‘If they are in my database, I already have their information anyway’.

This is an objection to Marketing Automation that I can completely understand and if all you are looking for is a lead generation tool, then possibly marketing automation is not right for you at this time.

Data capture is a big part of what Marketing Automation can add to your business. Through utilising landing pages and forms on your website this is a great way to gain visibility of WHO those unknown visitors to your website are. Yes not every person is going to fill out a form when they are on your website but you are still gaining more information than you were before as once they fill in that form and provide you with their name and email address, that is when they become tagged and you can see their digital behaviour with you.

The value it brings to the people that are already in your database is not through gaining their contact details, but through tagging them and being able to see what they viewed on your website previously, in their current visit and whenever they return. Imagine the value that would bring you, being able to see what everyone in your database is looking at on your website?

Therefore this is where the value is for those prospects that you already have the contact information for, if you data base size is 50 thousand email addresses, how valuable would it be if you could see what those fifty thousand people are looking at and therefore being able to tell when they are ready to buy.

‘Just because someone has landed on my website does not mean they are ready to buy from me’

This is completely correct and something that I wholeheartedly agree with. One visit to your website definitely does not mean that the visitor is someone that you want to be picking up the phone to.

The really exciting thing that Marketing Automation looks at is when one of your prospects is making multiple visits to your site and spending longer amounts of time on there. This is the time when your prospects are displaying those buying behaviours that signal when you should be picking up the phone to them or making contact. 

What you are also able to do is decide on what next best action will be triggered based on their visits to your website. If they have landed on a particular product page you can enter them into a segmentation list to ensure all further communication sent to them is relevant to them, or an alert can be sent to the most appropriate sales person for that particular product.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that once they start displaying these behaviours that they will pick up the phone to you themselves. Think how many times you have been the buyer and you have been about to make a purchase but something has come up, the phone rang or you had to dash off to a meeting. 

Marketing Automation provides you with the invaluable tools to gain the visibility of those prospects that are frequently engaging with you online but not making any direct contact. It allows you to get in contact with those prospects at EXACTLY the right time when they are most likely to buy from your company. What this then does is bring in more sales for your business and provides you with a higher ROI of your online marketing activities.

Why People Think They Don't Need Marketing Automation

One of the biggest barriers that I come across when speaking to people is that they do not understand why they would need to use Marketing Automation. Over my next few blog posts I will look into some of the different reasons and misconceptions that people have about marketing automation and why they don’t need it.

One of the most common that I come across is that people are already using Google Analytics so therefore only need a mass email marketing platform.

To this I would say that, yes, Google Analytics is massively beneficial and the majority of our clients continue to use it once they have begun using Marketing Automation and we would never tell them to stop this.

However does it enable them to IDENTIFY their prospects through their email marketing? 
Does it enable them to build up a SCORE for their prospects, giving them the ability to decide on the next best action?
Then from that do they have the ability to TRIGGER an ALERT to a sales person to notify them to contact a prospect when they are ready to buy?

If the answer is no, this is why a company will benefit from marketing automation and this is why Profunnel will be of greater benefit than just using a mass email application. Yes Profunnel will provide this service, but through detailed reporting, analysis and account management it also gives a visibility of where future sales will come from.

THIS is why companies WILL benefit from Marketing Automation.

The New World of Marketing Automation

I have been at Profunnel now for just over a month and previous to this I had never even heard the term Marketing Automation let alone knew of any of the benefits or how to sell it.  So to say my first month has been a learning experience is a bit of an understatement!

What I have learnt in my first month has made me realise that marketing automation can be of massive benefit to any business of any size. As a sales person a lot of my time is spent generating leads and cold calling. In my previous roles cold calling has literally meant just that – calling a person or organisation without any real knowledge of their interest in what I was selling them. 

In an ideal world the majority of people I contacted would be really keen to find out more but unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world! Therefore a huge amount of time was taken up by speaking with people who have no interest in what I am trying to sell them. 

One of the major benefits to marketing automation is Lead Scoring – being able to see who out of my leads is ‘sales ready’. That is why as a sales person marketing automation is such a valuable tool. I am able to prioritise my calls, analyse who is most likely to buy and contact them straight away before I lose them to one of my competitors.  For those that are not currently sales ready they don’t simply slip through the net, personalised email marketing campaigns ensure they are nurtured until they are sales ready and that I am notified when they are. This means that I am confident that when I do speak to people that are not ready to purchase, they are not going to forget about me.

What I have learnt so far has been a real eye opener and I am really excited to learn more and see in greater detail how marketing automation can impact me as a sales person.

Marketing Automation: Don't lose sight of the wood for the trees.

Keeping it Simple

With more and more companies adopting Marketing Automation solutions to replace repetitive and time consuming manual processes with a specially designed software solution, its often the case that end users get caught up in the complexity of what the systems can deliver and forget the big picture. Ultimately the purpose of this kind of solution is to help streamline the marketing department’s tasks, making it more scaleable and to help marry these activities with the objectives of the sales department – not to make things more difficult.

So here are Profunnel’s top tips to keep your marketing automation simple.

Understand the power of Exclusions:

For those new to marketing automation, an Exclusion List or exclusions are instructions that ensure that a specific segment or group of existing or prospective clients do not receive specific campaigns or responses based on their behaviour. For example, I’m unlikely to want to send the same offers to existing paying clients as my prospective customers. No brainer right?

But beyond this obvious exclusion, its worth considering a couple more noteworthy examples - sending webinar sign-ups more information on your upcoming webinar, or an e-brochure for those who have already downloaded said brochure is an exercise in futility. Once these obvious exclusions have been addressed, the temptation is to start getting super complicated and start excluding according to all sorts of complex metrics – trying to ensure prospects don’t get the same email twice, or excluding whole lists according to behaviour on specific triggers...the list is endless and our recommendation would be to leave this to the pro’s (e.g. your account manager )

Just remember, over-thinking or in this case over-excluding can create both unnecessary work and can impact long-term marketing strategies. Simple strategies are most effective unless you have dedicated resource to run your marketing automation platform full-time.

Don’t overdo your audience segmentation!

Segmenting prospects and customers is a hugely valuable strategy allowing you to deliver specific offerings to a targeted audience who need it the most. Some companies are happy to distinguish between clients and prospects and others create veritable libraries of different segments. For the majority, once again, the simpler the better.

What most marketers overlook when brainstorming a new and innovative way to segment their audience is that for every segment you may need to create landing pages, e-shots, call-to-actions and offers as well as tying all these into separate campaigns. These then all need refining and tweaking and you end up painting the golden gate bridge all over again. Creating compelling content for larger segments will not overburden your resource and will allow you to push on and actually ensure your campaigns are as effective as possible.

Big Picture

It’s crucial to remember that marketing automation platforms are there to help leverage existing sales and marketing capabilities, not as a tool to overburden and burn out all resources. Of course, there is a benefit in having dedicated resource from your platform in order to supply ad-hoc support or even take on a project on your behalf. However, for the majority keeping it simple is a surefire method of reaping the rewards of a marketing automation platform...don’t lose sight of the wood for the trees.

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Marketing Automation: A Sales Perspective

Marketing Automation from a Sales Perspective


With more-marketers shifting to a revenue-orientated model and the recent sea-change in marketers’ desires to show both business results and brand impact, uptake of marketing automation looks to continue its upward trend in 2013. Despite a high rate of adoption- (a Recent Forrester Report suggested 45% usage within the B2B Enterprise Market*) - companies are only now beginning to understand and leverage the full spectrum of the applications of marketing automation platforms, which can often be very complex.

As a marketer, the physical implementation of a marketing automation platform as the promised silver bullet for their marketing woes can often overshadow an important consideration during the set-up process – planning. More specifically, a plan which will allow the Sales department to reap the benefits of this platform and not use it as another tool for lead-generation or lead management. 

Follow these 5 simple steps to ensure you can get the most from your marketing automation platform from a sales perspective.

1. Align Sales and Marketing: The core purpose of marketing automation is to make sales and marketing one cohesive structure, and will not work if your organisation has been designed to keep sales and marketing as separate entities. Ensure you share cross departmental objectives and success metrics to increase transparency to ensure everyone understands the goals of a specific campaign - everyone’s happier once they know what defines a successful campaign!
2. Focus on Content: Creating enough content to satisfy various newsletters, drip campaigns and blogs throughout a long sales cycle can be a tough job, however it is absolutely worth it when you consider that content really is the coal fueling the marketing automation furnace. To make life a little easier why not consider re purposing your content from your existing assets e.g. one whitepaper can become the topic of a series of webinars or a series of blog posts pulled together could become a new whitepaper and gives your sales team another hook with which to entice prospects. It’s all about working Smart!
3. Plan your Attack: The benefit of a Marketing Automation platform is putting science and process behind the sales funnel therefore defining responsibilities for various stages of the sales cycle is extremely important. e.g. Who's responsible for designing the lead-scoring threshold?, Who's responsible for delegating leads to the Sales team?, Who's monitoring conversion success from these leads? There are important questions to answer and having a designated process firmed up prior to the implementation of a platform so that you can hit the ground running and get the most from your platform and sales team is key.
4. Look to Customize: Most marketing automation platforms will have a plethora of out-of-the-box functions, such as sales alerts and lead scoring which can dramatically improve a traditional sales process but are even more effective when you customise these even further. Having a deep understanding of your industry, specifically your clients purchasing needs will allow you to tailor these functions to your own brilliant needs. Creating customised rules to fit your audience will also allow your sales teams to better target your prospects and marketing to create more bespoke content.
5. Pick a front-runner. Buy-in from Sales is key to the success of marketing automation. By picking a high-performing sales rep and educating them about the benefits of the platform from a sales-perspective you can leverage their kudos to ensure the rest of your sales team understand how it can help reps save time, identify qualified leads and allow for a more targeted approach. Hopefully this will encourage a more rapid uptake of the technology but also more effective usage. 

You may not be able to wave a magic wand and change your sales and marketing processes overnight, but by following the tips above, marketing automation can help transform your marketing programs and re-frame the role of the marketer from a cost centre to a revenue-driving, sales-collaborating winner!

*http://www.forrester.com/The+State+Of+LeadToRevenue+Management/fulltext/-/E-RES71381

Lead scoring does not have to be complicated!

PART 2

Lead scoring does not have to be complicated:

As previously discussed lead scoring should be the Holy Grail for sales people!  Lead scoring is when sales and marketing defining what a ‘sales ready’ lead is and the lead being handed to Sales on a plate with key information about that prospect’s behaviour. 

Scoring can range from 1-20 dependent on the actions of the lead, and should be enough to give your sales rep a good idea of what their leads have been doing. Once the lead builds up their score they pass through thresholds taking them from a cold lead, to a medium lead and eventually a hot lead – effectively the lead is moving from an MQL to an SQL. As an MQL, nurturing campaigns encourage the prospect along the sales cycle by offering tailored information in the hope of resonating with the individual.  A prospect enjoys being sold to when it is relevant to them! 

When the Lead hits the Hot Lead threshold this is when it’s time for your sales team to pick up the phone!  Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first and lead scoring can help you become a front runner.  Alerting your sales team when prospects reach a certain score will mean your organisation really can be in the right place, at the right time talking about the right product!

Here are some top tips to help with your Lead Scoring:

1 – Keep it Simple

People can get very carried away with lead scoring, but the scoring really needs to focus on the main calls to action that will help increase your sales team’s productivity.

2 – Understand your Leads

Who are you targeting?  Which decision makers do you want to chat to? For example if you are an IT company you would want your sales team talking to IT Directors as these people have the best profile for making IT purchases. You can then assign points based on the leads job title and this will give all the IT Directors a head start on the rest of your database.

3 – Automate your Marketing

Once leads are qualified and start to move up through your lead scoring you want your sales reps to know that their leads are active. When leads hit scoring thresholds, alerts can be sent to sales reps and the lead can be added to a specific nurture campaign or added to a specific data list. The email alerts will be sent straight to the sales rep who can then follow up immediately. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

4 – Cold today but Hot tomorrow

Not all leads will be active immediately. 79% of marketing leads do not convert into sales. Lack of lead follow up is the common cause of this poor performance. Most leads will need to be nurtured as they will not be ‘ready to buy’ immediately. Their lead score may be low and their activity limited to a few opens and clicks in emails, but instead of ignoring or disqualifying these leads - they need to be monitored. Never jump the gun by dismissing low scoring leads. Follow up marketing will keep the lead interested until you can hit the right note with them, or when they are ready to engage with you - alerts will be sent to your sales reps.

Enjoy setting up your lead scoring but remember you need sales and marketing input and expect to make some changes so that it can become automated.  Invest time now and reap the rewards soon!  And remember why you are doing this - a good lead scoring strategy will increase conversion rates!

 

References –

www.salesforce.com

www.b2bmarketingzone.com

Lead Scoring - Is it Worth it?

Is Lead Scoring worth the effort??

I have worked with a number of companies; from those who have an abundance of leads who wade through lead after lead to find the cream, to other companies that are scrapping away to get their hands on any lead!  Each company differs with their approach in handling leads i.e.  Do your sales team generate their own leads, do you buy them in or do you have dedicated internal sales team?  Given that there are so many options when dealing with lead gen, the golden question is how to make the most from your leads without burning them?

Ultimately leads come in a variety of forms and just a small increase in lead quality can result in a huge increase in sales productivity.  These changes are what I’ve found salespeople spending hours and hours looking for by hoping their leads will tell them something!  The beauty of using lead scoring is this information is provided to your sales team on a plate!  They can then focus their time on converting these high quality leads into revenue.

But what is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring is the process of ascribing a value (points) to the behaviour of your prospects.  This behaviour may be website activity, demographic profiling, email campaign interaction or a form completion and a volunteering of their information.  Different businesses will assign different values to these actions depending on the importance of one or more of the above actions.  The joy of lead scoring is that it is tailored to your business.  This sounds simple enough but many organisations just want to know what others have done and replicate that…you can’t!  For lead scoring to work for your products and your sales team you need to consult with those involved.  Assigning scores to leads moves your leads from being Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) to Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) therefore communication between these departments is vital.  History will show there has been friction between these departments with marketing throwing quantities of unqualified leads at sales and sales wasting potential leads looking for the ‘quality’!  Lead scoring can solve this!  But first you need to find out what the ideal lead looks like from both a sales and marketing perspective and define these boundaries.  The scoring profiles will evolve and next generation marketing requires flexibility, adaptability and quick changes – adopt this philosophy and you’ll see your business grow.   

Lead scoring doesn’t have to be complicated and next time some tips coming your way…

References –

www.salesforce.com

The Evolution of Email Marketing

The evolution of email marketing

In 2012 it felt like we couldn't escape the constant reminders by journalists, bloggers, marketers and even consumers that social media had reached adolescence. Some even touted the idea that social could make email marketing obsolete; a bold and presumptuous concept when you consider that email is still the primary source of lead generation for 9 out of 10 B2B marketers. Whilst email marketing may not have received the accelerated public growth adopted by social, it has begun to evolve – so what can it offer in 2013?

The relevance of email

The aforementioned figures were revealed by Forrester and sat alongside stats declaring that 70% of marketers see email as either ‘critical’ or ‘very important’ with more than half of them using emails as a primary source of, (in descending order), lead generation/nurturing, enhancing or building brand awareness, driving sales and strengthening thought leadership.

The ultimate B2B marketing tool

Industry wide, B2B marketers reported an average deliverable rate of 84% and a further 13% average click-through rate. Not only are these figures extremely positive, but website forensics can provide marketers with hitherto unprecedented access to customer analytics and reporting which can be tied back to ROI, mainly through the process of lead-scoring; a convention still presenting teething problems for the social revolution.

“New and growing businesses are stealthy in how they embrace email. You will hear marketing automation, cloud-based marketing platforms, digital messaging, CRM, and the like, but the companies valued highly and/or raising a ton of money or being acquired, feature email front and centre’ (S.Jenkins, Clikz 2013)

So what’s next for email marketing?

More and more professionals are now using more complex email marketing systems and choosing marketing automation platforms in order to enhance email lead nurturing campaigns. Marketing automation offers more complex analytics, allowing marketers to track customer behaviour which ultimately leads to more efficient output as brands can fine tune their communications, content and daily activities by interpreting this unique data. Furthermore, these platforms can streamline the entire process with CRM integration, automation of campaigns and filtering mechanisms. What’s not to love?

Marketing Automation

So why do we think Marketing Automation is critical to the longevity and survival of email marketing? Firstly, the adoption of marketing automation is expected to increase 50% by 2015 and thanks to the ease in which customers now have access to the plethora of information about your company, the average sales cycle has increased by 22% over the last 5 years - all the more reason to join the party. Moreover, to counteract this paradigm shift in buying behaviour marketers must now adopt a more sophisticated lead nurturing approach to keep up with this revolution in buying behaviour.

Evolve to prepare

So in summary, it’s safe to say that email marketing is not ‘dead’ and social certainly isn't the straw that will break the camel’s back just yet. However, to keep up with the shift in consumer behaviour email marketing has to continue its evolution to become more sophisticated and integrate with your existing end-to-end marketing efforts including web, social, CRM and offline channels.

Finally, Gartner predicts that by 2020 customers will manage 85% of their relationships with an enterprise without talking to a human. If this is the case, can you afford not to have a platform in place to ensure that you make the most of inbound leads so that your sales teams can target the right customers at the right time with the right content?

Over Half of Businesses Plan to Increase Marketing Spend

The latest survey by research group Mindmetre shows a growth in confidence from businesses when planning their marketing budget for 2012.

As reported by the BBC, 57.1% of the 2,000 firms questioned said they are looking to invest more in marketing while only 18.6% plan to make cuts. By comparison, the same survey in 2011 showed only 41% of companies wanting to increase their marketing budget and 42% had to prepare to cut back. Although there are worries over the UK being hit with another recession, these figures reflect how business owners understand the importance of spending in the right areas to encourage company growth.

One way to improve marketing productivity while seeing a clear return on investment is by integrating demand generation technology. A platform such as Profunnel’s will assist marketing and sales teams with their B2B lead generation, by increasing lead quantity, quality and conversion rates. Sales people are alerted of the activity and interests of warm allowing them target prospects with automated emails, tailored to suit their interests in specific services and products. This level of communication allows sales people to engage with leads who are at the final stages in the buying cycle - creating a greater rate for securing sales.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation.

Always look on the bright side

A recent survey has found that SMEs are optimistic towards investment this year, despite claims of a continuing bleak economic climate.

As bdaily.co.uk reports, more than three quarters of the 100 UK small businesses questioned said that the poor economic outlook for 2012 has not deterred their plans to invest. Over 60% of the companies are looking to spend in marketing and sales, stating that one of their main focuses will be email marketing.

Businesses of all sizes need to make careful considerations for spending this year to ensure productivity and efficiency is either maintained or improved so they can be satisfied with their investment.

Profunnel offers an email marking solution which can be tailored to suit the requirements of your business. The software can assist marketers by engaging with only the warmest leads through a variety of methods depending on the campaign strategy, such as drip emails and trigger emails based on website visitor activity. Overall B2B lead generation is improved and better relationships are built between sales and prospects, increasing the number of appointments achieved.

Visit Profunnel for more information on email marketing.

Marketing Merged with Sales to Improve Business

The chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has published a report suggesting marketing and sales should be merged in order to protect the future of marketing.

As reported by Marketing Week, the Sales and Marketing Fusion report from the CIM believes a tighter bond combining the two departments within a company is necessary to stop the relegation of marketing which has become apparent during the recession. The report continues to suggest that by working in unison, efficiency improvements can be achieved through a mutual view of company objectives and customer satisfaction.

The report has sparked both negative and positive views from marketers across the industry, with some claiming this is an unnecessary move. However there is a common agreement that marketing and sales departments do need to work together more closely.

Profunnel realises the importance of a streamlined sales and marketing strategy – our demand generation platform can help you to improve company productivity through its various tools. Intelligent web forensics will identify warm leads to target by tracking visitor behaviour on a company’s website. This allows marketers to send emails tailored to particular interests via the available email marketing templates. The focus on warm leads develops B2B lead generation while relationships with high-value prospects allows sales to engage more effectively and build on their customer base.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation marketing.

Read our whitepaper The Sales and Marketing Coalition for more information.

Marketers Not Making The Most Of Lead Generation

Research by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has highlighted a lack of understanding surrounding lead generation within the marketing sector, as reported by The Drum.

The poll has found many of the 125 marketers questioned to lack a thorough understanding of lead generation and how it can be employed most effectively – 52% believe they are not taking full advantage of the marketing tool.

Chair of the Lead Generation Council, Trine Buus, identifies that “online lead generation is proven yet misunderstood”. He also suggests that the relationship between lead quality, conversion rates and ROI needs to be clearer.

Integrating a B2B lead generation platform such as Profunnel can assist in eradicating the current misunderstanding amongst marketers and focus on a successful campaign. The tool can track known and anonymous visitors on your website, monitor their actions and feed this information in real-time to marketers. The detail in this data allows marketers to send targeted emails to prospects, creating greater potential for new customers. Additionally, the lead generation software can be tailored for individual business requirements, providing a clearer ROI.

Visit Profunnel for more information on online lead generation.

How to grow your business in a slow recovering economy

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published the latest figures for UK economic growth, confirming a growth rate of just 0.5% during the Q3 period, July to September.

According to BBC Business News online, a Treasury spokesman said the UK economy was “not immune to the turbulence in the Eurozone and its impact on British businesses”, which has become clear from the slow economic recovery that we are experiencing.

With such an uninspiring financial forecast, businesses must now focus more effort on what they can do to drive their business through these difficult financial times, and understand what they should be doing in order to accomplish this. Many companies will already be using marketing and other promotional activities to support their business, but they may not be as efficient, or effective, as they would hope.

Profunnel looks within these activities and focuses on the smaller details, to help businesses tailor their approaches in order to see effective results for their efforts. Online marketing for example, is fast becoming the preferred approach for companies due to the advanced functionality and clearer ROI delivered by activities such as personalised email marketing, social media tracking and online lead generation. However, this can be time consuming and costly when using multiple software applications.

Profunnel offers all of these services and more from just one platform, allowing companies to economically optimise targeted email marketing solutions and online marketing activity through the latest demand generation technology.

For more information on marketing for business growth, contact Profunnel.

Tension Over Customer Data Reclaim

The new government scheme to be introduced at the beginning of 2012 will allow customers to access their personal information held by companies.

Midata is proposing to generate new services and to help customers make informed decisions, creating a two-way trust for businesses and their customers, with the hope of leading to growth in the economy.

As reported in Marketing Week, there could be doubt in this scheme from businesses as many companies find that data is a fundamental aspect in making their business successful and gives them an advantage over their competitors. Many businesses use the information as a marketing strategy – targeting products and services relevantly to customer interest. This is a useful and successful way to build trust with customers.

Profunnel’s B2B lead generation solution allows marketers to identify customer interest by monitoring their website activity. The technology will track which pages known and anonymous customers visit, how long for and how often. As real-time alerts are fed to sales and marketing, online lead generation is increased as the warmest leads are being highlighted. With email marketing solutions, sales people can send targeted messages containing information relevant to the prospects’ interests. The personalisation can increase engagement and trust with the recipient, leading to more sales and a clearer ROI.

Visit Profunnel for more information on lead generation

Growing Concerns Over Personal Data Security

UK consumers are increasingly worried about data protection, according to new research.

A survey conducted by OnePoll reveals 80 per cent of respondents have reservations over organisations protecting their information. When compared to a similar survey produced last year, there has been a 17% increase in consumer worries in 2011.

Data security is a major issue for organisations and their sales and marketing teams. If they are to retain customer loyalty, while building trust with prospects, businesses must be certain that the data they use to target customers is from a bonafide source while also ensuring they are contacting people who would be interested in their services.

Profunnel’s marketing solutions provide businesses with a means to engage with customers and to build that all-important trust needed to ultimately secure a sale. The demand generation platform assists sales and marketing people with their online and email marketing. Through intelligent web forensics visitors to your site can be monitored and tracked while the lead scoring system alerts sales and marketing of warm leads, improving B2B lead generation. Having such information means companies can be confident they are focussing on relevant customers and in turn these customers are more willing to engage with the brand.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation

Marketing Budgets Increase for Q3 of 2011

For the first time since the second quarter of 2007, there has been a rise in marketing budgets across all sectors, according to the latest IPA Bellwether Report.

Although overall business optimism is at a low, the latest predictions for the third quarter of 2011 for marketing spending have ended a three-quarter episode of decline. 21% of the companies surveyed have reported an upward revision of their marketing budgets.

The largest increase at 16.6% has been accounted for online spending while sales promotion has also seen a rise – the first time in nearly four years.

The results show that businesses are attempting to override the negative financial period and realise that those companies who exert the greatest spend on their marketing, will be in a much stronger position than their competitors.

An investment in B2B lead generation and marketing automation can provide the winning formula for staying ahead in your industry - Profunnel offers a solution to strengthen marketing and sales productivity. The technology can track and monitor visitors on your website and focuses sales people on the warmest leads through real-time alerts, with the data integrated into the CRM. With the alerts regarding prospects’ interests, conversion rates and sales improve as sales people can react quickly to the information and approach prospects or current clients about their last website visit. Overall, the lead generation software streamlines marketing and sales activity and allows you to clearly identify your marketing ROI.

Visit Profunnel for more information on lead generation

Information Is Just As Important As The Technology

Business leaders need to receive more information about technology in order to understand the benefits for their company, according to the Financial Times.

A spokesperson for Gartner believes leaders need to ensure they are aware of how technology can be implemented in their business. Awareness of technological influences within the industry is important for businesses to stay ahead, Gartner says.

Although technology is an integral part of any business in the modern world, information on how technology can be useful and why, clearly remains an issue.

In sales and marketing, demand generation technology is proven to provide real advantages to businesses. Profunnel’s solution provides intelligent forensics for your website, tagging visitors and monitoring their activity. The system creates real-time alerts for marketers, illustrating the most interested prospects, developing your B2B lead generation. The platform also allows you to create targeted email marketing messages, tailored to the prospects’ interests. Receiving relevant information is more likely to increase their interest rather then a generic email. While the prospect builds a relationship with the brand and businesses are able to view the main appeal of their services, sale opportunities improve.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation

Email Marketing is Evolving

The results from the annual Marketing Week ‘Email Attitudes Research’ survey indicate that email marketing remains a favoured method of communication for businesses. 70% of respondents said they sent more emails over the last 12 months than the previous year and 45% have seen greater click-through rates.

Consumers surveyed in 2010 found one of the biggest issues with email to be ‘information overload’, whereas this year consumers are more willing to receive email messages due to better targeting. Although for many marketers ‘targeting’ is still considered a big challenge, finding difficulties in obtaining data.

Email appears to be retaining its status as a preferred form of marketing as businesses begin to see the potential of integrating email with other marketing channels. 45% indicate they have seen traffic from other channels increase when integrated with email campaigns. However there is still concern from marketers over data capture, which would allow them to create more tailored emails.

As the results highlight, targeted email marketing is the underlying success factor for marketers and consumers. Profunnel provides integrated email marketing solutions to strengthen tailored campaigns for better results. Through web forensics, website visitor behaviour is captured and warm leads are selected and sent through to marketers, developing B2B lead generation. With this information, email messages can be composed with relevant content for individual prospects. Recipients are more likely to open these messages which will consequently create greater opportunity to generate new business.

Please visit Profunnel for more information on email marketing

Solutions Required for Better Knowledge of Information

A recent Q&A conducted by Marketing Week with national and global brands, including Telefonica/o2, AXA Insurance and Toyota, shows how organisations are getting closer to their customers but marketers are still facing issues when obtaining information.

The heads of research and marketing discuss innovative research techniques which have impressed them, the majority of which are often related to online and digital methods.

These specialists are also concerned with hold-ups in the information retrieval process and how this is frustrating in terms of being able to deliver results. Issues for a number of the brands include targeting the right people and problems with measuring research and the data obtained. The problems highlighted here are apparent for both the B2C and B2B industries.

Profunnel’s marketing software can be integrated to assist marketers with numerous processes, overall contributing to better results. From the demand generation platform, marketers are able to track and monitor website visitors and their activity via web forensics. B2B lead generation is improved as automated personalised emails, created from valuable information, are sent relating to visitor interest. Such targeted email marketing will allow the sales team to build their engagement with prospects and increase interest in the company. Both these factors are crucial for turning prospects into customers.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation