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Lead Liaison

How to Create Lead Nurturing Content That Actually Works

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Content marketing has a strategy problem. Research from the Content Marketing Institute found that only 41% of content marketers always or frequently produce assets related to specific points in the buyer’s journey. This stat is startling because it means nearly 60% of content is produced with only vague regard for where it fits in the buyer’s journey.

So questions like, “Is this content relevant to your audience?” or “Will this material help people make more informed decisions or overcome their challenges?” simply aren’t being considered often enough. These questions are cornerstones of any decent marketing strategy, so if you’re not using them to align your content to the customer journey, how do you expect to nudge people closer to making a purchase?

Why You Should Develop Lead Nurturing Content

Relevancy is a moving target. What people find interesting when they first interact with your brand will change as their understanding grows. As buyers move closer to making a decision, the questions they’re asking change. This is process is referred to as the customer journey, because the information needs of the customer change over time.

In fact, research by Aberdeen found targeting users with content related to where they are in the buying cycle resulted in a 72% increase in conversions. Your goal as a content marketer must be to supply the best answers to the questions your audience is asking at any given stage of the journey. If you can manage that on a consistent basis, you’ll establish your brand as a trustworthy source of information.

And once it’s time for the customer to choose a solution, your organization will be in prime position because of the trust you’ve built with your audience. This is lead nurturing in a nutshell. And it’s critical for producing revenue because the vast majority of people who come to your website are not ready to buy from you. But if you maintain a relationship with your audience through email and retargeting campaigns, you can nudge them closer to making a purchasing decision. That’s why nurturing leads produces, on average, 20% more sales opportunities.

But you can’t nurture leads without content. And to do that, you have to understand the series of stages buyers go through in the customer journey.

The 5 Stages of Buyer Awareness (and the Content You Need for Each One)

A lot of people would like you to think the buyer’s journey is a recent phenomenon. And while it may have changed in the internet age, the concept of buyers moving through a series of information gathering stages before buying something is nothing new.  Way back in 1966, the legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz classified the five stages of awareness buyers travel through before making a decision. These stages are:

  1. Unaware
  2. Problem-Aware
  3. Solution-Aware
  4. Product-Aware
  5. Most Aware

Schwartz theorized that the primary reason marketing failed was because it’s not aligned to the stage of awareness of the audience. Here’s a deeper look at each stage Schwartz outlined in his book Breakthrough Advertising:

1: Unaware

In this stage, the customer has no knowledge of your company or even that they have a problem that needs solving. Content for this stage of the customer journey doesn’t need to focus on selling your product or service. Typically, this type of content will be something more newsworthy, like industry research results or a narrative piece.

Types of content to create at this stage:

  • Infographics
  • Industry research
  • Human interest stories
  • Event recaps

For example, Atlassian wrote a story about 500 of their employees working from home for a week. Atlassian sells project management software, so this is article is only marginally related to their product.

Your main goal at this point is just to attract people to your site who have an interest in your industry. Atlassian’s article does a nice job of mixing a human interest story with a subject that potential customers would be interested in. If the content is good, people will come back for more.

2: Problem-Aware

When someone is Problem Aware, they grasp there is a problem, either in their personal lives or in their business. They don’t necessarily understand how to solve that problem, but they do want to learn more. Content at this stage should speak directly to problems your company solves without overselling your organization. At this point, the goal is to provide value without asking for anything in return.

This phase is the crux of building trust between you and your audience. You need to convince people you understand their problems, and explain how they can solve them.  

Types of content to create at this stage:

  • Industry best practices
  • Thought leadership
  • “Why” posts that explain why industry problems occur

Contently uses the Content Marketing Institute’s annual event as a starting point for Problem Aware content. This article analyzes three big problems that are affecting Contently’s target market, i.e., content marketing managers. This type of industry analysis draws in marketers who are concerned about their content strategy and positions Contently as a trustworthy voice in the market. The post doesn’t mention Contently’s solution at all. Rather it simply provides education about problems that are relevant to readers.

3: Solution-Aware

Once someone decides their problems are pressing enough to fix, they move to the next stage, Solution Aware. In this stage of the customer journey, your audience is looking for solutions to fix their problem. This, my friends, is the first real time when it makes sense to emphasize the value of your solution in your content.

Now, the approach shouldn’t be to pontificate about your product specifically, but rather about the type of solution you’re selling.

Types of content to create at this stage:

  • Content that explains the benefits of your type of solution
  • “How x company achieved x” content that emphasizes your type of solution
  • ROI calculators

This Apptentive post listing reasons why you need a customer feedback system is a perfect example. The post begins by acknowledging where readers are at in the customer journey: “By now, marketers and product owners understand the importance of listening to their customers.” The writer knows the audience understands their problems, i.e, they need to listen to their customers. Now, she has to convince readers that a customer feedback platform is the right solution to that problem.

Product-Aware

When someone is Product Aware, they are considering specific products that are solutions to their problems. Finally, this is the time to put your company front and center.

Types of content to create at this stage:

  • Case studies
  • Comparison posts between you and your competitors
  • Testimonial videos

Your biggest consideration here is less about strategy — it’s probably not a surprise that you need case studies to persuade people — but rather how you execute it. Instead of gating their case studies behind forms, Appcues publishes blog posts that detail how companies have succeeded with their product.

The difference between good content and mediocre work at this stage is the detail with which you describe how your product helps people. The more specific you can be about how your product works to deliver value, the better.

Most Aware

Most Aware prospects are familiar with your product and the value it delivers. They just need an incentive to act.

Types of content to create at this stage:

  • Free trials (for product companies)
  • Free assessments (for service companies)
  • Limited time offers

Klientboost utilizes it a free proposal to convert people who are Most Aware. The process contains multiple steps, with each screen emphasizing the value of your free proposal. Once someone converts with this piece of content, they’re basically knocking on your sales team’s front door. In fact, I bet discussing this free proposal is the first step in Klientboost’s sales process.

The key to creating this type of content is to compel people to act in the moment. Your offer should reflect the immediate benefits your audience will experience.

Conclusion

Lead nurturing isn’t easy. You have to understand what questions your audience is asking at each stage of their journey. Then you have to create the right content that speaks to each of those needs. Then you have to plot automation campaigns to deliver the content at the right time (a subject we’re barely covered in this post).

The fuel for your lead nurturing machine is content. And if you don’t have the right content, you’re letting customers slip through your grasp.

Bio: Zach is the Director of Content at DePalma Studios, an agency that specializes in enterprise UX. Zach’s work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Invision, and ConversionXL.

Lead Liaison

Enhancement Roundup – Q4 2018

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The last quarter of 2018 was big for event lead management. We also snuck in an incredible update to our landing page builder. Read below to learn about all of the enhancements we released this last quarter.

As always, please feel free to contact your Lead Liaison Representative with any questions about the enhancements below. Not yet a client? Schedule a demo here!

License: Lead Management Automation (LMA)™

  • Landing Page Builder (Beta): We’ve completely resurfaced it, making it easier than ever to create campaign-specific landing pages.

License: GoExhibit!™

  • Events Dashboard: Our new events dashboard allows users to track their events from a high level. Track things like:
    • Cost per prospect
    • Who captured the most leads
    • Average engagement score
  • Custom Content Blocks & Themes: Customers are now able to further customize their booth experience! Custom content blocks can be added to event lead capture forms. Here are a few examples:
    • Add your logo to the top of the form.
    • Add a quick, flashy video to your form to catch the attention of booth visitors.
    • Add a map showing your company’s location.
    • You also now have the ability to edit the color palette/theme to match YOUR brand!
  • Badges: Lead Liaison now provides the ability to create and print your own badges for companies running their own events. The badge system integrates with Avery, a leading manufacturer of labels/badges.
  • Registration/Check-In: Lead Liaison provides a check-in and registration system for clients who need to manage their own marketing events. This feature provides a customizable check-in and registration portal and works seamlessly with Lead Liaison Badges.
  • Instructions: Lead Liaison now gives companies the ability to add custom Instructions within a designated form/event. Use the Instructions area to provide all the information that the event manager might need their team to do to set up, for example. Add:
    • Text
    • HTML content (like videos, links, etc.)

 

Interested in the solutions you see here?

Request a Free Demo

If you are already a Lead Liaison customer, contact your Team Lead with any questions and we’ll be happy to assist.

Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Announces Next Iteration of Event Lead Management, GoExhibit!™

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Dallas, Texas – Lead Liaison first launched their event lead capture solution, GoCapture!™, in October of 2017. They have rapidly become the global leader in event lead management. Today, they announce the next iteration of their solution, GoExhibit!™, which includes advances in customization, event creation workflow, enterprise-level ROI reporting, registration, check-in, upcoming Windows support, and more.

The company, known worldwide for their marketing and sales automation solutions, has been hyper-focused on supporting live marketing events over the last year. They started by answering the need for a better, more efficient way to capture leads. Antiquated badge scanners and arbitrary lead collection apps weren’t giving enterprise businesses everything they needed.

Lead Liaison designed a single solution that manages pre-event communication and preparation, onsite event lead capture, and intelligent post-event follow-up. The updates announced this week further distance GoExhibit!™ from competing solutions.

The enhancements allow companies to customize the lead capture experience with brand colors, logos, other custom content such as explainer videos or maps. Furthermore, GoExhibit!™ now provides enterprise-level reporting. The Events Dashboard allows users to track their events and measure ROI. Example data points include average cost per lead (CPL), revenue generated, return on investment, post-event engagement activity, and more.

GoExhibit!™ isn’t just for exhibitors. The solution also supports companies running their own events with a customizable check-in and registration system. An integration with Avery, announced last month, allows companies to customize and print badges in real-time, or prior to an event.

The GoCapture!™ app is compatible with iOS and Android smartphones and tablets with Windows support right around the corner. GoExhibit!™ integrates with all major CRMs (Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.), marketing automation platforms (HubSpot, Eloqua, Salesforce.com Marketing Cloud, etc.), analytics solutions (Domo, Revelation™, etc), and lead retrieval providers (Cvent, Experient, etc.).

To commemorate the release, Lead Liaison collected a host of resources for businesses interested in implementing this show-stopping solution. The Event Lead Management Kit contains many educational resources, including a detailed presentation of the features GoExhibit!™ has to offer.

To learn more about Lead Liaison’s event lead management solution, GoExhibit!™, click here.

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that helps businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of marketing automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and additional website engagement tools to boost sales effectiveness. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible business model, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality, all specifically tailored for mid-sized businesses, into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237).

Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison and Avery to Complement Event Lead Capture Solution

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Dallas, Texas – Lead Liaison announces a relationship with Avery, the leading manufacturer of labels and badges. Known for their enterprise marketing and sales software, Lead Liaison is answering a significant need in the trade show industry as it relates to fully-integrated lead capture. The company launched an event lead management solution earlier this year, called GoExhibit!™, which is powered by their lead capture app, GoCapture!™.

GoExhibit!™ provides businesses with an end-to-end event lead management solution. Companies can use GoExhibit!™ to manage all pre-event communication, efficiently capture leads onsite, instantly sync data, and trigger post-event follow-up. What’s more, companies managing their own events can utilize GoExhibit!™’s registration and check-in feature, which integrates seamlessly with a badge solution powered by Avery.

“We are excited to work with Lead Liaison,” says Customer Success Manager, Brenda Dillon. “This is a perfect use case for Avery labels and badges. We are excited about the opportunity to further support businesses running their own marketing events. Lead Liaison automates the clerical work and helps put the final solution in the hands of the customer faster and more efficiently.”

Customer Success Manager at Lead Liaison, Ryan Schefke, adds “integrating Avery’s badge-making software was the right move for our customers. Instead of forking out $50K+ to other lead retrieval companies, we give show providers or companies wanting to run their own marketing event a do-it-yourself, or DIY, event setup. Avery’s badge capabilities are the perfect complement to our check-in, registration, and our barcode scanning app.”

Creating badges in GoExhibit!™ is easy. Badges can be created individually, to work alongside our registration and check-in solution. Or, they can be created in groups. One might need to create and print a Badge Group if they are looking to lay badges out on a table for attendees to pick up when they check in.

Avery can also print the badges on behalf of the company, utilizing their WePrint service.

To learn more about Lead Liaison’s event lead management solution, GoExhibit!™, click here.

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that helps businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of marketing automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and additional website engagement tools to boost sales effectiveness. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible business model, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality, all specifically tailored for mid-sized businesses, into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237).

About Avery Products Corporation

Avery Products Corporation is the world’s largest supplier of labels, specialty converted media and software solutions to enable short-run digital printing in businesses and homes alongside complementary products sold through distributors and mass market retailers under the Avery® brand. Avery Products Corporation, a division of CCL Industries, is based in Brea, California. For more information about Avery products, visit avery.com.  

Avery and all other Avery brands, product names and codes are trademarks of CCL Industries, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

 

Media Contact

Avery Products Corporation

714-674-8500

press@avery.com

Lead Liaison

21 Questions to Ask Your Event Lead Management Vendor Before Making a Purchase

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To download the PDF of this resource, click here. 

To access our Event Lead Management Kit, which includes this resource, click here. 

According to Forrester, marketing events such as trade shows and conferences occupy the largest share of B2B marketing budgets at 14%. Choosing the right event lead management solution for lead capture will be the most important decision you make. Before signing a contract, here are 21 important questions to ask your vendor.

1. Does your solution integrate with my CRM, marketing automation platform, and/or analytics platform?

What good is capturing lead information if you don’t accurately save the information and prepare it for follow up? Ensure that your event lead capture/management solution integrates with the technology stack you already have in place. If you don’t have the proper solutions in place, like a CRM or a marketing automation platform, ask your Event Lead Management (ELM) vendor if they offer solutions for that need, as well. Communicating with the registered list of attendees prior to the event, and with the qualified leads after the event, is essential to converting your marketing event efforts into closed business.

2. Does your solution allow for immediate follow-up?

Insidesales.com conducted a study that found 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. The amount of time that goes by before you take action on your leads is important. Many event lead management solutions require additional, manual steps to follow up with a lead. Some, however, allow companies to instantly sync leads to your system of record so that you can communicate with the Prospect before they’ve even left the conference.

3. Does your solution allow me to respond to new leads via email, text, postcards, letters, and other types of communications?

Make sure you don’t limit the touch points you can send to new leads. According to MarketingProfs.com, 98% of all text messages are opened. Being able to instantly (or even introduce intentional delay) send a text message to new event leads could be vital to your strategy. You might also benefit from sending different types of touchpoints to nurture prospects through their journey.

4. How will you support me?

Some vendors in the ELM industry are headquartered in Europe, while some are in North America. Think about where your events will occur and make sure your vendor can support you. What if you have a problem on a Sunday while you’re setting up for your event on Monday? Will your vendor be there to support you? Are they truly a vendor or a partner?

5. Can I import and merge leads into your event object as if I captured them on the lead capture app?

You might attend some events where you’re collecting leads at your booth, and at the same time you get a CSV file with leads from a speaking session that occurs in parallel. Make sure your vendor can import your CSV file from the speaking session, and most importantly, merge the data with data you might have already collected at the event to avoid duplicates and keep your data clean.

6. Do you have an API for your event data?

Whether now or in the future, you might have a need to pull event data into your custom/third party software. If your vendor provides an API then you’ll be all set for your current/future needs.

7. How accurate are your transcriptions?

Why you should ask it: If the event lead management solution you are considering offers “business card transcription” as an option for lead capture, make sure you investigate a little further. You’ll want to double-check how accurate those transcriptions are.

8. How fast is the turnaround time for transcriptions?

The faster the transcription can happen, the sooner you can respond to your lead. Quick responses are vital. Your provider should be able to turn your transcriptions around quickly, within minutes, without sacrificing accuracy.

9. Do you offer true ROI metrics and allow me to see how much revenue we generated from an event?? Do you connect with the opportunities in my CRM?

Events occupy the largest share of B2B marketing budgets (14%), tracking accurate return on investment is critical. You’ll also need a lot of other key event data to be able to improve your process. Talk to your prospective ELM vendor about the data their solution can report back. Can you track cost per lead? Can you track which sales reps collected the most leads? Can you track post-event engagement? Can you track true ROI percentage, connect to my opportunities in my CRM, and show me revenue figures from my events?

10. Can I customize my lead capture forms? If so, how much? What about creating conditional questions?

Being able to customize your lead capture forms is important because the information a business wants to collect on a lead varies from company to company. You should look for an event lead management solution that allows you to customize the information you collect on the lead capture form.

To take it a step further, talk to your ELM vendor about customizing the look and feel of the form. A truly enterprise-ready solution will enable you to use your specific company colors, logo, explainer videos, etc.

11. Can I customize the invitations sent out to reps? Can I send an email and text message invitation?

Enterprises and large companies have large sales/marketing teams and get lots of email. If invitation emails are standardized, and not clear, you could risk inefficiencies by having your invitation emails deleted or marked as spam by recipients. Your vendor should help you custom your invitations. Also make sure you can send email, text, or both at once, so your invites are successfully received.

12. Do my reps have to log out and log back in to see changes?

Attending an event is stressful. The last thing reps need to deal with is logging out, tracking passwords, etc. to see changes/updates that might be pushed out to the mobile device. Make sure your vendor can push out updates in real-time without requiring people to log out and then back in again.

13. What if my team onsite at the event calls me at the office, explaining that they need to make a change to the event form? Can I make last-minute changes?

No matter how much you prepare for your event, there is a good chance you’ll need to make some last-minute adjustments as the team onsite adjusts to the environment and the audience. Look for an event lead management solution that supports instant updates. You want to be able to make changes to your event form in real time to best support your event staff.

14. Do you have offline mode?

Internet at trade shows and conferences can be spotty and expensive. You want to make sure that the solution you choose will support offline lead capture so you don’t lose a single opportunity.

15. Can I run my own events with the same platform?

If your company hosts its own marketing events, or even if you think it might be a possibility one day, ask your ELM vendor about running your own events. The solution you commit to should offer the option to run event check-in and registration. Bonus points if it supports the ability to print badges based on your registered attendee list.

16. Can you scan NFC badges?

Over time barcodes and QR codes on badges will be obsolete. The code consumes real estate on the badge. The modern way to create a badge is to embed a NFC chip into the badge (think Apple Pay) and hold a NFC-enabled device up to the badge to collect lead info. If your vendor doesn’t support NFC badge scanning then they’re not ready for the future and might not be ready to support you down the road.

17. What does your solution offer, on the back end, to enrich lead data and ensure that everything is up-to-date post event?

Let’s say that your team has a great conversation with an interested buyer. Your team collects their business card to follow up. But, wait! This person’s business cards was printed over a year ago and their phone number has since changed. Look for an ELM service that will enrich data. A superior solution will add key lead data such as gender, age, social presence, affinities/interests, social profile URLs, and much more.

18. Can you help me qualify my leads? Do you provide lead scoring and grading?

Lead qualification will help you differentiate look-alike leads and keep your sales team focused on important leads. Scoring helps measure how engaged a lead is, and grading measures how well they match your ideal buyer criteria.

19. Can you help me distribute my leads and report back to me on which reps are missing any response time requirements we put in place?

You might need to distribute leads based on various criteria, such as geography, names accounts, job titles, and more. You might also be interested in adding SLAs and report back to management for any reps that don’t follow up with your leads in time. Make sure your vendor can support your lead distribution and SLA needs, whether you have them now or are planning for them in the future.

20. If I have a list of registrants, can you help me market to them and/or load them into the app to search for them at my event?

Some providers have communication platforms that can help you reach out to a list of registrants prior to the show and build rich profiles at the same time. If you have registrants, you might also want to search for them on the lead capture app, select them, and pre-fill the form with their information. Make sure your vendor can help you make the most out of your registration lists.

21. Can you track the entire lifecycle of a lead, before and after an event?

Your engagement with a prospect may not start, and hopefully doesn’t stop, at your event. Look for an event lead management solution that can keep all engagement (inbound/outbound) in a timeline in addition to what info was collected when the lead was captured at an event. Examples of that activity are website visits, email link clicks or content downloads.

To set up an appointment to ask our team these questions, click here.

Ryan Schefke

How to Plan for a Successful Automation Strategy

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How to plan for marketing automation with a “TOPS” approach? Team, Objectives, Personas, Scenarios

Planning a successful automation strategy shouldn’t be done in a vacuum. It should be methodically planned out and executed only after your plan is created. But how do you start a plan? We came up with an easy acronym to help you. Whether your automation strategy is for sales automation, marketing automation, event automation, or all of the above, all strategies should cover a basic approach (at a minimum). We call this approach the TOPS strategy. If done right, you’ll find yourself at the top.

TOPS stands for Team, Objectives, Personas, and Scenarios. It’s an easy way to remember how to assemble a great automation strategy. Let’s cover each of these points in more detail, starting with Team. Having a great team is important and probably goes without saying. The real point is that you shouldn’t go at it alone. Use other members of your organization to put together your version of a dream team. Your team could include should include at least two of the following: data scientist, marketing person, salesperson, and content creator. Gather your team and let them know you’re trying to plan a successful automation strategy.

Next, identify your objectives. Ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish. With your team in the room, whiteboard a mind map that identifies your end goals. Are you trying to convert people (collect their information), drive demonstrations of your product, increase awareness, educate, etc. You might want to start with a bunch of different objectives, but keep it simple. I’ve always learned there’s only one way to eat an elephant – and that’s one bite at a time. Pick your one objective, run with it, then rinse and repeat using your automation strategy.

The “P” in TOPS stands for persona. A persona is the type of person you are targeting. This could be an ideal buyer, partner, etc. Come up with criteria for who you’re trying to target/sell to with your strategy. For example, with our business, we commonly target marketing leadership. So the role is marketing, with titles containing “Chief” or “VP”. List out all your criteria with your team. Once you’ve identified the persona, put yourself in their shoes. Empathize a bit. If you were them, what messaging and/or communication would interest you? It’s important not to think like a vendor, but think like a prospect.

Finally, run through different scenarios. Come up with messaging around each scenario. For example, if you were to execute your automation strategy what would trigger it and what would you say to your targeted persona? Let’s begin with a simple one. When someone submits a contact us form, what information do you want to collect on them? Who do you want the lead to go to using what criteria? What do you want to respond to the lead with? How do you want to nurture the lead (what will you say to them and for how long?). It’s not uncommon to have 10s of different scenarios you’ll go through. Start with one (remember that elephant), and then tackle the next one.

In summary, remember your TOPS strategy when implementing automation to help scale your sales and marketing. Having a team, objective, persona, and scenario are the four basic steps to go through for any successful automation strategy. Alright, let’s get going. We look forward to seeing you on TOP(S)!

Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Sales and Marketing Automation Solutions Provider Lead Liaison Celebrates Major Milestone

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Dallas, TX – Lead Liaison officially opened for business in November 2013 with a clear vision: to help companies drive revenue by scaling sales and marketing. They made a splash with the introduction of a website visitor tracking solution. A few short months later, a fully integrated marketing automation solution was launched. Over the years, Lead Liaison has grown exponentially with last month marking five years in the industry.

Founder, Ryan Schefke, shares why he acted on his vision to create sales and marketing solutions that drive revenue. “I spent 15 years working for organizations, from large to small, that constantly had sales and marketing teams operating in silos. Most of my time was spent in the sales organization. I always wanted more leads, better quality leads, and software that could help me and my team do our jobs better.”

“I couldn’t handle the constant differences between sales and marketing teams and had to take action,” Schefke continues. “We first created a website visitor tracking solution because it’s an essential component that all businesses should have to support their sales and marketing. It’s the only way to close the loop on inbound and outbound activities as it ties it all together. We’ve evolved to be much more than that. When I reflect back over these five years on our progress, I’m blown away by the breadth of our portfolio and the number of businesses that have sought out our help to take them to the next level. We’re helping marketing teams, sales teams, and more importantly, we are helping both of them work better together – that’s the ultimate goal.”

From the beginning, Lead Liaison has focused on building a suite of solutions for marketing and sales teams. Last year they launched an event lead management solution, GoExhibit!™, which integrates seamlessly with almost any CRM or marketing automation platform – including their own marketing automation platform called Lead Management Automation (LMA)™ and their own CRM, aptly named OneFocus™. They’ve taken the market by storm, quickly becoming a leader in event lead management.

“Our focus on events started in October 2017 with our lead capture app, GoCapture!™. We’ve gone on to develop an end-to-end Event Lead Management (ELM) solution called GoExhibit!™, which is powered by our original app,” says Sam Darrell, VP Product Management at Lead Liaison. “We already provide incredible value to sales and marketing teams. Our enterprise customers were asking us for a solution that could replace antiquated badge scanners and poor quality OCR apps, while also integrating instantly with all other marketing and sales efforts.”

Also in recent months, Lead Liaison enabled advanced security features to support evolving online privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Their Sales Enablement solution debuted in December 2017.

Lead Liaison has not wavered in their core values of simplicity, personalized and intimate support, and flexibility. Clients continue to benefit from this clear focus, and that is represented in top ratings on esteemed software review sites such as Capterra and G2 Crowd. The company is forecasting 2018 revenue growth to be double that of 2017, another indicator of stability and growth for a company that plans to be a force in the sales and marketing automation industry for years to come.

To learn more about Lead Liaison’s innovative solutions, visit leadliaison.com.   

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that helps businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of marketing automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and additional website engagement tools to boost sales effectiveness. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible business model, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality, all specifically tailored for mid-sized businesses, into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237).

event lead management
Lead Liaison

Creative Uses for Lead Capture

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Download the PDF here!

To access our Event Lead Management Kit, which includes this resource, click here. 

Businesses can use Lead Liaison’s GoExhibit!™ in many ways – it’s not just for trade shows! GoExhibit!™ is an event lead management solution, powered by a slick mobile app, aptly named GoCapture!™. If you’re using an event lead management solution like ours, this article will help you explore the other ways you can use the system and/or mobile app to capture leads. We’ve rounded up seven creative uses for event lead capture using our system.

Everyday Lead Capture

Let’s say you are a salesperson running into a meeting with a client at their office. In the elevator on the way up to your appointment, you meet someone that might benefit from your service or solution. You grab their business card and hope to A) not lose it, and B) remember to enter the information into your CRM later. Or, you could open GoCapture!™ on your mobile device, quickly take a picture of the business card, have it automatically transcribed, and sync it with your CRM. Problem solved!

Corporate Event

Does your company host, or attend, corporate events or conferences? Use the power of GoExhibit!™ to collect lead information in a streamlined, unobtrusive way. The system also includes options to create your own custom badges with QR codes. A customized registration and check-in portal can be used at the front door to help manage attendance.

Trade Shows

Exhibiting at an industry trade show? Forget those antiquated badge scanners and opt for end-to-end event lead management. Use GoExhibit!™ to announce your attendance at the event via marketing emails, social media, and more. Go a step further and use complementary marketing services that integrate with GoExhibit!™ to book demos/meetings at the trade show. Then, have your team use the GoCapture!™ app at the trade show to collect lead information via badge scan, business card transcription, attendee list search, or manual form fill.

Lead Kiosks

Speaking of trade shows, another way to encourage excitement with potential prospects about your service or solution is to set up individual kiosks at your booth that allows visitors to fill out their information if they are interested.

Experiential Marketing

Instead of a table, a sign, and a person – create an experience at your booth. Your experience should engage the prospect in some way. Consider these 20 examples of experiential marketing to get your creative juices flowing. Be smart about setting up the experience though. When people engage, capture their information. GoCapture!™ can be configured to display custom content, such as videos, text, maps, and more to perfectly pair with your experiential display.

Product Showcase

Consider setting up your booth with individual solution areas. Each area could showcase specific solutions. Have each solution on display with a tablet sitting next to it. The tablet could run a purpose-built lead capture form that has an explainer video embedded into it. This approach helps you tailor the experience to specific solutions and results in higher lead conversion rates.

Sales Qualification

One aspect of GoExhibit!™ is lead qualification. Lead Liaison uses a system of scoring and grading to qualify leads. Have your sales team use GoCapture!™ as the primary method to get new leads into your system. Set up automated processes around each new lead that qualifies them. For example, give all CMOs captured with GoCapture!™ a grade increase from C (default you might set) to B. And, if the person is located in the USA then increase their grade another level, to A. On the backend, administrators can filter out ideal buyers captured anywhere, anytime, by your sales force using GoCapture!™.

Check-In System

If you host your own marketing events, then using GoExhibit!™ should be a no-brainer. With the ability to create custom badges ahead of time or on the fly, sign people in at the front desk, or register new attendees, your team can streamline the check-in process across all of your events. Leads are readily available after the event, in GoExhibit!™, for export or further processing. Statistics on attendance and return on investment (ROI) for your event is visible in the GoExhibit!™ dashboard.

 

To learn more about GoExhibit!™, request a free, customized demonstration here.

Lead Liaison

9 Trade Show Booth Design Ideas to Delight Visitors [Infographic]

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Social media may have transformed the way that brands and customers engage with one another, but trade shows persist as a cornerstone of face-to-face marketing. And precisely because so much brand interaction has been digitalized, the potential for trade shows to create a meaningful and memorable brand experience has only become greater. 

One of the greatest benefits of participating in trade shows is that attendees, simply by virtue of deciding to be there, are incredibly receptive to your message. A striking design is arguably the most important factor when it comes to attracting these open-minded, warm leads into your booth.

But standing out in a crowd of competitors is no easy task. While more traditional, tried-and-true booth design schemes that consist of a graphic backdrop, spandex table covers, and a few banner stands may be the best option for traditionally conservative industries, the trends in trade show booth design have in recent years taken a turn for the stunning and creative. Trade show attendees are increasingly expecting more from the exhibits they visit, and a well-designed booth space plays a decisive role in all of these expectations.

Effective trade show booth design ideas serve to do a lot more than just look good. They are the backdrop against which an entire brand experience can unfold. From the first encounter, to interacting with your staff, to leaving your booth with a goodie bag, your trade show booth design can either enhance or detract from a visitor’s experience every step of the way. Engineering your exhibit to be both attractive and functional, both unique and on-brand, may be the single most important project you undertake to make your brand’s next trade show appearance worthwhile.

Looking for some trade show booth design ideas? The following graphic offers nine creative trade show booth design ideas that are eye-catching, versatile, and sure to impress:

Author Bio:

Joseph Robison is the Marketing Manager at Coastal Creative, a large format printing company based in San Diego that specializes in designing stunning trade show booths and branded spaces. He is also the founder of Green Flag Digital, an SEO and digital marketing consultancy.

Lead Liaison

5 Creative Ways to Generate Leads You’ve Probably Never Tried Before

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When your company needs to generate leads, your goals should be to find creative methods that allow you to communicate and network better with other businesses as well as untapped customers and, simultaneously, establish yourself and your company as an authority figure. You need to cut through the noise and get in front of people. When you show up, you need to be remarkable so that people see you as an expert and want to work with you. Here is a look at five ways to generate leads by getting in front of your prospects, where they are. 

1. Slack Channels

Slack channels are tight-knit communities and, typically, you need an invitation to join them. However, once you get access to a channel, you can begin one-to-one communication with channel members or send broadcast messages to everyone. Slack channels are usually active, so you’re able to get in front of people passionate about a specific topic. By joining Slack channels, you can grow your brand within that community, and then help the other people in exchange. By helping others consistently, you can grow your status and authority within the group. Remember to bring value always and don’t spam.

2. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is an effective way to improve your company’s reach. Websites require content to attract new visitors and nurture their existing audience. When you provide blog posts for other sites, you gain exposure, and they benefit as well because they get to publish great content. Guest blogging positions you as an authority figure because a website is endorsing your work by publishing it. Guest blogging also helps you build backlinks, enhance your search placement and drive relevant traffic to your site.

3. Answering Quora Questions

Quora is a wonderful way for you to answer important questions relevant to your industry and build your credibility. Make no mistake that answering Quora questions has a similar effect to that of guest blogging. Quora is an adult version of Yahoo Answers where people are actively asking for help and looking for specific answers. At the time of this writing, the website recently reached 100 million monthly unique visitors. Quora allows people to answer questions and establish themselves as an authority figure.

Answer questions that come from members of your community and industry. Doing so will help you target users who fit the profile of your ideal customer. When you use this website, you can create a company profile and then answer the questions that are related not just to your company but your industry as well. You can handle reputation management by searching for questions that people are asking related to whatever service or products you provide and then answer those questions. You can even set it up so that each member of your team creates a unique profile and team members can answer questions in conjunction with one another based on different levels of expertise.

4. Syndicate Your Content

Syndicating your content gets more mileage out of a regular blog. There are so many online platforms that have many visitors, and they often need quality content. Blogs, community websites, social media sites, forums and question-and-answer sites are an ideal solution. Syndicating content is a terrific way to enhance your lead generation because it amplifies the reach of your content, allowing you to tap into an audience you might not have otherwise been able to access. All of this optimizes your returns and puts your content in front of a demographic with a high potential for sales.

You aren’t just restricted to publishing your content to your immediate audience of current customers. When you put effort into making high-quality content, you should be rewarded by expanding your reach, so prospects get to see what it is you offer. Sharing your content through syndication also improves search engine ranking with enhanced credibility and relevant backlinks. This puts you in a place of authority as a leader in your industry, which generates more traffic and potentially more qualified leads.

With content syndication, you can collaborate with another company to co-market your promotional efforts where you both promote a single piece of content. You can also swap content with another brand where you both agree to promote one another’s content on your respective social media channels.

5. Public Speaking

Public speaking is a superb way to gain a captive audience. In today’s world, as things become increasingly more internet-based, people are trusting the face-to-face selling method much more. Known as the podium effect, being a public speaker will position you as an expert in the industry, which is what each of these methods helps to do. Focus when you start at small, intimate events. This will help you figure out what your audience wants to hear and help you fine-tune your selling methods. The right strategy is important in setting your business up. You can begin at small events with just 10 people at a time put on personal company events where you make an offer at the end for your attendees. When you start out, you want to create your own events so you can craft your signature talk and gain experience with your audience. Libraries or community centers make ideal places for these local events. You can book area venues and market it to local residents. Once you become more comfortable with it, you can host bigger events. Just remember that, at the end of each public speaking event, you need to give your attendees something like a free consultation or the opportunity to try a product for free. Give them an offer they can’t refuse. On the topic of syndication, if you know other people are having events, and they are looking for speakers like at expositions, conferences or trade shows, offer yourself as a speaker. Even if it’s just a few minutes, this could be a low-cost opportunity with a lot of return.

Overall, the purpose for each of these five creative methods is to allow you a way to generate leads by establishing yourself as an authority figure. You want to expand your reach and make sure that people see you as a leader in your industry — someone they can trust to whom they can turn for answers.

To learn how to properly manage those leads, once you have them, contact us here.

Bio

Morgan Williams is a Sales Professional and B2B Lead Gen Consultant based in Chicago, IL  For a case study on how to use automated cold email marketing to spend $166.70 and make $3,435.30 in profit (2,061% ROI – email templates included), head over to his blog.