Consideration and implementation of a successful marketing automation strategy presented by Andrew Wilson, Freelance Digital Marketing Automation & Project Manager
2. Aims
Getting the most from marketing automation - people skills & process
Creating strategic campaign plans
Creating long-term nurture programs
Partnering with sales to align goals, objectives and shared results
Increasing lead and opportunity - quantity, quality, conversion, velocity & value
Increasing marketing sourced & influenced leads, opportunities & revenue
3. What is Marketing Automation?
Why automate marketing?
How is marketing changing?
What can Marketing Automation do and not do?
What tools are available for marketing automation?
How to choose a marketing automation platform
4. Why automate marketing?
Marketing is changing
● More pull than push
● Self educating and self servicing
● Social Media
● Data driven marketing
● Lead scoring
● Mass personalisation
7. What is Marketing Automation?
“Marketing automation refers to software
platforms and technologies designed for
marketing departments and organizations
to more effectively market on multiple
channels online (such as email, social
media, websites, etc.) and automate
repetitive tasks”
Wikipedia
What does it do?
✓ Scaling up of successful marketing processes
✓ Automate repetitive tasks
What it does NOT do
It does not ‘do Marketing’
✘ Thinking
✘ Planning
✘ Creating compelling content
✘ Engagement
✘ Positive customer experience
12. Let’s Discuss
1. What stage are you at with your
marketing automation journey?
2. What successes have you had so far?
3. What challenges have you
experienced?
4. What are your plans for the future?
16. Demand Generation Vs Lead Generation
Demand Generation
● Longer process
● Opens the market & creates awareness
● Discovers new markets
● Begins engagement process
● Nurtures the target
● Pre-qualifies leads
● Lead generation is a primary outcome
Lead Generation
● Shorter process
● Identifies prospects and customers most
likely to buy
● Engaging buyers in buying mode
● Sales ready
Demand Generation casts a wide net over a large potential market
Lead Generation “fly fishes” for those ready to eat - or already eating
17. Demand Generation Activities
While specific demand generation tactics vary, they may
include:
● Inbound and website marketing
● Content marketing
● Content syndication
● Event marketing
● Social media marketing
● Paid advertising
● Lead nurturing via marketing automation
● Lead scoring
● Program measurement and optimization
● Sales/marketing alignment activities, such as sales
enablement
Lead Generation Activities
While specific lead generation tactics vary, they typically
include:
● Third-party content marketing offers, such as
whitepapers, eBooks case studies and more
● Outbound telemarketing
● Inbound content offers on company website and
landing page forms
● Webinars
● Paid, targeted advertising on social or in search
● Ad retargeting
● Live events
1. What is working now?
2. What is being repeated?
3. What can be automated or partially-automated?
19. AWARENESS
Seeking educational
information to help grow
their knowledge of solutions
GET TRAFFIC
Top of Funnel
Free tip sheets
Free white paper
Free e-newsletter
Checklists
Infographics
Press releases
Blog posts
DEMAND
GENERATION
CONSIDERATION
Seeking demonstration of
solutions. Comparing
solutions
GET LEADS
Middle of Funnel
Free Webinars
Case Study
Reviews
Testimonials
Product & spec
Sheets
Videos
Buyer’s guide
LEAD
GENERATION
DECISION
Ready to buy. Seek
reinforcement and validation
of their decision
GET SALES
Bottom of Funnel
Free trials
Demos
Free consultations
Quotes / Estimates
RETENTION
Continue to receive helpful
information about the
product or service
RETAIN
CUSTOMERS
Free trials
Demos
Free consultations
Quotes / Estimates
Free products &
services
Special deals
Exclusive offers &
discounts
CLIENT
NURTURING
21. Content Strategy
Choose Content Goal
● Building awareness
● Educating buyers
● Moving leads along the purchase
path (nurturing)
● Engaging with all influences
● Serving existing customers
● Cross-selling or up-selling
● Generating new sales leads
● Establishing your expertise
Develop Content Distribute Content
● How to evaluate products and/or
services related to what your
brand offers specific to your
value statement
● What to do when a common
problem solved by your solution
occurs for your target customer
● 3 steps to solving problem
● How to make sure you don’t
experience pain points
● Social media
● Articles on website
● eNewsletter
● Blogs
● In-person events
● Case studies
● Video
● White paper
● Online presentations
● Infographics
● Research reports
● Print magazine
● Other
Lead Nurturing
● Meet with sales to define a
qualified sales-lead
● Set up your marketing tasks and
platform
● Map your content to stages in the
qualified lead buyer’s journey
● Design a content flow for each
new prospect segment
● Meet the customer’s structured
sales approach
24. Example ‘Buyer’ Journey
● Original thought...a problem needs fixing
● Web search..blog, eBook, webinar..
● Call from Sales pushing for a meeting
● Meetings to evaluate solution
● Expand scope of project
● Build a business case
● Request sign-off and budget
● Scope reduced
● Change of leadership
● Budget freeze or cut
● Problem put on backburner
● New leadership rediscovers problem
● New project scope
● New criteria
● Re-evaluate solutions
● Project budgeted for next year
● Project approved
● Supplier selected
● Purchase order raised
● Order placed
How do you continue to provide value during this process?
26. Profiling Your Customer Journey
Create a customer journey map
1. NEED GENERATION Why do they need the product / service?
2. INFORMATION SEARCH How do they find information?
3. EVALUATION How do they evaluate suppliers?
4. MOMENT OF PURCHASE What is their purchasing process?
5. DELIVER/ INSTALLATION How are the products delivered / installed?
6. USAGE How are the products / services being used?
7. DESIRED OUTCOME What are the desired outcomes?
8. AFTERMARKET How do they maintain?
9. DISPOSAL How do they dispose of products?
28. Why Nurture?
● 74% of companies say converting leads into customers is their top priority
(Hubspot)
● On average, nurtured leads result in a 20% increase in sales opportunities.
(DemandGen)
● 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for
three or more years. (Pardot)
● Purchases made by nurtured leads are 47% larger when compared to purchases
made by non-nurtured leads. (Annuitas Group)
● 64% of CMOs have either an informal or no process to manage their marketing
automation. (Focus Research)
https://www.ventureharbour.com/20-insightful-lead-nurturing-statistics-
charts/
29. Nurturing prevents leaks in the sales funnel:
• Educate non sales-ready leads
• Standardise communication
• Stay top-of-mind throughout the sales cycle
• Reconnect after a loss
30. How to nurture leads
Education for Leads who are not yet a MQL
• Nurturing leads before a sales call is considered to be the most critical form of
nurturing.
• Leads have shown interest but not intent
• Content should be educational and come from Marketing
Standardise Communication
• Deliver a consistent message
• Automate Delivery so Sales is not responsible
• Adjust the message when the prospect responds
• Turn Trial into a Customer
31. How to nurture leads
Stay Top Of Mind In Sales Cycle
• Automate Delivery of “Sales” content
• Inject Personal Notes from Rep
• Trigger Rep-Driven follow up processes
Reconnect after a Loss
• Send Keep In Touch content as contract expires
33. Steps
1. Segment your leads - where do they fall in the buying cycle?
Subscribers - signed up to receive newsletter, nothing more
Leads - Represent a good fit, but hasn’t expressed a product interest
2. Target email content - email sequences with a mix of content to move leads
further down the funnel by demonstrating the behaviour of the next segment
3. Target website content - send leads specific landing pages and content
4. Monitor social media and website actions - track what actions your prospects
and leads take and respond with targeted content
35. Do’s & Don’ts
Do
✓ Use Segmentation
✓ Use an Introduction
✓ Be Mindful of Timing
✓ General to Specific
✓ Know When to Stop
Don’t
❌ “Nurture” your entire Database
❌ Assume that Newsletters nurture
36. 6 Lead Nurturing Tips
● Determine your goal
○ Reawaken cold leads
○ Improve lead quality
○ Generate new leads
● Select a persona
○ What problems are you trying to solve?
● Repurpose existing content
○ Offer value
● Establish a timeline
○ Focus on progress, not just engagement
● Don’t over engineer
○ Concentrate on the human handoff
● Measure and Improve
37. Create a nurture track for a weekly 3 month campaign
Based on the previous customer journey exercise, choose a nurture type and theme:
Awareness/Discovery — what can you offer to create awareness and demand for you product/service?
1. Message & call to action (content):
2. Message & call to action (content):
Interest/Consideration — what can you offer to crease interest and desire for you product/service?
3. Message & call to action (content):
4. Message & call to action (content):
Decision/Action — what can you offer to help decision making and action to buy your product/service?
5. Message & call to action (content):
6. Message & call to action (content):
39. The Need for Qualification
The Awful Truth
• A large number of the leads should never have passed on to the Sales team
• 70% of your mishandled leads will buy from a competitor within 24 months.
(Pardot)
40. Disqualify before Qualifying
Remove poor quality leads
● Spam
● Bad contact information
● Student
● Competitor
● Not our demographic
● No immediate need
● No budget
41. Why score leads?
1. Prioritise leads ready for tele-
prospecting or direct sales to work
on
2. Find prospects who will buy - not
window shoppers
3. Identify systematic characteristics
resulting in won business
4. Improves performance throughout
the funnel by 5X
Improve efficiency, effectiveness & ROI
47. Simple Lead Scoring Example
Source: http://lexnetcg.com/blog/inbound-marketing/hubspot-lead-scoring-guide
48. Detailed Lead Scoring Example
Source: http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Lead-Scoring-Matrix.xls
49. Creating A Lead Scoring Model
1. Sales and Marketing collaborate to create the scoring model
2. Define the objective: agree on the offering, desired outcome and level of
qualification.
3. Conduct post-mortems on closed won and closed lost opportunities
4. Select categories and category values; compare them relative to each other
5. Create test leads to model the accuracy of the scoring model
6. Continue refining the scoring model until it ranks leads accurately
53. 7 Steps for Successful Implementation
1.Lead Scoring
Determine the best criteria
with which to grade and sort
leads to ensure quality lead
generation
2.Lead Management
Develop lead management
rules based on lead routing
process
3.Nurturing Campaigns
Define prospect nurture
tracks and begin nurturing
campaigns immediately
4.Landing Pages
Create conversion-focused
landing pages and content
to convert visitors to
prospects
5.Forms
Develop forms to help
capture information from
prospects to build profiles
6.Consistency
Ensure branding and
messaging is consistent
across all channels
7.Testing & Evaluation
Test and measure each
process to ensure
successful implementation
54. Further resources
Finding Your Best Customer: A Guide to Best Current B2B Customer Segmentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/OpenViewVenturePartners/customer-segmentation-e-book-final?next_slideshow=1
Mintigo: The Savvy Marketer's Guide to B2B Segmentation
http://www.slideshare.net/Mintigo1/2013-05-webinarsegmentationmay9?qid=e8ef7788-5393-44cc-9788-d40a39923501&v=&b=&from_search=5
Demandbase: B2B Segmentation Strategies
http://www.slideshare.net/Demandbase/b2b-segmentation-strategies
A Framework for B2B Customer Segmentation – Part 1: Why Segment Your Market?
http://everythingtechnologymarketing.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/framework-for-b2b-customer-segmentation.html
5 Best Practices for a Successful Lead Scoring Model
http://www.pardot.com/blog/5-best-practices-for-a-successful-lead-scoring-model