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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

9 Points to Mull Over in Your Marketing and Sales Service Level Agreement

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9 Points to Mull Over in Your Marketing and Sales Service Level AgreementWant to know a great way to make your marketing automation platform  more effective? Align your marketing and sales departments with a service level agreement. But what should you include in your service level agreement? Here are 9 points to consider in your marketing and sales service level agreement.

The key to drafting any agreement is to clearly define objectives that must be fulfilled and the responsibilities of each party. The M&S service level agreement establishes the common ground that both teams operate under. Gaining common ground effectively typically requires both departments to contribute to the agreement. Companies we’ve engaged that have implemented an SLA tell us that a service level agreement provides a useful way to hold both teams accountable for commonly-held goals.

When you’re developing a service level agreement for your company, keep these 10 points in mind. It should save you some heartache during the process.

  1. Define important terms. Those who will follow this agreement must understand and agree to what a term means, such as “sales qualified lead (SQL)” and “Trigger Events”. Both teams should be on the same page when it comes to, as former US President Bill Clinton put it, “what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
  2. Clearly define responsibilities – what is expected from each department? The SLA should include marketing response conditions when a lead is activated and sales response when a lead is passed through.
  3. Provide focused metrics. You can’t draft a successful SLA without clearly defined, timely metrics for each department. Metrics should include such parameters as “marketing will add X (number) contacts to the CRM database per month” or “sales will generate X (number) SQLs per month”.
  4. Incorporate team benchmarks – what are the minimums? As part of metric development, each parameter should have at least 3 hurdles that each department should leap over.
  5. Provide an ideal lead profile (customer) profile. Both teams should agree on who you’re targeting. The service level agreement should describe ideal profiles for your market(s). Typically, the profile should include factors from both a lead’s attributes (size, location, etc.) and its online behavior (white paper download, completed form, etc.)
  6. Insert a lead scoring model that ranks leads as they advance through the pipeline. Take each attribute and online activity and assign it a value that both marketing and sales can agree on. For example, using ‘title’ as a parameter, you could assign a 7 each time the condition ‘sales supervisor’ is satisfied as a result of a lead selecting that title through an online form. Don’t forget to include negative scoring!
  7. Establish lead routing rules. Lead distribution is a key component to an effective marketing automation platform; therefore, the SLA should outline which sales team or agents will receive certain leads and how generic leads will be distributed.
  8. Explain the lead nurturing process. Each team should know how leads that enter the marketing pipeline will be advanced towards marketing-qualified. Though this provision will often apply to automated marketing activity, the sales department’s lead nurturing responsibilities should be defined as well.
  9. Determine a meeting frequency for marketing and sales alignment. Each service level agreement should establish a meeting schedule and meeting goals and objectives to make sure that both sides are on target for fulfilling their end of the agreement.

If you would like to have a free service level template delivered via email, contact a Lead Liaison Revenue Generation Specialist today.

Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Improves Lead Distribution Capabilities in its Lead Management Automation™ Platform

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Allen, TX (PRWEB) June 15, 2013 – Lead Liaison, an emerging innovator in the marketing automation space, has improved its flagship Lead Management Automation platform by optimizing its lead distribution capabilities. The company announced in May a roll out of the enhanced lead distribution functionality, as well several automation improvements, improved analytics, and deeper integration with Saleforce.com.

Lead Liaison has paced its product development according to market demands. Lead distribution has become more important to the SME market the company serves. VP of Communications Alex Brown explained that “within many industries, companies are running leaner since the Great Recession, often deploying lower marketing and sales spend. They are turning to MA for more efficient resource allocation.”

“We recognize the need for lead stream management that provides breakout according to performance, geography, and other parameters,” said Brown. “Our focus has extended beyond how a lead moves through the funnel. It’s just as important to assign leads effectively.”

One company that has leveraged the lead distribution functionality is Telappliant, Ltd., a major telephony and VoIP provider headquartered in London. Marketing manager Tommy Powell has seen improvements in productivity since implementing the system. He said the previous lead distribution process “(was) inefficient, as there was often a time delay between leads arriving and being distributed marketing manager. A member of the marketing team…manually used SFDC to distribute leads to various members of the sales team. This process was time-consuming in terms of human resources.”

“(The platform) has enabled each lead to be instantly and automatically distributed to the salesperson most likely to be able to close it. In addition, the sales team is now working leads more effectively,” said Powell.

Company executives plan to announce additional platform enhancements at another upgrade release later this summer.

For more information about Lead Liaison’s marketing automation products or its support services contact Lead Liaison.

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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)