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Showing posts with label digital marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital marketing. Show all posts

Monday, 13 January 2014

Make your message travel further!

What does 2014 have in store for your company and your marketing strategy? Recent research from multiple organisations shows that social media and blogging should be a key component of any of your plans. But this does not mean that email marketing should be ignored – far from it!

With such high levels of competition in so many different industries, how to get your voice heard and your product and services in the faces of your prospects is a real head scratcher.

We know that social media has caused content go ‘viral’ and brought fame and fortune to many individuals. A stand out example is ‘Charlie bit me’ which due to its popularity and sharing was the 6th highest viewed YouTube clip of all time with over 615 million views as of December 2013.

What would you do to get that level of exposure?

Now we at Profunnel are not saying that we expect companies to replicate the success of a dog chasing a heard of deer in Richmond Park using B2B or B2C services but we fully believe that you can maximise and eke out every last drop from your campaigns.

Firstly, the important thing to consider is the content that you plan to use. Planning is key and ensuring that you are delivering thought provoking material that captures the attention of your audience is important. The best marketing campaigns are the ones that get people talking and that are relevant to them. This may mean that you have different content for different prospects – what may resonate fantastically well with a Marketing Director may sink like a lead balloon with a Sales Director – each individual is motivated differently by different drivers, identifying these are crucial.

So you have your plans in place and are ready to deliver – you run a successful campaign and see good results but how could it be better? You want to be able to spread this message further but with minimal effort from yourselves. This is where sharing comes into play.

Firstly social sharing, as discussed above can create a huge buzz and really get people talking. Within the SalesFUSION platform you have the ability to launch and track social media and also give the sharing options on your emails and ecasts so that your prospects share your content on their timeline, wall or feed for their connections to then see. If we consider Facebook for a moment, the average number of friends people have is 130. This would mean an additional 130 people get the visibility of your content. If your content drives traffic to your site or prompts the prospect to make contact this is invaluable free marketing that can potentially lead to more business.

When we look at ‘Forward to a Friend’ within the emails, how often do you forward an email to someone that you know it would be of interest to?

Although it is not as often as many marketers would hope, it does happen. The benefits being you now have a new connection to engage with.  Unfortunately if your prospect clicks the ‘forward’ tab within outlook, Hotmail or any other email provider they may be using this is not registered within SalesFUSION and any clicks or opens that may occur will be registered to the original recipient, missing out on the opportunity to engage with a new prospect and also creating an unrealistic scoring profile. This is due to cross cookieing.

Profunnel's SalesFUSION software has the functionality to prevent this by creating a ‘Forward to a Friend’ link within the email – a call to action. The benefit is that this counts as a click and so you tag your original prospect but also the new one that receives the forwarded message.

How do you word this very important call to action though?

It all depends on your audience and what would make them tick. Examples include:

e.g. ‘Forward to Family’ or ‘Do you know someone that will benefit from this offer’

Profunnel would encourage testing via A/B testing within the system will allow you to establish how to get the most out of the functionality, whether it is the position of the call to action, the number of times you include the call to action or the wording.

We would love to discuss this further with you so feel free to contact us.

Karl
Account Manager

Monday, 25 February 2013

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 –

Thursday, 7 October 2010

Predicted Increase Of Digital Marketing For 2011

Over two thirds of marketers believe that there will be an increase in digital marketing budgets in 2011 (according to research by LinkShare), resulting in greater scope for more targeted, creative and measured campaigns in the coming year.

Add to this the growth of the Internet and social media and it means that there are a growing number of options available for maximising your business potential online. The speed at which the online arena is developing is incredible, giving sales people the ability to target and highly personalise communication to achieve a demonstrable return on their investment. With marketing automation technology companies will be able to identify, track and nurture customers, building stronger relationships and strengthening the brand.

With online marketing playing an increasing role in business success, take a look at the latest lead generation technology - it can achieve far more than you may ever expect.

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