Lead Liaison

Financial Services Companies Without Marketing Automation are Losing to Competitors

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Financial Services Marketing Automation In the financial services space a chasm is forming. Progressive financial services companies are adopting marketing automation to deliver routine digital messages to prospective clients – called lead nurturing – while traditional firms are cultivating prospects using only old-fashioned methods. This is leading to a drop-off in client acquisition for those traditional firms when compared to the progressive firms that have automated their marketing practices. The problem for the traditional firms is, despite how effective those old-style tactics may be, some are losing ground to the progressive, digitally-marketed firms.

After all, plenty of statistics show most Americans use the Internet as a primary research tool when searching for products and services. That holds true in the financial services industry as well.

How can a marketing automation platform like our Lead Management Automation™ platform make the difference between inefficient marketing/sales practices and streamlined client acquisition?

Prioritizing the Best Leads

Our marketing automation platform provides a powerful way to focus your sales staff on leads that show the highest degree of interest in your services. Through a lead nurturing process that sends messages and information at scheduled intervals, the system can determine which prospects are advancing through your sales pipeline to become the hottest leads. Firms with no marketing automation platform must rely on poorly managed buying signals.

For smaller firms, scoring leads is a proven way to prioritize your prospects so the limited sales resources available can be focused on leads most likely to commit to you soon. Without lead scoring it can be difficult to determine which leads are the hottest.

Big Impression

Another benefit of marketing automation for smaller firms is that a well-managed marketing campaign presents a larger image to your prospects. By allowing your marketing staff to automate activities, your prospects “see” a company that appears to have a fully-staffed marketing department, which may be received more favorably than a small firm image.

Efficiency

Marketing automation delivers messages to more prospects more efficiently so your marketing staff can spend more time developing your brand. Once a prospect becomes a lead, the system can manage the lead development process by automatically delivering progressively engaging material until the lead passes a scoring threshold that moves him to the point where your firm’s salespeople should initiate contact. While this lead moves through the sales pipeline other leads are also being advanced to a sales-ready stage.

Build Credibility

By using a marketing automation platform financial services firms can develop a disciplined approach to client acquisition that builds credibility through a defined series of engagements. Firms can execute email campaigns, digital advertising strategies, online surveys, and other marketing practices in a way that cultivates prospects. Leads become familiar with your firm and trust is built through a process of consistent messaging that shows interest in their well-being.

More Opportunities

One of the most profitable revenue generation advantages financial firms have is in their ability to up-sell and cross-sell current clients. Without a marketing automation platform firms must devote personnel to contacting clients one-to-one to uncover additional sales opportunities. By using a marketing automation platform like our Lead Management Automation platform your firm gains visibility into existing clients’ interests or needs through their digital footprints and your sales personnel can be alerted when up-sell or cross-sell opportunities present themselves.

There are several more common marketing automation benefits for financial services firms. To learn about additional common benefits, and to determine how our Lead Management Automation platform will specifically benefit your financial services firm, contact our sales department at sales@leadliaison.com or 888 895 3237.

Lead Liaison

How the Silverpop $25 Million Funding is seen at Lead Liaison

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Silverpop FundingHow is the Silverpop $25 million funding round seen at Lead Liaison? One of our worthy marketing automation competitors, Silverpop, recently announced it raised $25 million in funding. It is good to see industry leaders like Silverpop, Eloqua, and Marketo achieve the financial backing they have over the past few years. This shows to us that the marketing automation space is proving itself to be a hugely potent vehicle. The financing those giants are receiving will surely help lift the marketing automation industry to new heights.

With the funding that Silverpop has achieved, our Lead Liaison team is confident that their technology – like ours (which delivers error-free, robust lead generation and lead management functions) – will become more powerful to marketers. They intend to devote mass amounts of money to improving  functionality, integration, and customization of marketing automation platforms. Their developments will be good for all of us.

But we’re here to tell you that having all that money doesn’t necessarily lead to better customer experiences in the marketing automation space. In fact, our products, like the user-friendly Lead Management Automation™ platform, perform marketing automation and lead management functions better than more costly platforms available* today, and we provide customer-centric support that sometimes gets lost as companies like Silverpop get big and focus on investor returns. Our boots- to-the-ground mentality means that we focus an entire team around solutions that fit your company. And It doesn’t take $25 million dollars to provide you with a quality marketing automation company.

The playing field in the marketing automation industry, from a product development standpoint, is fairly level. Lead Liaison has some of the best program developers and coders in the world developing our SaaS products. We applaud Silverpop in its impressive funding accomplishments. We just don’t think you should have to pay more for their products because of their financing successes.

To learn more about marketing automation and lead management visit our Revenue Generation blog or contact a Lead Liaison team member today.

*According to customer feedback in Q1 2013

Lead Liaison

Marketing Automation for Financial Services

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Marketing Automation for Financial ServicesAs our marketing automation solutions are being adopted by companies in more industries, we thought it would be helpful to explain how marketing automation for financial services companies such as accounting firms or financial advisors will help them. Many firms lack fully staffed marketing departments; typically one or two individuals are responsible for the multitude of marketing activities required to compete in the financial services space. The Lead Management Automation (LMA) platform allows financial services firms to execute robust marketing campaigns and manage leads that enter the sales pipeline more efficiently.

Marketing practices involve creating digital assets like email messages and display ads, delivering marketing assets to target markets, capturing lead information from inquiries, and preparing leads for initial contact. Fostering relationships can be accelerated when staff has the ability to examine lead information, determine the most likely customers, and manage leads through a sales pipeline. Because financial services often have limited marketing resources to perform these tasks, this technology becomes more attractive.

Some of the benefits of our Lead Management Automation platform for financial services companies include:

  • Delivering digital marketing content through automated schedules
  • Identifying lead sources from financial services networks and third-party referrers and Web publishers
  • Gaining visibility into clients specific pain points and interest drivers
  • Alerting staff to up-sell and cross-sell opportunities
  • Automatically qualifying leads for sales-readiness through parameters set within the platform (grading, scoring, buy signals, etc.)
  • Cultivating (nurturing) leads through progressively engaging messages that educate and engage the market
  • Dynamic prospect list segmentation which automatically organizes and prioritizes leads
  • Devoting limited resources to the hottest leads based upon their online behaviors and demographic attributes

Although many financial services companies use traditional marketing and personal relationship tactics such as client and business partner referrals, hosting seminars, and other non-digital means, today’s financial services company is likely using the Internet to research potential firms. Financial services companies looking to stay competitive should find out how easy our Lead Management Automation platform is to implement and how the rich features can boost your revenue rate and target the best leads.

While it is true that the financial services industry is more heavily regulated than other industries, automated marketing practices can nonetheless be implemented. To find out how our Lead Management Automation platform can streamline time-consuming marketing activities and help prioritize and manage leads, contact our sales department at sales@leadliaison.com or call 888 895 3237.

Lead Liaison

Why Smart Consumers Insist on High Quality Lead Nurturing Content

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Why Smart Consumers Insist on High-quality Lead Nurturing ContentConsumers now have all the power. They have the ability to quickly research and choose products from anywhere in the world. The internet has inspired global competition and consumers are fully aware that they do not need to remain loyal strictly to businesses that are located in the same city, state, or even country. They have an abundance of choices online, so businesses need to do more to demonstrate that they are the right choice. Because of these reasons, consumers demand high quality lead nurturing content.

Forget about Strong Sales Pitches

Businesses that want to stay competitive will need to sway these smart consumers using high quality lead nurturing content. Every blog, eBook  or buying guide needs to be helpful and honest. Smart consumers are tired of strong sales pitches and gimmicks that don’t provide them with any real value. If an article sounds like ad copy, it won’t be taken seriously.

Focus on how it Benefits the Consumer

Smart consumers are looking for a business that is willing to go the extra mile to prove they are worthy. They want real life examples of how a product or service has enhanced another person’s life and specific details on how it can improve their own life. High quality lead nurturing content is focused on how a product or service benefits the consumer, not on the product itself.

Claims Made in Content Must Be Verified

Smart consumers are also insisting on demonstration videos that clearly illustrate every claim made on the website. It is not enough just to say that a product or service is better than the rest, savvy consumers want proof. If they don’t find the proof they need on your website, it only takes a minute to search for another provider who can offer them evidence to back up their claims.

Businesses that make the Buying Process Easier

Since smart consumers can easily choose any online provider that impresses them for whatever reason, every detail of the transaction should be convenient and helpful. The website needs to be easily navigated, online purchasing forms should be simple and automated, and there should be instant access to live customer service when requested. There should also be straight forward answers to all of their frequently asked questions readily available online.

High-quality Lead Nurturing Brands a Business as an Expert

Well-written and informative content will establish a business as being an expert in their field. It will help the consumer trust that their hard earned money is being spent in the right place. High quality lead nurturing content will build a solid relationship prior to the consumer making the purchase, which should result in greater trust and loyalty.

Smart consumers would prefer to find one source for all their needs, so they are not constantly shopping and comparing new businesses. If they encounter an easy to use website that is focused on verifiable facts about how a product or service benefits the consumer instead of merely strong sales-pitches, it will build trust and brand loyalty. High quality lead nurturing content is the most essential component for converting today’s smart consumers.

Lead Liaison

Does Your Marketing Automation Company Help Drive Revenue Generation?

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Does Your Marketing Automation Company Help Drive Revenue GenerationAs marketing automation becomes more embedded in mainstream marketing practices, some marketing automation companies are more focused on raising capital than focusing on customer needs. At Lead Liaison, we continue to maintain a customer-centric focus. To further support companies that are trying to improve their revenue generation practices we offer a free Revenue Consultation. Ask yourself, does a marketing automation company drive revenue? They can, especially when both companies partner up.

During the consultation we explore current lead management, content marketing, and customer relationship practices. The goal is to determine gaps in the lead management process, suggest an appropriate lead scoring model, and offer recommendations on how to implement marketing automation to streamline repetitive marketing activities, and align sales and marketing functions.

At a time when several leading MA companies are outsourcing consultation and other ancillary services for their customers, we’re keeping support services in-house. Lead Liaison feels it is important to devote resources to supporting the needs of our clients for two reasons:

  1. We want to provide a better connection with our clients so we can ensure that we fully understand the unique needs that each company (and industry) has when it comes to lead generation and management practices.
  2. By directly supporting our clients, the Lead Liaison development team can better configure each platform to suit those unique needs.
  3. Management can design future platform iterations to more fully serve the needs of our entire client base by analyzing the information collected during consultation engagements.

Although some marketing functions that can be automated are standard, there are others that operate more effectively when we understand how our Lead Management Automation™ product will be used by our clients. So we ask targeted questions about sales prospecting, content delivery, lead capture, and CRM integration needs.

We believe offering our Revenue Consultation as a part of our standard operating procedure sets Lead Liaison apart from our competitors. Our approach provides a more effective client relationship and helps you get the most out of your digital marketing and lead management practices. If you’re looking for a company that truly wants to know you and support your marketing endeavors, call one of our knowledgeable sales representatives to set up your free Revenue Consultation today!

Lead Liaison

Understanding and Automating Your Marketing Funnel

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Understanding and Automating Your Marketing FunnelWhen you’re getting ready to work out your marketing automation plan, understanding and automating your marketing funnel is one of the most important things you can do. Many companies see ads for larger marketing automation companies and get excited, expecting a miracle solution to come in that will completely revitalize their business.

Is a marketing automation company capable of some miracle work? Absolutely. You’ll be able to track signs that customers are ready to buy and spend time on leads that truly hold the promise of closing. But at the end of the day, if you aren’t ready to nail down what your sales process actually is, marketing automation isn’t going to work as well as you’d like it to – no matter which company you go with or what methodology you put into place.

Identifying Your Sales Funnel and Sales Cycle

A sales funnel isn’t a finite thing – every business has its own process and sales cycle – but any business that identifies prospects and sells goods or services has a sales cycle, and therefore a sales funnel. Just like your common hardware-store funnel, the top of the sales funnel is wide – meaning, leads get to you in a variety of ways.

As you engage leads through your funnel, the way you focus them on your products and services tends to become sharper. You want leads to understand your true value, to think about you when an opportunity for purchase comes along, and to refer you to friends and family for future sales of your products and services. For that reason, your sales funnel doesn’t actually have an end if you have the types of products that can be re-purchased.

The length of your sales cycle determines how you set up your marketing automation. If you’re selling a larger ticket item, it’s possible that clients could spend weeks or months in your sales funnel as opposed to just a few days. It’s common sense – a new home is a lifetime purchase, but a product you see on an infomercial is something you might buy in just a few seconds. A Realtor doesn’t necessarily advertise on television – they put themselves out there via word of mouth, billboards, magazine and internet ads and signs put up in front of houses because a house is an infrequent purchase. A Realtor relies on the fact that most families will purchase only once or twice in their lifetimes, so it’s important to get their name out there rather than to encourage a quick sale.

Automating the Funnel

Take the time to determine what the different steps are in your funnel. See one of our top articles on Sales Pipeline Stages to learn more about typical stages in the funnel. How do people get to your brand and therefore into your funnel? Once they’re in there, how do you manage leads and identify which ones have true potential to close? For customers who aren’t read to buy, how can you further engage to get them to buy, and how can you track the results of your engagement? Do you reach out to customers once they’ve been sold to, or do they leave your radar – and therefore your funnel?

Marketing automation software like Lead Liaison helps you not only automate the above process, but you can also track metrics to get an idea of your overall marketing effectiveness. Marketing automation can definitely change the way your company closes leads and engages leads in your funnel.

Some marketing automation companies leave you to figure out your sales cycle and sales funnel yourself. At Lead Liaison, we’re happy to look over your processes to find out how best to automate your sales and marketing funnel. For more information, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Announces Q1 2013 Results

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Innovative marketing automation company continues to grow its revenues and customer base by providing enhanced features in its flagship product, the Lead Management Automation™ platform, and through the company’s adaptability and flexibility in its customer approach.

Allen, TX (PRWEB) April 15, 2013 – Marketing automation innovator Lead Liaison announces Q1 2013 results and closed Q1 2013 with strong momentum from a record fourth quarter of 2012. The company announced on April 12 that its quarterly results for the first three months of 2013 were “well ahead” of the same period last year. In what has been described as a “spectacular” period of record growth, the company has tripled subscriptions for its marketing automation service since June 2012. Lead Liaison is on pace to surpass last year’s earnings by July or August.

Several factors have led to the company’s consistent, significant growth since early 2012. Vice President of Corporate Communications Alex Brown said the rollout of key adjunct services, along with Lead Liaison’s customer-centric focus and product enhancements, have led to the company’s rise in the marketing automation space.

“For the past year we have driven revenue and customer growth through a process of enhancements brought about by customer requests and needs-based analysis,” said Brown. “From executives to developers, our team was given the task of building products to fill specific needs in various industries.”

In a move to address the need for better guidance during product implementation, the company has developed tools such as the Lead Scoring Model Designer, Lead Management Grader, and several free marketing infographics.

Marketing automation is a systematic approach to digital marketing activities that have traditionally been performed manually. Lead Liaison has taken a more comprehensive approach to marketing automation by developing revenue generation products which expand on lead management practices through the introduction of components that align marketing and sales functions.

“Our commitment to product development through an iterative process involving customer feedback allows us to create solutions that fill both general and specific marketing automation needs,” said Brown.

For more information about Lead Liaison’s revenue generation products or its support services contact Lead Liaison at 888 895 3237 or sales@leadliaison.com.

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Lead Liaison is an application development company that designs, develops, and sells cloud-based marketing and sales automation software. The company markets to small and medium-sized businesses worldwide, and focuses on creating the broadest and most user-friendly revenue generation software platform. Applications cover all phases of lead management automation including sales prospecting, lead generation, and marketing automation functions that directly influence revenue generation. It’s innovative and robust lead management platform combines unparalleled sales prospecting, lead capture, real-time lead tracking, lead qualification, lead distribution, database segmentation, lead nurturing and ROI reporting. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model delivers an effective user experience and integrated cloud computing capabilities.

Media Contacts:
Alex Brown
VP Corporate Communications
abrown(at)leadliaison(dot)com
888.89.53237 (LEADS)

Lead Liaison

Can Automation Help Marketing & Advertising Agencies?

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Marketing and Advertising AgenciesDigital agencies have a new tool to gain a competitive edge: marketing automation. And while there are those that wish to focus on simply designing creatives and making social posts, progressive agencies are looking to manage their clients’ marketing lead pipelines. Marketing automation (we prefer the term “revenue generation”) provides a multi-layered way to show clients how well your messaging develops client/prospect relationships. Marketing automation can help marketing & advertising agencies grow their business.

Agencies can leverage their expertise in message development with the ability to provide managed marketing services. Our Lead Management Automation™ platform allows agencies to identify marketing/advertising leads, move leads through advanced messaging, integrate agency campaigns with inbound channels, and provide metrics to their clients. Rather than taking a shotgun approach, agencies can segment markets for specific messaging. And results are better defined as demographic and behavioral data provide ad managers information to help refine future messaging.

Today’s advertising is delivered through social media, content marketing, mobile, and other digital channels. Marketing automation monitors these channels, allowing agencies to manage audience, delivery, format, and other parameters.

Through marketing automation, digital agencies can provide:

  • Lead prospecting
  • Lead tracking
  • Lead qualification
  • Lead nurturing

Once a lead has passed advanced from marketing-qualified (targeted for nurturing activities) to sales-qualified (ready for contact by the client’s sales department) an agency can seamlessly transition the lead generated from their activities to their clients’ customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. This can be a powerful benefit for agencies looking to create a deeper relationship with their clients.

Advertising and marketing efforts are geared towards creating attention, generating interest, motivating decisions, and inspiring action. Marketing automation provides a management tool throughout the entire process. By offering clients lead management services in addition to campaign development, digital agencies reduce their clients’ need to continually monitor and analyze results and allows agencies to modify messaging and campaign execution in order to maximize results.

Lead Liaison

Marketing Automation Improves Sales Pipeline Management

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Sales Pipeline ManagementFor most small to mid-size B2B companies staying competitive with the “big boys” is a day-to-day challenge. Solution pricing, available resources,  and operational costs must be constantly managed to remain viable. The most important business practice, sales, is often managed poorly so perfectly good sales leads slip through the cracks as a bare-bones staff tries to hit as many leads as possible to generate revenue and earn commissions. In fact, managing your sales pipeline efficiently may mean the difference between staying afloat and closing your doors.

The good news is: there is a sales pipeline management solution available which often makes financial sense to employ yet is overlooked as a cost-effective answer to lost leads. A marketing automation platform, such as our Lead Management Automation™ solution, can focus your sales agents and boost your close rate. However, putting a marketing automation system in place will only be effective if used properly. Here are five steps to improve your sales pipeline management practices by using an automated marketing program to boost sales effectiveness and enhance your lead management practices.

  1. Develop a lead profile based upon your existing customer base. Most salespeople are particular about the leads they will pursue. They want hot leads. The trouble is that most small to mid-size B2B enterprises are not set up to efficiently provide the most sales-ready leads to their sales agents. The first step is to define an optimal lead profile based on attributes and behaviors evident in your typical customer. This profile will represent the “low hanging fruit”. A marketing automation platform allows users to define the optimal sales prospect through lead scoring criteria; once a prospect (lead) achieves a specific score, any associated information can be easily shifted to a customer relationship management (CRM) program to be used when the sales department makes contact.
  2. Track the lead source once a prospect has entered the sales pipeline. Knowing how leads have come to your company is important in addressing their needs. Most B2B buyers spend time researching solutions prior to purchase. A lead management system that includes a marketing automation platform allows a sales agent to better connect with prospects by understanding what they are seeking and what marketing messages they have responded to.
  3. Distribute leads effectively (based upon lead scoring criteria) and quickly (based upon achieving a lead scoring threshold). Many times prospects are not ready to buy when B2B salespeople contact them. A marketing automation system provides a timing mechanism that, when used properly, will deliver the best leads at the appropriate time to the sales department.
  4. Nurture prospects when they are not ready to buy. As mentioned in #3, most leads aren’t ready to buy on first contact with your company. A marketing automation program will routinely deliver marketing messages and encourage prospect engagement to move leads through the sales pipeline until they are ready for a sales call. In this way, your sales agents are speaking with leads that have been introduced to your solutions, have been exposed to support materials (such as a white paper or webinar), and have been educated to the point where sales staff can now work on buying objections.
  5. Measure your company’s marketing effectiveness. A marketing automation program will provide analytics that reveal how effective your marketing messages have been in not only attracting leads but nurturing them (moving them through the sales pipeline) to the point of a sales contact. Although small to mid-size companies can develop their own systems for measuring sales effectiveness, the time and expense involved with such efforts can be wasted if an unproven and/or ineffective system is implemented.

There are more reasons to implement a marketing automation platform as a way to improve sales pipeline management. If you’d like to find out how our marketing automation solutions can boost your sales department’s effectiveness, contact a Lead Liaison representative for a free consultation.

Lead Liaison

You’re Bleeding Money if You Don’t Qualify Leads

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You’re Bleeding Money if You Don’t Qualify LeadsLead qualification is all about determining a particular lead’s likelihood to buy. Qualification should be based on a few scoring factors – meaning, not all leads are created equal so you shouldn’t necessarily treat them as such. You’re bleeding money if you don’t qualify leads.

In qualifying leads, one thing to look at is the likelihood that the client will buy based on your sales team’s interaction with the client or the strength of their interest during initial inquiry. The second thing to look at is how the client matches up with the rest of your sales cycle – or your anticipated time frame in which the lead will become a customer via a purchase.

Lead qualification is not lead conditioning

Qualifying leads isn’t about conditioning them. Not every lead that comes through your pipeline is going to be as good as another. So if your sales team members are instructed to treat all incoming leads equally, you’re actually losing money.

You’re losing money because…

your sales team is putting effort into a potential dead end.

your sales team could be sending your client advertising materials or forwarding them to a particular URL on your website rather than spending time interfacing with them.

you’re setting up an expectation that a client will be heavily paid attention to and courted before the sale closes.

One of the biggest complaints between sales teams and analyst or product teams is disparity in the client’s expectations when they’re being onboarded. If your sales team has spent 30 minutes a day for two weeks or more courting a client for sale – especially for low budget clients – you can bet a converted client is going to expect the same treatment from your team analysts. Does this cost the client money? No. It costs you money and resources.

Where the CRM comes in

When you come up with lead qualification criteria, that criteria has to be applied universally for your entire team. Across the board, sales people need to be rating leads using the same qualifications that are standard to everyone else. Unless you have a CRM that’s robust enough – yet easy to use – for managing your sales qualification process, you’re going to have a hot mess on your hands.

When people come to Lead Liaison looking for help implementing a lead qualification process, every company’s needs are different. Some companies don’t have developmental or advertorial materials they can send to low-interest clients for follow-up. These companies are often either spending too much time on low-interest, ill-qualified leads or just ignoring them altogether – which means when their buying interest is picqued in the future, they might turn toward another company for service. Why would you want to lose a lead you could convert just by regularly staying in touch or sending sales materials?

For some companies, simply starting a company newsletter and maintaining an email list is enough to turn these low-interest leads into buys down the line. We never really know until we can get a good look at what the company has to offer.

If you get me on the phone, I know just the right questions to ask about how to start your lead qualification process and best manage it via CRM. Bigger companies aren’t willing to spend that kind of time on you – but I know that if Lead Liaison does, your CRM implementation and use process will go quickly and easily. We want you to make the most out of our application. Talk to me today about how lead qualifying can stop you from bleeding money – and get you started with a robust CRM that works for your whole team.