Lead Liaison

Marketing Analytics: Turning Your Sales Funnels Into Data

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Marketing Analytics Sales FunnelRegardless of the size of your business, you probably have an idea of what your sales funnel looks like. Just in case you’re green on all this, your sales funnel refers to the process a customer goes through before buying from you. This process spans the time at which they become a lead through their (sometimes long) decision-making process, right up until the moment the sale happens. In most cases, a sale doesn’t mean the buyer is out of your funnel. Once customers buy there’s always the chance they can become repeat customers – thus, once in your funnel, customers are almost always in there. Sound marketing analytics can give you some idea of what stages of your funnel a typical customer is in and for how long.

Many business owners give the side-eye to the thought of truly sitting down to look at their marketing analytics. There are a variety of reasons for this – one could be lack of ability to interpret the data. Another could be the lack of easy tools one can use to track and interpret the data, as well as integrate it into the rest of your marketing plan.

Marketing Analytics Help You Make Decisions

The truth is, if you’re not digging into your marketing analytics to help you inform future directions for your business, you’re missing a hotbed of potential for new decisions and creativity in your business. Here are some examples:

Setting up Goals: Google Analytics allows you to set up Goals in your Analytics install. Goals can be used to track the actions users take on your site. For instance, if you want to see how often users who come to a certain page will click through a sequence of pages before filling out a form, Goals can track that. If you’d like to see how many users from Facebook are taking a certain action on your site, Goals can help you. Goals are a great way to set up and take full advantage of marketing analytics based on your funnel.

  1. You can learn more about setting up Goals at: http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&answer=1032415 or watching some helpful videos such as
  2. Melinda Samson’s Setting Up and Using Analytics Goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDNkXdOuhBc
  3. John Duffy’s Advanced Use of Analytics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijniFqC3PaM

Refining Your Funnel: Your sales data might actually show you that your funnel needs work. Are you overestimating the amount of time it takes for a client to decide they should use your services? Data will corroborate these kinds of hunches.

Marketing Analytics: Putting it all in the Cloud

Every organization should be watching to see how Marketing Analytics shows customers behaving on and using their site. You should be including data from your Marketing Analytics tools in your lead management system to give you detailed info about your leads. What is your typical lead conversion time? Where do the most highly converted leads come from? Are you truly getting the best ROI out of your marketing?

Lead Liaison is a system that can integrate marketing analytics and lead data to show you if your marketing decisions are helping you make the most out of your leads. It’s time to take a tour and ensure marketing analytics informs your business decisions today.

Lead Liaison

B2B Marketing Analytics: Metrics to Focus On (Part 3)

/0 Comments/in , , /by

B2B Marketing Analytics Metrics to Focus onPart 3 of B2B marketing analytics. In this post we continue the discussion about analyzing your B2B marketing ROI. As we mentioned in Metrics to Focus On (Part 2), the effectiveness of your blog and SEO practices can be measured in several ways. Such is the case for your social media and content marketing practices. In fact, your overall B2B marketing strategy should be analyzed for each marketing practice employed. Establishing your social media and content marketing ROI takes more than counting click-throughs and “likes”. Here are some key metrics to analyze for your social media and content marketing practices.

Social

Connections

Measuring the sales effectiveness of your B2B social campaign should not only be focused on esoteric behavior such as “likes” or followers. While metrics about linking can be an important indicator of brand awareness or favorability, those numbers represent a shallow level of engagement. Which social channels are actually driving sales? Connecting social engagement with revenues is more effective in evaluating social media ROI. Examine the number of conversions resulting from social connections to see how effectively your social messaging is being received.

Engagement (Comment Streams)

As with blogging, articles, and other channels that provide feedback via comments, social conversations should be analyzed. The unstructured conversations that revolve around your brand provide deeper insight into your markets compared to less expository activities like website visits. Social media monitoring should include a thorough analysis of comments received from Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and other inbound channels. Which threads are longest? What topics generate the most threads? Social engagement should be directly linked to revenue generation in order to evaluate social media ROI.

Channel Effectiveness

Not all social channels provide the same impact on your bottom line; the amount and complexity of messaging shared through SM streams varies. Although responses through different channels may be similar (likes, favorites, shares, retweets, etc.), the return from social channels is often variable because of the costs associated with SM activities. For example, a 140-character Twitter post typically will cost less than an artfully crafted image posted on Pinterest. Which channels provide a bigger bang for your buck?

Content

Channel Effectiveness

We’ve all heard that children learn in different ways. The same concept holds true for sales. The effect your messaging has on buying triggers will often vary according to the content channels used. For instance, some B2B buyers may be more sales-ready following a product video while others may be prepared to purchase following a podcast or webinar. Which assets drive website traffic, which ones generate comments, and, most importantly, which assets lead to conversions? Are product videos more effective or do webinars drive more sales? Examine which content channels lead to sales engagements.

Message Effectiveness

Within each content channel, the return from messaging should be analyzed. Which messages lead to extended engagements? Which ones drive leads to other content streams? It’s important to analyze your messages to determine what contributed to the success or failure of a campaign.

Shared Content

Once your content is viewed how often is it shared? Which content is being shared most frequently? Of course, the ultimate goal is to drive sales but content sharing levels are also an important objective of content marketing. Analyzing the frequency of shared content, as well as the duration of each exposure, can reveal how effectively your content appeals to your markets.

Our next post in this series will discuss the metrics you should analyze from your PPC and email practices.

Lead Liaison

5 Keys to Maximizing Demand Generation

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Maximizing Demand GenerationDemand generation requires discipline, patience, and focus. The process of building awareness, creating interest, and provoking action requires a deeper strategy than simply building a marketing campaign. Here are a five key considerations to maximizing demand generation:

Website as hub

Design marketing, sales, fulfillment, and customer service through the prime portal for the company – your website. This can increase efficiency when interacting with your markets and lead to greater demand for your solutions. The site can be used to aggregate contact data from marketing inquiries, product orders, shipments, and feedback forms. By enhancing visitor experience and maximizing the functionality of your site, it becomes the lead touchpoint and will convert customers to advocates.

Your website can be used as a demand generation vehicle in itself through design elements that align with a lead’s decision-making process, build engagement, and progressively reduce objections. In order to be effective at demand generation, it’s also important to ensure that the site appeals to market participants at different points in the buying cycle.

Deploy multiple tools

Effective demand generation requires a basket of tools. Start with an integrated marketing approach that deploys multimedia communication tools to cultivate relationships. Channels such as blogs or Twitter feeds provide effective exchange mechanisms where suspects, prospects, and customers can connect with your company and provide meaningful information that can be used for future marketing campaigns.

There is no shortage of options for database mining, touch point tracking, and contact management. Tools that manage the distribution of information and track lead activity provide more robust market interaction and granular analytics. And with marketing automation tools such as our Lead Management Automation™ platform, companies are able to cultivate lead relationships and measure campaign effectiveness.

Know thy audience

The first step is to analyze your markets. Not just demographics, but psychographics and buying triggers. It’s important to develop a persona or profile for your market(s) that provides marketing and sales with an audience they both can connect with. Marketing campaigns should be persona-centric, letting the audience figure out why they want your solutions.

Turn your marketing strategy from ego-centric to customer-centric. Ask questions, get others to praise your solutions, and make buyers feel good about choosing your solutions. Successful marketers understand who their buyers are by learning about what they do, what they care about, and how they see themselves. Above all, learn how to talk with your market(s) and not at them.

Remember the long term

In a perfect world your B2B sales cycle would be complete within 30 days. Maybe two weeks. But that’s just not the way most purchases happen. With lead times of six months, a year, or even 24 months, demand generation is a long-term proposition. Keep in mind, it can take up to ten impressions just to register in a suspect’s consciousness!

Integrate marketing, sales, and customer experience

Future demand is generated through reputation management. The reputation you earn is formed through the entire process a customer experiences, from first contact to solution delivery to satisfaction follow-up surveys. It is important to blend your marketing strategy, sales execution, fulfillment process, and customer feedback together.

Throughout the lead nurturing process a strategy of integrating marketing and sales touch points is essential to generating demand. Messaging is more effective when combined with a marketing inquiry follow-up call from a sales agent. As a lead moves through the marketing pipeline it often becomes necessary to execute sales calls in order to elevate a marketing-qualified lead to a sales-qualified lead.

Once a purchase is made, customer satisfaction feedback through forms and phone surveys help to deliver the expectation that the relationship doesn’t end with a sale. And though a sales conversion has taken place, demand generation is still necessary to maintain a long-term customer relationship.

Lead Liaison

B2B Marketing Automation Tips for 2013

/0 Comments/in , /by

B2B Marketing Automation Tips for 2013B2B marketing automation tips for 2013. Marketing Automation has streamlined the business-to-business marketing process, allowing lead generation, lead scoring, and lead nurturing to be systematically manageable using efficient software solutions. The following are several strategic tips to help gain the most qualified leads using the marketing automation machine.

Develop a Complete Profile for a Typical Buyer

The first and most important tip for using B2B marketing automation software is to establish a detailed and accurate profile of a typical buyer. Every buyer will be different, but there will be similar demographic qualities and behaviors that they will all exhibit. Lead scoring is a vital component of marketing automation and it works best when leads are ranked based on proven characteristics.

Start by assessing current B2B buyers to determine their job title, experience, budget, and the type of business they represent. Give each attribute a score based on relevancy. The next step is determining the normal online activity that signifies a buyer is interested in a product or service. Look at what links they click on and what material they download prior to purchasing. Gather all of the qualities to create a complete profile that can be compared against potential leads to determine their likelihood of conversion.

Ask the Sales Team for Input on Lead Scoring Criteria

Once a profile has been established, bring it to the sales team for their input. The sales team works directly with potential and existing clientele. They know what information and guidance buyers need to become customers. The sales team has a greater insight into leads, which they can share with marketing to create a comprehensive profile that will produce high-quality leads. Remember the philosophy that two heads are better than one. It might be worthwhile to include sales at the beginning of the process rather than the end.

Segment Leads based on Similar Scoring

B2B marketing automation is designed to gather an endless supply of leads based on online activity. The amount of leads marketing automation generates cannot be effectively nurtured and directed on an individual basis. By segmenting leads based on similar scoring attributes, marketers can develop customized approaches that will target large groups.

Develop Lead Nurturing Campaigns directed at each Lead Segment

Now that leads have been divided into segments, the final tip is to create compelling and informative nurturing campaigns geared towards each segment group. Lead nurturing campaigns need to speak directly to the B2B buyer. It should answer all of the lead’s questions and concerns while guiding them towards making a purchase.

The world of B2B marketing has changed drastically with the introduction of automated software. B2B marketing can now be managed using an efficient and systematic program for gathering, scoring, nurturing, and converting leads. In 2013, the focus will be improving this process using a complete buyer profile that includes input from the sales team, segmenting leads into defined groups, and developing personalized campaigns based on what each segment needs to know. B2B marketing automation can be a powerful tool if it is fully utilized.

Lead Liaison

B2B Marketing Analytics: Metrics to Focus On (Part 2)

/0 Comments/in , , /by

B2B Marketing Analytics Blog and SEOAs we mentioned in Metrics to Focus On (Part 1), effective B2B management requires you to focus on your b2b marketing analytics. Available analytics tools within lead generation and marketing automation platform provide impressive granularity that allows you to modify and improve your strategies. Here are key metrics to analyze for your blog and SEO practices.

Blog

Referral sources

Who is sending traffic your way? Sure, it’s great to get attention from third-party referrers but it can be even more beneficial when you understand who they are. What is their business? Who is their audience? The quality of your referral sources can directly affect readership and, consequently, revenue generation. Take the time to know your referral sources – it can lead to higher revenues.

Subscribers

A blog can be an effective inbound marketing asset when used as a lead nurturing tool. The sign of a productive lead nurturing tool is the number of followers who engage repeatedly with your brand. What is your number of subscriptions, sign up rate, and number of times a subscriber visits? Analyze the composition of your audience to determine targeted marketing opportunities.

Engagement

Automated marketing developers like our talented Lead Liaison team are finding ways to get deeper inside your market. Mining comment streams for data is a fairly new analytics tool that allows you to understand the tone, depth, and frequency of conversations via social sites, review sites, and others.
You can select keywords and phrases relevant to your business to analyze how the market is reacting to your blog posts.

SEO

Keyword performance

The keywords used in your site and marketing assets can make a significant impact on the effectiveness of your online presence. How productive are they? There are a number of tools available to analyze page ranking on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. according to the keywords and phrases you embed. Bear in mind that your keywords shouldn’t remain static; therefore, updating keywords to match traffic trends based on keyword performance analytics can be useful to managing your business.

Search rankings

How visible is your domain? Are your videos, articles, and other marketing assets reaching the first page? If your web pages are not being indexed effectively it can kill your conversion rates. Search engine optimization rules change regularly so analyze how well your marketing assets are currently being ranked. There are tools that deploy spider technology to analyze each page of your online presence for rank across multiple engines.

Inbound links

If you deploy multiple inbound assets such as social media, press releases, or product reviews, you’re probably using trackable links that connect your audience with landing pages or your website. Analyze the performance of these links as part of a marketing effectiveness evaluation. Tools like Google Analytics allow you to review which links are productive across search engines, referral sites, and other traffic generators.

The next post in this series will discuss the metrics you should analyze from your social media and content marketing practices.

Lead Liaison

B2B Marketing Analytics: Metrics to Focus On (Part 1)

/0 Comments/in , , /by

B2B Marketing AnalyticsB2B marketing analtyics and metrics to focus on, Part 1. Effective B2B lead management demands consistent analysis. There is no shortage of b2b marketing analytics reporting programs available, thereby there is no excuse to avoid reviewing your lead generation practices. A monthly or quarterly review can provide you with vital information which helps to determine marketing ROI. The first place to start is your website – the hub of your online marketing practices. There are seven key areas related to website traffic that should be included in your analysis.

Unique visitors

Analyze new exposures to your website. Unique views can shed light on the effectiveness of new marketing campaigns as well as your site’s position within organic search rankings. Cookies provide a mechanism which allows you to identify new and returning visitors. And a tracking application like our desktop client Streamer™ captures and displays unique IP addresses so you can view who is on your site and how long they are visiting.

Returning visitors

Users who return to your site may indicate greater interest in your solutions. It is important to analyze what pages a returning visitor is viewing and the duration of the return visit. This should tell you a bit about the purpose for the follow up visit. New page view metrics by returning visitors provide a good opportunity for a qualifying sales engagement.

Popular pages

Which pages are being viewed most often? If your product pages are getting the most hits, chances are there is interest from genuine prospects. Compare each page within your site’s architecture to determine if your visitors are onsite to learn about the company or to investigate your solutions.

Traffic source

Knowing how your visitors are finding you reveals specific strengths and weaknesses of your campaigns. Is your content marketing strategy effective in driving site traffic or is your search engine marketing strategy the key to bringing visitors? The source of your site traffic is an important identifier for two reasons: 1) it reveals what led a prospect to your site and 2) it helps determine the ROI of paid campaigns.

Referring websites

Google Analytics and other traffic analyzers reveal what sites your prospects are visiting prior to finding you. Not only does this reveal the research patterns of your prospects but what sites may make valuable marketing partners. Keep in mind that the more popular a referring site is, the higher ranking your site will receive.

Bounce rates

How long are your pages being viewed? Which pages are getting bounced more often or faster than others? The length of time a visitor remains on a page tells you a lot about the value of that page. If the bounce rate for a specific page is high analyze the page to determine if the content on the page is providing value to your visitors.

CTA performance

Analyze your landing page response rates. Are marketing assets driving traffic to your landing pages? Just as important: are your landing pages generating an adequate response rate from calls-to-action? Marketing experts indicate a 1-3% conversion rate is average response rate, a 3-5% rate is decent, and over 5% means you’re doing something right.

Our the next post in this series we will discuss the metrics you should analyze from your blogs and SEO practices.

Lead Liaison

Sales Qualification Processes: Inquiry vs. Lead

/0 Comments/in /by

Sales Qualification ProcessesFor small to medium sized businesses in particular, lead qualification is vital to sourcing the might be interested clients from the really are interested clients. You might be saying to yourself, “I already know how to qualify leads. I’m already doing this.” If you’re sending every interested party directly into your pipeline with no extra thought, or your sales team is treating basic inquiries like hot leads, you need a sales qualification process. And you need it now.

Sales Qualification Processes: The One-Man Show

When we talk about smaller companies, we could easily be referring to one person running a team or working individually. Freelancers and small business teams can benefit from lead qualification as much as larger businesses. Why? Categorizing leads properly eliminates wasting time on leads that aren’t really interested. If you’ve worked for yourself even a day, you know time is money. Chasing down people who will never convert is tantamount to ripping up a check – so it’s important to be able to qualify leads and sales properly.

A small team’s sales qualification process can be as simple as labeling the strength or interest of the lead within a CMS system. Fortunately, there are fully integrated lead qualification systems out there that make managing leads a breeze (hint for Lead Liaison). The problem is ensuring small businesses recognize the value of – and use – these resources to build a sturdy sales qualification process. Again, not every inquiry is a lead. If you’re a small business owner, better growth for your organization can depend on nailing down the right lead process for your business early on. By the time you wait until you’re larger to get a sales qualification process in place, you might have a tougher job on your hands than you would have if starting earlier.

Sales Qualification Processes: Larger Entities

For larger businesses, the sales qualification problem can have a little more to do with communication between teams. MarketingSherpa tells us that 61% of B2B companies send leads to the sales team without giving sales members any information on the quality of the lead.

This is a problematic practice because sales teams may use the same tactics to approach leads of different qualification levels. Many different kinds of negative results can stem from this. First off, an inquiry that could become a solid lead down the line may be put off by the level of contact or pursuit and decide not to go with your company. If you don’t believe this, try going online and filling out one of those moving company aggregate forms that blast your phone number out to several different movers. Your phone line will suddenly become very – active.

With no qualification or direction, your sales team could also spend time pursuing a lead that seems ready, but isn’t – while neglecting a lead that’s more prepared to close. Lack of proper communication between sales and lead gen divisions of a business is a pretty common thing. Just by having a sales qualification process in place, you can skip the frustration.

Lead Liaison has a powerful suite of sales qualification tools built into our lead management program. Don’t miss out on recording valuable information that could save you time and convert truly interested leads. Take a look at our competitive package plans and let us help you with a system that works for you.

 

Lead Liaison

Key Factors that Must Be Considered in B2B Lead Scoring

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Key Factors that Must Be Considered in B2B Lead ScoringLead scoring can be an incredibly valuable tool that can produce more qualified sales-ready leads provided that you start with the right criteria. Start by combining both the marketing and sales department’s knowledge of existing customers and develop a profile that represents a typical buyer’s demographics and behavior.

When creating effective and informative B2B lead scoring criteria, be sure to consider the following key factors:

1) Ask strategic questions to determine demographic characteristics that will identify if they are a decision maker.

  • What is your job title?
  • How many years of experience do you have in the industry?
  • How many years of experience do you have with the company?

 2) Identify demographic indicators that will determine whether a company has the ability to make the purchase. Create questions that will answer the following questions.

  • Do they have the budget for that particular product or service?
  • Do they have a need for that particular product or service?
  • Have they ever purchased a similar product or service?

 3) Look for behavioral indicators that will show a lead’s current engagement level.

  • Has there been an increase in the frequency of visits?
  • Did they registering for a newsletter or sign up for a mailing list?
  • Has there been an increase in the amount of time they spend per visit?

 4) Record behavioral factors that demonstrate they have an interest in a specific product or service.

  • Did they download a specific article or tutorial related to a product?
  • Did they watch a demo video on a certain product or service?
  • Did they sign up for a free trial for a particular product or service?

 5) Watch for the key behavioral indicators that demonstrate that they are ready to make a purchase.

  • Visiting a company’s contact page is a great sign that they are close to making a decision in your favor.
  • A return visit after downloading relevant material is another sign that someone is ready to make a purchase.
  • Anytime a person or business willing offers their contact information, especially a cell phone number, is an obvious sign that they are ready for the sales department.

Once a complete list of all characteristics and triggers has been created, they will need to be ranked based on how closely that attribute signifies a sales-ready lead. For example, visiting a contact page should be weighted heavier than if their budget matches your price. Indicators that display a higher engagement level will be ranked higher, since it shows sincere interest in a product or service.

These key factors are essential for creating a B2B lead scoring model that will effectively rank and prioritize leads. Double check these against the list you have created to ensure that you are asking all the right questions, so you have all the right answers.

Lead Liaison

10 Ways to Improve Email Marketing ROI

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Improve Email Marketing ROIEmail marketing can certainly boost your sales effectiveness. However, email campaigns can drag down your marketing ROI if the execution is flawed. Here are ten ways to improve email marketing ROI.

Clean Lists

Though B2B email list buying is not always the best way to go,  if you do purchase lists make sure the lists are “clean”. Studies have shown that on average over 20% of list records are not delivered. And ISP mail servers can prevent your domain from future messaging if your emails are repeatedly sent to invalid addresses. Random address checks can help determine if your lists are worth the money paid.

Chase Ambulances

With the digital footprints that can be seen today, there is plenty of data that can be used to target email recipients. For example, if a company recently leased new space and your business sells office furniture, a friendly email campaign saying “congratulations!” and offering discounted items can prompt a conversion.

Deploy Videos

Video marketing has skyrocketed for a reason. A 2012 study by Experian Marketing Services revealed that embedded video increased conversion rates by 21% for companies surveyed. In addition, CTR rates improved 7% to 13% by simply including “video” in the subject line for video messages.

Use Analytics

From video analytics to CTR, the data available through reporting programs is staggering. You can examine response rates, engagement duration, and message timing. Marketing automation programs, such as our Lead Management Automation™ platform, provide analytics that can be used to improve messaging, targeting, and timing.

 Go Mobile

Email messages should be designed to be easily viewed via mobile devices if you hope to compete. Email is often the preferred choice of marketers over SMS and IM (though each has their place in a robust marketing strategy) because it is less costly and easier to analyze. Plus, email can be sent to multiple recipients at a lower cost than text messages.

Combine Email and SMM

Email marketing provides a great partner channel with social media marketing. Through email integration with social media ROI from both channels can be improved. Email subscribers can easily share content, offers, and other information. Using Facebook or Twitter to provide email opt-in opportunities can be effective as well.

Make Landing Pages Convert

If your email recipients are routed to ineffective landing pages, your ROI drops. Even with solid CTR numbers, if your landing page cannot convert, the email was wasted. Align landing page copy with the email message but also provide more “meat”. A landing page visit should not simply rehash the email; provide an additional offer or include additional reasons to buy. Above all, make sure the landing page offers something substantial in exchange for the click-through.

Target Behavior

Frequent buyers should receive emails that encourage brand loyalty and repeat purchases. Email can also provide a feedback mechanism that allows customers to easily respond to customer satisfaction surveys. Take the time to analyze activities that have resulted from previous campaigns and implement messages that trigger similar behavior in subsequent campaigns.

Get Them Back to the Cart

Email can be used to target customers who abandoned ecommerce shopping carts during a site visit. An email message with a time-sensitive discount can be an effective way of resuscitating a pending purchase.

Avoid Being a Spammer

According to the February 2013 Symantec Intelligence Report, spam, phishing, and malware events have all decreased; however, spam still accounts for just over 64% of all email sent. Do everything possible to send “clean” emails so your company is not targeted as a spammer.