Jun 15
www.ElizabethKulinMarketing.com
Can Marketing Automation Convert Leads?
I keep hearing about, and everyone seems excited about it. During a recent conversation with a Marketing VP of a fortune 500 biomedical company it came up, and this months BtoB Magazine was all about it. But it has yet to turn big conversion rates for any particular market. Still, many companies are testing it, and I keep hearing about it, so I took some time to investigate this new innovation.
As I understand it, Marketing Automation is technology which combines CRM, Drip Marketing, and Web Personalization in 1 place. Sounds good to me! However, when I started to really think about how I would plan, implement, and execute such a technology for my clients I realized that it is much more cumbersome, and although clearly a potential time saver, a seemly long learning experience journey at the same time. But, I am willing to try any strategy that might help turn leads, good leads, into actual paying customers.
As a marketer, our value is often gaged on the volume of leads that we help bring into a company. However, our clients and bosses are now expecting more from us. These leads that we have worked so hard to push to the iconic "contact us"or "learn more" submit button, don't mean anything if they are not good leads that our sales team will actually have a shot at converting. So, it seems that Marketing Automation might help me not only save some time, segment leads, but also score leads. Good stuff!
There are some pretty innovative web platforms for us marketers to use that not only score, but also strategically (with effort) increase the score of our leads. One such Marketing Automation company is Eloqua. By viewing a demo on their website, I became an actual lead of Eloqua. Researching their Marketing Automation technology, and being a lead myself, enabled me to realize the basic SOP for Marketing Automation:
- Create a video - make sure it is relevant to your brand and highlight product, but make sure not only talk about your product/service. Be a voice of leadership in your space, a resource for solutions, by talking about the needs of your target audience and solutions that you can offer your target audience.
- Require an email address to watch the video on your website.
- Activate drip marketing at this point (via the MA system)
- Track each leads response to each drip email, and implement web personalization (via the MA system) to send leads drip marketing with relevant content, as well as to specific website landing pages, based on their behaviors (when on your website and as a reciepiant to your drip emails).
- The MA system scores your leads and loops your sales team in when a lead finally scores high enough.
Take a look at Eloqua, and let me know what you think about Marketing Automation!
Cheers,
Elizabeth Kulinwww.ElizabethKulinMarketing.com
