Why Do I Need Marketing Automation for My Business?

Why Do I Need Marketing Automation for My Business?Countless big businesses are now turning to marketing automation to generate more productive leads and more revenue. It is the evolution of online marketing and the most-efficient method for gathering, profiling, nurturing, and converting website visitors into consumers. It is not surprising that almost every business owner is now asking the question; why do I need marketing automation?

Marketing Automation Generates Revenue

Every online business can benefit from marketing automation. It generates quality leads that are nurtured to generate revenue. There are so many impressive success stories surrounding its effectiveness and it has been proven to convert 50% more leads than traditional marketing. In an earlier blog; Why Marketing Automation is Revenue Generating Software, I listed nine ways marketing automation will generate more revenue for your business. This article will cover a few other reasons businesses need marketing automation software. Why does your specific business need marketing automation? It doesn’t matter what industry you are in or how big your company might be. You need marketing automation for your business if you are trying to compete for customers online. You will also need marketing automation to ensure your business is not missing out on opportunities. It is estimated that 95% of visitors will lead your site unnoticed if you don’t use marketing automation’s website visitor tracking software.

Marketing Automation Generates Leads

Your business will need marketing automation if your sales team works with leads. Most sales professionals will blame their own poor performance on insufficient leads. Marketing automation captures every lead that comes across your site or related social network profiles. It then uses the website visitor tracking software to profile each lead and rank them based on their potential for conversion. Only the highest quality leads will be passed onto the sales department. Potential leads that are not ready for conversion are nurtured using helpful newsletters and email campaigns. A professional lead nurturing campaign will build brand authority and inspire the lead to make a purchase. Marketing automation software guides leads throughout their buying process.

More Benefits of Marketing Automation

Any business that wants a simplified method for coordinating and managing their marketing activities will benefit from marketing automation. Marketing automation software is able to organize various campaigns, applications, programs, and CRM platforms. Businesses that want a better system for monitoring ROI on their marketing efforts will also benefit greatly from using marketing automation. Marketing automation provides useful reports that analyze and calculate the marketing automation plan’s ROI. It can show what techniques are working and which ones need revamping. Are you still wondering why you need marketing automation for your business? The best way to realize the benefits of marketing automation software is to try it out. Once you see the impressive results, there will be no question in your mind as to why your business needs marketing automation software.

How Can I Effectively Nurture a Lead?

How Can I Effectively Nurture a Lead?Lead nurturing is one of the most fundamental components to a successful marketing strategy. Today’s consumers are more educated and willing to take the time to thoroughly research their purchases. They will spend hours searching online for customer reviews, testimonials, and helpful articles before making any decision.

Lead nurturing content helps potential consumers make informed decisions by answering their questions and concerns. Your web content, articles, and newsletters should all be designed as clever and discreet sales pitches that offer information that would be beneficial to your typical consumer.

Here are a few tips on how to effectively nurture a lead:

1.       Understand Your Leads

The first step to effectively nurturing a lead is establishing a comprehensive lead profile. Marketing automation uses website visitor tracking software to monitor a lead’s online behavior. It also promotes online registries and questionnaires to extract and track a lead’s demographic details. All of this valuable information should then be used to create more personalized lead nurturing content geared at their personal interests and behavior.

2.       Understand Their Needs

Consumers are not looking for a specific product; they are looking for a solution to a specific problem. Focus the lead nurturing content on the obstacles they face and offer sincere advice on how to resolve their issue. Take for example a website that promotes an all-natural herbal dietary supplement. The lead nurturing content should discuss the difficulties associated with being overweight and then offer many different solutions like dieting, exercising, and of course, taking your dietary supplement.

3.       Do Not Over Sell

Instead of approaching your lead nurturing content as a marketing piece, focus on it being a helpful consumer guide. A web page can go on and on about the benefits of your product but your lead nurturing content has to have more depth. Using the example above, I would not recommend sending out an article that only discusses why they should take your herbal supplement to lose weight.  Consumers will view it as a sales piece and not take the advice seriously.

4.       Do Not Under Sell

Your lead nurturing content still need to highlight the attributes of your product or service otherwise it is not doing its job. To effectively nurture a lead there should be 20% to 25% of the entire copy that directly references benefits of your product or service.

You can discover more lead nurturing tips that are specific to B2B customers in my earlier post on How to use lead nurturing content to convert more B2B customers. Lead nurturing can be a powerful revenue generating tool if it is done right.

Email Marketing is NOT Dead

Email Marketing is Not DeadThere are those that might be predicting the death of email as a marketing tool. Gmail’s new tabs might spell doom for a lot of marketers but those who know how to deploy email marketing effectively will still thrive in the coming new email delivery paradigm. We’re here to tell you: email marketing is not dead – if you know how to use it.

First off, those who understand that email is one marketing tool in a suite that includes search marketing/SEO, social media marketing, display ads, apps, and several more. Email should not be the sole source for outbound marketing efforts rather it should be deployed when and where it makes the most sense.

It starts with your list. Too many marketers rely on buying email lists or using implicit modes to gather email addresses. By “implicit modes” we’re referring to using an event such as completing a form to download a file or register for a webinar and having your email address used to send promotional emails without permission. Marketers often fail when they try to sneak a promotional email in without being approved to do so. Always get specific permission to contact your leads via email. One simple way to do this is to include a checkbox that reads “I would like to receive updates, offers, and news about (your company or its products)”.

Secondly, email is a more intimate touch point. You are in their space when you enter their mailbox. It’s incredibly important to honor that position and not waste their time. If a lead has given you permission to contact him by email, your brand has been elevated to the “interested” position in his mind space. Don’t ruin it by shooting “spray and pray” messages that end up providing little value. Use messaging that not only connects with your lead at an individual level but also gives him a reason to spend time with your brand. The reason should offer value in terms of acquiring knowledge, saving money (but avoid hyper sales tactics!), or providing a beneficial opportunity to improve his company.

Thirdly, stand out within box. Subject lines should not be misleading and provide immediate value. Buyers should know when they scroll through their box exactly what the message is and why it is important to open it. Avoid using personal names your leads won’t recognize – they almost always get sent to the bin. One tactic is to set up distinct addresses to display in the sender field. All email programs display the sender in the mailbox inventory; an email from “wevegotyoursize@fashionista.com” to a lead who used a sizing plugin on your retail clothing website can catch the eye of a lead scrolling through a crowded email box.

So don’t give up on email marketing – it’s not dead. Just figure out how to use this tool effectively.

4 Ways Marketing Automation Shortens Sales Cycles

4 ways marketing automation shortens sales cyclesHow long is your company’s sales cycle? Two weeks? Six Months? A year? Brand leaders in the B2B space constantly seek ways to shorten their sales cycles. Many have found that a marketing automation platform helps to reduce the number of days to close. Why? Here are four of the most popular feedback points we get when we talk with our markets.

“Some leads are deeper in the funnel.” Not all leads are at the same stage of the buying cycle. Some come to your brand fully educated about the solutions they seek; others just starting to explore their options. Through consistent, automated outbound messaging, your brand’s presence is continuously in the market. Marketing messages can be varied – and personalized. Automated personalization is one way to connect faster so qualification can move swiftly, shortening the “get to know you” phase. Using marketing automation, marketers are able to manage leads at different stages of the buying cycle, which provides the sales team with a continuous pipeline of leads.

“You can fire on all cylinders.” Marketing automation allows marketers to easily connect through more channels simultaneously. Email, social, PPC, and search can be integrated under one campaign, which increases the ability to “flood” your leads by connecting channels and delivering escalating engagements. Response rates can be quickly analyzed so agile companies can adjust practices quickly. Multi-channel campaigns that offer incrementally higher value can be deployed alongside campaigns that simply introduce your solution.

“Makes our sales agents hungry.” Sales likes quality leads. It’s the same in every organization. Marketing automation allows sales agents to focus on the hottest prospects in the pipeline. This usually means the ones that are most qualified to buy and most knowledgeable about your solutions. Nurturing campaigns and scoring features qualify how ready prospects are so sales people aren’t wasting valuable time chasing leads that aren’t ready to buy. Less waste leads to shorter buying cycles.

“Leads are going to the right people.” Let’s face it – not every sales rep is good for every lead. Marketing automation distributes leads effectively assigning ownership to the most appropriate sales person who can respond quickly and close fast. Lead assignment can be set upon first touch or somewhere during the qualification period. Getting the leads into the right rep’s hands can shorten the cycle by several days to several weeks.

Why is SEO Necessary for a Marketing Automation Strategy?

Why SEO is Necessary for a Marketing Automation StrategyI was reading this great article on What B2B SEO Professionals need to know about Marketing Automation and it got me thinking about how closely related search engine optimization (SEO) is to marketing automation. SEO is used to draw more leads to your website. Marketing automation software is used to capture, profile, nurture, and convert leads after they have landed on your site. On the other side of the coin, an effective marketing automation strategy will enhance your SEO efforts. An important aspect of marketing automation is developing personalized and informative lead nurturing content. Posting and promoting relevant content will help to boost your search engine ranking, which in turn will send even more qualified leads to your website.

Higher Ranking = More Traffic

It is estimated that over 15 billion people conduct product searches online each month and that 70% of the world starts their buying process by researching their options online. There has never been a larger audience gathered in one place; there has also never been so much competition in one place. A high search engine ranking is the only way to keep your company ahead of your competitors. Think about the last time you conducted an online search. Did you look at any websites on the second or third page of the results? Unless someone is doing extensive comparison shopping, they will only look at the first few websites on the list. It pays to be on the first page of the results.

SEO + Marketing Automation = Success

Companies need to focus on SEO before they employ marketing automation software. This will increase the number of leads the software is able to track. The software will then profile the leads and rank each one based on their likelihood for conversion. Leads that are showing signs of conversion will be immediately past onto the sales team. A marketing automation strategy should also involve nurturing any leads that are not ready to be passed onto sales. This could be done using customized email campaigns, newsletters, or helpful how-to articles. To continue the flow of new traffic, lead nurturing efforts must take SEO into consideration. Any content connected to your website is an opportunity to improve your search engine ranking using relevant and strategically placed keywords and meta-tags.

Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

In today’s competitive marketplace, businesses need to employ any and every marketing technique that will give them a competitive advantage online. Their marketing strategy should always include SEO, social media marketing, and a complete marketing automation strategy. All of these strategic components will complement each other and enhance one another’s campaign results. They can even double or triple a company’s existing sales when they are effectively combined. That is why SEO is so necessary to the success of your marketing automation strategy.

How Marketing Automation Redefines Deadlines

How Marketing Automation Redefines DeadlinesMarketing automation is all about making the sales-to-closing and general advertising practices of your business easier while allowing you to put everything on a timetable or deadline. If you haven’t really explored the world of marketing automation and how it can change your business, now is a good time to take a look.

When you’re creating a new brand for your company (and it may well be time to do that) you might find a messy affair ahead. This is particularly true if you’re the principal in your business. Who has time to handle customers, work on your website and new graphics materials and keep the business running? With marketing automation, you do.

Marketing Automation Makes Rebranding Easier

Putting a new website in place gives users an opportunity to interact with you in an organic way. Users who previously visited your site have brand new materials to look at. Hopefully by the time your new site is up, you’ve made it more interactive with contact forms, a good trail of information that will allow users to spend more time to your site, and other methods to contact you like phone or email.

Marketing automation allows you to identify specific users who visit your site. Once you have this information, deadlines start to come together. Advertising campaigns can go out at a particular date based on the way you see visitors using your site. You also have the ability to tailor specific advertising campaigns to particular groups of users.

Advertising on a Deadline

Once you have this type of business intelligence information, it becomes much easier to set up more accurate sales funnels and campaign management using your site’s data. One action should trigger another very specific reaction – for instance, if a known user fills out a form and you know this customer likes to be called, your sales team should receive a prioritized note letting them know the customer should be called within a specific timeframe. Marketing automation then allows your sales team to create new deadlines to ensure that customer’s needs are serviced – and future sales will happen as a result.

You can also use marketing automation to determine when the best time to send out campaigns might be, then build deadlines based on those new campaign dates. If you find most of your customers open emails on a Tuesday – but certain customers buy more on a Thursday – you can change your marketing messaging to go out to different customers on different days as needed.

Analyzing the data to determine the best deadlines for marketing actions is advanced technology that traditional analytics methods just won’t give you. To learn more about how marketing automation can benefit your business, visit leadliaison.com.

7 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

7 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing CampaignMarketers have been flooding social media channels for over three years now. Some brand leaders have effectively embedded social campaigns into their marketing strategies. But many companies are still struggling with making social effective. Why? After several days of research, we’ve uncovered several common mistakes companies are making in their social marketing practices. Here are some thoughts on how to deploy your social media marketing effectively.

Maintain a dialogue – Don’t simply post links to blogs or company web pages. Social media sites are for being “social” (conversing and sharing) so balance informative posts with conversation generators. Pose a thought-provoking question every now and then to get followers to truly engage with your brand.

Uncover what your social circles/followers are doing – find out what interests them, what they are talking about, or what they are sharing. As with any marketing campaign, success starts with knowing your audience well. Take the time to learn about what is important to your followers before posting, tweeting, or “liking”.

Follow others and connect on their social pages – Gaining followers is not a one-way proposition. Buyers, brand advocates, and other stakeholders want to feel they are important to you. If someone elects to connect with your social channel, connect with their channel.

Visit your competitors’ social pages – What better way to find out what your competitors are up to than by monitoring their social pages. Posts on their social pages may reveal common problems your market is having or provide opportunities to address their shortcomings on your social channels. More importantly, you may be able to uncover their strategies.

Join a conversation – Hashtags and other tags allow you to connect with leads that are interested in specific topics. By embedding a hashtag, you join a conversation about common issues, challenges, attitudes, and more. Doing so not only provides an opportunity to link to a specific audience but can signify that certain topics share importance to you and your followers and that you wish to provide more information to your leads.

Use the appropriate strategy for the appropriate social site – Not all social media sites are created equal. For example, Pinterest is for photo-sharing – use images that will generate sharing. Select your photos carefully. Shots of employees or someone using your product may be of interest to your company but won’t likely pick up many followers. Choose images that are funny, cute, awe-inspiring, or memorable in some other way and connect the image to your brand. Facebook has yet to develop hashtags effectively, so deploy hashtags on Twitter or Tumblr instead.

Share responsibly – Things have kind of gotten out of hand with the hashtag craze. Now any phrase under 140 characters can be a hashtag. Make sure to deploy hashtags that are useful to your social circles; they should be relevant to your audience, common enough to be part of a larger conversation, and connect your prospects’ minds with your brand.

Our automated posting feature can be a great way to connect with your audience – if used properly. For more information on integrating social media with marketing automation, connect with Lead Liaison!

Using Marketing Automation to Enhance Customer Engagement

Using Marketing Automation to Enhance Customer EngagementI was reading an article on Unlocking the Power of Retail Marketing Automation to gather new ideas for enhancing the techniques used at Lead Liaison and I was particularly impressed by how they approached the importance of customer engagement. In today’s competitive world-wide markets customer engagement is the key to conversion and marketing automation makes it significantly easier.

It also made me realize just how intertwined marketing automation really is to customer engagement. Marketing automation doesn’t just nurture leads, but it taps into their buying process and allows you to connect with them on a more personal level. It has the ability to build real and lasting relationship with potential leads prior to them making a purchase. In summary, it’s a good idea to start using marketing automation to enhance customer engagement.

Website Visitor Tracking

Marketing automation begins with website visitor tracking. Every lead that is captured on your website is monitored as they move from page to page. It also records any demographic information that is volunteered through online registries and feedback forms. Their online activity and characteristics are used to create a comprehensive lead profile.

Marketing automation strategists compare the information received during website visitor tracking with the behavior and attributes of existing customers to identify trends and determine their purchasing potential. This ranking and qualification process gives marketers a better understanding of a lead’s pre-purchasing behavior, which will improve their chances of creating a real connection. This will also make it easier to identify triggers and customize nurturing content.

Customized Lead Nurturing

Leads that are not ready to make a decision are given further nurturing using informative and relevant email and newsletter campaigns. A customized nurturing approach that is based on their personal profile and interests will strengthen the emotional connection between the content and the customer. Customized lead nurturing content is one of the most effective ways to inspire greater customer engagement.

Most marketing automation professionals will first segment leads into groups before they create the customized content. Marketing automation software captures an abundance of leads and it is too difficult to cater a unique approach to every single lead in your database. Lead segmenting will group together similar leads, so content can be directed at segments of leads who share the same needs.

Faster Response to Customer Concerns

Marketing automation immediately notifies your sales and marketing teams whenever there is a question or concern from a potential customer. Customers will sincerely appreciate the fast response and personal attention they receive. Your sales team will also be sent a notice the moment a lead shows any signs of conversion. Responding to customer’s issues as they occur or when they are ready to make a purchase will significantly increase customer engagement and sales.

Today’s savvy consumers have high expectations from online businesses and they expect to be engaged. Fortunately, marketing automation uses website visitor tracking, customized lead nurturing, and faster response times to develop greater customer relations from the initial interaction to final sales transaction.

Lead Liaison Provides Tighter SFDC Integration in its Latest Release

Allen, TX (PRWEB) September 16, 2013 – Lead Liaison improved the integration between its flagship Lead Management Automation™ (LMA) platform and Salesforce.com’s (SFDC) CRM in a product upgrade release on September 15. The LMA has been long recognized as a tightly integrated complement to the popular contact management application but Lead Liaison has actively expanded the LMA’s integration and capability set to seamlessly synchronize records between the two applications. The recent upgrade supports Group Edition as well as the Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited and Develop Editions of SFDC while improving lead management between the marketing automation and CRM platforms in four key areas:

1)      Advanced support for SFDC Campaigns. LMA users are able to identify leads and contacts in a SFDC Campaign in the lead management interface. Records can be added or removed and a lead’s status in a Campaign can be updated without transitioning to the SFDC platform.

2)      Support for SFDC Queues. Records can be distributed using the LMA’s sophisticated lead distribution capabilities. LMA leads are routed according to multi-layer attribution models, which users define. For example, new leads in a queue may be searched and distributed “round robin” to the sales team.

3)      Integration of Briefcase dashboard. The release provides a new integration of Lead Liaison’s hot lead dashboard, which displays data about a salesperson’s hottest leads based on the industry’s most sophisticated lead qualification parameters. The dashboard – to be released on SFDC’s AppExchange in October – automatically identifies hot leads based on buying signals, lead score, lead grade, recency and level of activity.

4)      Simplified integration with SFDC. The LMA provides an easy-to-use wizard for batch imports along with optional integration of nearly all SFDC custom fields that are used as part of a company’s business process (database segmentation, lead nurturing, etc.).

Lead Liaison’s Lead Management Automation application has been available through the SFDC AppExchange since June 2012.

“Our commitment to improving the integration between the LMA and SFDC is a testament of our devotion to those companies that see value in working with vendors who recognize the strength of SFDC but wish to develop marketing automation capabilities that can be used as a standalone product,” said VP of Communications Alex Brown. “We realize that not all SMBs can afford the pricing structures of the new breed of marketing automation/CRM hybrids. They are looking for full-featured apps that can seamlessly blend in with the systems they are already deploying. We’re giving them an option.”

To experience how tightly the LMA integrates with SFDC, request a 10-minute demonstration of the Lead Management Automation platform.

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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.

For More Information:

Alex Brown
VP, Corporate Communications
abrown(at)leadliaison(dot)com
888.895.3237 (888 89 LEADS)

The New Gmail Interface Means You Can’t Rely on Email Marketing Alone

Gmail Interface and Email MarketingGoogle rolled out its new tabbed Gmail interface recently to mixed reviews. Some enjoy its ability to compartmentalize messages while others prefer to sift and sort themselves (in these cases, users must change the default setting to accept all messages in their ‘Primary’ folder).

Folks, there are no rules on how to avoid having your messages delivered to the ‘Promotions’ tab if a user has not specifically indicated a desire to receive them in the ‘Primary’ inbox. (However, it appears that marketing messages sent through social networks like LinkedIn will appear under the ‘Social’ tab.) Because of this, B2B marketers should expect a drop-off in open rates.

Buyers who wish to receive emails from you can simply drag an opened message or the email header into the ‘Primary’ folder. Companies in the B2B and B2C spaces are encouraging their prospects and customers to perform this step to make it easier to receive requested offers, promotions, and updates together in a single folder.

While there may be little you can do to prevent messages from being delivered to the ‘Promotions’ tab in Gmail, you can adjust your digital marketing practices to rely less on email marketing and more on other content delivery channels. We’re not advocating the exclusion of email, we’re simply suggesting an approach which relies more heavily on social marketing, thought leadership articles, and search strategies.

As a general rule – absent the Gmail changes – your automated marketing practices should be diversified to begin with. Automated marketing experts know the secret to successful deployment of MA functionality comes down to diversifying your channels and producing great content. Lead Liaison recommends a strategy that integrates automated social posting, email campaigns, and link building in order to be effective in this changing email environment.

Email personalization using customized fields can help when it comes to appealing to your leads. Some experts suggest that Gmail users opening the ‘Promotions’ tab may be in a buying mood when they access that tab, so all hope is not lost. But the jury is still out as to how inclined they will be to open your message when it is grouped with other (potentially poorly-crafted) offers.

When your email IS opened, make sure that the message is strong enough to drive click-through and the landing page is designed well enough to facilitate actions such as completing a web form. Automated responses to lead inquiries must be swift and provide adequate value so your leads will be inclined to move your email marketing messages to Gmail’s ‘Primary’ tab.

It is likely that other email service providers will follow suit if Google’s implementation gains wider approval among its users. This will expand the challenge of driving email marketing success. Remember to stay diversified in your automated marketing tactics so the impact of the new tabbed Gmail interface doesn’t significantly lower your marketing effectiveness.