10 steps to a successful marketing automation mission
TRANSCRIPT
steps to a successful marketing automation mission
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Does this sound familiar?Marketing automation sounded like the perfect solution.
You invested time, money and faith in a marketing automation platform. It’s in place, it might even be linked to your CRM system. But it’s not delivering the hot leads you’d hoped for. It hasn’t improved your marketing productivity. It hasn’t upped conversion rates or reduced your incremental cost per lead.
This guide counts gives you 10 practical, actionable suggestions on how to ensure your marketing automation programme flies.
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can you help us with
marketingautomation
yesKnow yourbuyer…
You might know your products or services, but how well do you know your buyers? What business problems do they have? What keeps them awake at night? What can you offer them to meet this need?
Only by asking these questions can you get to the heart of what you need to communicate, and when. Marketing automation gives you the ability to deliver the right information to each individual prospect at the right time, but how do you get the best from it?
Companies that have used marketing automation report 53% higher conversion rates and nearly 10% higher sales quotas. Salesforce.com
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can you help us with
marketingautomation
yesKnow yourbuyer…
Actions:
n Have you agreed personas for your key prospect types, and are you staying true to these?
n Find out where your prospects are going online, and join them there. Put together a co-ordinated social selling strategy, building advocacy at every touchpoint
n Keep listening to what the market is talking about, and show that you’re listening. Remember, it isn’t about you any more
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Companies that have used marketing automation report 53% higher conversion rates and nearly 10% higher sales quotas. Salesforce.com
A D DC O N T E N T
Never underestimate the power and importance of content. It’s the fuel that powers your marketing automation rocket. But you need a tankful to keep you moving.
Writing compelling, useful, relevant and consumable content will be the number one success factor in converting more sales, bar none. This is where the bulk of your energy and investment should go – strategically planning out and mobilising your content assets to provide real value to your target audience and tell an engaging story about your business.
93% of B2B marketers use content marketing. But only 42% say they are effective at it.Source: Content Marketing Institute
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A D DC O N T E N T
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Actions:n Attract unknown contacts through breadcrumb content, identify them
through gated content, nurture them with relevant content
n Lists, blogs, cheatsheets and infographics are useful allies, enabling you to cover a number of points at once in an easily digested form
n Before beginning a piece of content, have it clear in your mind the persona, stage of the buyer journey, message and what you want them to do
93% of B2B marketers use content marketing. But only 42% say they are effective at it.Source: Content Marketing Institute
Have you defaulted to more traditional ways of doing things – ‘batch and blast’ emails, shouting louder because you’re being heard less?
A demand generation strategy using marketing automation is an intensive and long-term process. The majority of your prospects won’t buy from you today. A marketing automation platform is designed to help you get results in the long-term.
Run a mission that lasts
Only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. Source: MarketingSherpa
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Actions:n Make it easy for people to find you. Despite
being a business critical tool, many B2B companies still haven’t optimised their websites for easy viewing and user-friendly functionality
nAnalyse and continually reassess subject lines, bullet point benefits and calls to action. Test at least two variables in each project to see what works best
nDouble-check who is contacting your prospects – it could be that they’re receiving multiple messages from your company, so ignoring them all
Run a mission that lasts
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Only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. Source: MarketingSherpa
Effective inbound – attracting unknown prospects and converting them to known contacts – ensures that your marketing automation platform can get to work on engaging prospects through the buyer journey to sales.
Getting your search and social activity up to speed involves an investment of time and knowledge, but it doesn’t take a huge financial commitment. And once your automated model is in place, the process is essentially self-propelling.
Feed the Funnel
65% of companies have acquired a lead through LinkedIn, and almost half via Twitter.Source: B2B barometer and Econsultancy
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Actions:
n Encourage advocates
n Referrals, recommendations and word of mouth are powerful
n Make it easy for people to share your content
n Amplify your content
n Repurpose, promote, publicise and socialise across all relevant channels
Feed the Funnel
65% of companies have acquired a lead through LinkedIn, and almost half via Twitter.Source: B2B barometer and Econsultancy
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Align Sales and Marketing
Historically, marketing and sales have found it difficult to co-ordinate their approaches. A marketing automation platform gives both parties unprecedented opportunities for success, but efforts have to be integrated.
Sales won’t define lead criteria based on ‘digital body language’, content engagement or buyer journey stage. But they do monitor prospects’ interest levels and propensity to buy. Your marketing automation platform can provide sales with invaluable insights.
Over 40% of senior executives believe they would drive more revenue with a combined sales and marketing resource.Source: LBDGA Research – Sirius Decisions Conferencewww.LBDGA.com
Align Sales and Marketing
Actions:n Lead score like a salesperson – don’t use the same
lead criteria checklist you’ve always used. Delivering better quality leads comes from using the information your platform provides to deliver real insight
n Build a useful profile – don’t dump every web page view into the sales lead sheet. Filter and build a true picture of what the prospect is interested in
n Mirror sales speak – don’t use terms like ‘digital body language’. Use terms that they would use when describing the opportunity after a meeting
Over 40% of senior executives believe they would drive more revenue with a combined sales and marketing resource.Source: LBDGA Research – Sirius Decisions Conferencewww.LBDGA.com
Go big on data
65% of management decisions are now based on data, not guesswork.Source: MIT 2011
Putting a marketing automation platform in place will expose data issues you didn’t know you had. Poor quality data will result in project failure.
If you haven’t already, take the opportunity to review your company’s data. Ensure that you’re capturing behavioural, online, and sales data, and that everyone involved is co-ordinating their data into the same system in the same way.
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Go big on data
65% of management decisions are now based on data, not guesswork.Source: MIT 2011
Actions:n It sounds simplistic, but use data to select activities and channels that
are most effective and provide the best return-on-investment (ROI)
n Analysing the most engaging content, formats, times and frequency give the ability to get more from the time and money invested
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One of the key reasons marketing automation efforts fail is a lack of internal communications.
From the start, it pays to get buy-in on your plans. As you move forward, keep stakeholders informed and actively seek out their views on how the platform impacts on their roles.
Seven weeks a year are lost by workers seeking clarification due to poor communication.Source: National Assoc. of Prof Organisers, 2012
Open up communicationswww.LBDGA.com
Actions:n Keep language precise and consistent.
Remember that phrases you use to describe what you’re doing and how, might not necessarily translate to other departments
n Create management dashboards to communicate project performance based on pre-defined objectives
n If you haven’t done so, run an internal marketing campaign to educate stakeholders
Seven weeks a year are lost by workers seeking clarification due to poor communication.Source: National Assoc. of Prof Organisers, 2012
Open up communicationswww.LBDGA.com
Keep
goin
g
As big as the change in buyer behaviour is the size of the opportunity it creates. Use data and response rates to refine messaging and audiences, and incorporate triggers into continually-running activity.
Marketing automation is a means to an end. Despite your investment in research, time and money, the technology alone won’t help you to reach your goal unless you’re clear in your mind about what you’re doing and where you’re going as a business.
No.1 cause of project failure? – lack of direction and goals.Source: Pink Elephant Conference 2012www.LBDGA.com
Keep
goin
g
Actions:n Low-touch or zero-touch programmes cut incremental costs
dramatically, and are achievable when nurture marketing is automated
n Don’t think on a campaign basis, focus on programmes that can be constantly active and running in the background, triggered only when the required behaviour is met
n Ensure your targets and timescales are realistic and achievable. When it comes to the roll-out phase, take your resources into account and alter your targets and time plans accordingly
No.1 cause of project failure? – lack of direction and goals.Source: Pink Elephant Conference 2012www.LBDGA.com
Measure the mission
Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.Source: Forrester Research
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As your marketing automation platform begins to deliver on its promises, you need to consider how to measure and report metrics that can help you demonstrate return and value of your marketing activity at board level.
Measurement of revenue and sales should demonstrate uplift or increase in activity, especially marketing activity that can be directly attributed.
Measure the mission
Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.Source: Forrester Research
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Actions:n If you’re attributing revenue and sales from marketing activity,
calculating ROI becomes very straightforward. Activity should be allowed to evolve to demonstrate month-on-month improvement of ROI on programmes
n In order to understand your pipeline and what activity delivers results, visibility is needed on where your new prospects come from and how much they cost
n To place a true value on an acquired prospect, end-to-end understanding is needed on drop-off and close rates by channel, to identify appropriate allocation of resources for future activity
Collaborate
It’s early days for marketing automation. Many marketers are still operating in the dark to a certain extent, not making best use of the systems they’ve implemented. Having a platform, however, is better than not having one.
When you understand the potential of the platforms available, and combine them with the experience, insight and intuition of a good marketing team and knowledgeable partners, you’ll start to question why you’d do it any other way.
Nine out of ten business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. Be ready.Source: DemandGen Report
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Collaborate
Actions:nLook for progressive partners who have experience in the marketing
automation space, who speak the language of demand generation, and who can make a world of difference to your success rates
nChange is often seen as a threat, rather than an opportunity. So it can take a third party to help you identify the changes required, carry them out effectively, and realise the desired results
Nine out of ten business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. Be ready.Source: DemandGen Report
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We’re not alien to all of this. If you think you could benefit from a marketing automation audit, please contact us on:
0845 838 3883or email: [email protected] | www.LBDGA.com
You may also enjoy reading:
Marketing Automation Selection Cheatsheet
Demand Generation Infrastructure Blueprint
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About Ledger Bennett DGA
We are a B2B Demand Generation agency that uses sales and marketing know-how to help customers increase revenue by deploying Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing and Marketing Automation strategies. Our highly focused Demand Generation programmes drive our customers’ business performance, helping them to:
n Generate more opportunity
n Convert that opportunity into sales
n Retain customers and grow their value
Using more measurable and cost effective techniques than traditional full service marketing agencies we are able to maximise business revenue in the modern world where the internet has fundamentally changed the behaviour of the buyer.
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