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Lead Liaison

4 Ways Marketing Automation Shortens Sales Cycles

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4 ways marketing automation shortens sales cyclesHow long is your company’s sales cycle? Two weeks? Six Months? A year? Brand leaders in the B2B space constantly seek ways to shorten their sales cycles. Many have found that a marketing automation platform helps to reduce the number of days to close. Why? Here are four of the most popular feedback points we get when we talk with our markets.

“Some leads are deeper in the funnel.” Not all leads are at the same stage of the buying cycle. Some come to your brand fully educated about the solutions they seek; others just starting to explore their options. Through consistent, automated outbound messaging, your brand’s presence is continuously in the market. Marketing messages can be varied – and personalized. Automated personalization is one way to connect faster so qualification can move swiftly, shortening the “get to know you” phase. Using marketing automation, marketers are able to manage leads at different stages of the buying cycle, which provides the sales team with a continuous pipeline of leads.

“You can fire on all cylinders.” Marketing automation allows marketers to easily connect through more channels simultaneously. Email, social, PPC, and search can be integrated under one campaign, which increases the ability to “flood” your leads by connecting channels and delivering escalating engagements. Response rates can be quickly analyzed so agile companies can adjust practices quickly. Multi-channel campaigns that offer incrementally higher value can be deployed alongside campaigns that simply introduce your solution.

“Makes our sales agents hungry.” Sales likes quality leads. It’s the same in every organization. Marketing automation allows sales agents to focus on the hottest prospects in the pipeline. This usually means the ones that are most qualified to buy and most knowledgeable about your solutions. Nurturing campaigns and scoring features qualify how ready prospects are so sales people aren’t wasting valuable time chasing leads that aren’t ready to buy. Less waste leads to shorter buying cycles.

“Leads are going to the right people.” Let’s face it – not every sales rep is good for every lead. Marketing automation distributes leads effectively assigning ownership to the most appropriate sales person who can respond quickly and close fast. Lead assignment can be set upon first touch or somewhere during the qualification period. Getting the leads into the right rep’s hands can shorten the cycle by several days to several weeks.

Lead Liaison

How Marketing Automation Redefines Deadlines

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

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

Marketing Automation Makes Rebranding Easier

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

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

Advertising on a Deadline

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

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

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

Lead Liaison

7 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lead Liaison

Using Marketing Automation to Enhance Customer Engagement

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

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

Website Visitor Tracking

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

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

Customized Lead Nurturing

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

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

Faster Response to Customer Concerns

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

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

Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Provides Tighter SFDC Integration in its Latest Release

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Allen, TX (PRWEB) September 16, 2013 – Lead Liaison improved the integration between its flagship Lead Management Automation™ (LMA) platform and Salesforce.com’s (SFDC) CRM in a product upgrade release on September 15. The LMA has been long recognized as a tightly integrated complement to the popular contact management application but Lead Liaison has actively expanded the LMA’s integration and capability set to seamlessly synchronize records between the two applications. The recent upgrade supports Group Edition as well as the Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited and Develop Editions of SFDC while improving lead management between the marketing automation and CRM platforms in four key areas:

1)      Advanced support for SFDC Campaigns. LMA users are able to identify leads and contacts in a SFDC Campaign in the lead management interface. Records can be added or removed and a lead’s status in a Campaign can be updated without transitioning to the SFDC platform.

2)      Support for SFDC Queues. Records can be distributed using the LMA’s sophisticated lead distribution capabilities. LMA leads are routed according to multi-layer attribution models, which users define. For example, new leads in a queue may be searched and distributed “round robin” to the sales team.

3)      Integration of Briefcase dashboard. The release provides a new integration of Lead Liaison’s hot lead dashboard, which displays data about a salesperson’s hottest leads based on the industry’s most sophisticated lead qualification parameters. The dashboard – to be released on SFDC’s AppExchange in October – automatically identifies hot leads based on buying signals, lead score, lead grade, recency and level of activity.

4)      Simplified integration with SFDC. The LMA provides an easy-to-use wizard for batch imports along with optional integration of nearly all SFDC custom fields that are used as part of a company’s business process (database segmentation, lead nurturing, etc.).

Lead Liaison’s Lead Management Automation application has been available through the SFDC AppExchange since June 2012.

“Our commitment to improving the integration between the LMA and SFDC is a testament of our devotion to those companies that see value in working with vendors who recognize the strength of SFDC but wish to develop marketing automation capabilities that can be used as a standalone product,” said VP of Communications Alex Brown. “We realize that not all SMBs can afford the pricing structures of the new breed of marketing automation/CRM hybrids. They are looking for full-featured apps that can seamlessly blend in with the systems they are already deploying. We’re giving them an option.”

To experience how tightly the LMA integrates with SFDC, request a 10-minute demonstration of the Lead Management Automation platform.

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Lead Liaison is an application development company that designs, develops, and sells cloud-based marketing and sales 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

The New Gmail Interface Means You Can’t Rely on Email Marketing Alone

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Gmail Interface and Email MarketingGoogle rolled out its new tabbed Gmail interface recently to mixed reviews. Some enjoy its ability to compartmentalize messages while others prefer to sift and sort themselves (in these cases, users must change the default setting to accept all messages in their ‘Primary’ folder).

Folks, there are no rules on how to avoid having your messages delivered to the ‘Promotions’ tab if a user has not specifically indicated a desire to receive them in the ‘Primary’ inbox. (However, it appears that marketing messages sent through social networks like LinkedIn will appear under the ‘Social’ tab.) Because of this, B2B marketers should expect a drop-off in open rates.

Buyers who wish to receive emails from you can simply drag an opened message or the email header into the ‘Primary’ folder. Companies in the B2B and B2C spaces are encouraging their prospects and customers to perform this step to make it easier to receive requested offers, promotions, and updates together in a single folder.

While there may be little you can do to prevent messages from being delivered to the ‘Promotions’ tab in Gmail, you can adjust your digital marketing practices to rely less on email marketing and more on other content delivery channels. We’re not advocating the exclusion of email, we’re simply suggesting an approach which relies more heavily on social marketing, thought leadership articles, and search strategies.

As a general rule – absent the Gmail changes – your automated marketing practices should be diversified to begin with. Automated marketing experts know the secret to successful deployment of MA functionality comes down to diversifying your channels and producing great content. Lead Liaison recommends a strategy that integrates automated social posting, email campaigns, and link building in order to be effective in this changing email environment.

Email personalization using customized fields can help when it comes to appealing to your leads. Some experts suggest that Gmail users opening the ‘Promotions’ tab may be in a buying mood when they access that tab, so all hope is not lost. But the jury is still out as to how inclined they will be to open your message when it is grouped with other (potentially poorly-crafted) offers.

When your email IS opened, make sure that the message is strong enough to drive click-through and the landing page is designed well enough to facilitate actions such as completing a web form. Automated responses to lead inquiries must be swift and provide adequate value so your leads will be inclined to move your email marketing messages to Gmail’s ‘Primary’ tab.

It is likely that other email service providers will follow suit if Google’s implementation gains wider approval among its users. This will expand the challenge of driving email marketing success. Remember to stay diversified in your automated marketing tactics so the impact of the new tabbed Gmail interface doesn’t significantly lower your marketing effectiveness.

Lead Liaison

WordPress Customer Tracking – What’s the Best Choice?

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Wordpress Customer TrackingThough there are many WordPress customer tracking options out there, you may find these options don’t give you the customer engagement and reporting flexibility you’re looking for. We all know WordPress is awesome. For those of us who don’t want to learn to code and don’t want to pay an expert for simple changes, WordPress page and post management is the answer.

With WordPress, coding can take a backseat. You can manage your own content, add and update images and multimedia and ensure your SEO on-site optimization is in order. You can also use many of the same tracking tools you’re used to using in flat HTML/CSS websites. Here’s a pros-and-cons snippet of some of the most popular WordPress customer tracking tools.

WordPress Customer Tracking with Google Analytics

There are several plugins out there that handle Google Analytics. Google Analytics for WordPress and Google Analyticator are a few you can consider.

Pros: These plugins are super easy to use and install.

Cons: You won’t get WordPress customer tracking metrics right in your WordPress dashboard.  Google Analytics plugins simply embed the tracking code for you. To see your metrics, you’ll need to go to your Google Analytics dashboard at Google.com. You also won’t get any extra levels of direct customer tracking as Google doesn’t allow you to log IPs – even though WordPress itself has this capability.

Wassup and WordPress Customer Tracking

Wassup is a real-time analytics tracking plugin for WordPress. Once installed, you can see customer hits to your site via logged IP address. You can edit customer information and source specific IPs to a specific customer.

Pros:  Free, logs IPs

Cons:  Wassup is a neat little plugin, but not really built to do in-depth customer logging and tracking. It’s not meant to be included in robust advertising campaign management, but rather as a small-scale watchdog solution for your site.

Many small business owners like you who are looking for WordPress customer tracking capabilities end up turning to marketing automation. Regardless of whether or not your site is built on a CRM, most marketing automation dashboards are built on the backend of your site and have their own login – meaning they can work with WordPress as well as a non-CMS built website. Marketing automation tools aren’t just a one-time plugin. They’re advanced cloud tools that allow you to link customers to specific companies, actions and to the efficacy of your overall marketing campaign.

If you haven’t tried out marketing automation, Lead Liaison is a great place to start! Talk to us about installing marketing automation tools and starting WordPress customer tracking today.

Lead Liaison

Overlooked Features of Marketing Automation

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

Lead Tracking and Profiling

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

Lead Segmenting and Nurturing

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

Lead Qualification and Quick Conversion

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

Lead Liaison

When Should Sales Contact Marketing Automation Leads?

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

Following Initial Inquiry

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

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

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

Following a Specific Inquiry

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

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

At a Lead Score Benchmark

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

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

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

Lead Liaison

Lead Scoring: When a 100 Is Not Enough

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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