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

Lead Liaison

Overlooked Features of Marketing Automation

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Overlooked Features of Marketing AutomationMarketing automation is a complex strategy that has been proven to capture and convert more leads than traditional marketing. The main feature of using marketing automation software is greater lead conversion however there are countless other benefits that will come from using it. This article will discuss the many valuable features of marketing automation that are often overlooked.

Lead Tracking and Profiling

Website visitor tracking is one of the most valuable features of marketing automation because it provides a greater insight into each potential lead. The overlooked feature associated with website visitor tracking is lead profiling. Website visitor tracking develops a comprehensive profile of each leads’ behavioral characteristics. It also allows for demographic characteristics to be captured and retain using online registrations. Sales is inherently based on relationship building and lead profiling gives you a synopsis of how the lead thinks, what they are researching, where they are in their buying process, and ultimately, how interested they are in making a purchase. It is easier to connect and build a relationship with a lead once you are able to understand how they think and what they need.

Lead Segmenting and Nurturing

The information gathered in profiling creates two other overlooked feature of marketing automation; lead segmentation and lead nurturing. Marketing automation strategists will use this information to divide leads into groups based on similar characteristics. Once leads are grouped into segments, customized content can be created to address the needs of each lead segment. The ability to customize and personalize content based on the lead’s profile will strengthen the relationship by creating an even stronger connection. Consumers feel that someone real is listening and responding to their concerns when they receive relevant and informative content.

Lead Qualification and Quick Conversion

Another overlooked feature of marketing automation that also comes from lead profiling is lead qualification. Once a profile is established it can be instantly ranked and compared against profiles of existing clients to determine the likelihood of conversion. Although a higher conversion rate is the most known feature of marketing automation, the speed at which it can be accomplished is the last overlooked feature. Your sales staff will be notified the moment a lead is qualified and they can respond while the potential customers is actively researching your website. This will allow your sales team to catch customers before they move onto a competitor. Marketing automation has numerous features and benefits, but they all work towards the same goal; lead conversion. It provides the tools for understanding and nurturing your leads, and then notifies your sales team the moment that the lead is ready to make a purchase.

Lead Liaison

When Should Sales Contact Marketing Automation Leads?

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When Should Sales Contact Marketing Automation Leads?Automated marketing is making it easier to attract and nurture leads prior to a sales engagement. But when should a sales agent contact a lead from a marketing automation platform? Today’s B2B companies are adapting their marketing to the customer-is-in-control environment, and marketing automation platforms enable sales teams to monitor inbound behavior and nurture leads through the marketing funnel. So at what times should sales be in touch with marketing automation leads? We’ve got three that work.

Following Initial Inquiry

This may seem counterintuitive to the automated marketing paradigm, but early introduction of a dedicated sales agent can be effective as a method to deepen the relationship with a lead. A simple “Hello. How are you? Can I help answer a question?” with an agent’s contact details provides a lead with a human connection to your company.

Some MA vendors recommend repeated outbound calls following the initial inquiry. We don’t advise an aggressive policy but companies that ignore opportunities to introduce sales early in the engagement process may be missing out on potential conversions. Sending a simple introductory message via email when possible can provide assistance to your leads, an opportunity to accelerate the relationship, and a way to qualify leads early in the process.

(Chat plug-ins are effective but all too often we see chat pop-ups appearing within seconds of a page display. Timing is essential when setting chat enablement. Page visitors should be allowed to digest content before a chat is offered.)

Following a Specific Inquiry

Once you’ve discovered that a lead has engaged with your brand through a specific marketing asset, there is an opportunity to address needs, questions, etc. A robust marketing automation platform will allow you to deliver a message that is specific to a lead’s interest at the moment. This provides a great opportunity to provide value to the relationship.

For example, when a lead arrives on a landing page through an organic search for ‘marketing automation prices’ your MA platform should send an alert to the sales rep who “owns” the account. The rep will know that the lead is focused on pricing and can take the opportunity to engage by following up on the message that was delivered.

At a Lead Score Benchmark

Your MA platform should have a lead scoring feature that allows you to define scoring parameters. Determine a scoring threshold that will be used to deliver the lead record to your CRM and use that threshold as an opportunity to immediately send an automated message.

Once a lead has achieved a score, which is a combination of explicit (attributes) and implicit (behavioral) data, a message with a time-sensitive offer can be effective. At this point, the lead will be marketing-qualified and ready for sales engagement. Your sales rep can then follow up on the message to try to convert early in the sales pipeline.

Automated marketing is recognized as being a powerful B2B sales tool. To make it even more effective, deploy sales engagements at times that will be recognized as helpful but not intrusive. For more thoughts on using marketing automation effectively, visit our blog.

Lead Liaison

Lead Scoring: When a 100 Is Not Enough

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Lead scoring is among the top three strengths of B2B lead management/marketing automation platforms. Yet early adopters of marketing automation are still struggling with the nuances and changing buying habits of the digital buyer. Predefined lead scoring models make marketing automation setup easier and provideUnique Lead Scoring Model an architecture for ranking and prioritizing leads. However, we recommend establishing a unique scoring model (based upon a customer persona) that more accurately defines the quality of your leads.

It’s important to recognize that lead conversion, and ultimately close rates, are by their very nature challenging to forecast. Even within a lead management/marketing automation platform, the lead scoring functionality is only as effective as the model that has been built. Lead scoring defines the quality of a lead by its attributes and digital footprints. But even the most finely honed scoring models can leak unprepared and/or unqualified leads into your CRM.

That’s because using the total score (which is typically used to determine lead migration to a CRM) doesn’t tell the whole story. Hidden challenges can be hiding behind any automatically nurtured lead score.

Even a lead that is migrated to a CRM with a score of 100 may not be fully sales-qualified. Look at this example:

A lead enters your CRM with a overall score of 95 (out of a maximum 100). The lead achieved a A grade for intrinsic qualities like company size, revenues, and # of employees. For the behavioral scoring, the lead achieved a 98 score. This lead looks like a sure conversion based upon its overall score. But missing in that terrific score is a factor that wasn’t scored: the contact is finishing a month-long resignation and the purchasing decisions will be transferred to another position. The lead owner does not recognize this transition until first touch after migrating to the CRM.

How did the lead achieve that score? Was it primarily due to lead attributes (industry, contact title, etc.) or due to online behavior? Sales agents using integrated marketing automation platforms now have the capability to review leads as they move through the marketing funnel. Your sales reps should be advised to review the details of the lead’s score early in the engagement process. This will allow them to understand clearly how the lead got to their prospect pools, discover selling opportunities, and uncover deficiencies that may need to be overcome to convert that lead.

One tactic that helps to sharpen your scoring model is to mix in minor sales engagements along the nurturing path. Information gathered through preliminary qualification calls can provide guidance when it comes to adjusting weights or adding variables to your lead scoring model.

Sure, you can’t account for every circumstance and situation but developing an accurate, rigid yet adaptable scoring model – with as many parameters included as possible and appropriate weighting of each parameter – will help prevent ineffective measurement of the quality and interest of your B2B leads.

Lead Liaison

Three Campaign Ideas For Lead Nurturing Success

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Three Campaign Ideas For Lead Nurturing SuccessAre you stuck for lead nurturing ideas? Here are a few ideas for lead nurturing success.

Introduce a sales agent

If your company has a round-robin lead distribution policy, introduce the next sales agent in line through a series of introductory messages. Connecting a brand to a human being is a consistent theme in today’s digital marketing space and you can be effective when a person is introduced early in the nurturing process.

When a lead comes into your marketing automation system, send a message that describes the sales rep – include a picture, a few personal details, and, of course, contact information (don’t forget to include a reason for the email response – i.e. the lead’s webinar registration).

The first message should ask permission to contact the lead in the future. Then each subsequent message can deepen the engagement cycle by sharing stories about some of the sales rep’s previous positive client experiences or, depending on your enterprise policies, a personal story not related to your solutions.

Bringing a sales rep in early in the marketing cycle develops trust while the lead is moving through his buying process. Early engagement also provides opportunities to respond to questions or provide unique information.

Offer a free trial

What works especially well for SaaS and software providers is the free trial. For whatever length of time you offer for a trial period, use that time to provide support. Offer helpful hints about using the product or tips about the process a lead is using your solution for (like lead nurturing!). The level of engagement may depend on how complex your solution is to learn. For more complex solutions, engage frequently. Your trial leads will thank you.

Make sure to enhance the user experience during the trial period. Clearly explain features and functions, hold the lead’s hands throughout the trial experience. As the trial period comes to a close, ask if there are questions or specific features he would like to explore. In the final message before the period expires, make sure to indicate that the trial period will be ending and provide a valuable opportunity to buy now.

After the trial ends, send out a hard-sell email with a one-time, limited offer. Review all the features that were used during the trial, refresh his memory about the experience. Make sure to send this message within at most a week from the trial expiration.

Launch a community or forum

Gathering people under a common theme is a tried-and-true method of engaging with your market. Although this type of campaign requires some set up and management to execute properly, it can pay dividends down the road.

Invite leads to join a forum or social community that discusses relevant issues in their industries or professions. This is a great way to connect, nurture, develop trust, and deepen your understanding of your market(s). Use email messaging to introduce a recent topic, announce notable forum attendees/industry leaders, or update on a past topic. Ask leads to contribute an issue as a forum “presenter”.

While there will be times that your community/forum will require your marketing team to facilitate discussions and introduce topics, the community will often engage leads on its own. One tricky situation arises when participants are discussing competitors’ solutions. Make sure the moderator handles comments about competitive advantages (and disadvantages) quickly and professionally.

Through the use of lead nurturing assets, you can inform, educate, and remind leads about the community while mixing in relevant messages about your solutions and how they can solve issues being discussed in the forum.

Have you got a winning lead nurturing tactic? Share your knowledge and receive 10% off your first year of using our robust Lead Management Automation™ platform.

Lead Liaison

Customer Relationship Management: Not Just an App

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Customer Relationship Management: Not Just an AppCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to a type of software or application you can use to manage your interactions with customers, keep a customer’s contact information secure and manage deals and sales. Right?

Well, sort of. A good CRM will do those things for you, but apps can’t do it all. Customer relationship management should actually be about proficiently managing your relationships with your customers – meaning, putting the right tools in place to make sure you offer consistently great customer service. With all the lingo and the acronyms and the must-haves in the app world, we can forget that a solid CRM won’t help if there is no plan for actually managing customers.

Solidifying Your Strategy

Marketing automation can be helpful because the right platform gives you much more information than standard analytics tools ever will. If you are able to use marketing automation data to determine specific consecutive days that a certain visitor has spent on your site, it makes sense to contact that visitor personally, strategically discuss some of the areas of your site they spent the most time on, and determine how your offering suits their needs. Without marketing automation tools, you simply can’t give this level of service to your clients. In fact, you won’t even know what specific users are visiting your website. All Google Analytics and other services will give you is a lump of customer data that doesn’t single out specific IPs.

Take a look at your web visitor data over the past 90 days. If you don’t know who’s visiting, it might be time to consider a marketing automation tool that can help you log specific visitors and tie their needs to your services. If you do know who your visitors are, develop a lead flow strategy for using your customer relationship management tools to pinpoint them, then contact and pitch to them.

Customer Relationship Management Strategy

For instance, does a potential client continue to hover around price points for a certain service you provide? If so, it makes sense to call that person or email them with a special promotional deal. Does a specific client keep coming back to your website to look over terms of service or specific offering points on a package? If that’s the case you might experience future problems from that customer or need to answer a question.  A simple call to check in might remedy a complaint that’s about to surface.

With marketing automation tools, you can better manage the relationships you have with current customers and put systems in place to give them better service. For more information and to take advantage of what marketing automation has to offer for your customers, visit leadliaison.com.

Lead Liaison

How to Successfully Generate B2B Leads Using Twitter

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How to Successfully Generate B2B Leads Using TwitterWe were talking about lead generation at lunch the other day. The subject of Twitter use for B2B lead gen came up. We started sharing stories of customers’ Twitter experiences when it occurred to us that some marketers are not using Twitter effectively because of a their approach to leveraging the channel properly among other marketing assets.

Those of you deploying marketing automation for lead generation practices understand that Twitter can be embedded easily within a campaign without consuming a lot of time and energy. In fact, Twitter works great as a lead generator when tweets are folded into an automated campaign. The following four steps can lead you to B2B lead generation success through Twitter using a marketing automation platform in our article on how to successfully generate B2B leads using Twitter.

1) Provide a survey

Survey your Twitter followers with a brief, five-question survey to uncover a common unfulfilled need or desire. Tweet out the link to a landing page with a short explanation. The follower should land on a squeeze page with a web form (created in your MA platform!) including email address with 1 or 2 qualifying questions. Below the form, the survey should be clear to understand and easy to complete. (P.S. Offer a bonus for completing the survey.)

2) Send a thank you email

Distribute an email thanking followers for their participation in the survey. In the message, tell them that a solution will be tweeted in the near future and ask/encourage them to share the upcoming announcement with their followers.

3) Announce a solution

Once you’ve determined you can provide a solution to respondents’ needs or desires, tweet out an announcement about the solution with a link to a video, product page, or other asset where interested followers can learn more. Link tracking will reveal behavior that can escalate a follower further into the marketing funnel.

4) Send an autoresponse email to click-through followers

Express thanks for learning more, offer additional value by providing more information, and provide a link to a tweet announcing a promotional offer that can be found on a dedicated landing page. (If the promo tweet is retweeted or shared, extend an additional offer to those followers who act as a brand ambassador.

At this point the leads generated through this process are beyond top-of-funnel and can be entered into a nurturing program. There are many other ways Twitter can be used to successfully generate leads. Stay on top of Lead Liaison’s revenue generation blog for more social media and marketing automation ideas.

Lead Liaison

Integrating a Marketing Automation Platform with Your CRM

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Integrating a Marketing Automation Platform With Your CRMAn interesting interview published in eMarketer came across our desks recently about integrating a marketing automation platform with your CRM. The subject was Kevin Quiring, managing director of sales and customer service at Accenture. It caused us to reflect on a few points Mr. Quiring made during the interview.

“Businesses are placing renewed emphasis on generating new business… either through acquiring new customers or growing existing customers.” Lead management is a critical part of that effort because companies are competing for fewer real dollars as the U.S. continues to stumble out of the recession. Brands need to know their customers well and target suspects effectively. They also need to nurture leads towards a sales engagement. Thirdly, they need to be able to analyze individual pathways to conversion and global trends in organic search. Integrating marketing automation and CRM platforms can do all that.

“There is a chasm between marketing and sales. The two aren’t working together.” The integration of a marketing platform with a CRM platform brings the two teams together. It starts with lead scoring, which provides qualitative and quantitative metrics that indicate how ready a lead is for sales engagement and how close a lead is to conversion. One benefit: system synchronization transfers marketing scores to sales pipeline rankings so sales reps know how hot leads are when they enter the CRM.

Sales and marketing need to work together to establish lead scoring parameters. This way, scoring parameters and benchmarks are defined with a common understanding and accountability structure connected to lead management. Also, the lead distribution capabilities of a full-service MA platform assign ownership from first touch to last touch. Sales reps are connected with a lead at a deeper level as they progress through the qualification and nurturing processes.

“Trying to close a deal when prospects have the potential to be interested in so many diverse products requires multiple sets of activity.” A primary benefit of MA and CRM integration is to have the ability to seamlessly cross-sell through multiple channels. Companies with myriad product lines can serve multiple buyer chains within a single interface. Sharper analytics from integrated platforms allow product managers to understand their markets better. Sales managers can forecast more clearly with data collected through the integrated systems.

“They’re finding the salesperson’s intuition and the marketer’s opinion on what lead will be good or bad is interesting—but not predictive.” Companies are able to analyze both the attributes and online behavior patterns of their markets through analytics provided by both platforms. A customer persona can then be built that accurately reflects statistically significant characteristics. Instead of relying on intuition an opinion, executives have hard data to shape decisions around.

We appreciate that Mr. Quiring sees the value in marketing automation and CRM integration. If you’d like to find out how our Lead Management Automation™ platform integrates with CRMs like SFDC, request a 10-minute free personal demonstration.

Lead Liaison

Why Your New Web Design May Need Landing Page Testing

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Why Your New Web Design May Need Landing Page TestingMany new website owners shudder at the thought of doing landing page testing – particularly when a website has just been redesigned or newly launched. A few months after a new website is live, many site owners are sitting back and enjoying a few web-hassle-free months. Unfortunately, it might be in a business owner’s best interest to jump right back on the web accessibility horse, even when a new site or redesign is only a few months old.

Landing Page Testing: We’re Sorry

Because landing page testing often seems unnecessary or too complicated, many business owners gloss over it and continue worrying about lead gen strategies. For many businesses, this can be a bad move – particularly when the website serves as a primary storefront for the brand.

It’s a smart idea to not only set a newly designed website up with Google Analytics or comparable marketing automation tools, but to begin immediately making observations about traffic data. Some questions business owners should be asking include:

  1. Were visitors more interactive with our old site?
  2. Is our bounce rate increasing?
  3. Are users taking the new conversion actions we’ve set up on the site?
  4. Do users find the navigation helpful?
  5. What, if anything, should we include in future plans to make the website easier to use?

The answers to these questions will often determine whether a business owner should begin planning landing page testing right away.

How Landing Page Testing Can Make the Difference

Many business owners assume that building a new website will automatically yield better navigation, a more pleasing look and therefore higher conversion rates. Many new websites don’t split-test an older look against a new look, so it’s difficult to get an idea of how user-friendly visitors find a new website compared to an older version.

In a perfect world, business owners would make former elements of a website such as buy buttons, forms and login links as easy to find on a new website, but it doesn’t always work that way. The ability to set up testing before a website would be great, but not all business owners will do this. One alternative is to create a landing page that looks like the previous design of the site. This page could serve as a gateway to the new design. Business owners could execute landing page testing to gauge the effectiveness of the new page compared with simply sending visitors to the new site.

Marketing automation can give business owners a deeper insight into how landing page testing and new designs affect lead generation. Lead Liaison’s visitor tracking capabilities go much deeper than Google Analytics or heat maps. To find out more, visit www.leadliaison.com.

Lead Liaison

What is Important When Selecting a Marketing Automation Vendor?

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What is Important When Selecting a Marketing Automation Vendor?Marketing automation has created a much more efficient way to capture, monitor, nurture, and convert more potential leads. Although the automated software streamlines the process, it requires a capable and experienced marketing automation vendor for it to reach its full potential.

Here are a few important factors to consider when selecting a marketing automation vendor:

1.      Adequate Experience

Marketing automation is a hot trend due to its powerful capabilities and many new companies are emerging. Although it is a relatively new marketing concept, there are marketing automation vendors who already have years of experience working with it complex features versus companies that only have been doing it for a few months. Experienced marketing automation vendors are more in-tuned because they have watched it evolve since its inception. They will know what works and more importantly, what doesn’t work. Consider these suggestions when selecting a marketing automation vendor.

2.      Easy-of-use

The purpose of using a marketing automation strategy is to make it easier and faster for you to monitor and profile potential leads. Look for vendors that offer simple features and straightforward solutions. It should also be easy to integration into your current Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

3.      Reliable Support

You shouldn’t have too many programming issues if you select an experienced marketing automation vendor that offers easy-to-use software, but you may have questions about how to get the most from it. Select a marketing automation vendor that has readily available and responsive support. You can test their support services with questions and concerns prior to choosing one. That is a great way to ensure they are truly helpful and knowledgeable.

4.      Comprehensive Plan

Marketing automation success won’t happen instantly. Look for vendors who offer a complete plan that follows the lead from initial connection to final conversion. Their marketing strategy should include lead generation, website visitor tracking, CRM integration, email marketing, lead qualification, lead distribution, lead nurturing, and all other aspect of the lead management process.

5.      Sales and Marketing Tools

There really shouldn’t be a need to hire additional marketing services if you are already employing a marketing automation expert. The marketing automation vendor you select should have ample knowledgeable of sales prospecting, SEO techniques, and social media marketing strategies. They should also have a resourceful blog that you can reference for marketing advice.

There are endless choices of marketing automation vendors that claim to provide the same results. Unfortunately, not everyone lives up to their claims. Make sure the marketing automation vendor you select has ample experience, an easy-to-use software program, reliable support, a comprehensive plan-of-action, and readily available sales and marketing tools. If those five components are addressed, you should see the results you expect.

Lead Liaison

Lead Follow Up and Personalization: Getting the Sale

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Lead Follow Up and Personalization: Getting the SaleWhen your salespeople do their routine lead followup, they could be using client personalization to better appeal to clients. You may find that many sales people in your company do this without prompting. It might not be difficult to remember the location, job title or basic info of your warmer leads. Having more advanced data allows sales people to connect more heavily with the potential client and to demonstrate they’re listening to the client’s needs. Lead personalization is also viewed as a precursor to excellent customer service for many warm leads

Lead Followup: When to Personalize

Potential clients who enjoy talking to salespeople on the phone disclose many trivial details. Things like favorite vacation spot, recent travel or names of family members or pets tend to slip out. Many salespeople are so focused on getting the sale during lead followup that they tend to leave out the trivial details that personalize a lead’s experience.

When notating a lead, sales people often make notes about the potential client’s work schedule, any hesitations to buy, best times to call back and more info about the competitor products the lead currently uses. Personal details are often seen as sketchy to discuss or are outright neglected by sales people, but discussion about any personal snippets you pick up – when done the right way – can help a salesperson strategically close a sale.

Recording Personalization Information

The last thing a sales person wants is to feel they’re getting over-personal with a potential client. The modicum of respect necessary for good communication in business dealings is always on the table – however, throwing in personal details that warm the relationship can nurture the lead when done strategically.

Here’s an example lead followup and personalization scenario – a sales call to a particular warm lead isn’t accepted because the lead mentions she’s taking her sick dog to the vet. Let’s say that the lead gives more information about her pet – the nature of the problem, the name of the pet, is it a routine vet visit, etc.  Rather than blanking on these details or scribbling them in a personal notebook, tools exist that allow salespeople to map out these personal details for future use. This is particularly helpful when lead follow up is conducted by multiple members of a sales team – e.g., “HI Anne! Dave told me what was going on with your dog Scrapper – is she okay?”

The right marketing automation system will help sales people keep track of lead followup and personalization details across platforms. Lead Liaison’s easy-to-use customer details interface allows you to input custom fields where you can store customer birthdays, pet names, preferences or any general details that will help sales people relate with a client and get closer to a sale.

To find out more about lead followup and personalization, visit us at leadliaison.com.