This is a presentation on lead nurturing we created for a webinar a while back. We think it’s kinda neato. Sorta spiffy. Swell, even.
That said, there’s no audio. Just slides. If there’s enough interest, we’ll record an audio track and add it to the preso. Cast your vote via email [info at falconrygroup dot com] or in the comment section. Democracy – don’tcha just love it??
My friends over at Focus asked me if I wouldn’t mind sharing an infographic they recently published on marketing automation. The infographic has some interesting metrics and data points from leading research and analyst firms covering the MA and CRM space. For anyone wanting a quick intro or an updated “lay of the land” in this category, it’s a good read.
[Attention all Federal Trade Commission hallway monitors: no money was exchanged and no other quid pro quo took place here, ok? Sheesh....]
Now, since this is a blog, I feel obliged to add some perspective on this topic. So, on top of the ones in the infographic, here’s two more metrics for you to consider. The good news: assuming you have some basic tracking tools like Google Analytics and/or a CRM system you can pretty easily apply these metrics to your business.
Metric #1: Your fresh leads who don’t buy. This is the basic “lead nurturing” scenario, and the subject of many marketing automation discussions. Let’s say you generate 100 leads per month and 8 of them end up buying your product. There’s up to 92 more leads that still need attention in some form. Sure they may have bought from your competitors. Or they may have shelved the project. Or they may have just been kicking tires in the first place. Marketing automation can help you stay connected to these 92 leads per month – that’s a run rate of 1104 leads per year for anyone who is counting — in a way that is cost-effective, scalable, and branded.
Metric #2: Your web site visitors who don’t become fresh leads. A lot of people don’t realize how marketing automation can help improve lead conversion. Here’s just one way: let’s assume those 100 leads per month above are derived from 15,000 unique visitors to your web site each month. Marketing automation can help you track and score those 15K “uniques” from the moment they reach your web site, which may occur well before the lucky 100 become known to your sales team. The benefits of this are two-fold:
a) Sales-effectiveness. Your sales people can better understand the prospect’s motivations and interests, as shown by the keywords used, and the pages/content viewed by that person before contacting your sales rep. This allows your sales team to use precious “talk time” more efficiently, presenting the benefits of your product or business that matter most to the prospect. And with the help of lead scoring (a point system that reflects the expected commercial value of a web visitor or lead), your sales team can further optimize talk time by calling out first to the highest scoring (hottest) leads.
b) Marketing effectiveness. Your marketing expert(s) can easily optimize landing pages, phone trees, email templates and other assets by analyzing the rich website and CRM data that are “married” to your leads and orders. And as powerful as Google Analytics is, most companies either don’t or can’t use it to answer important profit-related questions about your sales process. Questions like, “how do we attract, convert, and close more law firms with between 5 and 50 employees in major cities?” A smart implementation of a marketing automation process can answer questions like this.
Enjoy the infographic! (and click it to enlarge)
If you find the original post of this infographic on Focus.com, there’s some good banter in the comments section about marketing automation products being over-hyped and ultimately too hard to deploy (i.e., “shelfware.”). For the record, here’s my take:
Over-hyped = YES
Shelfware = NO, at least not with my clients.
Note: I’m hereby adopting a new policy on this blog. There will be a minimum of one self-promotional plug required in each post. There’s a limit to this all-you-need-is-love marketing, you know. Just ask the evil geniuses at Coca-Cola, who with one brilliant TV ad released about 40 years ago, heralded both the death of 60′s idealism and the birth of Gen-X cynicism.
But I non-sequitorize, or, something….
Anyway, most of the deployment issues with marketing automation occur when companies realize (typically, and unfortunately, post-purchase) that they lack the commitment required to do it right. There are other issues too. The products still need to mature, and the talent pool of implementors still needs to grow. There will be a shakeout in the marketplace for sure, and perhaps soon. But the basic building blocks of marketing automation are here to stay.
As I wrote in a previous post, not every company is ready or willing to do the heavy lifting that may be required to sustainably improve their inbound sales process. For some companies, it’s genuinely a case of “not ready.” For others, it’s really a case of “not willing” masquerading as “not ready.”
I completely understand “not ready.” As a business owner myself, I hate starting things that don’t get finished, or don’t get finished well. So as long as there’s a plan afoot to “get ready,” I never challenge “not ready” clients on their non-readiness.
The “not willing” prospect is a bit trickier. There are often deep-seated reasons why they resist making even simple changes. And rather than try to burrow under the surface to understand those reasons, I’ve learned to just keep these prospects in my “nurture” queue until they become willing and ready, or at least willing to get ready.
You may be trying to get your company (or client) ready/willing to build a better inbound sales process. Here is a list I put together of positive outcomes they can expect, that may help them move them over, or through, the wall:
1) Zero waste – A healthy inbound sales process provides on-demand visibility into, and management of, rotting leads – i.e., inbound requests for contact from prospects that do not receive a response within a prescribed period of time. Lead rot is bad for everyone. It’s a crappy experience for the prospect, it erodes favorable brand perceptions (Hell hath no fury like the prospect ignored – especially if that prospect uses social media), and it’s a waste of the company’s money and time.
Amazingly, many companies have lead rot, know they have it, and simply choose to allow it to continue. Sales management may not want to admit that leads ever reach a rotten state. Or they may even believe that excess demand is evidence that they need more headcount. The marketing manager may choose not to shine a light on rotting leads for fear of being perceived as a scold. S/he may even view rotting leads as a convenient back-pocket example (to be used only under duress / management scrutiny) of how “I’ve done my job” supplying leads to sales. And to the chief executive or business owner, any spirited discussion of rotting leads may appear like petty sparring between marketing and sales, or a distraction from the more pressing matter of this period’s revenue. So discussion is tabled, or it never happens in the first place, and the waste goes on.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A good process can eliminate rotting leads, reduce friction between all the participants, and help drive this period’s revenue.
2) A simple signaling system – Companies that “get inbound” have dead-simple metrics, dashboards, and management tools that everyone can understand with minimal training. And they use these resources to optimize the process. For example, if the dashboard reveals a surplus of leads, they pursue one of several solutions: increase sales headcount, reduce marketing, or simply re-route the excess leads to under-utilized sales reps or channel partners. Conversely, if leads are temporarily in short supply, they can increase marketing spend, or optimize web creative or lead capture forms.
3) Transparency – Yes, it’s a buzzword that has unfortunately been tarnished by many of its non-practitioners. But it’s also the goose that lays the golden eggs in a great inbound sales process. When companies encourage sharing of vital information, the resulting flow of facts, data, analysis – and, heck, even some well-reasoned conjecture — helps make the system work better over time.
4) Better budgeting and forecasting – Companies that have a good handle on inbound marketing and sales are better able to invent their future than those that don’t. When we see the entire revenue factory from loading dock to shipping dock, we can be smarter about budgeting and planning.
For example, we can estimate the expected yield from marketing investments, in terms of leads and opportunities generated. We can then factor this data into the sales headcount budget. And now that we know where the leads are coming from, how many people will be working them, and how those people and leads should reasonably perform, we can estimate the revenues that will result, using past experience to forecast within a range of potential outcomes.
5) Tighter management of marketing spend – With a well-defined lead management system, marketing can compare lead generation investments against well-defined cost of acquisition benchmarks. This data can be used to periodically re-balance – similar to the way money managers rebalance IRAs and 529 College Funds — the marketing portfolio for optimal returns. Or it can be used to manage vendors and programs to lower cost and/or better performance.
6) Tighter management of sales resources – With better visibility into leading indicators, proactivity replaces reactivity. Sales management no longer has to wait for the end-of-period results to inform their decisions on staffing, territories, lead distribution, and other process changes.
7) Minimal friction for everyone – Prospects can evaluate vendors without feeling ignored or harassed by sales reps. Sales reps have their best leads and opportunities (in whatever way their company defines “best”) in front of them at all times, stack-ranked by lead score or other predictive indicator. Sales managers know how many leads and deals each rep is managing without having to conduct a Spanish Inquisition (no, not the comfy chair!!) with each sales rep. Executives can quickly assess risk / upside to the current next period’s sales forecast. Marketing and Finance can nimbly collaborate on near- and long-term priorities, from promotions and sales closing tools, to annual budgets and cost of acquisition models. And finally, the added visibility into the sales process helps Operations make better staffing and other decisions that affect bottom line results.
Regular readers of this blog, and people who have worked with me, know that I’m a proponent of a process-oriented, metrics-based, and technology-enabled approach to demand generation. And I typically encourage B2B vendors to take the long view in developing their demand generation funnel, treating it like a high-value business operating inside their business. I believe that a well-designed demand generation system shamelessly imitates the features of other “mission critical” processes at work in our daily lives, such as air travel, energy production, or the food supply chain. All of these processes generally work as advertised, and generally without interruption. And these processes deliver incredible value to all their stakeholders. It’s hard to imagine modern life without flight, fuel, and food.
It took time to build these modern marvels and it takes time — though thankfully not nearly as much — to build a predictable revenue engine. But time is not a luxury that every company has, or believes it has.
Some companies just want leads.
And they want the leads now and they want them to be qualified to speak to a salesperson. And they would only like to pay for those leads that are qualified.
Having worked on both the client- and agency-sides of the demand gen industry, I can appreciate both why this request is made, and why it’s rarely, if ever, fulfilled exactly according to the client’s wishes. Someday I may bang out a post explaining this disconnect in greater detail, and what might be done to address it. But for now, I offer you instead:
TLOTL’s Quick-n-Dirty Resource Guide for B2B Firms That Just Want Leads (version 1.0)
The following is a starter list of resources that B2B firms can engage if they want to partially or fully outsource lead generation.
1) Appointment Setting Firms – These companies typically have their own databases, telemarketing staff, automation tools, and methodologies for delivering clients the specific outcome of an appointment for their sales person. Usually they will guarantee the result of “a person who matches your target buyer profile, who works at a firm that is in your target list / segment, and who is willing to take a call and/or have a visit from your sales person (usually it’s a phone call).”
2) Traditional Telemarketing Firms – most of us have gone this route at least once in our careers. Many telemarketing firms will also offer appointments as an outcome, but there is usually a greater investment on the part of the vendor to train the telemarketing firm’s reps on how to effectively position the offering.
3) Business Media Firms – these companies typically own targeted web properties that contain content (e.g., whitepapers, webinars, analyst briefs, user-generated articles, etc) related to specific business topic areas such as CRM, Financial Services, Telecom or other markets. The content attracts potential buyers/influencers and entices them to register (e.g., complete a web form) for access to that content. The media firm then sells these leads to several B2B vendors, typically on a per-lead basis.
4) Targeted List Providers – When compared to buying a compiled list from a name-brand business data firm or a direct marketing list broker, working with targeted list providers is generally better value for money. These firms use sophisticated software and database tools to build rich lists of business buyers and influencers, going several layers deeper than the C-suite and line-of-business heads. Then they layer on additional services that confirm if a particular person on a particular list is (a) still employed by the company in the list record, or (b) is responsible for a certain business process or purchasing function.
5) Boutique Demand Gen Agencies – These are often “virtual” agencies where seasoned marketers with client-side experience manage the delivery of demand gen firms such as those described above. This happens to be one of the ways I work with my clients; essentially serving in dual roles as purchaser of lists and/or leads, and pre-sales process manager, ensuring that lead conversion and pipeline growth targets are achieved. An example would be where I work with a business media firm or a targeted list provider to generate a high-quality list of “hand-raisers” or verified contacts and feed them into a telemarketing or appointment-setting firm. I add value by managing the quality of the list generated on the front end, and by holding the lead qualification firms accountable for a given quantity of qualified leads, as per my client’s specifications. Note: Some of these agencies also serve in a marketing/sales operations role generating incremental leads through tighter integration of the the vendor’s web marketing (SEO, SEM, social media) and CRM functions.
Two notable omissions from the list of resources above:
1) Traditional advertising agencies – In the context of considered purchases in B2B markets, I’m not aware of a traditional ad agency that wouldn’t ultimately leverage one or more of the above resources to generate qualified leads. To be sure, these firms add a lot of value in the areas of marketing strategy, branding, and positioning. I’m not against the Mad Men set – they are brilliant masters of their craft. But if you’re trying to get sales-ready leads to your sales team, and you buy through an ad agency, you’ll likely be paying a significant markup without commensurate added value.
2) Internal lead qualification team – For some companies, it makes sense to have internal pre-sales resources putting the final “qualified” stamp on a lead, even with all of the value that these external firms can add to the process. Soon I will be publishing a write up on when internal lead qualification team does and doesn’t makes sense. Stay tuned!
There are several ways lead nurturing can drive performance gains in your sales and marketing function. I’ll provide a few examples below as oversimplified and linear “cause -> effect” cases, with the obvious caveat that, in practice, there’s a fair amount of interplay between these causes and effects.
1) Improved service levels -> improved customer experience. Lead nurturing allows vendors to define a pre-determined program of follow up touches — which in most environments should include at least one phone call attempt — that guarantees each lead will receive the same baseline level of attention. These programs must be well-planned and executed. For example, the programs should factor in variables such as time zones, inside sales staffing levels, optimal email timing and deliverability, audience-appropriate copy treatment, relevant content and offers, 3rd party evidence, etc…. With these and other key factors addressed, vendors not only eliminate the rarely discussed but very real issue of leads “falling on the floor” but they also cost-effectively drive brand preference through a better customer experience than may be offered by their competition.
2) Improved pipeline intelligence -> better messaging and positioning. Most lead management platforms provide reporting and analytics capabilities that go beyond what is offered in pure play CRM platforms. These reporting tools especially reward those vendors who have enabled rich sets of lead profile data (e.g., lead source, campaign tracking codes, industry, annual revenue, employee counts, sales routing details, etc) to flow through their process. Not only do these enhanced data sets allow for more compelling lead scoring scenarios, they also bring valuable intelligence back to executives, sales, and marcom experts about the market segments are responding best to certain offers, promotions, content, or even individual sales people. Over time these diverse stakeholders can re-tool their approaches to mine the best segments for profitable pipeline and revenue growth.
3) Improved spend management -> better marketing ROI. As a result of points 1 and 2, lead nurturing allows marketers to more closely examine where they are (and aren’t) getting leverage in their marketing mix so they can confidently optimize performance. In many cases, the successful implementation of a lead management process allows vendors to either reduce marketing spend, or to re-deploy it “down-funnel” where it can drive specific outcomes that may be more valuable to your sales team than raw demand generation. One application of this is combine lead nurturing with appointment-setting from firms such as Green Leads or AG Salesworks. Another option for funds re-deployment is a 3rd-party-managed study of the “stuck in the funnel” lead population – those prospects who have yet to purchase a solution or opt out of nurturing communications, but who are not moving forward in the buying process. Many companies offering products with a high consideration factor lack a full understanding of their prospects’ buying process. A focused study of these latent, in-market prospects can deliver valuable insights that may not be revealed through a traditional win/loss analysis conducted “after the fact.”
Craig Rosenberg (aka @funnelholic) and Chris Jablonski (aka @cjablonski) and yours truly have cranked up the Guttenberg printing press once again and collaborated on “26 Reasons Your Leads Aren’t Converting into Opportunities.”
For anyone who is just starting to spend their company’s money buying demand, this list is a very handy set of lessons learned from people who’ve seen — and yes, sometimes have been the cause of – 90% of the misfires you can expect to encounter.
Below are my contributions to the list, but do yourself a favor and read the full list on Craig’s blog.
Over the past year, I’ve had the good fortune to speak with 80+ B2B marketers at leading U.S. companies. I’ve taken extensive notes during each of these discussions and have learned some interesting things. Here’s a few highlights:
1) In nearly all of those conversations, the topic of marketing automation and lead nurturing has come up.
2) About 50% of the marketers I’ve spoken with have already purchased a marketing automation solution. (This figure is not a proxy for overall market adoption of these solutions. The population I spoke with is generally in the “early adopter” category.)
3) Most of these marketers are, by their own admission, using only a portion of the robust capabilities available in these solutions. Essentially, these companies are using MA software to automate email blasts to current customers and prospects.
4) None of the marketers I’ve spoken to have implemented the lead scoring functionality available in these solutions. The reasons for this are several. Some have found that they have not identified or hired the right person to drive the lead scoring effort, because a specific skill set is required to do scoring right. Others have cited challenges in obtaining buy-in from the sales team – whose support and collaboration is essential to building an effective lead scoring model. And still others have said “sales is going to call all the leads anyway, so we don’t see a need to score them.”
5) Despite the limited scope of their existing deployments, all the marketers I’ve spoken to are still very committed to the category of marketing automation. They are just in first gear at the moment and planning their ramp-up strategies.
As a result of these conversations, I’ve been working on a visual aide to succinctly explain why I believe it’s critical that marketers and sales leaders commit to the lead scoring process as a part of any marketing automation project. I offer it up here as a contribution to the conversation.
Some explanatory ”companion text” follows below the graphic.
Companion Text:
Six things you can do with the money you save implementing marketing automation:
