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Lead Liaison

B2B Lead Closure Through Linear Drip Campaigns

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B2B Lead Closure Through Linear Drip CampaignsBusinesses who’ve mastered the artistic approach of growing their B2B sales bases know that conventional outbound marketing campaigns are perhaps growing cold, stagnant and simply worn down.  Many leads which are collected from conventional drip campaigns aren’t actively buying since the individual lead either was collected amiss, or wasn’t thoroughly nurtured as it should’ve been. The new innovation which could increase B2B lead closings comes in the form of linear drip campaigns, the inventive approach of taking your regular drip campaigns and spreading automated emails, sequentially created prior to commencement, so that leads are being continually engaged.

The Linear Principle

Since many B2B lead lists will automatically be segmented in varied categories, marketing professionals can simultaneously run regular drip campaigns and linear drips which regularly email inspirational stories related to products being offered.  Along with regularly sent articles or stories, coupons and other cost-benefit analyses can be sent to potential business leads to cultivate more sales closures rather than experiencing lead stagnancy.   Letting potential business customers eek through the door cracks into someone else’s database is rather heartbreaking and takes away that potential lead closing.

Benefits Of Linear Drip Campaigns

Aside from the obvious sales connotations, many long-term benefits reside within successful drip campaigns, perhaps many of them going unnoticed.  When considering marketing agendas for your new or existing businesses, examine some exponentially lionized benefits of using linear drips:

  1. You’ll have the opportunity to make your prospects sales-prepped
  2. Potential outflows in sales funnels are minimal
  3. Increased chances your leads will order products via internet
  4. Motivational for end user when your initial goals are receiving product evaluations
  5. Reduction in time spend educating potential leads on your product or service
  6. Gain targeted business customers through word of mouth or forwarded emails

Since authentic linear drip campaigns trump your conventional ‘one and done’ email blasts, the potential for developing B2B ties and sales grows when your concentration is on slower campaigning since shots in the dark tend to reap little benefits or plausible leads.

Specific Cases Of Effective Drip Campaigns

B2B leads are much more sensitive to erratic marketing tactics since the potential spend is much higher than most customers.  When you’ve already established marketing practices and have obtained business customers, drip campaigns become ‘customer nurturing’ since now retention becomes your primary objective with current business buyers.  Here are several instances when drip marketing campaigns are appropriate for current business clients provided the message is concise:

  1. Renewal of Services – When you’ve encountered clients who are due for renewal, explaining the benefits of remaining your loyal customer and introducing new innovations which better their current service should come in drips; perhaps roll out your new changes prior to sending the renewal emails for more effective closing ratios.
  2. Upcoming training – When your company will offer seminars relevant to products they’ve purchased, sending several drip campaigns including different parts of your seminar and reminder to be present will help the busy business owner to remember to sign up.

Conclusion

Quality linear drip campaigns bring B2B lead generation to greater heights while bettering the marketing efficacy of emails sent.  While not every basic marketing plan will include dripping content or offers into emails within owned databases, campaigns of this magnitude should always be considered as an alternative to aging or completely eradicating leads which you’ve held onto for several years without effectively closing sales to.

Lead Liaison

The Wrong Way to Nurture Leads

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Wrong Way to Nurture LeadsLead nurturing is only effective if it is done with a leads best interests in mind. A company cannot persuade a potential lead if they do not understand the prospect’s interests and their specific needs. They also cannot secure leads if they fall through the crack or leak out of the sales funnel.  A lost lead means a lost sale and no business can afford to give away revenue. Companies cannot take the chance of turning off a lead due to poor lead nurturing. That is why it is necessary to examine the wrong way to nurture a lead.

The most obvious wrong way to nurture a lead is to ignore them all together.

If a potential customer crosses your company’s path and there is no automated response generated to entice them, then it is a missed opportunity. A company cannot effectively nurture a lead if they do  nothing to promote their expertise. A stagnant website, no matter how intriguing or creative, is not an effective sales tool by itself without interactive processes like automated responses driving it. Leads need to have a compelling reason to pay attention to what is being offered.

Another common mistake made is not sending relevant content.

If information a company sends out is not interesting or appealing to the reader, then it will be completely ineffective. Content has to educate and inform a lead in a way that will increase credibility. Too often companies end up offending a lead because the information they send is viewed as useless or an insult to their intelligence.

Over-nurturing is also an ineffective approach to nurturing.

Content also needs to be sent in a timely manner without overwhelming a prospect.  If content is sent too often then it can quickly become a nuisance. Sellers could end up smothering buyers instead of inspiring them to make a purchase. As a rule of thumb, content should never be sent more than twice per week unless someone has specifically requested additional information.

Quality leads are a company’s greatest asset if they have the means to use them to generate future revenue. If a lead is ignored, insulted or overwhelmed by a company’s nurturing efforts then it will weaken relationships. By understanding the wrong way to nurture leads, a business can create a strategic plan to avoid mistakes that could possibly turn away a lead for good.

Lead Liaison

Modern Day Marketing Acronyms 101

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I was shopping with my wife recently in a home furnishing store. While my wife was thumbing through every item in the store I had my head buried in my new iPhone 5 pretending like I was listening; however, a catchy poster caught the corner of my eye. It was eye-chart on acronyms – Acronym 101 to be exact.
I couldn’t resist and had to take a picture, which I’ll share with you. It reminded me, maybe people in the marketing industry need some help with new acronyms being introduced to them. This article summarizes a few key acronyms floating around these days:
  1. MAP = Marketing Automation Platform. Marketing automation is fairly new technology that helps companies improve and automate many aspects of the lead management process including lead generation, lead nurturing, lead distribution, lead qualification, marketing campaign measurement and more. A cornerstone of marketing automation is the ability to do more with less.
  2. LMA = Lead Management Automation. The process of streamlining every aspect of lead management including how leads are sourced, how they are qualified, how they are handed off to sales and how return on investment is measured.
  3. RGS = Revenue Generation Software. Software such as that from Lead Liaison that provides a set of features and capabilities for sales, marketing and executives to help drive revenue faster for their business. RGS typically includes sales prospecting, marketing automation and lead generation components.
  4. CRM = Customer Relationship Management. CRMs have often been thought of as an accounting system for leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities. Many businesses use a CRM to keep track of sales activity. Popular CRMs include Salesforce.com, SAP, Oracle and others. MAPs and CRMs are complementary and not competitive in nature – don’t confuse the two. They are very different technologies.
  5. SaaS = Software as a Service. Software that is accessible via a web browser vs. installed on a desktop computer. The majority of CRMs and MAPs are SaaS-based. SaaS software is attractive to many businesses because zero installation is required and software updates are transparent to end users.
  6. ROI = Return on Investment. A measure of the return based on what’s invested. If marketers are not measuring ROI of their campaigns then they’re not proving their worth and identifying where they can improve their campaigns. It’s essential marketers know which lead sources, programs and campaigns are effective and which are not.
  7. RPM = Revenue Performance Management. A systematic approach to identifying and measuring the drivers and impediments to revenue.

Here’s another good post that covers some basic marketing acronyms.

What modern day marketing acronyms can you think of?

Lead Liaison

A Small Businesses Make-Over Using Marketing Automation

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Small Business Make-Over using Marketing AutomationSmall businesses make-over using marketing automation. Staying in touch with leads and nurturing them through the sales process is a realistic challenge many organizations face. It’s vitally important businesses convert leads into paying customers. Small or new businesses face overwhelming challenges from existing competitors when reaching out to customers; such as getting their attention, finding leads, and converting leads into sales. They don’t have adequate manpower and technical ability to fire up their sales engines due to lack of resources and experience. Financial constraints also prevent them from carrying out resourceful marketing campaigns. This often results in impending marketing problems, which risk profitability, growth, and sustainability of the business.

Luckily, marketing automation is there to help small businesses easily achieve sales and marketing objectives. Here are some benefits of using marketing automation for a small business:

  1. Marketing automation allows small businesses to streamline sales tools, augment social media and email marketing efforts, and accelerate marketing performance with a focused outreach strategy.
  2. Marketing automation automates core components of the selling process and enhances visibility across a variety of channels while adding more “teeth” to agile marketing campaigns. Better client monitoring allows enhanced targeting and less repetition. Business can maintain and enhance relationships with customers, partners, vendors and other stake holders using marketing automation tools.
  3. Marketing automation combines various outreach mediums such as social media and email campaigns for greater customer attention. Sales teams leverage marketing automation to monitor prospects or customers online interaction across a number of channels and identify their level of interest in a brands products and services. When a visitor lands on your website, automated tools welcome them at various points delivering tailored messages, such as free trial offers, customized solution offerings or personalized greetings.
  4. By adopting a marketing automation process, small businesses are in a position to view and track data analytics, follow up on visitors frequenting your site, increase the ability to develop leads and improve chances of converting them into a sale.
  5. Marketing automation provides better interaction with prospects through automated tools which enables businesses to set up appropriate rules for contact with customers, vendors, and partners. Automation facilitates easy ways to reestablish and maintain relationships with clients and prevents repetition. By delivering the right content at the right time, it helps accelerate sales cycles and keeps marketing communication thriving.

Integrating your strategic plan with marketing automation technology allows small businesses to optimize their lead management process, bridge communication gaps, and maximize marketing strategy that empowers your organization to achieve more with less.

Lead Liaison

Why Lead Nurturing is Essential to Sales

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Why Lead Nurturing is Essential to SalesNot all leads are created equal. Some are one-off sales who buy as a result of direct response marketing. Others research available options and select their choice. And there are some that require a little hand-holding in order to get them to buy. Lead nurturing provides a way to cultivate those buyers into sales-ready prospects. It’s important to understand why lead nurturing is essential to sales.

According to marketing studies, only 3% to 5% of all inquiries are sales-ready. That means 95% to 97% are not sales-ready. Moreover, 50% of qualified leads aren’t ready to purchase at the time they are first engaged through marketing content. The duration of a buyer’s decision-making process can take days, weeks, months and sometimes years and many products engender multiple marketing engagements and sales attempts before a commitment to purchase is made. This means your marketing efforts must engage leads multiple times to move a prospective buyer through the buying cycle. Experts estimate B2B buyers need approximately 7 to 9 touches before they’re ready to buy.

This is why lead nurturing is essential to a productive sales department.

Surveys show 80% of leads passed from marketing to sales gets lost, discarded or ignored. If half of that 80% were nurtured to the point of accepting a sales engagement, how many leads could be retained instead of slipping to a competitor? For example, if a marketing campaign generated 100 leads then 40 qualified prospects could be engaged to a point where they are more likely to make a purchase decision in your favor. And with a marketing automation system, it becomes easy to maintain engagement and prioritize leads as they are nurtured.

Lead nurturing doesn’t mean beating prospects over the head with promotions; it requires a thoughtful communication strategy that provides prospects with a non-intrusive way to explore your offer. Email messaging can be effective (if used appropriately). Free white papers or newsletter subscriptions are also productive lead nurturing techniques. If used effectively, the process should persuade prospects to make their own decision through their internal buying processes.

If a qualified lead is lost, a business must often work harder to regain that lead with future marketing activities. If they have already expressed interest in your offer, it makes sense to maintain a connection until they are ready to buy.

Get in touch with us to learn more about how Lead Liaison can re-invigorate your lead management and lead nurturing processes. We welcome the opportunity to further explain why lead nurturing is essential to sales.

Lead Liaison

How your Company is Missing Valuable Sales Opportunities

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How Your Company is Missing Valuable Sales OpportunitiesIn today’s uncertain economy, every company has to recognize and actively pursue every possible lead that crosses their path.  Every prospect that comes in contact with a company has the potential to be converted into a sale. The problem is many companies miss the connection or they don’t realize that the lead is part of their target market. In those cases, marketing automation and lead qualifying are essential for revenue generation.

These are the four most common reasons for missing valuable sales opportunities.

1. Not recognizing quality leads

If a company is not evaluating a potential lead’s online activity, then there is no way for them to know whether or not they would be interested in purchasing their product or services. It‘s impossible for one human being to monitor everyone’s activity. Marketing automation is necessary in modern business practices as it provides real-time B2B visitor lead tracking in addition to lead qualification. Every company needs a proven method for qualifying leads via lead scoring in order to establish which ones may benefit from a lead nurturing process or get passed directly to sales.

2. Not taking the time to understand your leads

Once you have qualified a lead the next step is to properly segment your database by analysing demographics and  interests.  First group them into categories and then rank them by their potential for conversion. A company can develop a specific approach for each segment.  By not taking the time to break leads into predetermined groups, it will be impossible to connect with each one directly and therefore many will end up slipping through the cracks. Tip: use dynamic database segmentation techniques such as Lead Liaisons Dynamic Target Lists to segment contacts using a “set-it and forget-it” methodology.

3. Not nurturing leads effectively

A lead will be persuaded by compelling and informative literature. If the information a company sends is irrelevant or uninteresting it simply won’t be read. A potential customer can also be turned off if they are being bombarded with articles, newsletters or obvious attempts at self-marketing.  There needs to be a reasonable flow that is not obtrusive or offensive in order to gain their trust and respect.  In the early stages of lead nurturing, focus on educating the prospect. Think like the buyer, not the seller.

4. Not monitoring the lead nurturing process

It is essential for a business to analyze and evaluate which campaigns elicited an immediate response and which ones did not. There is no point in repeating a plan that does not have a solid conversion rate.  The only effective way to plan future campaigns is by understanding which techniques created the greatest number of responses and how they can be adjusted to generate more revenue.

Missed sales opportunities are the greatest frustration facing companies today and it doesn’t need to be that way.  Through well planned marketing automation and lead nurturing, a company can increase their chances of turning leads into revenue.  The key to success comes from understanding why valuable opportunities are being overlooked and then learning how to prevent it from happening in the future.

Lead Liaison

Converting Leads through Smart Nurturing

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Smart Lead NurturingA lead has marginal value until it can be successfully converted into a sale. Businesses spend a considerable amount of time and money securing quality leads and cannot afford ineffective nurturing. Use some of these guidelines to convert leads using smart lead nurturing. If the information that is sent out is not relevant and informative to a lead’s specific interests  then the content will be of no value to them. That is why the first step is to qualify leads and segment them based on their browsing history.

Rank and Segment Leads

Qualifying and segmenting leads means breaking each one down into categories then ranking them based on buying potential. It is crucial to assess each lead individually then figure out how they fit into predetermined segmented groups. A company cannot use the same methods to target all leads, but they also cannot create a unique campaign for every potential customer. That is why it is necessary to group them based on similar interests. Once leads have been formally segmented, a company can then create informative content tailored to each unique group profile.

Create Compelling Content

Every lead expects to receive valuable content that will teach them something worthwhile or improve their life in some meaningful way. This information can be presented in the form of whitepapers, webinars, eBooks, blog posts, reports, or any other resource that will educate the reader.  It needs to peak their interest within the first few sentences or it simply won’t be read. If the lead nurturing campaign does not grab the lead’s attention, it will be jettisoned and become absolutely ineffective.

Frequency of Nurturing Matters

Another thing to consider is the frequency of lead nurturing efforts. A smart lead nurturing plan should be sent at least once a month, but never more than once each week. A good campaign needs to maintain a powerful presence without being obtrusive or overwhelming. People receive numerous emails and articles from various sources, so they can quickly be viewed as a nuisance if they take over someone’s inbox.

Converting leads into sales requires a well-thought out, strategic plan. Qualify and group each lead first and then develop an approach catered to each target market segment. Content in every smart nurturing campaign should attempt to establish a business as being an expert in their field, so potential customers feel confident turning to the company’s services when the need arises.  The image that is presented in a lead nurturing campaign is exactly what could make or break a sale.

Lead Liaison

Pervasive B2B Lead Distribution Methods

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Pervasive B2B Lead Distribution Methods Looking for some good B2B lead distribution methods? Businesses aggressively seeking methodologies for effective lead distribution to their sales forces sometimes face invariable roadblocks which prevent those leads from finding their proper home. Although techniques commonly used by marketing teams work only part of the time when marketing to consumers, business leads are highly touted as ‘gold’ since the expected ticket prices are substantially higher.  To quantify success in lead distribution, following the methods below will springboard your B2B lead circulation efforts so the right department within your company, or the right person, receives and nurtures the lead.

Round Robin With Top Producers

We’d all love to pass leads off to proven closers in mass quantities; since this isn’t entirely possible, passing out leads to top producers in round robin fashion will keep fairness across the board, allow historically unseasoned salespersons to shine under pressure and keep excessive workloads off one person.  When your company is facing lead scarcity, perhaps start your distribution with top gun producers and work your way down as leads become available.

Stick With FIFO

Much like perishable foods, leads begin accruing shelf life when either bought live, or received just minutes ago.  In order to prevent stagnancy in lead distribution, stick with first in, first out when leads come into your database.  Organizing aging leads can become problematic if you’re not proactive in keeping each prospect assigned to a sales associate, and this can be taken care of through FIFO.

Pushing / Pulling

Businesses can benefit from well-organized office setups by having leads ‘pushed’ to the sales team as they call or fill out lead capture forms.  This automated method of handling lead distribution makes utilizing both round robin and live transfer so different sales team members receive leads intermittently.  On the opposite side of this are lead pulls which occur when larger call centers obtain sizable numbers of leads hourly and pull them from queue to call or email.  Both distribution methods rely upon accurate lead automation methods albeit online or via call center.

The Hunt Group

Some larger volume sale forces find that load balancing can be problematic when thousands of leads are being handled by only fifty calling agents.  Using the hunt group methodology, lead management teams attempt to find sales pipelines or available agents who can handle a customer, and pass the lead off to them.  Although this method of lead distribution heavily relies on human accuracy and agent capabilities in handling large scale lead loads, proper metrics and lead scoring techniques could make hunt groups an effective stratagem for distribution of mass quantities of leads.

Tele-Qualifying

Becoming increasingly popular in the lead distribution sector of larger businesses is prequalifying leads through large-scale telemarketing firms who can properly route calls to exact sales agents prepared to handle the lead.  This provides an excellent avenue to properly segment what each lead wants, where they best fit across your sales boards and who would best close the sale with the candidate.  Mortgage lead qualification specialists perfected this method of lead distribution and many other companies have adopted it as their own.

Avoiding Grab Bags And More

If you’re using trash can lead dumping, or, simply tossing hundreds of leads in the air for anyone to pick, the percentage of closed leads is probably plummeting for your company.  Choosing the most effective circulation method for your business to business lead efforts means understanding what is available to you, and the above methods have proven time and time again to properly route leads to closers equipped to handle specific customers for the sales closing.

Lead Liaison

Convergence of PRM and Marketing Automation Facilitates Superior Marketing Alignment

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Partner Relationship Management and Marketing AutomationOne in every five B2B organizations use a marketing automation platform (MAP), and the present trend indicates that it will grow to 40% by 2016, according to B2B research and advisory agency SiriusDecisions. Organizations are increasingly integrating marketing automation with their CRM databases and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) strategy to facilitate efficient lead nurturing and achieve the most favorable sales potential. This three-way alignment optimizes stand-alone solutions and multiplies sales capabilities of the organizations, creating marketing alignment.

The Case for Marketing Automation Platform-CRM-PRM Integration for Superior Marketing Alignment

The prospect of efficient business processes and enhanced benefits has made marketing automation a key attraction for businesses. Organizations operate in a complex ecosystem that demands attention to a variety of factors. It has become increasingly difficult to track and report marketing progress and sales opportunities across partner networks while managing campaigns and opportunities. Many fall upon PRM solutions to maintain and boost partner-vendor relationship and ensure superior coordination among different channel players.

The PRM is aligned with the CRM, holding customer database and marketing automation tools for better visibility and tracking of performance of partners, co-ops, and other assets. While the former focuses on customer lifecycle management, PRM solutions take care of reporting and analytics suitable for partner lifecycle management. Marketing automation integrated with the two enables businesses to integrate records and track and monitor typical sales opportunities created in a partner network and specific interested customers.

Vendors and manufacturers can also set up on-demand services through marketing automation using social media, telemarketing, and email. By integrating PRM and CRM with marketing automation platforms, businesses can offer instant portal access and training courses in their chosen language and medium. A big plus is that partner branding can be aligned with marketing resources and increased ability to monitor and manage leads and campaigns.

There is no need to employ multichannel strategies, tools, and resources for deal registration and management of opportunities. Often channel managers run helter-skelter as they work with manual systems and spreadsheets to deal with partners and customers. Marketing automation facilitates use of same system by brand owners and partners, reducing time and gap in interaction. With vendors rolling out campaigns and leads in no time to partners using the vertical-sharing system, both can work side by side, enhancing coordination and cooperation.

PRM-Marketing Integration: Summary of Benefits

Integration of PRM with marketing automation offers three important benefits.

1. It helps in automatic lead distribution to partners without any coordination issue.

2. It helps bridge the gap between a business and its partners. All solutions are immediately available to partners. They can interact, learn, receive training, and lead sales efforts without overburdening the business.

3. It is easy to monitor and manage a campaign and activity on leads and holistically measure direct and indirect sales benefits to partners using the marketing automation platform.

With increased availability of SaaS solutions, there is no major technical obstacle that impedes PRM-marketing automation integration. Many consider budget and disconnect issues caused by failure of the system as key hindrances. However, the benefits of aligning the two outweigh the concerns. No doubt PRM can be a stand-alone solution, but when integrated with marketing automation, its compatibilities multiply, assuring better lead development and campaign execution.

Lead Liaison

Four Steps to Effective Lead Scoring

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Four Steps to Effective Lead ScoringSales lead scoring is an essential part of a lead management system. Leads enter your pipeline at different stages of the buying cycle, so it’s important to calculate how ready each marketing lead is for engagement by your sales team. In order to set up a lead scoring system, input should be gathered from your marketing and sales departments. There are four initial steps to take when developing an effective lead scoring system:

  1. Define qualified leads. The first step is to separate the curious from the interested. How prepared is a lead for engagement? The sales team should provide input when determining who is qualified. Leads that indicate a need for your product, who have the ability and willingness to purchase, and have expressed interest in your offer are generally considered a qualified lead; the next step is to grade the lead according to level of interest.
  2. Establish scoring criteria. What factors should be used to differentiate your leads? There are no hard and fast rules used to determine scoring values, but a lead scoring system should include attributes that indicate a lead’s identity, industry, level of interest or engagement source. For example, the responding party to a marketing touch point (e.g. CEO or purchasing agent) is an important attribute. The lead source is another variable to include – did the engagement come through a white paper download or a webinar registration? Examine each attribute of your marketing channels and your markets that can be used to assign a value that reflects its importance.
  3. Determine the scoring weight (point value) for each attribute. For example, how important is the lead source? A lead who has viewed a white paper should be given more points than one that has followed a Google Ad to your website. Leads that complete a survey may be at a higher engagement level than those who have responded to an automated call. There should be point values assigned to each attribute which indicate a lead’s willingness to be contacted by the sales team. The level of engagement (i.e. the amount of time spent investigating your offer) is often used to calculate an attribute’s weight.
  4. Establish a scoring range and threshold for transferring the lead to the sales department. Determine a scoring range – it can be 0 – 5 or 0 – 100 – by which leads can be prioritized for future engagements. However, don’t use a lead scoring system that limits the maximum score and ability to slide scores up or down in large intervals. For example, systems that cap lead scores at 100 hampers flexibility. Try to use a marketing automation system that ranges up to 1,000 for maximum versatility. When choosing your range make sure it allows for all variables that will be included in the system or your process. Once the range is determined, a threshold should be set which will move the interested party from marketing lead to sales prospect. At what point should the lead be passed to sales? That should be determined with the help of the sales department, and the scoring threshold should reflect the greatest willingness to be engaged by salespeople and readiness to purchase your product.

Lead scoring takes the guesswork out of determining whether a sales agent should be alerted about a potential prospect or if the lead requires nurturing prior to a sales engagement. Once you’ve established a lead scoring system, it should be installed in your automated marketing program.