Inbound Marketing And The Compound Interest Effect

February 6, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Inbound marketing at its core is a process. It is a system which continually produces leads. In the old days, we used to sit on our laurels with a site that was optimized. That is short-lived today. Content and value are being measured and presented by search engines to present people seeking to solve their specific problem with real answers.

When you have a system set up and tuned that revolves around your value, then the efforts of your outbound marketing whether via field sales, advertising or direct mail, become enhanced and effective. There is a process which caters to the buyer after you have grabbed their attention.

We speak to audiences and tell our clients all the time about how inbound marketing systems become assets to your business. Your investment has a compound interest effect that can be seen over time as you grow and leverage your assets. Here is how:

  • Content. Your content persists online. If your systems are set up well, then you will be getting found easily and frequently. Content lives and it serves anyone searching for what you have to offer say.
  • Automation. A process that a buyer can follow and be served with timely information works while you sleep, are away from the office or completely busy. It is more dependable than anyone on your team. It is the concierge for helping buyers get what they need at the right time.
  • Social outposts. Your reputation, relevance and followers that have been built up in the right social media venues has to be tied in tightly with your inbound marketing systems. These become permission avenues. You can announce new offers or get opinions quickly. It is a direct access asset for your business. It is also the avenue for driving referrals.

Getting found, providing value aesthetically and automatically and getting referrals becomes a system that produces on its own. As time goes by and the system continues to get tuned, the output is even more efficient. There are many businesses that have experienced such compound interest. They worked hard to tune their systems.

Where do you feel your inbound marketing systems are at?

Filed Under: Blog, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: , , , ,

Marketing Automation Strategy Is The Linchpin

January 18, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

linchpin

Trying to make marketing automation work in  your sales process starts with the IT work. However, it is only the start of what really matters. Configuring a system and ensuring data flows in and out out of your CRM is a basic element of starting the work to help you see what is happening with your leads.

If this is where your interest lies, then you can simply connect a real-time analytics program. Marketing automation may be overkill.

The real work starts with strategy. The strategy for connecting with a buyer and wooing them gently through a sequence of

steps that provide high value and build trust is what makes marketing automation valuable. The strategy is the linchpin for success. Here are some of the strategic parts of a successful marketing automation system to perfect:

  • Landing page content. Your content has to serve people with inattention. They land on a specific page seeking information. They are not going to buy now. They are browsing. Ensure your content provokes thought and educates them. Invite them to go deeper. Your tone has to connect with your audience.
  • Call to action content. Again, there needs to be a compelling call to action that invites a next step. At the core, your strategy should be to provide a high level of value for helping your buyer understand how your market works, the questions to be asking and stories of past problems and successes. Package this in white papers, ebooks, webinars and multimedia.
  • Lead nurturing. The sequencing and timing of email communications, direct mail and sales calls needs to be coordinatedand triggered in a logical and personal sequence. Your touch points should seek to build a relationship and provide a high level of value and stay away from selling.
  • Sales engagement. The timing and the conversation your sales team will be in needs to be coordinated with your content. Avoid awkward connections and ensure your personal sales engagements continue to bring value. There should be a direct call to action such as a sales meeting. Sales should be a continuum to the marketing automation process.

The strategy is critical for success. How you set up various campaigns based on buyer profiles needs to be thoroughly designed and implemented.

Your metrics will provide the feedback for continually iterating on the content and programming of your system to deliver relevant leads.

Where are you finding challenges in marketing automation?

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Automation · Tagged: , , ,

Marketing With The Back Story

December 5, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Melvin The Magical Mixed Media Machine from HEYHEYHEY on Vimeo.

There is a video which has an immense following. It is not about a person. It is about a machine, a Rube Goldberg machine, which promotes itself via Twitter, Facebook, video and a website.

Some passionate artists and technicians did the work of creating a show which told a story. The video above is astounding and speaks for itself to the creativity, hard work and genius of the project. The story draws you in even further. It is marketing at work behind the product.

Ironically, the automation developed in the machinery is one part of the project. The marketing which works to self-promote the machine is another process in itself. The story behind what we see draws us in further to discover the background.

Show And Tell

Seeing your product or service in action is an immense part of communicating your value to the world. New customers want to get their minds around how you work, what they are getting and how you deliver. You don’t necessarily have to build a Rube Goldberg machine, but there needs to be a show which helps them see what happens when they do business with you. It is part of the show which makes the tell easier.

The tell is the part which helps to bring color, description and intrigue to your value proposition. It is the back story which answers the questions:

  • How do you do what you do?
  • Why do you do what you do?

Telling your story is what makes you unique in the mind of the buyer. It is your own and noone else’s. We relate to story. It fills in the missing pieces for motivation, desire, and inspiration.

Melvin The Machine is a remarkable piece of machinery designed with patience, care and attention to detail. See how you get pulled into the back story and think about what your product or service would benefit from with a better tell.

How can your show and tell improve?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: , , , , ,

Lead Scoring For Sales Prioritization

November 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

When the Major Home Oil Dealer Ran Out of Fuel a Special Board Was Activated for Emergency Deliveries. More Than 250 Homes Were without Oil. Cards on the Wall List Priorities 10/1973

In our marketing consulting, we are typically faced with one of two problems:

  1. There are not enough inbound leads
  2. There are too many inbound leads

Each of these requires a different marketing system.  For organizations which are inundated with many leads, there is a problem focused around the sales process.  Salespeople are not like marketing automation systems.  They have these constraints:

  • They can only work sequentially one call/email at a time.
  • They can only connect with a finite amount of people a day.
  • They are limited in how they can organize their call lists.
  • Their talent is finely tuned for closing the sale.

A marketing automation system can do the opposite:

  • It can deliver custom communications simultaneously to thousands of people.
  • It is limitless in the number of people that can be contacted.
  • It can be programmed to filter lists.
  • Its talent is tuned for nurturing the lead to a sale.

The differences are much like a factory worker and a factory robot; speed and predictability are greatly increased with the latter. However, in sales, human touch is highly relevant and important. Thus, working with automation does not mean exclusiveness.  It is complementary. One of the areas that can greatly augment a salesperson’s tasks is lead scoring. Lead scoring is the underlying automation rules which applies quantitative scores for the behaviors of a buyer online.

If your salesperson is limited in their time and finite in their personal engagements, why not prioritize their list for them using lead scoring.  Here are some areas where marketing automation can surface the highest priority leads for your sales force:

  • Strategic Landing Pages.  A landing page which is visited and reviewed can appoint a high lead score to signify interest and targeted prospecting for who to talk with.
  • Decision Maker roles.  If a lead form with a role or title field is filled out for an executive position, you are likely dealing with a decision maker.  This should be a prioritized score to raise the priority of this lead.
  • Content Downloads.  If you have people that read your content and consume value offering pieces, they are engaged.  Create different layers of content and for those visitors that seek higher levels of content in your buying process, score them high.  They are sales ready.

There are several other ways to use lead scoring to help your sales team in addition to these ideas.  As they are working through their call lists, the lists can prioritize based on such key criteria that surface the hottest leads.

In your world, how could lead scoring help your sales process be more effective?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Marketing Automation, Miscellany, Sales Process · Tagged: , , , , , , ,

4 Salesforce Process Creation Tips

November 22, 2011 by · 2 Comments

process_diagram

Your business is nothing more than a process.  After all, that is what a business is.  It is a sequence of repeatable, and sometimes custom steps which create a predictable result, either a product or service. Process is what we all use, but often times, it is difficult to capture and create the systems that make our processes work with ease.

The beauty of Salesforce.com is the ability to support how your business runs.  The steps involved for making a sale, creating attention, delivering value or supporting your customers can be created in a highly customized fashion.  No two Salesforce.com systems are alike out of the thousands of users because of the ability to customize around your specific way of doing business.

As you are working on creating process within Salesforce.com, here are four tips to help you make Salesforce.com work:

  1. Segment your business.  Break down your processes into discrete areas.  It can be daunting trying to tackle your entire process.  The smaller you can break down your internal processes, the more manageable it will be.  Ensure the process you focus on is complete in it steps and fulfillment to deliver a result.
  2. Think Tasks And Communications.  There are two outcomes for each step of a process – a task and a communication to a partner, customer or team member.  Ensure your steps capture both aspects and that you can set up Salesforce.com to support the desired outcome.
  3. Identify Automation Opportunities.  Certain steps can become repetitive and tedious.  Think how automation via triggers or custom programming might be able to accelerate the mundane processing your users would encounter.  Automation may mean an automatic task, contingent data fields populated or a triggered custom email.
  4. Develop Key Metrics.  To see if a process is working, you need to be able to monitor it in real-time.  Use custom dashboards and reports that will give you this feed-back to see the effectiveness and also allow for refinement of the process steps.  It is critical for achieving perfection in the process through iteration.

Salesforce.com does not run your business perfectly.  It is merely a tool which requires intelligent and deliberate customization to support the business processes you discover are successful.  Be sure to think like a designer and perfect like a refiner.  Use these tips to drive your organization.

What are some processes you would like to automate?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Salesforce · Tagged: , , , , ,

Marketing Automation Is Not For The Faint Of Heart

October 11, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Marketing has many new rules, and marketing automation is one of several major movements which has gained fanfare mixed with frustration.  The popularity has come from the possibilities of capitalizing on leads generated from inbound marketing efforts.  The frustration is from a lack of implementation and execution.

At the end of the day, marketing automation is a system.  The system is, in turn, a project with specific requirements for a specific buyer.  Thus, there is a lot of work, thinking and strategy behind a marketing automation initiative.  A badly managed process can result in the frustration side of the equation.  A sound strategy and execution can provide systematic management of inbound leads.

Everyone Has A Lead Generation Problem

Businesses want more leads.  These come from how compelling your interaction and substance of your offering is.  A lead is someone that raises their hand.  We all want more.  It’s difficult to get attention when everyone is clicking around on Google and thumbing through their mobile devices.

Content which makes a true meaningful connection and is targeted for a person trying to solve a problem not only gets attention, but engages your buyer.  After this, it is about building trust and fanning the flame of their interest.  It is not for the faint of heart.  It is about commitment and continual refinement in the following ways:

  • Analysis of buyer behaviors.  You have a lot of data which tracks every movement of a website visitor.  The data needs to make sense and be analyzed for where the opportunities and drop-off points are.  It is an ongoing process.
  • Building content assets.  Your content lives.  It needs to continue to grow and build an online asset for getting found and nurturing the next wave of leads.  Past content needs to be integrated together to drive further exploration by leads.
  • Integrating Sales Feedback.  Lead scoring serves your sales process and sales people.  Their feedback on how the algorithms are working needs to drive further refinement of your scoring schema.

There is not a magic ball to peer into and figure out the perfect marketing automation mix.  You arrive at perfection by continually working hard at the system and processing  new lead experiences.  It is a game of improvement made possible by transparency into what buyers are doing.

Are there areas of lead generation and lead nurturing you find hard to upkeep?  What are they?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Marketing Automation · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Refining Content For Your Marketing Funnel

August 15, 2011 by · 5 Comments

Your site visitors communicate a lot of valuable marketing information to help you drive online search results.  It takes continuous vigilance to be able to monitor how your visitors and leads are attracted to your content and how they navigate your site.  This is known as digital body language.  Their interests and reactions to your brand are online and an effective marketing automation program works to decipher the movements of the various buying profiles on your site.

Of specific focus should be how your site pages are consumed and what people are looking at.  This helps you to refine further content as well as reposition past articles and pages on your site.  Here are some areas of focus which require analysis ongoing:

  1. Keyword search terms.  Ensure your analytics reporting shows real-time information and can prioritize keywords that are getting results.  These are working for you.  Cross-check these with Google keyword search to see what overall market traffic you are getting.
  2. Page content which is working.  Seeing which pages are effective helps to focus your future writing.  Use similar topics and keywords.  Also, there may be best practices you can establish from seeing what has worked.  Take your time examining this.  Try to make all your web pages count towards being found and consumed.
  3. Incoming links.  Knowing which pages have a direct link to popular blogs helps you combined with the time people are staying to read will help you assess how valuable the content is.  Furthermore, seeing more inbound links shows that others are finding value in the relevance of your content.
  4. Social media mentions.  Your content should have social media metrics which show how much something has been Tweeted, Facebooked, Google +1 and Trackbacked.  This is a trail which others will later follow.  Your content was worth mentioning and thereby being promoted.
There are many other aspects.  These are a few.  The analysis should focus your future content to become highly relevant.  If it is not happening, then your strategy needs to be examined.  You should be getting found. You should have people reading a lot of your website content.  You should get customers.  Those who provide value and are relevant reap such rewards.
How is your content doing?
Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: , , , , ,

Customization For Personalized Sales Connections

August 15, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Salesforce.com has an interesting article on the impact of data and customization for the personalized marketing experience.  As buyers, we experience this from world-class online merchants and companies that work relentlessly to provide a personalized experience.  This happens when we peruse, get educated and buy.  Our online profiles are tracked and used for presenting relevant offers that are tailored to us personally.

For b2b sales which tracks engagement with your buyers in Salesforce.com, customizing your system to create a personalized experience helps your sales team be on message.  Your marketing team can use information to continually position the message and segment your database to drive in new leads or increase buyer readiness.

The data which sales collects and marketing harnesses as well as vice-versa can serve as a powerful feedback loop to drive lead conversion.  Customizing Salesforce.com should be implemented with this feedback loop in mind.  Here are some best practices for your customization which can help drive this lead generation and lead conversion process:

  1. Categorize By Product Interest.  Within your sales qualification processes, your team can capture information on product or service interest.  These picklists along with related granular information can be used in reporting with marketing to create campaigns that are automated and triggered in real-time or on a periodic basis for events and buying cycles.
  2. Segment By Authority.  Each lead and contact in Salesforce.com has a relationship in the decision making process.  Those with decision making authority versus business influence or technical influence can be segmented and delivered different marketing materials based on their agendas and interest.  A stream of technical data might be more relevant for one audience whereas ROI information and change management practices might be appropriate for senior managers.
  3. Assign lead scoring.   Whether you use a marketing automation system or assess lead readiness with salespeople, create a customized way of scoring leads for their readiness to buy.  Their activities and engagement with your content would be a key metric.  Furthermore, their timing and urgency may be another.  As marketing drives in more data to Salesforce.com allow your sales team to act respectively with the most ready leads.
As your team is able to cull through the noise and nurture leads by collecting relevant data as part of your feedback loop, your company’s personal treatment of your leads creates sales conversations.  You will know what your buyer wants and when they are ready.  Your sales team can be engaged in continually refining their approach to the conversations and providing personalized service as they court your buyers.
How are you organizing your Salesforce.com data to make personal sales connections?
Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Salesforce · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Automation Cold Callers

August 9, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Marketing automation is focused on a premise of nurturing leads to build trust for a ready sales engagement.  That’s the idea at least.  It’s the doctrine, but like many good doctrines, there are pundits and posers.  There are those that love to rally around the marketing of an idea more than practice it.

Beware Of Marketing Automation Talking Heads

Our team has had some interesting interactions lately with companies and people who are seeking to make a dollar from software and advice in the marketing automation space.  We were approached by Marketo for example who continually called our 800 number because they are tracking some errant site clicks which their system purports is one of us.  It’s an inside sales job and the persistence is typical of a sales-minded person.  The dialogue is not around value.  It is around selling us software, though we are not candidates.  If their marketing automation software works, then shouldn’t I feel ready to buy rather than annoyed that they are calling?

Now, we are not knocking Marketo, specifically.  We see the behavior across the board with vendors, other consultants and marketing opportunists.  The competition is fierce for software providers.  There has been a lot of venture money invested.  Despite their gospel of what their software can do, they approach sales similarly to many other cold calling organizations.  It’s aggressive and about them.

We pose these questions:

  • What does an aggressive selling engagement say about the effectiveness of your marketing automation process?
  • Just because I click, does it mean you can call me?  Why would that be more welcome?
  • Why can’t you wait for me to call in when I’m ready?
  • What does your cold calling do to your brand and value perception?

I think the questions are valid.  If the software is so great, then why act contrary to its design and promises?

If you buy marketing automation software, note how you are handled and approached in sales.  Did the automation truly nurture you and build trust?  That’s talking strategy.  Maybe that’s the key.  It’s a different focus than just software.  You may have to call us for that.

What would it look like if your products or services were bought rather than sold?  Feel free to comment.

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Marketing Automation · Tagged: , , , , ,

3 Selling Proposition Strategies

August 1, 2011 by · 1 Comment

Selling Proposition Strategies

When a customer finds you, it is because they were focused on your value proposition.  They searched for you via the internet or their network most likely.  If  you are set up correctly, you were found and deemed credible compared to the convenient mouse click to your competition.

After the click, your selling proposition starts.  Your opportunity to draw people in is built on how effectively you have designed your selling proposition.  While there are many facets to effectively creating a comprehensive selling proposition, here are three which are key to helping your buyer engage you further in the sales process:

1. Become A Content Hub

If your website is set up like a brochure talking about how great you are, you lose.  We don’t trust sales.  We use the internet to educate ourselves and decide who we are going to engage when we are ready.  Your site should have at least 50 articles helping your prospective clients think through the issues and angles of their problem, not yours.  Their perception of your value greatly increases based on how much valuable content you can deliver.

In your content, be sure it is educational and not a sales pitch.  At some point, your buyer is ready to buy.  This happens when they feel comfortable with the problem before approaching someone for the solution.  Empowering a buyer to feel knowledgeable about the issues helps to build the bridge for taking a step towards an initial consultation with you.

2. Create A Clear Call To Action

Each article must continually point to a clear call to action which is consistent, concrete and clear.  If you clutter your content and layout with multiple click points, then you will confuse your prospect.  There should be a clear and easy next step.  Something which is not a large commitment but which removes your buyer’s anonymity is ideal.  Help them reveal themselves.

Thus, your call to action has the goal of getting an email address to start a dialogue.  The value exchange should be designed around increased value in content.  Access to a special report, tip sheet, e-course, video or an array of other mediums that is well-designed and worthwhile for a buyer is critical to design and offer.

3. Measure And Iterate

When you set up your selling proposition, you will miss.  Intelligence in your marketing automation system relies on a feedback loop.  You want to know how much you missed by and what the factors are.  Thus, your analytics should be clear in showing you the process drop-offs and help you to create improvements.  The before and after effects must be measurable.

Furthermore, your call to action could be presented in a toggled A/B test to see which pathway solicits greater interest.  The key is to measure the click points and conversion points in your process.  This means limiting the pathways your buyer can take and tightening the funnel.

The work involved in attracting and capturing leads relies on your commitment to the strategies of lead conversion.  With so many options for a buyer today, your ability to build trust quickly and help the buyer take a next step with your selling strategy must be well-designed.  If your marketing automation system has been designed, analyzed and optimized, then you will find a repeatable process for generating and converting leads.  You will have a system, and it will scale to become a lead generation asset in your company.

What do you think?  Feel free to comment below.

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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