Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Makes Splash in Lead Capture Category at EXHIBITORLIVE 2019

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Dallas, TX – GoExhibit!™ made its trade show debut at EXHIBITORLIVE in Las Vegas this week. The event lead capture & management solution has been sweeping the industry since its release in late 2017. This was the first time the company showcased it live.

Conference attendees were highly attracted to the revolutionary solution for event lead capture. Lead Liaison’s booth buzzed with excitement as the staff demonstrated GoExhibit!™ by using it to collect their own lead data. GoExhibit!™ integrated with ITN International, the show’s lead retrieval provider, to support lead capture via NFC badge scan. Booth attendees received a text message follow up, often before they had even left the booth, and ensuing communication as post-show engagement continued. Real-time demonstrations emphasized the company’s belief in immediate, intentional, and personalized follow up. GoExhibit!™ was mentioned in several of the educational sessions and conference panels throughout the week, as well.

“The show reinforced the fact that we have an industry-leading solution with distinct competitive advantages that people are craving,” says Jen Worsham, Director of Marketing at Lead Liaison. She continues, “Hand-held badge scanners are antiquated, and alternative lead capture solutions don’t hold a flame to the fully-integrated, easy-to-use features of GoExhibit!™”

Lead Liaison surpassed its goals for the show. Much of their success can be credited to the use of their own solution at the event. In addition to using their mobile lead capture app, aptly named GoCapture!™ in the app stores, Lead Liaison had laptops on-hand tracking real-time event data. Representatives were able to demonstrate the Events Dashboard, a key feature of GoExhibit!™. The Events Dashboard displayed live data such as Total Prospects Captured, Average Engagement Score, Top Performing Sales Representatives, and more. Lead Liaison also showcased another crowd pleaser with their Run Your Own Event solution. This solution was on full display at EXHIBITORLIVE 2019, demonstrating how businesses can use it to run user conferences, vendor conferences, and road shows.

What sets GoExhibit!™ apart from the other lead capture exhibitors is the fact that it enables businesses to foster stronger relationships from capture to close. GoExhibit!™ integrates with a multitude of CRMs, including Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as marketing automation platforms such as Salesforce.com Pardot, Oracle Eloqua, Salesforce.com Marketing Cloud, Adobe Marketo, and HubSpot. It supports all types of events; even those without badges. It’s compatible on all devices and Lead Liaison doesn’t charge per user, so companies can have as many lead capture devices onsite as they want.

Lead Liaison plans to attend several other shows in 2019. “This kind of environment is exciting because we can actually see the spark in people’s eyes,” says Worsham. “It solidifies our position in the market with a solution that stands out from the crowd. We were so excited to be a part of the show this year, and we enjoyed connecting with both current and prospective clients. This year’s theme was “Connect With Your Species” and that’s something I believe we did well. You’ll definitely be seeing more of us.”

To access an overview of GoExhibit!™ features, click here.

About Lead Liaison 
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that help businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and sales automation to boost sales effectiveness. Additionally, Lead Liaison is the global leader in event lead management, enabling companies to capture and manage leads from trade shows and events. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible architecture, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality 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). To access our Press Kit, visit http://www.leadliaison.com/press-kit.

Sales Prospecting Manual
Ryan Schefke

Sales Prospecting Manual: The Secret to B2B Sales

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To download the Sales Prospecting Manual: The Secret to B2B Sales white paper .pdf, click here.

Overview

This manual is a step-by-step guide to sales prospecting. The manual was curated through real-life experience with the sales team at Lead Liaison. By following this manual your B2B sales team should expect to have a smooth-running, well-oiled B2B prospecting engine that you can use to fill the top of the funnel for $.78 per lead!

Get Prepared

Step 1: Identify your Target Market

Look at your past successes and determine which markets/industries you’re getting the most traction in. For example, is it the finance industry, health industry, high-tech, etc. Keep your focus on a specific marketing or vertical and base it off of past wins.

Step 2: Build your Team

Your team will consist of a Business Development Representative (also known as an Inside Sales Representative, or “BDR”) and a Sales Representative. Your BDR can be an internal resource or external resource, such as a contractor or part-time hire. With the B2B prospecting methodology covered in this manual, we’ve used an external resource. Here’s how we did it:

  1. Visit upwork.com. Upwork is a marketplace to hire contractors.
  2. Post a new job (it’s free).
  3. Here’s our post:
    • Title: Looking for an admin to help with data entry.
    • Description: Help with prospecting by following a guide to finding contacts using tools provided by our company. Enter the contacts into our sales automation system. Rinse and repeat.
  4. Hire your BDR for $3 per hour! Yep, we’re not joking. Here’s proof:

Hiring a BDR

5. Next, find your Sales Representatives. We suggest having Sales Representatives that work for your company. The Sales Reps will take leads from this process that engage (express interest or interact in some way) and follow up on them. They will also execute manual tasks that are combined with automated tasks as part of a sales plan that systematically, and intelligently, reaches out to your prospects.

Step 3: Build a Semi-Automated, Systematic Sales Plan

This step is a must if you want to build a prospecting machine. These systems are sometimes referred to as Sales Engagement, Sales Enablement, or Sales Automation. Regardless of the name, they all serve a similar purpose. That is, to make a salesperson’s job easier by making them more efficient with their day-to-day sales efforts. Enterprise systems will include a few key components:

  1. Sales plan
  2. Task manager
  3. Integration with CRMs and marketing automation platforms

The Sales plan is a combination of various actions such as emails (automatic and manual), offline communication (handwritten letters, postcards, etc.), tasks, and digital communication (text messaging) that can be added into your plan. With the right system, there are two ways to manage your plan:

  1. Create one plan that all of your Sales Reps can share.
  2. Create individual plans for each of your Sales Reps.

In the process below, we’re using method #1. Your VP of Sales or someone leading your sales team could create the plan and your entire sales team can benefit from it. This results in consistent communication for your brand and overall messaging. Our system of choice in this example is a Sales Enablement system from Lead Liaison. Other providers call their Sales Plan “Sequences” or “Cadences”, while Lead Liaison calls them “Rhythms”.

Here’s how to create your Sales Plan using Rhythms: http://youtu.be/6bKzl9LZcX8?hd=1

Start Prospecting

Step 4: Find the Right Person

In this part of the manual, these are the instructions you can provide to your BDR (the $3 resource).

  • Do not select more than two (2) people at the same company. It’s suggested you use only a single contact to avoid any issues with domain reputation.
  • Use these methods, in this order, to find the right person to target:
  • Look for these people (you fill in the X, Y, and … in the section below to give your BDR specific instructions). Remember, you should create a Saved Search in LinkedIn Navigator to simplify this process for your BDR.
    • First, anyone with “X” in their title.
    • Next, anyone with “Y” in their title.
    • Finally, if there’s no match on the above look for these titles:
      • …
      • …
    • Ideally, you’re looking for these key job titles:
      • …
      • …

Step 5: Find their Email Address

Have your ISR install these tools as their ISR Prospecting Stack. Using these three tools will guarantee your ISR can find a valid email address f86% of the time. See a more detailed analysis on this fact in this blog post.

  • Install the top three (3) ranked tools below. Each tool has a video demonstrating how to install it and how to use it.
  • Since there is an average of 21 business days in a month, use two separate email addresses (personal email such as @gmail.com addresses are fine) and install Clearbit Connect with those email accounts. You can use the free version of Clearbit Connect to generate 10 new email addresses per day for each business day in the month. If you need more, open more Clearbit Connect accounts.
  • Use your company’s Norbert account.
  • Use your company’s Hunter account.
RankToolInstallationUsageFree CreditsMinimum Paid Plan (Annually)Price per Email (Based on Annual Paid Plan)Notes
1Clearbit ConnectHow to use Clearbit Connect100 emails per month$6,000$.50 (12K emails)Paid Plan can be divided into 5 seats. Only pay for verified matches.
2NorbertNorbert installationHow to use Norbert50 emails$468$.039 (12K emails)Credits rollover. Charges on successful verification.
3HunterHunter.io installationHow to use Hunter.io100 per month$408$.034 (12K emails)Share across users for paid plan. Also crawls web. Use web for single credit instead of browser plugin.

Step 6: Enter Data Into your Sales Automation System

In this step, your ISR will enter data into a Sales Automation system, in this case Lead Liaison’s Rhythms. After the BDR finds the contact, create the Prospect in Lead Liaison and add them into a Rhythm.

Start Selling

Step 7: Use a Task Manager

Now that your BDR engine is running full steam, and people are added to your Sales Plan, that’s where the hand-off from the BDR to the Sales Rep occurs. The Sales Rep simply has to execute all of the tasks created by your Sales Plan. Since we’re using Lead Liaison’s Rhythms for our Sales Plan, it also comes with a nice, built-in task manager. Every manual email or task used in your Rhythm will get populated in your task manager. Here’s how to manage your tasks with the task manager: http://youtu.be/0heTYixWjZ4?hd=1.

As you work through your tasks, make sure to do your research. If you’re selling to major accounts, in what’s referred to as Account-Based Sales or Account-Based Marketing, research is really important at this stage. In the section below, we cover our favorite tools for research and provide some videos on how to use each tool.

Task Manager

Step 8: Research

Identify Technographics (Datanyze)

If it’s important for you to know what technology (lead gen, marketing automation, content management system, email marketing program, etc.) your prospect is using use a system like Datanyze (now owned by ZoomInfo) or BuiltWith to search technographics.

  1. Install Datanyze Insider for free: https://www.datanyze.com/insider
  2. Here’s a video on how to use it to find Technographics: http://youtu.be/0fF23vXfVoo?hd=1

Check out Funding Events (Crunchbase)

Funding events, competitors, financials, and more can be found with Crunchbase.

  1. Access Crunchbase.
  2. Review key company information: http://youtu.be/EfeGIK6pBhw?hd=1

Read the News (Owler)

Owler does the best job in the marketplace for finding competitors. If this information is useful to you, access Owler.

  1. Head to owler.com and sign up for free.
  2. Search the company for News, Competitors, and Press Releases. Here’s an example: http://youtu.be/fJsno3l_zLg?hd=1

Summarizing the Prospecting Stack

Here’s a summary of what your company would need to invest in subscription services for the total prospecting stack. We broke up the stack into a BDR Stack and Sales Rep stack. We computed a Cost-Per-Lead, or CPL, for this prospecting effort based on 10,441 leads per year. Not bad for $.78 per lead!!!

BDR Prospecting Technology Stack

TOOLANNUAL COST
Clearbit ConnectFree
Voila Norbert$468
Hunter$408
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Professional$779.88
Lead Liaison Sales Enablement User License$900
TOTAL INVESTMENT$2,555.58

Sales Representative Sales Technology Stack

TOOLANNUAL COST
Datanyze InsiderFree
Owler Free
Crunchbase $348
TOTAL INVESTMENT$348

Total Investment and CPL

TOOLANNUAL COST
Clearbit ConnectFree
Voila Norbert$468
Hunter$408
Datanyze InsiderFree
Owler Free
Crunchbase $348
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Professional$779.88
Lead Liaison Sales Enablement User License$900
Research Labor ($3 per hour).

Based on 40 leads per day. 10 minutes per lead.

261 working days in a year.

$5,220
TOTAL TOOLS$2,903.88
TOTAL LABOR$5,220
TOTAL INVESTMENT$8,123.88
COST PER QUALIFIED LEAD (CPQL). 10,440 per year.$.78
Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Announces Attendance at EXHIBITORLIVE 2019

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Dallas, Texas – Sales and marketing solutions provider Lead Liaison will be exhibiting at the 2019 EXHIBITORLIVE conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The global leader in event lead management will be showcasing their solution, GoExhibit!, and how it manages event leads from capture to close. This three-day event will be held on February 25-27, 2019 at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center.

Lead Liaison will present exciting new capabilities such as NFC badge scanning, voice recording, branding capabilities, registration and badge printing, and more. They will demonstrate GoExhibit!’s ability to be a holistic solution, from form customization and lead capture, to distributing and following up with the lead while interest is still at its peak, to sending the lead on to CRMs and marketing automation platforms. They’ll also be announcing the industries first lead capture app that runs on Microsoft Windows, allowing companies to capture leads on any Windows device, such as Windows mobile devices or Surface tablets.

EXHIBITORLIVE is The Professional Development Conference for Trade Show and Corporate Event Marketing. This five-day educational event features 170+ sessions and workshops with the industry’s largest exhibit hall, including nearly 300 exhibitors. This is where you will find the latest products and resources shaping the future of exhibiting and corporate event programs.

“Our attendance at EXHIBITORLIVE underscores our dedication to businesses looking for a superior lead capture and management solution,” says Jen Worsham, Director of Marketing at Lead Liaison. “We look forward to sharing our solution and connecting with attendees in a meaningful way.”

Get your free pass to EXHIBITORLIVE 2019 by clicking here. If you would like to schedule time with the Lead Liaison team, click here or come by booth 1056 during the show. More information on all of the exhibitors, sessions, and speakers can be found 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).

How to Find Email Addresses
Lead Liaison

How to Find Email Addresses

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Research Study on How to Find Email Addresses

If you’re in B2B sales then it’s important to know how to find email addresses. Lead Liaison did a study on 100 people to see if we could find their email address. We already had their correct email addresses (in other words, we knew the answer); but, wanted to tackle the project as if we were a sales person trying to find an email address.

We set out to figure out the best ways to do this. We scoured the web for the best tools, looked at using methods like Twitter, general web searches, guessing email patterns, etc. There’s really no easy and reliable way to find someone’s email by doing it on your own. Fortunately, there are some great software tools out there that took away all the hard work. Our study identified seven main software tools that can be used for free or for little to no charge ($.07 per lead). For our study, we took 100 people along with their domain names and manually entered them into each of the seven tools. It was a lot of work, but some really good results and learnings came from it.

The email addresses were sourced from prospects, address book contacts, and customers. Some of the tools allow bulk uploading, but we did it all by hand, one by one to save you the time! We ranked each of the seven tools based on price, quality, and user experience. The top three tools to find email addresses were Clearbit Connect, Norbert, and Hunter – in that order. In the analysis below, you’ll find a table that ranks each of the seven solutions. We created videos demonstrating how to install each tool and videos demonstrating how to find email addresses using each tool.

In the analysis of 100 email addresses, the top three tools were were Clearbit Connect, Norbert, and Hunter. The graph below shows a summary of the analysis. Here’s how to read it:

  1. Blue (Success Match Rate): Percentage of attempts the provider was able to successfully find the correct email address for the person we were looking for.
  2. Red (Wrong-Email Match Rate): Percentage of attempts the provider returned an incorrect email address for the person we were looking for.
  3. Yellow (Not Available Rate): Percentage of attempts the provider returned an incorrect email address for the person we were looking for.

See the section on the Top 3 Ways to Find Email Addresses below for a deeper analysis on the top 3 tools.

Email Finder Results

Find Email Addresses 86% of the Time

When we began this analysis we were skeptical that there were accurate ways to find email addresses. However, after this study we found that were were able to successfully find someone’s email address 86% of the time! You can do the same! That’s really an incredible result, and very accurate. The method we describe below is a full-proof plan for any sales and marketing organization who wants to develop a consistent prospecting process.

To find email addresses 86% of the time, install the top three ranked tools below. In the “Ranking Ways to Find Email Addresses” section below, each tool we analyzed comes with a video demonstrating how to install it and how to use it.

Since Clearbit Connect had the lowest amount of incorrect email addresses returned and didn’t use a credit unless it found an email, start your searching by using Clearbit Connect first. If you can’t find the email address in Clearbit Connect, then use Norbert next. Norbert had the highest accuracy (same as Hunter) but also the 2nd lowest error-rate. If you can’t find your email in Norbert, then use Hunter. After trying each of these solutions we’re confident that across all three one of them will show you the correct email address.

The methods above are a sure way to find an email address 86% of the time. We’re sharing the details of our study with you. Download the complete analysis below:

Find an email address for someone 86% of the time! Download our analysis of 100 people and domains to see the complete results for Clearbit Connect, Norbert, and Hunter.

Ranking Ways to Find Email Addresses

Below is our analysis and rank of seven tools to find an email address. Each column is explained below:

  1. Rank: Overall rank based on quality, price, and user experience.
  2. Tool: Name of the tool to find someone’s email.
  3. Installation: Video showing how to install the tool.
  4. Usage: Video showing how to use the tool to find an email address.
  5. Free Credits: Number of free credits the tool provides (noted one-time or per month).
  6. Minimum Paid Plan: Cost per year if you subscribed to the tool.
  7. Price per Email: Takes the total number of email addresses the tool provides in a 12 month period and divides that by the total paid plan amount in 12 months.
  8. Notes: Any tips or special notes for the tool.
RankToolInstallationUsageFree CreditsMinimum Paid Plan (Annually)Annual PriceNotes
1Clearbit ConnectHow to use Clearbit Connect100 emails per month$6,000$.50 (12K emails)Paid Plan can be divided into 5 seats. Only pay for verified matches.
2NorbertNorbert installationHow to use Norbert50 emails$468$.039 (12K emails)Credits rollover. Charges on successful verification.
3HunterHunter.io installationHow to use Hunter.io100 per month$408$.034 (12K emails)Share across users for paid plan. Also crawls web. Use web for single credit instead of browser plugin.
4SellhackSellhack installationHow to use Sellhack10 emails per month$36$.03 (1K emails)No credit rollover
5ToofrToofr / EmailFinder installationHow to use Toofr / EmailFinder15 emails$228$.038 (6K emails)Cancel anytime. $.0196 at $588 annual
6Find That EmailFind That Email installationHow to use Find That Email50 per month$348$.058 (6K emails)Cancel anytime
7Anymail FinderAnymail Finder installationHow to use Anymail Finder20 emails$588$.588 (1K emails)Credit system

Top 3 Ways to Find Email Addresses

In our analysis there were three clear winners, Clearbit Connect, Norbert, and Hunter. We discuss the reasons for the ranking and our experience below in more detail.

1st Place: Clearbit Connect

  • Price: A+ (Free), C (Paid)
  • Quality: A+
  • User Experience: B+

Out of 100 names and domains in our test, Clearbit Connect had the least amount of incorrect email addresses returned (4%). In general, it’s fair to say that Clearbit Connect was either accurate or could not find an email. We loved Clearbit Connect for a few reasons:

  • Clearbit Connect also doesn’t charge a credit unless it successfully finds an email address for you.
  • They had the least amount of incorrect emails.
  • It’s free with 100 credits (100 correct emails) per month. You can install it on any email account.

Use their Chrome Browser plugin for your research. It starts by clicking their icon, then entering in the domain name for the person you’re searching for. To find the domain name, head to the website where the person works. The domain name will be the value before the “.com”. For example, in “https://www.google.com” the domain name is “google.com”. If Clearbit Connect returns a company match, select it, if not hit enter.

Reasons we didn’t like Clearbit Connect:

  • Price: For a solid prospecting stack, you can stick with the free version of Clearbit Connect. However, if you’re looking to pay for it then heads up – it was the 3rd most expensive price per contact out of the seven tools we analyzed.
  • User Experience: The Chrome Browser plugin loaded inside our email inbox. As a heads up, it also starts to collect all of your email addresses from your account. This is a bit invasive, but could be a good trade depending on your goals.

Finding a Company Using Clearbit

In the next screen, enter the person’s name.

Finding a Person in Clearbit

2nd Place: Norbert

  • Price: C+ (Free), A (Paid)
  • Quality: A
  • User Experience: B-

Norbert was very accurate, and did not make a lot of mistakes. We found the Chrome Browser plugin was a nice (1st screenshot), but a little clunky at times. It seemed to have a few bugs in the User Interface. As a result, we switched over to their web application (2nd screenshot) which seemed a bit easier to use. The only tradeoff with Norber is that it took more time to find an email address. When compared with Clearbit Connect and Hunter, which were pretty much instant, it took up to several minutes at times to return a result. We didn’t mind this that much though, as we were playing the role of a B2B sales person. Queuing up searches in another top didn’t disrupt our workflow.

The other thing we didn’t like with Norbert is that it charged a credit for each request we made. Since Norbert either returned an incorrect result or no result at all 31% of the time, that means that 31% of the time you’ll get charged a credit and get no value in return. If you’re using the free version, it only gives you 50 email credits for one-time usage. Unlike Clearbit Connect and Hunter, the credits don’t reset every month. Once you’ve used your credits – you’re done, and you need to go for the paid plan. Fortunately, the paid plan is very affordable.

All things considered, the experience, the accuracy, low error rate, and cost per credit put Norbert in second place. Going for a paid plan here is worth considering as part of your prospecting stack.

Using the Norbert Chrome Plugin

Using the Norbert Web App

3rd Place: Hunter

  • Price: A+ (Free), A+ (Paid)
  • Quality: B+
  • User Experience: B+

Hunter was also a nice tool for finding an email address. We didn’t like using the Chrome Browser plugin as we found ourselves using double credits most of the time. It would search for the company details when we put in the domain, charging a credit, then when we put in the person’s name it charged a second credit. Instead, we switched over to the web version. In the screenshots below we show how you put in the domain name and name of the person you’re looking for. Here’s why we liked Hunter:

  1. It returned results almost instantly. Unlike Norbert, there was no waiting.
  2. Cost was very competitive. They were the 2nd least expensive solution out of all seven providers we analyzed.
  3. It returned the most number of accurate emails (tied at 69% with Norbert).
  4. It also scrapes the web, and shows exactly where the email address was found. That gave us added confidence in the results.
  5. It also showed a verification symbol, see the green icon below. This also gave us a confidence boost.

Based on quality, user experience, and price, Hunter was a close 2nd. The only reason why it came in third is because of the higher number of inaccurate emails that it returned.  It was 6% more inaccurate than Norbert, and 12% more inaccurate than Clearbit. You can’t beat the price per email though!

Using Hunter

My $876 B2B Email Finder Stack

Since our study was based on a B2B sales person researching email addresses, we wanted to make sure we have the right tools in our prospecting stack for finding an email address. We also have a budget to use as part of our sales enablement plan. Each of the top three tools offer free credits. However, if that’s not sustainable and you need a good set of tools to use for B2B marketing do the following:

  1. Use the free version of Clearbit Connect to generate 100 new email addresses in a month. The paid version will set you back $6K in a year. That’s a bit rich for our blood, so the free version did the trick.
  2. Buy a Norbert account. It’s gives you 50 free credits. However, a subscription is very affordable and worth the investment. At the time of this analysis, and annual subscription was $468.
  3. Buy a Hunter account. You could use the free version and get 100 emails per month; however, similar to Norbert, it’s very affordable and worth the investment. At the time of this analysis, and annual subscription was $408.

For $876 a year, I’d feel comfortable going to my boss and asking him/her for the money. Assuming you used each of the three tools above for your stack, you’ll be able to find about 12,000 email addresses in a year. That’s 1,000 correct emails in a month. That’s more than enough for a single person. Depending on your individual capacity and your approach to B2B sales; this solution could cover one to 20 B2B sales reps. The bottom line is that your cost per lead (CPL) is $.073. That’s less than a dime for a prospect! Compare that CPL to the CPL of other sources, such as paid search, trade shows, etc. Sure – you can argue that other channels are more qualified prospects, but you can’t beat the cost as long as you work your leads.

Pro tip: Use Lead Liaison’s Rhythms to feed your new prospects into a step by step sales plan so you can stay ultra-organized and be efficient with your prospecting.

In conclusion, whether you’re looking for a free stack or a B2B sales stack to find email addresses, you can’t go wrong with the aforementioned tools. We hope this study is helpful and gives you the answer to how to find email addresses.

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.

Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Launches Updates to Enterprise-Ready Software Solutions

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Dallas, TX – Lead Liaison is an enterprise-level software provider, specializing in event lead management, marketing automation, website visitor tracking, and sales enablement. This week, they announce cutting-edge advancements to their suite of solutions, ideal for large enterprises.

Their most recent inclusion is a Domo Connector, which allows users to incorporate extensive amounts of data collected in Lead Liaison into their Domo account and reporting dashboards. Domo is a software solution that specializes in data visualization, providing a way for companies to bring information together from multiple sources in order to summarize critical business information.

“An example of seeing this Connector in action would be when it’s used with trade shows or marketing events,” says Customer Success Manager, Ryan Schefke. “Companies can capture a lead at a trade show using our event lead management solution, and push that information into Domo to provide a visual overview of success.”

Lead Liaison also references their recent Privacy Management update as an additional resource for enterprise-level businesses. Lead Liaison’s Privacy Management solutions help companies remain compliant with current regulations such as GDPR. Lead Liaison is also Privacy Shield certified under the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks.

Security Profile customization is another feature that enterprise companies enjoy. This feature allows businesses to customize access for individual users or entire teams, allowing proper management of marketing and sales initiatives.

Lead Liaison enterprise customers also benefit from features like Single Sign On, other enterprise connectors such as Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics, and the fact that they run all content under SSL.

These updates position the company’s software as a scalable solution fit for large enterprises looking to acquire marketing and sales software with the highest value per dollar in the industry. To learn more, visit www.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).