sales.

Today’s savvy consumers have high expectations from online businesses and they expect to be engaged. Fortunately, marketing automation uses website visitor tracking, customized lead nurturing, and faster response times to develop greater customer relations from the initial interaction to final sales transaction.