by Glen Springer | Nov 27, 2013
Having integrated and managed multiple marketing automation software solutions, the following features were not part of any of them.
1) Generate a prospect list report with last email correspondence topic and date.
Why?
I want to know when people were last contacted to make sure everyone is getting nurtured appropriately, and no one has fallen out of drip program cycles unnecessarily.
Feature Note: The ability to select prospects by last correspondence date and select a next action, e.g. send an email, would be extremely useful.
2) Profile and score prospects via social channels that are not opted into my database, yet.
Why?
If I can connect with someone directly outside of my marketing automation database, I should be able to get a gauge whether he/she is a potential customer for my business without needing him/her to be cookied on my particular site.
Feature Note: A database within the marketing automation software of all social connections/fans of multiple social pages and company representatives would be a revolutionary addition.
3) A recommended call-to-action engine based on matching the following: 1) a registered database of my content (that my marketing automation software understands the contents of) 2) content consumption patterns by my prospects.
Why?
When viewing a prospect, I’d like my marketing automation software to prompt me for some recommended actions/next-steps to take for that particular prospect, e.g. finding an interest pattern and prompting me to send a piece of related content they he/she has not yet consumed.
Feature Note: Having a one-click “Execute this Action” button would be supreme for this feature.
4) ‘Emails sent’ check and suppress/delay automation.
Why?
The ability to suppress or delay emails would be helpful in not overbearing prospects with too many emails.
Feature Note: The ability to override the delay/suppress should be available in case a critical announcement needs to be sent.
For more on marketing automation, you can find more educational blog articles here. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
by gabriel_sales | Nov 12, 2013
Nearly every business today is looking for ways to generate more leads and close more deals. Many companies are now looking to marketing automation as a means to achieve this and end up dissatisfied with the results.
The reasons for dissatisfaction vary; some are challenged by the complexity of the software itself, others are frustrated by the software’s lack of integration with sales. Whatever the reason, we believe dissatisfaction with marketing automation stems from the same misunderstanding.
Many companies today see marketing automation as a be-all end-all solution to their marketing and sales problems. The problem with this line of thinking is that marketing automation is not a solution; it is a tool.
Let’s say you’re trying to build a house. You can buy the most expensive and high-tech drill available, but you still need blueprints, money, materials and a lot of hard work to get the house built. The same goes for marketing automation software. You can get the most expensive one or the one with the most features, but unless you have strategy, content, sales technologies and dedicated staff behind it, it is not going to work like you want it to.
Marketing automation platforms work best when they are a part of an integrated sales and marketing program. An integrated program combines sales pipeline management, content marketing, SEO and social media into a unified effort where each part supports and reinforces the others. A marketing automation tool acts like a connecting thread between the other parts, keeping track of all data and giving you valuable insights about your customers as well as the effectiveness of your various marketing tactics.
When used in this way, marketing automation can have dramatic results. In fact, with a commitment to this type of alignment, you can expect substantial revenue (157% growth) at a decreased cost of sale within 18 months to pull away from the competition.
If you’d like to know more about how B2B sales and marketing has changed in recent years, watch this quick video called, “The New Rules of Buying and Selling.” If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
by gabriel_sales | Oct 25, 2013
When people talk about marketing automation, they often compare it to a magic diet pill that will solve all of your problems. As marketing automation experts, we know that marketing automation can truly revolutionize your sales and marketing efforts, but that does not mean that there is no work involved. There are several basic things you should do make sure you are getting the most ROI for your marketing automation platform. Here are three tips to increase efficiency and effectiveness:
1. Explore options and configure tools.
A lot of companies don’t get the most out their marketing automation software because they do not understand all of its features and capabilities. By exploring all of your options, you will often find hidden gems (like ‘Prospect Audits and ‘System Emails’) that end up bring a huge amount of value. You can also increase the efficiency of your marketing automation platform by all configuring connectors, add-ons and social and search marketing settings that are relevant to you.
2. Setup real time alerts and set calls to action in the subject line of notifications.
One of the most valuable aspects of a marketing automation solution is the notifications feature. You can set up your platform to alert you each time a certain action is taken (i.e. a prospect filling out a form) by sending you an email. It is a good idea to put a call to action in the subject line (“CALL NOW!”) of the email to help alert you to the level importance.
3. Keep up with changes and training.
Just like the world of marketing, the world of marketing automation is constantly going through adaptations, upgrades and other changes. Because of this, it is a good idea to do weekly or monthly audits of your marketing automation platform of rules, dynamic segments and other automated tasks to make sure they are still necessary and are still actively working for your campaigns. You can also increase the efficiency of your marketing automation by improving the level of training of the people who use it. Most marketing automation companies have offer webinars, tutorials or training sessions to help marketers and sales people get the most out of the technology.
With regular audits, training and updates, the value of marketing automation can and should increase. To read more about marketing automation, click here. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
by gabriel_sales | Oct 18, 2013
As marketing automation experts, we’re always on the hunt for ways of improving our process and outreach while simplifying our jobs and day-to-day, repetitive tasks. Exploring the web for tools is a key way we discover what’s new, hot and working in the world of sales and marketing automation.
Here is one we found recently and 8 ways to use it:
If This Then That (IFTTT)
This scripting service integrates with a large selection of ‘channels’ (e.g. Facebook, Gmail, Box, etc.) and allows you to very simply create ‘recipes’. The recipes are quite simple to create and based of the formula, “If THIS, then THAT.”
Here are 8 ways you can use it for marketing and business automation:
1) If “You post to Twitter with hashtag #marketingautomation”, Then “Post to Your Facebook Page, Too”. (automates social messaging distribution)
2) If email has an attachment, then save to Box (prevents losing documents and improves project collaboration).
3) If new industry news is published, then save to Evernote (or send me an email). (Help with content marketing ideas)
4) If someone posts job with keyword, e.g. “sales” on Craigslist, then send me an email. (If you are a service provider, you can ask if they would consider an outsourcing to a firm instead of hiring in-house)
5) If you add a new contact to your iPhone, then automatically send a “nice to meet you” email. (automates follow-up)
6) If you send a IFTTT an SMS message with tag ‘cal’, then automatically add to my Google Calendar. (improve speed of saving and remembering events)
7) If VIP email received in Gmail, then use Pushover to send me a text message notification (stay on top of critical emails)
8) If you post to your WordPress blog, add it to Facebook company page (More social and content automation).
These are just a few ideas we’ve created or come across that are effective for automation in our marketing and our business. Making life easier to focus on the most important tasks in business and life is the main purpose of setting up these recipes.
To read more educational content on marketing automation, click here.
by gabriel_sales | Oct 16, 2013
One of the most critical tasks you can do when you are in B2B is building your B2B marketing database. Having a growing database of people to educate on industry topics and your products/services will be one of the defining factors in your company’s growth (or decline if the database is stale or waning). Continuing to build (and nurture) this database will help prevent major valleys in your sales revenue.
To best build and manage your B2B marketing database, we recommend using marketing automation software as your centralized B2B marketing database tool. Marketing automation software not only provides excellent contact database storage functionality (e.g. cloud, flexible volumes), it has other marketing functionality that allows you to do the following to maximize the use of your database:
- send automated mass & targeted messaging
- quickly build effective landing pages that support your lead generation
- segment your contacts in a variation of ways to customize your outreach
- analyze the contacts in your database on an individual and collective basis
- progressively score & grade contacts based on implicit & explicit elements
- integrate with other tools that provide extended intelligence
Over 3 years ago, we migrated our entire marketing database to a marketing automation software and the improved marketing and sales functionality has helped us improve top-to-bottom funnel conversions exponentially.
Using marketing automation software as your main B2B marketing database has a number of positive benefits to your marketing and sales team. Adopting this as a best practice in your B2B organization is one of our highest recommendations and we’ve been helping many businesses adopt this into their B2B marketing database strategy.
To learn more about the value of marketing automation, you can find more educational content here. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
by Glen Springer | Oct 9, 2013
If I were given 90 minutes to do a marketing automation audit, here would be my six areas of focus:
Segmentation:
- Find segments to dynamically create targeted lists
- Archive lists not in use
- Consolidate overlapping lists
- Make sure auto-tagging rules are enabled for simplified segmentation
Content automation triggers:
- Confirm that all forms have an active auto responder with related copy and an additional call to action
- Check that a drip sequence is in place and active (where applicable)
- See that rules are in place to send related follow-up pieces when a specific content asset is viewed
Lead scoring/grading:
- Examine pages by content stage and assign appropriate scores
- Review existing scoring to make sure score changes portray accurate interest/buying signals
- Inspect buyer persona profiles to make sure grading is correctly assigned
Integrations:
- Check all 3rd party integrations are properly setup and functioning
- Investigate CRM fields that need custom field mapping to the Marketing Automation software and could provide valuable data for enhanced segmentation
- Recommend additional integrations that enhance prospect experience and provide additional intelligence to sales and marketing
Reporting:
- Look at performance and respective content (e.g. email, social, landing pages) and suggest conversion optimization enhancements
Internal Automation:
- View all form actions to make sure sales and marketing are notified in real-time of hot prospects
- Survey sales team to make sure they’re using real-time tools to analyze prospects
Completing these sixteen steps during a marketing automation audit would absolutely enhance your experience with marketing automation software and better guarantee that you are effectively executing your lead generation, demand generation and sales efforts.
For more marketing automation tips, click here. If you are interested in learning about the marketing automation consulting we provide, you can check our our services page.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
Having integrated and managed multiple marketing automation software solutions, the following features were not part of any of them.
