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Lead Liaison

Marketing Automation: Why Does Lead Nurturing Make Sense?

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Why does lead nurturing make sense?Lead nurturing, the marketing process of developing relationships with leads regardless of their current timing to purchase, is a straightforward concept. But many don’t realize the importance of lead nurturing or how it can help. Let’s look at lead nurturing and how it relates to marketing automation.

Why Lead Nurturing Makes Sense

One of the biggest pros for lead nurturing is the ability to market personalized messages to prospects. These messages can be generic in nature but personalized to an audience that’s only in Lead Stage 1 of marketing automation. These leads have only just entered the market and do not have a current timeline for purchasing.

It’s important if you’re looking into automation not to just send leads cold emails. Your first objective for beginning lead nurturing is to establish permission to stay in contact with the lead. If your audience loses interest in your messages, they’ll unsubscribe from your mailing list or mark emails as spam.

Target Your Leads

Make sure you’re creating content that your visitors want to see. The more you can find out about a lead who’s visited your website, the better. By creating high quality content that is relevant to your leads, you’re increasing the possibility of converting leads to customers significantly. Make sure that when sending out your messages, you’re not overdoing it. Ask yourself: when’s the best time to send messages so you can ensure your prospects will see them? Answer that and then tailor your messages to be sent out at the best possible time.

Another best practice for lead nurturing that might seem like it’s coming from the stone age, is using plain text emails instead of HTML. A few lines of content and a personalized signature go a long way toward establishing an individualized message, which is targeted to your audience. HTML based emails are fine when sending out training tips or when the emails are clearly coming from the marketing department and not the sales department.

When Lead Nurturing Works

Lead nurturing is a powerful way to use marketing automation to stay in touch with prospects. When it works, you’re able to establish purchaser preference while also gaining useful knowledge about your prospects timing. If you’re ready to take the next best step with lead nurturing and marketing automation, contact us today! Lead Liaison staff would love to chat with you about your company’s individual marketing needs.

Lead Liaison

Why is Marketing Automation so Popular?

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Why is Marketing Automation so Popular?You may be wondering why is marketing automation so popular.  After all, you already have leads – why should you invest money into a product that may not work for you?  Simply put, adding marketing automation to your repertoire of business solutions will help you turn your leads into customers while growing your sales from your existing database. However, marketing automation can do much more.  Let’s explore why marketing automation is so popular and how you can leverage it to generate profits.

Building Better Relationships

With marketing automation, the customer experience is optimized and able to be measured throughout the entire experience.  You save money because you’re able to track each prospective customer’s activity from the first engagement through lead conversion, making adjustments to revenue whenever you see fit.  Instead of guessing what your leads are doing, or where they’re at in the process, marketing automation provides you with that information – as it happens – so you’re able to simplify your customer engagement.

As your company grows, it’s impossible to maintain 1:1 customer relationships.  This is even more of an issue when you take into account the high-tech world we’re living in.  No longer are customers just down the street or in the same town – you’re dealing with leads from different countries, time zones, and cultures.  Marketing automation assists you in managing your marketing program in a way that makes sense for you.   Automation software will streamline your approach and measure tasks and workflow so that you’re operating at top-efficiency.

Communicating Effectively

A common myth is that automation means the messages you’re sending to your leads are cold, impersonal and ineffective.  This is simply not the case.  Marketing automation means that you’re actually able to personalize your messages to your targeted audience.  You’ll be collecting individualized data on leads, thus strengthening your communications and adding personal touches to your campaigns.

Marketing automation isn’t spam, either.  You’re not blasting messages to a wide range of people.  Instead, you’re focusing on leads and looking at website patterns to get a clear picture of what they’re doing.  That way, you can focus on molding communications around personalized experiences.  You’re nailing down your leads and audience, while nurturing them and guiding them into your sales funnel.  In a world where leads are getting blasted with ads and communications, sometimes on an hourly basis, it’s imperative that your communications are personalized to stand out from the crowd.

Let us help you take the next step to marketing automation.  It will change the way you do business and how your leads and customers communicate with you!  Contact us so we can take a look at how marketing automation can revitalize your business today.

Lead Liaison

How to Choose a Marketing Automation Vendor

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How to Choose a Marketing Automation VendorMaking an informed decision regarding your marketing automation vendor can be the turning point of lead management and execution for your small business. Many marketing automation platforms offer a host of similar features that move towards a common goal: capturing leads and creatively persuading them in your direction. With so many cloud-based solutions available, selecting one marketing automation tool over the others can certainly be a daunting task. There are many things to carefully consider when looking at how to choose a marketing automation vendor that will meet your needs best.

To start off, we’ll take a look at the top ten marketing automation platforms according to Capterra, a business software search-and-compare site:

  1. Eloqua
  2. Infusionsoft
  3. HubSpot
  4. Teradata
  5. Unica
  6. Marketo
  7. SimplyCast
  8. Silverpop
  9. Pardot
  10. Act-On

Capterra rated the above list on the premise of popularity, with metrics including number of customers, number of social media followers, and Google searches. But we know it’s not always just about the numbers—how do you choose a marketing automation vendor that is the best solution for your needs? This list only touches on much greater list of solutions, each one with their own strengths and weaknesses. Lead Liaison is another marketing automation platform that caters to small to mid-sized businesses with an flexible business model that rivals its competitors and boasts personalized and intimate support. Although they may not have 22K Twitter followers, their solutions might actually be a better fit, with all of the automation features the bigger platforms offer but with a more personalized feel. Getting used to a new system is never easy, and it’s important to consider the amount of time you’ll spend learning how to use the platform—does it seem intuitive from the beginning? Everyone interacts with interfaces in their own unique way. Don’t set yourself up for frustration. Make sure whichever platform you go with has a solid customer support reputation.

Each with their own unique solutions (such as the Streamer), the various marketing automation platforms are meant to cater to your business. All of the options must be weighed according to the purpose you want it to serve.

Outline your goals

When determining how to choose a marketing automation vendor, the first task is to outline your goals. Each company will have vastly different needs and an equally diverse set of prospects. The end goal is ultimately the same for companies big and small—to drive your prospects’ interactions with your brand. What numbers do you expect to hit after implementing the new system after six months, nine months, or one year? How many team members will you be able to allocate to managing this process? How much time per week will be spent gathering analytics or scheduling emails?

Select the most effective marketing tools

Each platform offers a variety of marketing tools that can draw prospects in. How you choose which marketing automation vendor will be best for your company depends on how your audience prefers to gather knowledge. Each industry is different—social media may be where many of your leads come from, or maybe the warmest leads are a result of diligent visitor tracking and lead nurturing. Determining the preferred route of communication is a crucial stepping stone to selecting the right marketing automation platform for your needs. Consider the following: email marketing, visitor tracking, lead nurturing, database segmentation, lead scoring, lead generation, analytics, social media, and content creation.

Find a solution that fits your budget

Finding a good fit can be like hiring another employee (who actually does the work of an entire team), and it’s important to choose a marketing automation vendor that you have carefully vetted. Pricing schemes may not be readily available to simply do all the research on your own. This is due to the endless possibilities and a la carte options you can select from to create a plan that matches the needs of your business. Select a few marketing automation platforms that highlight the marketing tools your audience responds to, then read reviews and references to gauge their customer service and overall quality of product. Last step: request a demo. It’s free and you’ve got nothing to lose.

Lead Liaison

Marketing Automation: Where Do I Begin?

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Marketing Automation: Where Do I Begin?Delivering the appropriate message to engage leads and customers is the biggest challenge for many marketing companies.  Marketing automation provides you with ways to generate leads and reach a broad audience.  But for those with little to no experience in Marketing Automation, it can be a harrowing journey to begin.

Understanding The Multiple Stages of Marketing Automation

If you’re asking yourself – “Marketing automation – where do I begin?” understand that marketing automation really begins with the right message at the right time, for the right audience.  Streamlining sales by delivering engaging content and advertisements targeted to your audience is the key for any successful marketing strategy.  Since marketing automation will always rely on adjustments based on how your communication strategy evolves, it’s essential that marketing professionals learn how to do this themselves, instead of relying on an IT team.

The second crucial step in marketing automation is creating lead stages.  Lead stages help you identify where your leads are in the process and how long before you can expect them to move on to the next stage.  On average, it takes a lead three times to research a purchase online before moving on to a salesperson.  Lead stages include the following:

  • Lead Stage 1:  This stage helps you find those leads that have just begun the process.  They have no identified timeline and have just started their search for solutions or products.
  • Lead Stage 2:  This second stage is a potential customer who knows exactly what he needs and wants but isn’t able to make a purchase yet.  These leads have ideas but are looking for approval from their team before moving forward.
  • Lead Stage 3:  Leads in Stage 3 are the best leads to offer demonstrations to.  Leads often have a short list of products in mind for their solution and many have already decided on which they prefer, even without a demonstration or sample.  Stage 3 is imperative for making the lead sees why they should set up a meeting with you, as opposed to your competitors.

Bringing it All Together

Making sure that content is personalized instead of generic will make your marketing automation a success.  Delivering messages that focus on your potential customer’s wants, needs, and interests while avoiding the harsh hard-sell approach is what you want.

Marketing automation makes this whole process much easier.  It will give you better insight into what your leads are doing, including content they are viewing and downloading; how they respond to emails, and where they are in sales process.  Each step of the way, you’re able to monitor and measure your marketing automation system, making incremental adjustments to ensure success.

Understanding Marketing Automation and Knowing Where to Begin

If you’re feeling lost in the process, don’t hesitate to chat with a Lead Liaison rep today! We know how and where to get you started and would love to take your business to the next level.

Lead Liaison

Donor-Member Automation – Creating Lasting Relationships

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Donor-Member AutomationAlways Add Value.  Always say Thank you.

These are two messages that we are taught throughout life.

Most non-profits want to meet these simple expectations, but time and limited resources often make it challenging to do so.  It’s always easy to make time for the million dollar donor if you are lucky enough to have them.  However it’s much harder to put the same kind of effort into the $50-100 donors that are the life-blood of many non-profits.

Worse yet, these small donors often lack a sense of community with the charities they support.  Thus, in future years when donors are tightening their finances… it’s very easy not to provide gifts that were distributed in previous years.

Member-donor automation is a blessing for the non-profit world.  A well-organized donor processing system can save your organization untold dollars while also creating a path of value and inclusion to your donor-members community.

The process is simple:

  • Build an on-going individual profiles of each donor-member based on demographics and behaviors
  • Customize messaging that can be set out to individuals that care about a specific topic
  • Share a sense of “thanks” for their involvement with your charity & provide a deep understanding of the value which their involvement has had in your mission.  Not just when it’s time to ask for donations; but throughout the life cycle of the donor member.

The advantages of having a donor-member process range from organization to organization, but almost always include:

  • Freeing up internal staff resources
  • Increasing the base of the donor-member community; and average gift size
  • More passionate donor-members that will evangelize and grow the mission of the organization

The concept of donor-member automation process is relatively new; but something that all progressive non-profits should investigate as a way to better support their mission and the involvement of their community.   If you would like a free assessment of how a donor-member automation process might help your organization please contact us with attention to our non-profit group and we would be happy to share our experience with you. Feel free to also reference our section and support for nonprofits.

 

Lead Liaison

Is Marketing Automation Worth the Hassle?

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Is Marketing Automation Worth the Hassle? Is Marketing Automation worth the hassle? We’ve been asking our clients over time whether or not they’re glad to have invested in marketing automation services. Time and time again we hear a resounding ‘yes’.

There’s no doubt that some work is involved on the back end after deciding to implement a marketing automation program. Different clients have different needs and it takes some time to analyze data and make decisions about what will be best. We believe – and our clients believe – the end result is worth it.

Understanding the Benefits

The first step toward understanding the benefits of marketing automation is to work with a team that can take a deep look at your business, your staff and your marketing. Not all companies need the same services. Ideally, we’ll help grow your business so much that you’ll have a greater need to automate various forms of marketing over time. However, starting out, most companies require a specialized look at what their needs are by one of our staff. Doing things in this way ensures the greatest value and builds a long and trusting relationship.

Analyzing the type of marketing automation your company needs is also helpful in terms of determining overall goals. Obviously you’ll want to increase revenue over time – but how can we best work together to analyze granular data and create a future roadmap?

Knowing where you want to go, how long it will take to scale and understanding the best ways to implement marketing automation for your business will help you understand the overall benefits. Working with a company that will come up with the systems, stay behind for the proper training and help you understand how the data can affect your decisions is critical to success.

Is Marketing Automation Worth the Hassle?

If you’re interested in establishing systems that help you understand granular data, as well as deploying marketing strategies that work on their own to establish further data and generate conversions, marketing automation is for you. The right team will help ensure there’s little heavy lifting on your end. You’ll just need to be ready to help create future goals and determine strategy as well as get your team prepared for training on how to use the systems.

Marketing automation isn’t a hassle for a business that’s ready to take the next step in onboarding and deploying advanced data information systems. These systems are easier to work with than you think with the right team in place.

To find out more, talk to us about how hassle-free marketing automation services can benefit your business today!

Lead Liaison

GPS Tracking for your Website

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GPS Tracking for your WebsiteTracking teenagers is similar to tracking for your website.

Having children is a wonderful thing. As kids get older we create stronger bonds with them, and they become more precious than ever day by day. Then they become teenagers. They start to do whatever they want, or at least thing they can do. They begin driving and hanging out with the wrong crowd. How do parents control such rebellious behavior? You can’t. But at least you have options to monitor their behavior and when you see something that’s serious, you intervene. That one option is to track your kids. Nowadays you can buy magnetic vehicle tracking devices that you stick to the bottom of your car. Then you hop onto the companies software interface and monitor where the car is going. It’s all done via GPS and cell towers to monitor where the vehicle is going and at time it’s at different places. In this case, if you see your 17 year old at a bar at 11PM, you’ll know to have that conversation with him/her; otherwise, let them be a teenager.

The concept of the GPS tracking device can also be applied to business. Companies like us, Lead Liaison, smacks a GPS tracking device underneath the chassis of your company’s website. Every time you have a visitor, we’ll track their activity, their online behavior, to help you look for key events that indicate a call to action. Different from solutions like Google Analytics, website visitor tracking identifies businesses, not just internet service providers, that come to your site. Visitor tracking can also help you convert visitors into identified people. Kind of like scanning someone’s drivers license. When a visitor clicks a link in an email, watches a video, downloads a document, submits a form, etc. your visitor tracking solution grabs the persons email address and adds it to their profile. When the visitor comes back, the sales person gets a Buy Signal, indicating buying interest.

Learn more about how you can attach a GPS tracking device to your website. 

Lead Liaison

Can I Afford Marketing Automation?

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Can I Afford Marketing Automation?Many businesses are asking themselves, “Can I afford marketing automation?” We hear it all the time – “What’s in it for me?” Or maybe, “How can I be assured such a major purchase is the right one for my company?” Generally, our answer always tends to be the same – with such advanced data tracking possible, the question is more, how can you not afford to be doing marketing automation these days?

Gathering the Granular Data

The basic and most fundamental principle of using any type of marketing automation is the timely gathering of data. If you’ve ever worked the back end of any business you know how powerful data can truly be.

Let’s start with an example – say the same individual keeps coming back to your site over and over again. They’ve bought once from you before, but are interested in comparing your pricing and services with a competitor’s. The thing that will truly make the sale is a more personalized touch.

Through marketing automation, you see this specific individual checking out service and warranty pages throughout your site. They keep coming back to these specific pages, and then bouncing.

Other analytical programs simply won’t give you the kind of knowledge about this customer that marketing automation can. Knowing that one specific person from the same IP is hitting the same pages can give you quick incentive to act. Reaching out to that user via chat program and explicitly describing your value could turn this repeat browser into a sale.

Can I Afford Marketing Automation?

Having this level of granular detail can shorten your sales funnel, build more trust with buyers and give them exactly what they’re looking for. With a potential increase in sales based on this type of information, why wouldn’t you want to invest in marketing automation? Data drives understanding of your customers and their needs, and knowing what your customers want drives sales. We can all sit back and assume what we’re doing to please our customers is good enough – but when an opportunity to get to know customers presents itself and could lead to new sales, it’s an investment worth making.

So the next time you ask yourself, ‘Can I afford marketing automation?’, ask yourself if your company is doing enough at a high level to engage your customers and get to know their individual needs. By its very nature marketing automation can offer you the type of information that will lead to increased sales.

To get an idea of how marketing automation can increase your revenue over time, talk to a friendly member of the Lead Liaison team today!

Lead Liaison

When Building an Email List, Don’t Buy!

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When Building an Email List, Don’t Buy!Building an email list takes time. We all know this, yet something about the allure of buying emails and trying to “beat the system” captures the attention of many companies. It may seem at first that buying an email list is a great workaround – saving you from having to build a list organically and expend money and effort into lead gen – but at the end of the day, buying lists for sale could be hurting you more than helping you.

If you’re a company that’s built an email list via direct list purchasing, why should you stop doing this – and better yet, what can you do to get that legit list you’re looking for without a lot of legwork?

Learn to Build Clean Lists

 

Building an Email List Organically – Stop Buying!

The minute you buy a list and execute emails to that list, you’re sending spam. Why is this? Well, 100% of the list subscribers you just purchased opted in somewhere else. They never agreed to receive promotions from your particular company.

Any legit email service provider (ESP) is going to ask for your address and company information to comply with CAN-SPAM regulations. Additionally, your ESP should confirm that you built your opt-in organically to decrease the chance of spam. If your list isn’t organic, your ESP may shut down your campaigns and bounce you even after your first list send. If you’re in this situation and you just paid for an email list, you’re now out the new customers AND a way to send your emails. No bueno!

How Can You Build a List Organically?

For starters, you should be prepared to offer great content. A top of the funnel activity such as a blog post, a free offer like a white paper or an instructional video offers opportunities for you to build organic traffic and get customers engaged with you. The free, useful content you offer is bait and will also help you succeed organically – particularly if you use things your customers are searching for as the title of your videos or blog posts. For example, if you’re a financial planner you may use something general such as “what is financial planning?” that has a high search volume as your post or video title.

Once users take the bait, they’ll see an opportunity to download a whitepaper from you. Ask for their email address to get the whitepaper – and voila, you now have their email and can advertise to them again and again without spamming. Create several funnels and opportunities like this based on the different services you provide, or different topically separated content offerings on your site.

Want more info on how to build your list organically? Lead Liaison can help! We’ll assist you in rethinking your funnels, building out new campaigns and measuring them today. Let’s chat!

 

Lead Liaison

3 Ways to Use Marketing Automation to Enhance your User Experience

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Use Marketing Automation to Enhance your User ExperienceThe art of converting prospects into customers begins with their first interaction and experience with your brand, whether that’s through a landing page, social media ad, or (fingers crossed) word of mouth. If this experience is frustrating and not user friendly, what incentive do they have to return? Here are a few points to consider when shaping your user experience and ways to use marketing automation to your advantage:

Customize

  • Landing pages: How did a visitor find your website? Be sure what they’re looking for is the first thing they see. Create a few different landing pages for various scenarios, especially if you have a vast range of products.
  • Emails: Make sure you are providing pertinent information that will warrant them to open the email, not unsubscribe. This may include special deals/offers, but nothing too spammy.
  • Verbal contact: Utilize marketing automation software to synchronize platforms to be sure sales reps and customer service are on the same page when speaking to a customer or a prospect.

Interact

  • Survey your customers: Ask questions about what they believe is your most useful and convenient feature. Survey prospects, ask what they’re looking for in a product and see how closely you can meet their needs.
  • Reward: Host contests on social media to engage your followers, and provide a coupon code or free service to those who interact with your brand.
  • Customer support: There’s nothing more frustrating for your customers than to pay for a monthly subscription service and not receive the support they need to use your service to their greatest benefit.

Personify

  • Don’t be the bot: When automating your marketing process, it’s important to keep in mind your customers are real people that are intelligent and think for themselves. Canned messages just won’t cut it for most. Steer clear of creating bulk messages to send out on social media platforms, as that only invites ridicule. Engage with customers through carefully planned social media campaigns.
  • Get the details: Often a step of the implementation or customer support process, getting details from your customer in how exactly they plan to implement your service or product can truly help start a beneficial relationship. By understanding their needs, you’re able to gather insight for further improvement while also providing them with the most efficient way to implement your service.
  • Create a two-way conversation: This one is pretty self-explanatory. The basic take-away point is to create an environment in which your customers and prospects alike feel comfortable to interact. Check out these simple steps that encourage your customers to engage in a positive way.