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

Lead Liaison

How to Use B2B Social Media Automation Effectively – in 5 Easy Steps

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How to Use B2B Social Media Automation Effectively – in 5 Easy StepsA growing number of B2B companies want to learn how to use social media automation in their marketing campaigns. We thought it would be a good time to discuss how you can use social media automation to accomplish your marketing objectives.

  1. Create a posting schedule. For B2B marketers, it’s important to maintain a consistent profile for your leads. It can be helpful to create at least a month-long posting schedule with topic ideas and targeted audiences. Allow for flexibility if there is a need to post a message in response to an unforeseen event or issue but develop a messaging sequence that moves your B2B prospects through a series of unique posts.
  2. Select recipients. This can seem like an easy step but beware: ineffective SM use can spell doom for your business just like with other channels. Not all B2B leads are the same, and not all view social media favorably as a business tool. Focus on prospects that have engaged previously on the network rather than those that simply have an account profile.
  3. Create posts. Compose a message that is conversational (not salesy) and addresses a single issue that your prospects are interested in. Be careful not to compose messages that are complex or confusing. Keep posts short (hard not to on Twitter!) and engaging. Throw in a question, conduct a poll,  host a contest, find ways to engage your audience. And avoid repeatedly asking your prospects to share, like, or otherwise socially deliver your posts; doing so frequently can appear desperate.
  4. Select networks. Choose the networks to post on that are most visible to your prospects. In many cases, LinkedIn will be a solid choice. Investigate as many networks as possible and select the sites where your hottest prospects “hang out”. Our Lead Management Automation™ platform allows posting to multiple SM networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
  5. Schedule delivery. Determine when each post should be delivered and schedule social post delivery dates and times when posts will most likely be read. Select various times throughout the day to deliver your posts. It may be helpful to use A/B testing to determine the most effective times for social media posting.

As more B2B companies discover how to use social media within their marketing strategies, competition for prospects’ attention through SM channels will likely become as fierce as PPC and search marketing has been in recent years. The winners will be early adopters who position themselves effectively within the social media channel.

Lead Liaison

Why Prospect Management is Impossible Using Google Analytics

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Why Prospect Management is Impossible Using Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics has long been a useful tool for webmasters to monitor website traffic. But GA is not an effective prospect management tool. While it breaks down traffic sources, visitor activities, and conversion rates, Google Analytics doesn’t provide the functionality required to be useful tool for B to B marketers to manage leads.

Prospect management is at the heart of most business-to-business marketing automation practices. Google Analytics only provides part of the story. To effectively manage prospects, marketers must rely on more robust data sets and integrated engagement mechanisms. If your sales cycle lasts more than a single website visit, you need marketing automation to manage prospects as they move through the sales pipeline.

Here are a few ways in which our Lead Management Automation™ is a more effective prospect management to for B to B marketers:

  1. Automatically tracks leads that have engaged with your brand, whether it’s through a submitted web form, survey response, social post, or other digital asset
  2. Links IP addresses with business intelligence generated from Dun and Bradstreet and/or Hoover’s
  3. Assigns a lead score and grade based upon business intelligence and visitor activity
  4. LMA users can schedule digital engagements while viewing expanded lead information
  5. Segments visitors by industry, location, size, and other criteria
  6. Users can adjust messaging, asset delivery, and offers within the user interface
  7. Website traffic can be filtered through a robust set of parameters
  8. Visitor activity is grouped together to provide a holistic view of a prospect’s online behaviors
  9. Users can see organic search terms used to find your site
  10. A chat feature can be enabled to provide instant engagement with a website visitor
  11. While GA provides alerts pertaining to traffic anomalies, the LMA alerts users about who is on your site
  12. Google Analytics is not concerned with optimizing your marketing and sales practices. The interface is provided to display general traffic information so users might spend more on advertising rather than improve marketing and sales practices

While GA provides robust traffic intelligence, you can see why prospect management for B to B marketers should be conducted through a marketing automation platform like our Lead Management Automation solution. For more information, contact a Revenue Generation Specialist today.

Lead Liaison

Marketing Automation Offers Real-time Visitor Tracking

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Marketing Automation Offers Real-time Visitor TrackingModern businesses need marketing automation to record and monitor who is on their website and how they are behaving. It is estimated that 70% of people begin their purchasing process online and visitor tracking is essential for capturing these leads. Websites that are not equipped with real-time visitor tracking capabilities can miss out on up to 95% of these potential consumers.

Real-time Visitor Tracking

High-quality marketing automation software will also be able to monitor their behavior while they are still active. Potential customers are online searching for answers and it will improve the chance of conversion if marketers and sales professionals can provide them with an immediate and helpful response.

Creates an Accurate Profile in Real-time

Marketing automation generates a detailed profile of every lead’s interests and needs. It follows leads along their buying journey and uses pop-up registries to obtain useful demographic information. Website visitor tracking can tell you who is on your site, their location, purchasing history, employment background, and which pages they are reading.

All of these details can be matched to characteristics of current clients to determine their likelihood of conversion. Marketing automation is the fastest way to develop a lead profile in real-time, so the sales team can quickly decide whether that visitor is worth pursuing.

Keep Better Track of Favorites

Marketing automation uses lead scoring to determine which leads have the highest potential. Leads are ranked based on similarities to existing clients and then prioritized. Once these potential customers are identified, they can be marked as “Favorites.”

The majority of reputable marketing automation companies, like Lead Liaison, will send instant updates via text messaging or email when a “Favorite” goes online. This will offer sales the ability to immediately connect with qualified leads in real-time.

Provides the Opportunity for Live Conversions

Many websites that use marketing automation and visitor tracking have installed a helpful chat feature where they can conduct live conversations with leads as they are actively researching their options. When the person is online browsing your site, a little box will appear in the corner asking if they need any assistance. This offers the ability for open dialogue and live conversions.

Marketing automation offers online businesses real-time visitor tracking. It allows you to quickly generate a profile on each lead, determine their potential, connect with favorites while they are online, and it provides the opportunity for live conversions. This level of concern and service is what modern consumers expect.

Lead Liaison

8 Ways to Improve Sales Productivity With Lead Management Automation

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8 Ways to Improve Sales Productivity With Lead Management AutomationIs your B-to-B enterprise challenged to uncover ways to improve sales because of stiff competition? If so, here are 8 ways to improve sales productivity with lead management automation. Often, the solution is how well leads are managed from the point of acquisition to the point they are handed to your sales team. The way to improve sales productivity is also the answer to increased marketing and sales efficiency – lead management automation.

Within most traditional lead management programs, there are multiple factors that impact sales outcomes, such as outreach or lead qualification. The problem is that most of these factors take time to develop, implement, and evaluate. Even with all the automated functions available to B-to-B companies, there are still countless small, mid-size, and (yes) large enterprises that continue to acquire and manage leads manually. This leads to lost time, discarded leads, and inefficient sales practices.

Lead management automation provides several key functions that, when implemented properly,  can reduce sales cycles, increase close rates, and generate greater revenue. Here are 8 cornerstones of a strong lead management platform:

Sales Prospecting

Sales agents can search a database of over 200 million companies to find industry, company, and contact details. System users can target prospects by company, job title, or state. Additionally, agents can search your existing database for social and behavior profiles of your prospects.

Lead Generation

Identifying leads can be a difficult and time-consuming activity. Through an automated lead generation function, your sales team has an additional member – your website. Lead management automation supports your sales agents’ prospecting by tracking website visitors and delivering only interested prospects to your sales team.

Lead Nurturing

Most experienced sales professionals will tell you that 80% of leads are not ready to buy when they are first contacted. Companies can improve sales productivity through an automated process of consistent outreach and escalating messaging as leads advance through the sales pipeline.

Lead Qualification

It’s tough to close sales without reaching the right person with adequate buying signals. Leads can be easily qualified through a lead management automation solution that identifies whether a prospect is viable and appears ready to buy.

Sales Pipeline Management

One of the more effective ways to improve sales is to recognize where a lead is in the sales pipeline. Contacts that are approached too soon or too late result in failed sales attempts. Lead management automation provides a lead scoring matrix for sales to identify when a lead has become marketing-qualified and is ready for a sales call.

CRM Integration

Today’s sales force uses customer relationship management software to manage sales activities. To optimize your sales team’s ability to understand its prospects from first contact through sales support, a lead management automation platform integrates with existing CRM software.

Buy Signal Detection

When a prospect is ready to buy, there are often digital buy signals that indicate sales-readiness. Salespeople can be alerted when a signal is transmitted, such as opening a time-sensitive email message or submitting a web form.

Email Campaigns

With lead management automation, the return on email campaigns can be markedly improved. Users can create multiple email messages at one time then schedule delivery throughout a specified time period. Sales agents can focus follow up activities with only those that performed specific activities like opening the message or clicking through a link.

Despite the term “marketing automation” being often used to describe products that provide a digital lead management process, lead management automation is just as effective at improving sales productivity as it is at improving marketing practices.

Lead Liaison

On Website Visitor Identification: Does Conversion Code Cut It?

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On Website Visitor Identification: Does Conversion Code Cut It?One of the primary ways you can understand who’s visiting your website is by having website visitor identification in place. You already know that Google Analytics and Google Adwords give you tracking and conversion codes that help you determine how visitors are using your site – but is that really all there is to it?

Defining Your Conversions

Some businesses are using what they think is conversion tracking without ever really defining their conversions. A web visit alone shouldn’t be a conversion – a conversion involves a user taking a specific action on your site – not just visiting.

Because this is the case, you’ll need to have specific milestones set up for what qualifies as a conversion. A lead form fill-out is a great example. Since converting typically requires leaving personal information – such as an email address or a phone number – the client enters your sales funnel upon taking this action.

Many businesses set up multiple conversion opportunities on their sites so they have the best chance of getting the customer’s information. Once you have this info, you can contact the client again and again to make a sale. A conversion doesn’t necessarily have to be the sale of your product, although a sale is one type of conversion.

Tracking conversions doesn’t necessarily mean you’re using website visitor identification to find out where those visitors are coming from. This makes marketing automation even more important in your lead generation efforts.

Website Visitor Identification: Why Do It?

When you know specifically what company your visitors are from and can assign a name and background info to a conversion, you have valuable information at your fingertips. For instance, if someone comes back and converts again and again, you can improve customer relations by reaching out to that visitor personally to discuss a long-term relationship.

Website visitor identification also helps point out leads that aren’t converting in the way you’d like. When you have a potential client’s info and can see they’re returning again and again but not converting, you can contact the lead to encourage conversion or even a sale. Many leads need that personal touch in order to become a client, and website visitor identification can help you make the sale.

The right marketing automation system will include website visitor identification. You don’t just want to know that someone visited your site – you need to know who, why they visited, how they got there and other identifiable information such as geographic location, source company, and contact information. The more you know about your leads via website visitor identification, the more you can prime leads in the most effective way to generate a sale.

Lead Liaison offers in-depth website visitor identification for all your site’s content, including in-depth analysis of thank you pages and conversion points. Find out more by visiting us today!

Lead Liaison

What can Website Visitor Tracking Really Tell You?

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What can Website Visitor Tracking Really Tell You?Website visitor tracking is quite popular right now, but what can it really tell you?

There are potential leads surfing across your site daily. They are clicking on articles, hopping from page to page, and investigating what your company has to offer. Website visitor tracking shows exactly who is on a site, how they got there, and what information they are reading as they are reading it.

Can leads still slip through the cracks?

Leads cannot escape website visitor tracking software. They are captured and tracked as soon as they land on your web page. It is estimated that 95% of the people who land on your website will be missed if you don’t use marketing automation and website visitor tracking.

Can it really tell you who is on your site?

Unfortunately, it is not like Facebook where you will see a photo and profile of each person however it will provide you with some valuable details. Website visitor tracking will show you their IP address, the referral page, their operating system, which browser they used, the landing page they started on, and their progress along the site.

Marketers and sales professionals are informed of these crucial details while the lead is actively online. This can be used to instantly identify triggers that indicate a lead is ready for conversion. A faster reaction time when a lead is in need is usually an effective closing tool.

Why do I need to know who they are?

The key to success in any marketing or sales campaign is to understand your customer, identify their needs, and offer a worthwhile solution. Website visitor tracking captures every lead that is actively searching on your site for information. It develops an in-depth profile of their behavior and characteristics, determines their needs, and offers them an answer to their concerns using customized lead nurturing. If you do not know who they are, you cannot personalize your efforts towards their needs and interests, which will significantly improve your chances of conversion.

Website visitor tracking ensures that every person who lands on your website monitored and analyzed. It will be easier to persuade a potential lead into making a purchase once you understand their interests and buying process. Website visitor tracking is beneficial for lead generation, but the real value lies in its ability to accurately profile every lead that comes in contact with your website.

Lead Liaison

The Benefits of Identifying Who is Visiting Your Site

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The Benefits of Identifying Who’s Visiting Your SiteUnderstanding exactly who is visiting your site is essential for success in a global marketplace. Almost every person who clicks on a link to your website is a potential customer. Occasionally they could be competitors or researchers with ulterior motives, but most visitors are on your site looking for solutions to their questions and concerns. They are investigating their options and sincerely interested in your products or services. Marketing automation is a proven method for capturing, profiling, and converting these visitors. Its primary purpose is identifying who is visiting your site and what information they are trying to obtain. This gives your marketing and sales team better insight into customer’s interests and intentions. One of the greatest benefits that you will receive from a marketing automation system is website visitor tracking. Marketing automation software provides you with the ability to monitor and record vital information about every visitor on your website.

Establishes an Accurate Target Market Profile

A company can develop a more accurate profile of a typical consumer by identifying website visitors early on in their buying process. Website visitor tracking will follow the lead to determine the route that was taken from the link that brought them to the site and to the final webpage that sealed the deal. By weighing similar demographic and behavioral aspects on every lead, they can develop a clear picture of who really makes up their target market.

Gains Insight into Visitor’s Online Activity

By identifying who is visiting your website, you can monitor visitor’s online activity in real-time. This way companies can pinpoint certain indicators as triggers and advise the sales team to react instantly. Understanding trends in consumer’s online activity will also help marketers develop a more complete lead profile for scoring.

Gain Insight into your Visitor’s Demographics

How well could you describe your typical consumer? Do you know their age, employment history, job title, sex, or any other aspect that makes them more likely to buy into your brand? By using website visitor tracking to identify who’s on your site, you can gather vital demographic information on your potential customers prior to conversion. This will also further enhance your lead profile.

Provide your Sales Team with Qualified Leads

Using website visitor tracking to identify who is on your site will make it easier to spot leads with the highest potential. Marketing automation providers like Lead Liaison will send sales alerts the very instant online visitors are proven to be qualified sales candidates. A faster reaction time to leads while they are demonstrating interest in a product or service will greatly increases the chance of conversion.

Deeper Understanding of Buyer’s Pre-purchasing Behavior

You will have a better grasp of the buying journey your customers go through by monitoring and tracking who is visiting your website while they are on it. It will make it easier to identify which pages they click on, how long it usually takes from initial visit to conversion, and what content on your website is generating the most revenue. This information is vital for content development and marketing campaign improvements. This is the age of advanced technology in a tough economy. Every company needs an advantage to stay viable. By following who is on your website through advance technology like website visitor tracking, you can bring in more leads, create a more accurate profile, advise sales of qualified leads in real-time, and gain better insight into the pre-purchasing behavior of your typical consumer. This is the advantage your company needs to survive.

Lead Liaison

When Marketing Automation Won’t Work

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When Marketing Automation Won't WorkLead generation. Lead nurturing. Sales pipeline management. These are all benefits of implementing a marketing automation system for lead management purposes. But the grass is not always greener if your company is not prepared to fully leverage the strength of a marketing automation platform. Though marketing automation has proven over the past five years to be an effective tool at shortening buying cycles, providing more qualified leads, and improving sales conversions, investing in marketing automation does not always provide the returns managers expect. It’s important to understand when marketing automation won’t work. There are a few reasons for this:

Don’t Have a Long-Term View

In the “every-minute-counts” world that digital connectivity provides, it is important to remember that marketing is a long-term endeavor. That said, companies that are looking for an immediate fix of poor marketing results through a marketing automation platform may be disappointed. Marketing automation is intended to reduce marketing costs and increase results – over the mid to long-term. Successful implementation takes patience, despite the statistics that show shortened buying cycles.

Don’t Have a Marketing Strategy

Integrating a marketing automation platform will not be effective if your company has not invested time into marketing strategy development. While an marketing automation system may provide decent lead generation capabilities with little planning, the broader functionality that makes an marketing automation system effective requires  thoughtful analysis of what messages you want to deliver to prospects over time, when and how leads will be distributed to your salespeople, and what metrics will be used to evaluate performance. Without careful strategic planning a marketing automation platform will often provide limited effectiveness.

Don’t Have an Evaluation Process

Most marketing automation platforms provide analytics for evaluation purposes. The key to an effective marketing automation integration is having the ability to analyze results and make modifications to your marketing strategy. Not every message will resonate with your leads, and developing effective lead generation and nurturing tactics requires adjustments. Your marketing model should not be cast in stone. Therefore, companies without an adequate campaign evaluation process may find that marketing automation is not beneficial.

Don’t have a Qualified Database

Marketers that start out by injecting unqualified leads into a marketing automation system will likely struggle to see a healthy ROI. Although one of the primary functions of an marketing automation system is lead generation and nurturing into sales-ready prospects, the initial integration phase will present poor results if your database is filled with one-off contacts and stale lists.

Marketing automation has been shown* to

  • Increase qualified leads by 451%
  • Generate 50% more sales-ready leads
  • Nurture leads at 33% lower cost
  • Increase conversion rates by 50%

While marketing automation has been shown to drive revenue faster and manage leads more effectively, this tool is not suited for every company at every stage of the business life cycle. The most effective use of the Lead Management automation platform has been shown by companies with revenues over $5 million. If you’re interested in exploring an marketing automation system for your company, be sure to first determine if your company is prepared to take full advantage of this powerful tool.

Reference: http://www.slideshare.net/McRaeandCompany/four-b2b-marketing-issues-marketing-automation-can-solve-14232631

Lead Liaison

Empowering Your Site: How to Track Conversions

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Empowering Your Site: How to Track ConversionsYou might have some understanding of how to track conversions and sell users on the phone, but converting your visitors via web forms and online commerce is a different story entirely. When you start to track conversions and streamline your web sales funnel, you’re adding an entirely different dimension to your sales strategy.

If you’re considering a website revamp, there’s no better time than the present to analyze your current conversion rates and web conversion strategy. If you don’t have the right tools to track conversions, you definitely need to rectify this and get on the right track before a new or revamped website enters the final build stages.

Streamlining to Track Conversions

One of the biggest obstacles many business owners face with their websites is attracting the user to action. A call to action is an important element of getting the visitor to act. This can include urging the user to act immediately to receive a special offer, inciting the user to fill out a form or contact your company, etc.  Most calls-to-action are text, but when paired with a visual element, the user experiences a sense of further urgency.

Visual calls-to-action that may incite users to interact with you or leave their information include things like:

  • A quote form
  • A “get more information” button
  • A download
  • A visually appealing link
  • A click-to-call or chat

Without some type of conversion or call to action in place, all users have is information about your company with no upfront way to contact you. If your site’s conversion opportunity isn’t front and center, it’s important to monitor your bounce rates and track conversions to see if you could be losing visitors.

Track for Success

When you do change your site – or even if it’s not a consideration yet – the most important thing you can do is let the data you collect make decisions for you. If you need to decide whether or not to incorporate a form on the front page, to change the look of your site or to test one page against another, the data you collect through tracking conversions is key to your success. Without knowing how visitors experience your site, you’ll have no idea how to change your assets to make your site more informative and useful to your visitors.

When you use programs like Google Analytics, you’re tracking visitors, but you’re doing so anonymously. With more advanced data like a user’s parent company, frequency of an individual user’s visits or their particular activity on your site, being able to track conversions with an advanced suite of data tools can vastly improve your business sales strategy.

Next week we’ll talk more about anonymous vs. identified user tracking and how to track conversions of identified users. In the meantime, take a look at Lead Liaison’s visitor tracking tools and track conversions more efficiently than you ever thought possible.

Lead Liaison

6 Ways to Retain B to B Customers Using Marketing Automation

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Retain B to B customers using marketing automationThere are many ways to retain B to B customers using marketing automation – let us tell you 6 key ways to do so. With Marketo raising $85 million and Silverpop raising $25 million recently, the marketing world is abuzz about the awesome potential of B to B marketing automation for lead generation and management practices. More prospects are being targeted and nurtured using a marketing automation (MA) platform than ever before, but did you know that MA can be just as effective at retaining your existing customers? It’s important to remember that customers should be managed as leads at all times; B to B buyers can migrate to competitors at any time. Here are a few ways you can maximize customer retention through marketing automation:

“Typically, much of our effort is focused on filling top of the funnel, but seldom do we make time to plug any leaks we may have in the sides.  If we’re serious about maximizing customer lifetime value, however, we’ve got to find room in our strategy to prioritize retention as well as acquisition.” – Andy Worobel, Eloqua

1) As a purchase follow-up tool. Customers want to feel like they are cared about after a sale. Using a marketing automation platform like our Lead Management Automation™ solution, your sales team can schedule email messages to routinely “check in” with customers to inquire about satisfaction, provide tips and tricks, uncover issues that must be addressed, or provide product updates. A follow up process is a great way to retain B to B customers using marketing automation.

2) As an up-sell/cross-sell tool. Sales agents know that it is often easier to sell add-ons to existing customers than it is to solicit new business. A marketing automation platform can be an effective mechanism at driving ancillary sales. Through a sustained campaign of sharing special offers and other purchase opportunities delivered by an MA system, your sales team can be more effective at revenue generation.

3) As a time-sensitive reminder tool. An MA platform allows your sales team to deliver reminders about deadline-driven offers without the need to personally contact each customer. Special offer reminders delivered occasionally throughout the offer period can be a great way to stimulate interest and generate revenue.

4) As a customer engagement tool. Even with a protracted sales cycle where your sales team spends months building a relationship with their prospects, there are likely still hidden needs or wants that a customer might have. A marketing automation platform provides cost-effective yet powerful way to engage in an ongoing dialogue with customers without your sales agents spending valuable time performing outreach activities. Creating dialogue and interactive discussion with customers is a great way to retain B to B customers using marketing automation.

5) As a “Happy Birthday” tool. Users can automatically deliver holiday or special occasion greetings to customers following a purchase. Once a sale is complete, your sales agent can immediately schedule brief messages to be delivered throughout the year. This tactic will drive top-of-mind-awareness (TOMA) by maintaining a consistent contact process and recognizing your customers.

6) As a customer appreciation tool. Customers often want to sense that your company appreciates their business. While a sincere expression of gratitude is important at the time a sale closes, occasional expressions of gratitude months or even years after a sale can be effective at maintaining TOMA.