Coming up with marketing campaign ideas can be tough. You don’t want to keep on doing the same old, same old every time, because your target audience will get jaded. But what can you do that will work? Here are four ideas to help you get jump started. Not everyone may be appropriate to what you offer, but these ideas will at least get you going.
If you have some marketing campaign ideas, but aren’t sure how to effectively wrap your arms around the data that’s generated, let MRM close the loop for you. We can help you understand what your marketing automation software has captured, and how you can best use that information to improve your campaigns for more revenue. Call us at 571-606-3106. Check out the services we offer.
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Sales executives still rank lead generation as biggest challenge they need to overcome. According to CSO Insights, businesses that purchase and install marketing automation systems don’t really have a good handle on how to define a good lead that satisfies both marketing and sales staff.
Their new report CSO Insights’ 2015 Sales Management Optimization Study (paid download), also reveals that first conversation conversion rates are around 75% for only a fifth of companies surveyed, and about 25% said their rate is between 50 and 75%. What’s disturbing about this is that these were interested, motivated leads, but that a positive connection is only made about half of the time.
Using marketing automation tools for lead scoring and measuring lead generation success is not something that’s done right upon installation. Many factors play into defining lead scoring accurately, and the conversation between the marketing and sales staff about what constitutes a good lead or the best score is a lengthy conversation.
The study also found that while the marketing department has the automation tools, the sales team still generates more leads.
I found this very interesting, partly because it’s what I’m seeing with our clients, and also because marketing automation tools have to be set up properly with the right metrics and programming to ease some of the workload for both sales and marketing.
The chart below from Direct Marketing News shows the top priorities for better sales management.
Are you having the same challenge? Measured Results Marketing can help you identify the ways your marketing automation tools can work better and smarter for both your sales and marketing staff. Contact us to start a conversation.
When demand generation best practices are put in place, your business will grow its pipeline and attract more qualified leads. Based on far too many years in the trenches of B2B Marketing, here are some demand generation best practices that we recommend.
Integrating your marketing and sales databases is the first step in building and optimizing your Demand Generation Ecosystem ®. It enables marketers to clearly see the full picture and understand which campaigns are attracting the best leads and resulting in the highest conversions.
Lead nurturing is all about supporting your prospects as they work through the decision making process. Prospects must receive the appropriate type of content during each phase of this journey.
This Hubspot image can help you visually see the process:
As you can see in the image, the phase in which your prospect falls will determine the type of information they should receive from you. If they are at the top of the funnel, your marketing materials should be more about awareness. And as they move along the information becomes more in-depth ultimately resulting in a sales pitch.
Developing a lead scoring model will help your sales team easily prioritize their day and focus their efforts on those leads that are most likely going to convert. The most important part of setting up a successful lead scoring model is making sure both marketing and sales are involved in the conversation. This is a collaborative effort that involves input and agreement from both sides.
Make sure you are evaluating the right metrics. And if you’re wondering - what are the “right” metrics? They are the metrics that help you to make better decisions. Often, this will include: lead source (where are the best leads coming from?), volume (clicks, form completes, # of MQLs, #of SQLs), and conversion rates (how many leads convert to customers?)
Start implementing these best practices and you’ll be generating demand like a pro! Have any questions? Need help with setting up your Demand Generation Ecosystem? They Measured Results Marketing Yetis are here to help. Give us a call at (571) 606-3106 or send an email we can’t wait to hear from you.
It’s time to hone those plans for demand generation activities. Whether your goal is to increase new client acquisitions or improve customer retention rates, the right demand generation activities will set you up to successfully attain those goals.
Acquiring new customers is critical to the growth of any organization. To successfully attract your ideal client, you must target prospects accordingly and segment audiences based on their specific interests. Demand generation activities that you should consider to attract new customers:
Provide prospects with valuable information that they are interested in. Create lead nurturing programs that match up with the various products or services that you offer. Communicate with them regularly, educating them, and offering insights along the way.
Create pay per click ads for your products using keyword phrases that are relevant to your target market. Effective ads will attract more people to your website, allowing you the opportunity to share valuable information that will keep them wanting more.
Your website can only be effective if people are able to find it. By improving your website’s SEO and ranking higher on major search engines, you will undoubtedly find an increase in the amount of organic visits on your site.
Create valuable content for your prospects. This includes: blog posts, white papers, ebooks, articles, press releases etc.) Clearly demonstrate that you are a leader in the field by offering a fresh new perspective.
Once you attain new customers, you should have a strategy in place to keep them happy and ultimately turn them into repeat customers. Superb customer service is of the utmost importance and is where you should focus your efforts. Your customer needs to feel valued. When they have a question or concern, it must be addressed fully and as quickly as possible. In order to build brand loyalty, you must build strong relationships with your customers. Happy customers tell their friends and colleagues about your product, leading to more business. A few demand generation activities to keep in mind when working to retain customers include:
Personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates, but 70% of brands fail to use them. Be sure to ask the right questions. People visit your website for different reasons. Understanding your customer’s goals will allow you to create more personalized and targeted email campaigns that address their main concerns.
Send emails focused on engaging customers, helping them to take full advantage of your product or service. These can be automated emails based on specific behaviors or actions taken, notification emails about deals or special product features, or even updates about recent happenings in your field.
Conduct customer service surveys to measure customer loyalty and identify unhappy customers. Use this data to address problems and better understand what changes or improvements can be made.
Utilize social media campaigns to engage with your audience, build awareness and gain influence in your field. The impact social media has on the buying process continues to grow. In fact, SiriusDecisions reports that 67% of the B2B buying experience is done digitally. A social presence has become imperative in our ever growing digital age.
At technology continues to advance and information always at our fingertips, prospects and customers alike are more demanding than ever before. With the right demand generation activities in place, you can ensure increased visibility, higher engagement rates, and improved communication as you work to nurture buyers through your sales funnel.
What demand generation activities have you found the most successful? Need help figuring it out? Give us a call at (571) - 606-3106 or email us today.
Generating more leads is the name of the game. Creating effective and impactful demand generation tactics that are part of a larger strategy is a crucial part of your overall marketing plan.
Today we are going to run through 25 demand generation tactics that all in some way relate to content creation. Because, engaging and informative high quality content is the secret to creating demand for your product. If people don’t know about your business, products and offerings, there is no way to generate demand for them. In no particular order, here are 25 demand generation tactics you should consider testing with your audience if you haven’t already:
So there you have it, 25 of the most popular demand generation tactics. Did you know that on average, B2B Marketers use 13 content marketing tactics? Which tactics has your business found to be most beneficial producing the greatest ROI? Comment and let us know. If you need help creating demand for your product or services, we can help you. Contact us and let’s get the conversation started.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
As you map out your marketing strategy for the New Year, have you found yourself questioning the difference between demand generation and inbound marketing? Not sure of the right marketing mix, marketing technology, or best approach to use when selecting and/or implementing programs and systems for your business?
Identifying the correct marketing mix and systems to use can be challenging. But it’s important to understand the basics before planning your strategy.
Let’s break down the difference between demand generation vs Inbound marketing. Hubspot says it best - Demand gen is sales centric while inbound activities are more marketing centric.
Demand generation focuses more on typical outbound marketing activities like emails, ppc ads, tv/radio commercials etc. It’s a newer way to think about and approach outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing efforts are intensely focused on creating valuable content that attracts customers even before they are ready to buy, and keeps them engaged with your business every step of the way. It's all about bringing the people to you and keeping them coming back for more.
Deciding on the marketing mix will be different for every organization. While outbound and inbound marketing activities work together to help you meet your sales goals, one thing to keep in mind is that inbound leads cost 61% less than outbound leads.
Inbound leads require nurturing. And effective lead nurturing requires having the right systems and processes in place in order to turn prospects into customers quickly and easily.
Selecting the type of marketing technology systems to implement or upgrade to, will have a large impact on your organization. Some questions to consider are:
Have specific questions about your marketing technology? We want to hear them. Call (571) 606-3106 or email us today.
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Effective lead scoring models result in identifying marketing qualified leads (MQLs). When models are implemented correctly, this process will save your sales team an inordinate amount of time while also increasing business revenue. Demand Gen Report's 2016 Lead Scoring Survey found that “more than half of respondents experienced improved marketing and sales alignment from scoring, and more than 40% saw improved conversion rates among leads.”
If your business is looking to implement a lead scoring model, you’ll want to make sure that it accounts for the 3 most critical lead scoring components: facts, behavior, and time.
What facts have you collected about your contacts? These can include: geographic location, company, title, years of service, contact info etc. Knowing the basics about your prospects is an important part of converting them into a customer. When you design your lead scoring model, you can define which facts will have a positive impact and which will have a negative impact on their score. For example, if you only serve certain regions of the country, and a prospect is located outside of that region, then a negative point value would be attached to that fact. Determining the point values for each fact will help you identify your top prospects. And the beautiful part is nothing is set in stone. These values can be adjusted and tweaked over time until you find the right formula that provides the desired result.
Analyzing behavior will provide incredible insights into the specific interests prospects have in the products or services your business offers. There are many different behaviors that can be monitored. Depending on your specific business, you can determine and assign point values that rank these behaviors accordingly. Some behaviors you may consider assigning point values to when creating the lead scoring model are:
As you begin to track these behaviors you will begin to see trends as to what types of behaviors signify buyer readiness.
Monitoring the amount time prospects are interacting with your website along with the frequency of those behaviors is extremely important. Questions you will want to track include:
Additionally, tracking time associated with behaviors can help you indicate problems as well. For example, if a large number of prospects are bouncing after visiting a certain page, it would be a good idea to evaluate that page. Make sure the layout isn’t the problem (is it a responsive website), that no errors are occurring, or that the call-to-action that sent them to that page is appropriate.
Understanding and tracking these lead scoring components will not only help you provide sales with the best and most likely to convert leads, but it will also assist in goal setting. Over time, you will be able to predict conversion rates and identify the number of leads you need to have in the sales funnel to hit your monthly and yearly sales goals. From there, you can work backwards to identify where and how you will promote your products to get the necessary visibility (eyes on your marketing materials/promos) in order to attract those leads.
By implementing these 3 lead scoring components you will be well on your way to creating an effective lead scoring model. If your business has questions or needs help with its marketing technology strategy, we want to hear from you. Please email or call us at 571-606-3106.
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B2B Demand Generation ideas are all about creating demand for your products or services in the marketplace. Successfully implementing such a program will result in an increase in leads and ultimately an increase in new customers. Creating demand involves careful marketing planning, generating new ideas, and trying something new and measuring the results
Here are 4 starting points to get that marketing part of your brain ticking over.
VALUE
Create and distribute content that show prospects that you clearly understand the problem(s) that they are facing, and offer tangible, practical advice that they can use to make progress in deciding how to best solve their problem.
MEMORABLE
Create giveaways that that are fun and different - maybe an interactive app, or a sample of your product - something that has that wow factor! You want your prospects to not only think what you are giving them is cool, but something that is useful, that they will remember, and they may even tell their friends and/or colleagues about.
UTILIZING SOCIAL MEDIA
Actively use social media to generate leads by engaging within different online communities. There are various platforms available, and one of the most popular for B2B businesses is LinkedIn. Participating in LinkedIn groups and posting blogs will not only connect you with a broader network of people, but it can be the starting point for building trusting and meaningful relationships with prospects as well as other industry leaders.
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
While building relationships online is very important, it will never replace the importance of face-to-face meetings. Attend and speak at industry conferences and seminars, talk to your ideal clients, and stay up-to-date with their changing needs. These types of events will position you and your company as a leader in the industry; a resource for others to turn to when they need their questions answered.
COLLABORATE AND LISTEN
Work closely with the sales team. Regularly conduct meetings to request their feedback. Listen to any struggles they are currently facing, and brainstorm new ways to support them (i.e.; new marketing materials).
There are many strategies of how to generate leads, but it all comes down to creating
valuable content that speaks to and resonates with your audience. Of course, technology and automated marketing are extremely helpful with this process as well. If your business needs help with B2B demand generation ideas, or implementing or analyzing your marketing automation tools, we at Measured Results Marketing want to help you. Email or call us at 571-606-3106.
Demand Generation focuses on building brand awareness and creating a demand for your product or services. It’s important that you have a well designed demand generation strategy that supports your sales goals. To get you started, we’ve put together these 8 demand generation tips that should always be incorporated during your planning process:
Understand Your Prospect
Know who you are targeting. Take the time to do the research and really understand what your customer wants, how they want to receive information from you, and what indicators are present when they are ready to make a purchase. This information can be collected through focus groups, e-surveys, phone calls, or whatever method you’ve found that works best for your particular organization and industry.
Buyer Personas
Creating personas or fictional characters based on real customer data will help you stay focused and provide you with a deeper understanding of buyer behaviors. Creating these personas will reveal profound buyer insights like what motivates them, what drives their decision making habits, perceptions, and attitudes about products and services.
Tools & Processes
Having the right tools and processes in place is a must in order to increase demand. The marketing automation tools that are available today are designed to strategically move leads through the sales funnel and convert them into customers. Understanding how the tools work, designing processes for different types of leads, defining job responsibilities for these processes, regularly analyzing progress, and implementing changes when necessary are all vital steps that must be taken to meets sales goals.
Killer Content
There is an incredible amount of content at our fingertips. People are constantly being inundated with information. That makes creating killer content that much more important. Your content needs to standout. It needs to be different than what your competitors are already providing. Be proactive, not reactive. Answer customer questions before they even ask them. Strive to always be one step ahead, current, visually appealing, and interesting. This killer content will keep your customers engaged and coming back for more.
Advertising
Where and how you promote your content is an important piece of the puzzle. What social media platform is most used among your prospects and customers? What websites do they turn to when searching for information? What types of ads get the best response? As they move through their purchase cycle do they turn to different sources of information? Discovering the answers to these questions will help you plan appropriately and get the results you are seeking.
Lead Scoring
Create a lead scoring model that identifies the leads that are most likely to convert based on demographics, activities, and behaviors. For those that aren’t identified as a MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), they continue to be nurtured until their score meets the defined MQL target. Scoring leads will save your sales reps time, and allow them to focus on the hot prospects, which will result in more closed-won business.
Nurture
Regularly communicate with your prospects. Create segmented campaigns based on their interests. Nurture them through the buying process by providing them with the answers to their questions. Be a helpful and guiding resource as they work through the decision making process. The more you support them, the more likely they will be to turn to you for help and purchase a product or service.
Data Analysis
Continually learn and grow with your customers. Identify key metrics and regularly monitor them throughout each campaign and analyze them after they close. Remember, the data is only helpful if you understand it, analyze it, and make changes based on those findings. Review the successes as well as the failures. Use these insights when planning future demand generation efforts.
Start incorporating these demand generation tips into your marketing strategy today. Need help with that? Measured Results Marketing is waiting to hear from you - call 571-606-3106 or email us anytime. The Yetis want to help you!
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
