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

Lead Liaison

New Release from Lead Liaison Makes Lead Scoring Simple and Flexible

/0 Comments/in , /by

Allen, TX (PRWEB) July 15, 2013 – Lead Liaison, one of the fastest growing marketing automation and lead management software providers in the United States, has added another feature to its flagship Lead Management Automation™ (LMA) platform. The company has developed an out of the box lead scoring module that sets point values for common online activities that buyers of business products and services often perform. The powerful combination of Lead Liaison’s off-the-shelf lead scoring with custom lead scoring creates a unique offering to help B2B marketers qualify leads, faster, with less setup and hassle making lead scoring simple.

LMA users now have a complete view of the typical digital activities that contribute to a lead score, such as web page views or opening an email message, which is automatically calculated as a sales lead engages with digital marketing assets. Out of the box point values may be adjusted from preconfigured values assigned to each activity. For example, a web form submission may be assigned a point value of 100 instead of the default 50 by simply clicking the field value for that activity and entering a different value.

“The new feature adds a level of granularity and simplicity that allows marketers and sales people to define which activities should score higher or lower within their unique scoring paradigm,” said vice president of corporate communications Alex Brown. “For some companies email responses may be more valuable than social post engagements. For others it may be the reverse. We built out of the box lead scoring to make the process of setting up lead qualification for sales people flexible and easy. Our clients can choose to use the preconfigured scoring values for common behaviors or customize their own values with our custom lead scoring capability – which has been a smash hit to date.”

Lead scoring is an essential element to lead management practices. Systems such as LMA rely on lead scoring to measure the relevance and interest level of leads within the marketing pipeline and to notify sales agents of leads that deserve attention based on both company attributes and digital footprints. Lead scoring is also one of multiple parameters used by Lead Liaison to calculate lead priority for sales. Instead of a sales team dealing with a ‘flat’ database, they get a prioritized database and benefit from increased efficiency in the sales process.

“Out of the box lead scoring blows away complex lead scoring configuration typically seen in many systems. Those users cannot easily adjust the scoring matrix to suit proprietary models,” said Brown.

To learn more about Lead Liaison’s new out of the box lead scoring and other recent upgrades and releases,request a 10-minute B2B lead management demonstration.

****

Lead Liaison is an application development company that designs, develops, and sells cloud-based sales and marketing automation software. The company markets to small and medium-sized businesses worldwide, and focuses on creating the broadest and most user-friendly revenue generation software platform. Applications cover all phases of lead management automation including sales prospecting, lead generation, and marketing automation functions that directly influence revenue generation. It’s innovative and robust lead management platform combines unparalleled sales prospecting, lead capture, real-time lead tracking, lead qualification, lead distribution, database segmentation, lead nurturing and ROI reporting. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model delivers an effective user experience and integrated cloud computing capabilities.

For More Information:

Alex Brown
VP, Corporate Communications
abrown(at)leadliaison(dot)com
888.895.3237 (888 89 LEADS)

Lead Liaison

How to Get Marketing Automation to Work for Your Business

/0 Comments/in , , /by

How to Get Marketing Automation to Work for Your BusinessI was reading this helpful post, 3 Lessons from 1000 Blog Posts on Marketing Automation, and I was impressed at how easily they were able to summarize the most important factors of such a powerful software strategy; create engagement, forget traditional channels, and measure effectiveness.

I agree that these three factors are critical for its success; however they are many other ways to get marketing automation software to work for your business. The article also neglects to explain how to create more engaging content, how to use the new marketing channels for cross-promotions, or the marketing automation tools that are being used to measure its effectiveness. Although the article was a good synopsis, I felt it needed further explanation.

Here are a few proven ways to get marketing automation to work for your business:

1.       Comprehensive Profiling

A thorough lead profile is an essential factor in the success of marketing automation. Website visitor tracking allows businesses to gather details about a lead’s online history and purchasing behavior. Marketing automation strategists should also use web forms and registries to extract vital demographic information from potential leads.

2.       Lead Segmentation

Marketers should focus on customizing their efforts to groups of buyers with similar interests instead of trying to personalize content for every individual lead. Once leads have a comprehensive profile they can be segmented into different groups based on overlapping characteristics.

3.       Quality Content

Every web page and article should be optimized for more than just keywords. It has to be compelling, helpful, and relevant, so it can make a real connection with the lead. It should answer all of their questions and concerns, while offering them viable solutions to their problems.

4.       Social Media Marketing

Modern business will experience greater marketing automation success when they combine their lead nurturing campaign with a strong social media presence. You will be able to tap into a larger audience if you promote your website content and lead nurturing articles on Facebook & Twitter. This will drive more traffic to your website and increase the number of leads that the marketing automation software is able to capture.

5.       ROI Metrics  

Marketing automation strategies will also work better if they are monitored and tweaked for optimal performance. Marketing automation software allows users to compare the results of the campaign with how much revenue each step generated. It can also show which landing pages and email blasts had the highest conversion rate. Companies can improve the success of their marketing automation campaigns by measuring and reacting to data supplied by the software.

Marketing automation will work for your business, however it will require comprehensive profiling, lead segmentation, quality content, social media marketing, and ROI metrics. Greater marketing automation success will be the end result.

Do you want Lead Liaison to get marketing automation to work for your business?

Lead Liaison

How Marketing Automation is Evolving to Better Suit the B2B Environment

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Marketing Automation TrendsI was researching new trends in marketing automation when I came across this great article on the 7 most popular Marketing Automation Trends. It made me think about all the ways marketing automation has grown and changed just within the past few years. In this post we examine how marketing automation is evolving to better suit the B2B environment.

Its unique ability to tap into the B2B environment and convert more leads has also evolved. The focus of marketing automation has drifted from the power and speed of automation to the necessity of personalization. There is also more emphasis on building lasting relationships and customer engagement.

Creating a Connection

Marketers realized that using a heavily automated process was resulting in a detachment between businesses and B2B buyers. To resolve this issue, marketing automation professionals are now putting more focus on understanding their leads and fulfilling their individual needs through comprehensive lead profiling and segmentation.

Profiling and Understanding Leads

Website visitor tracking software can be used to monitor a lead’s online activity, track their pre-purchasing behavior, and record any demographic information that can be obtained from the lead using online forms and registries. This lead monitoring technology is now an essential component of marketing automation and it is used to develop a complete profile on every lead that crosses paths with a particular website.

Scoring and Segmenting Leads

Another marketing automation trend is extending the benefits of the profiling process by ranking and segmenting each lead. Marketers will compare each lead against a typical B2B buyer and then score them based on how closely their behavioral and demographic characteristics match their existing customers. Leads with a high potential for conversion will be immediately passed onto the sales department and leads that require more nurturing will be segmented into groups based on similar needs.

Personalized Content for Lead Segments

It is too difficult to personalize lead nurturing content for every individual lead, yet personalization is necessary for real engagement. Once leads are gathered into similar groups, marketers can create more relevant and customized content directed at each group of buyers.

Greater Emphasis on Quality Content

The biggest new trend in marketing automation is creating compelling, original, and high-quality content that provides the reader with real value. Content needs to contain more than just keywords to sway savvy B2B buyers. It should also gently guide them in the right direction without sounding like a typical sales pitch.

Marketing automation has evolved to make it easier to track, monitor, and engage B2B leads throughout their buying process. It allows users to understand their leads, score them based on their potential, segment them into defined groups, and nurturing each group using relevant and information content. Changes to marketing automation`s main focus has now given it the power to convert almost every lead the software captures.

Lead Liaison

Out of the Box Lead Scoring

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Out of the Box Lead ScoringOut of the Box Lead Scoring – Huh?

What is out of the box lead scoring? According to Wikipedia, “an out of the box feature or functionality, particularly in software, is a feature or functionality of a product that works immediately after install without any configuration or modification.” That’s exactly what we’ve brought to the table. We heard from many of our prospects and customers how other marketing automation systems had overly complex lead scoring techniques that took too long to map out and configure. When you really sit down and think about it, the majority of activities that a marketer and sales person want to capture and use in a scoring model are consistent across companies. The basic stuff like web form submissions, landing page views, email opens, etc.

We’ve introduced the industries most simplistic model – but we did that after introducing the industries most flexible model, our custom lead scoring. Our main goal was to keep things simple and get them working right away without compromising the deep customization that some companies covet. Now we’ve got the power of out of the box, instantly ready, lead scoring that marketers can harness and extend with custom lead scoring capability.

Why Should Marketers and Sales People Care about Out of the Box Lead Scoring?

Marketers come out looking like heroes when new leads are automatically qualified within minutes of implementing Lead Liaison. We’re still providing our Lead Scoring Model Designer which is a great tool to help companies put their lead scoring interests on paper. The only change now is that we’ve simplified the process. Our unique lead qualification capabilities gives marketers about five different individual parameters that get combined into a single priority rating for leads. How simple is that? What’s hot and what’s not, sales just wants to know. For marketers, what we find is that most marketers will use a fraction of the power of a marketing automation platform and often times lead scoring was de-prioritized over lead tracking, lead nurturing and other essential solutions. Our main differentiator in the marketplace is ease of use and simplicity. I think we’ve just upped the annie…brace yourself – or get back in the box ;-)

Lead Liaison

Segment Your Database for Email Success

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Segment Your Database for Email SuccessDatabase segmentation can have a significant impact on your email campaign effectiveness. The relevancy of your messaging and offers is critical to generating opens and – more importantly – sales. Lead Liaison’s database segmentation tools provide parameters that allow you to create email distribution lists that target lead attributes, buying status, behavioral identifiers, and trigger events. Make sure to segment your database for email success.

Segmenting your lead database is important for two reasons: 1) you can target specific leads for customized messages and 2) you can avoid spamming uninterested suspects. With our database segmentation feature, you can accomplish both in a matter of minutes. There are over 65 preset attributes and over 10 trigger events that can be used to filter your email list.

How to Segment Your Database

So what are some of the effective criteria that marketers should use to segment a lead database?

Geography – where are your leads located? Whether your sales team is organized by territory or not, geography can play a role in how you approach a lead. The culture in Texas is different than in New York; messaging can be tweaked to appeal to each region’s cultural differences.

Lead Grade – leads that are graded on how well they fit your buyer profile should be segmented according to appropriateness. After all, should a line worker at a company with revenues below $1MM be approached the same way as a CEO of a company with $10MM in revenues?

Lead Score – marketers should segment according to the implicit (behavioral) attributes that are provided through online activities. For example, a lead that has attended a one-hour webinar should not be grouped with leads that have visited a single webpage.

Gender – this one is not always considered when segmenting a database. However, grouping by gender allows marketers to create messages that appeal to each gender’s buying triggers, emotional attachment(or lack thereof), and value systems.

Job Function (Title) – b2b decision-makers typically reside within certain positions: CEO, vice president, purchaser, etc. Though not always the case, segmenting email recipients by job function is effective at putting your salespeople in front of the right person.

Past Purchases – if a lead has previously purchased from you, it should be segmented for specific repeat, up-sell, or cross-sell purchase messaging. Once segmented, you can deliver special offers and build brand loyalty.

Buying Cycle – why should your sales team be contacting prospects who have just begun their buying process? Leads can be segmented according to indicators that reflect where they are in the buying cycle.

Reduce Waste

When you wish to avoid sending emails to unlikely prospects or invalid addresses, there are several criteria that can be used such as:

Delivery Bounce – an undeliverable address can be easily segmented into a cold lead list.

Do Not Call – often b2b sales require a phone engagement, leads that have indicated ‘do not call’ during previous engagements can segmented for digital communications only.

Do Not Email – whether a lead indicates ‘do not email’ through an opt-out request or on a form, that lead can be bucketed for phone or direct mail contact only.

In addition, you can use explicit (physical) criteria to segment leads that should be avoided. For example, companies with revenues below your target profile can be grouped as third-tier or lower prospects.

Our Lead Management Automation™ platform provides segmentation that can make marketers more effective at creating and delivering messages and make salespeople more efficient by routing the most appropriate and sales-ready leads to your sales team.

Lead Liaison

10 Email Drip Campaigns That Work

/0 Comments/in , , /by

10 Email Drip Campaigns That WorkLooking for lead nurturing help? Here are ten ideas you can use to boost your email drip campaigns.

Create a story

Develop a storyline that is relevant to your solution(s), such as the life and times of your typical customer. Make sure the content is well-written and constructed like an old movie serials about crime fighters, where readers are anticipating a new chapter.

Run a campaign

Start a campaign to reduce waste or to create a movement. This is a variation to cause marketing and can be effective at generating followers.

Host a contest

Design a contest for customers and prospects alike. Leverage social media by having participants follow you. Make it simple to join. Post updates, new information, or other fresh content on social accounts.

Announce an event

Tell your list about an upcoming event that your enterprise is participating in. Use reminder messaging to update readers. Add to previous emails by providing fresh information about the events or its participants. Make sure to include a reference to the new information in your Subject header. It can be an event your enterprise is sponsoring or a third-party event that you’re connected to or attending.

Promote a new product

Introduce a new product with a time-sensitive promotion. Use each message to introduce a new benefit/feature. Update the Subject header to announce the new benefit/feature.

Announce partnerships then drip the benefits

Send an announcement about a new partnership or organization change then follow up with messages about how the move will be beneficial. Be sure to link to websites associated with the change to generate traffic.

Host a charity fund drive

Announce a charity fund drive and follow up with milestone achievements, uses for funds, thank donors, etc. Follow up with goal attainment, notable donors, and other information.

“Did you see this?”

Provide third-party content that can be helpful to your leads. For B2B companies, this can include a wide variety of information such as financial, operational, small biz, legal and regulatory, trends, whatever.

Create a conversation (like with social media)

Use a drip campaign to start a conversation about a topic that is close to your lead’s heart or work responsibility. Send follow up messages that include comments made other participants.  Remember to use bcc:!

Send video links

Provide links to helpful and/or informative videos that can benefit your list. After several messages, take a poll on which videos were beneficial or suggestions for future videos.

Get your marketing and sales people together for brainstorming and input on what interests prospects and customers.

Lead Liaison

Small Business Marketing Automation and Why You Should Get Involved

/0 Comments/in , /by

Small Business Marketing AutomationDoing small business marketing isn’t easy, and for businesses on a budget it might never seem like the right time to invest in marketing automation tools. The truth is, a user-friendly and fully managed automated marketing platform can make a huge difference in the way small businesses operate from top to bottom.

Small Business Marketing and Marketing Automation

There are so many reasons to integrate your marketing efforts. Many small business owners feel like this type of integration is mostly reserved for medium-sized to large businesses because they don’t truly understand the time management/time saving techniques that are a part of a good marketing automation dashboard.

Time management is absolutely critical for small businesses. Business owners who can’t spend a lot of money on resources may find that using their marketing automation dashboard in the right way will give them the same kind of insight a part-time marketing expert would. Marketing automation tools empower small businesses to use their marketing in the most effective way.

Direct management of leads, cost data across all marketing platforms, and key insight that can result in more accurate marketing plans are all small business marketing goals that can be realized with a good marketing automation dashboard. Rather than calling in a marketing expert to do the work and report, small business CEOs can send tasks to their sales teams and beef up marketing efforts based on the reporting data they’re seeing from marketing automation.

Cost Savings

Small business marketing requires an investment. The right marketing automation tools actually cut down on that investment for small business owners because they have all their data tools in one place. Marketing efforts and ROI data come seamlessly without the need to hire a specialist for analysis and reporting. Many marketing automation dashboards also include email marketing tools that may cost extra if you use a service outside the dashboard.

Getting the intelligence data that shows how potential customers are using your marketing materials can result in more sales over time. Marketing automation can change the way a business executes marketing efforts, resulting in more sales – particularly for business owners interested in small business marketing who don’t’ have an advertising background. With the right marketing automation tools, small business marketing can be a snap for cost and time-conscious CEOs.

Lead Liaison’s suite of marketing automation tools can help your business rise to new heights with your small business marketing. For more information, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

How to use Lead Nurturing Content to Convert More B2B Customers

/0 Comments/in , , /by

How to use Lead Nurturing Content to Convert More B2B Customers While researching the latest lead nurturing techniques, I came across an informative article on B2B Content Marketing for Lead Nurturing and Retention by Caroline Watts. It discusses the impressive ways content can be used to convert more B2B customers, which inspired my own take on the subject matter.

I have always stressed how important quality content is to the marketing automation process. Any content you post must be relevant and informative if you expect it to sway an undecided consumer. It should be catered to their specific needs and provide them with answers that will help them make an informed purchasing decision. Learn nurturing content is critical for converting B2B customers.

Content is King

Content is probably the most critical aspect of a marketing automation program, since it is a company’s chance to communicate directly with potential leads. It can be used to build interest in a particular product or service while guiding them towards final conversion.

Great content is not only essential for marketing automation; it is also incredibly beneficial to your SEO efforts. Well-written content will improve your search engine ranking, which will inevitably drive more traffic to your website.

Lead Nurturing Techniques

The success of the content will depend on how the content is developed and promoted. You will successfully convert more B2B customers by ensuring that the right message is being sent to the right people at the right time. This will require lead profiling, lead segmenting, and a strong social media presence.

Lead Profiling Software

Understanding a lead’s needs and interests will make it easier to create relevant and useful content. Marketing automation software programs will track website visitors, monitor their behavior, and extract demographic details about each specific lead. Using this information to customize content is an essential lead nurturing technique.

Segmenting Leads into Groups

Instead of developing unique content for each lead, B2B buyers should be segmented in groups based on similar needs and profiles. Marketers will be able to convert more B2B customers by creating lead nurturing content that addresses groups of buyers. They will appreciate that the content has still be personalized to their needs.

Strong Social Media Presence

Another lead nurturing technique is to promote the new content using various social media sites. The leads that are captured by marketing automation software may not be same leads that are your followers on Facebook and Twitter. Cross promotion between mediums will increase awareness of the content and inspire more potential leads to click on the articles. This will also help your SEO efforts and increase traffic to your site.

Quality content is essential for marketing your business online. It is the most influential part of your website for both leads and search engine crawlers. It can also convert more B2B customers when it is used with a comprehensive marketing automation strategy.

Lead Liaison

Your Personal Brand: What Does The Internet Say About You?

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Your Personal Brand: What Does The Internet Say About You?This guest blog has been provided by Jasmine Sandler.

Do you work in a position where you sell or do business development, either for your own business or for an employer? Do you need to re-invent yourself or heighten your credibility for your next promotion or career move?

Then you need to nurture your online personal brand. In today’s world, where websites and social media activity are leading news and information resources, you need a strong online presence. An online personal branding program will cultivate your personal brand image in the minds of prospects, customers and other decision makers.

Think of your favorite brands for a moment: automobile, beer, computer tablet, fast food, soap, whatever. You like them for what they represent to you, which is the result of how their companies have differentiated them from the competition. You need to do the same thing: differentiate yourself from all the other choices out there.

The process by which you establish your personal brand is very much like it is for a product. You need to understand the competition and create a value proposition that tells people why they should prefer you.

Establishing the blueprint for your personal branding initiative takes analysis and reflection. It starts with a basic personal brand assessment where you:

1.   Clarify your vision and purpose.
2.   Determine your personal and professional goals.
3.   Understand your target audience. They may describe what they need in different ways; you need to speak their language.
4.   Decide on your personal brand strengths. These are your top three skills—the things you want to be known for.
5.   Develop your personal brand keywords. Start building a list of keyword phrases that support your positioning.

These are five of the 10 steps I use to create a personal brand assessment—an exercise that can be done individually or in a group.

You can learn more about the 10-step program for personal branding on social media on JasmineSandler.com.

Lead Liaison

You Can’t Execute Lead Management Without…

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Wrestling with Lead ManagmentSales agents (and now marketing teams) often wrestle with lead management policies. You can’t execute lead management without the right approach. Here are a few key lead management strategies that every enterprise should adopt.

Lead nurturing

There are plenty of numbers being thrown around regarding how many leads are ready to buy on first contact. 50%…65-85%…90%. Whatever the number, the point is that most times marketing leads need to be nurtured (cultivated) so they grow into sales prospects. What’s the best way to be effective at lead nurturing? Create a strategy that advances leads through constantly escalating engagements. (But keep in mind that you can’t herd all leads to the sales engagement gate at the same pace; message delivery should be aligned with where leads are in the buying cycle.)

Lead scoring

As leads are qualified and nurtured, they should be scored and/or graded for quality. To properly execute lead management, companies should grade both physical and business attributes (explicit score) to ensure leads that are generated fit a customer persona. Next, online behaviors (implicit score) should be scored for relevancy. Combining explicit and implicit metrics provides a holistic image of leads that can be used to determine how deep into the buying cycle they are and whether they fit the profile.

Determining “sales-ready” value

Too many times sales gets a lead that, when contacted, shows little interest or capacity to buy. Should sales have received that lead at that time? For companies that simply send marketing leads en masse when they are generated, it’s no wonder that 80% are ignored, discarded, or lost. Sales and marketing should work together to define what a sales ready lead looks like. Sales agents know best about what leads convert to customers while marketers know how to generate leads. Put those two in a room and get them to define how sales-ready leads are while they advance through the pipeline.

Providing a seamless transition

As leads are nearing transition from marketing-qualified lead (MQL) status to sales-qualified lead (SQL) status the handoff from marketing to sales should be non-evident to your leads. Marketing must furnish sales with information about messaging used during nurturing, lead score, length of time in the marketing pipeline, and so on. When a lead moves to your CRM, sales agents shouldn’t have to recreate the lead experience. A marketing automation platform that integrates with popular CRMs can help with creating a seamless lead transition.

Evaluation

I know: it seems like common sense. But a surprising number of enterprises do not evaluate program performance effectively. Marketers need to know if the leads they are sending sales are good potential closes. To determine marketing effectiveness, sales should inform marketers about close rates, lead-to-prospect rates, and other metrics. From that information, marketing should evaluate messaging, delivery, channel, day-part, offers, and engagement tools.