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Selling More to SMBs with Marketing Automation
Most marketers are good at generating leads. The challenge, of course, is converting them. A great deal of time can pass between when prospects first express interest and when they are ready to buy. In that time, sales reps often contact prospects too early – and then let the "unqualified" lead go. Other prospects receive ad-hoc, generic follow-up messages; or don't receive any follow-up at all.
Enter marketing automation. It's an ungainly term for a straightforward concept, which is simply nurturing leads with tailored content until they are ready to buy. Here's how it works:
- The marketing and sales teams work together to identify the ideal sales candidate, lead scoring criteria and a set of communications for each prospect type and stage in the purchase cycle.
- Marketing develops a systematic set of communications to nurture the leads – newsletters, articles, white papers, videos, webcasts, etc.
- Marketing uses a marketing automation tool, such as Eloqua, Manticore or Marketo to respond to individual prospects based on their behaviors. For example, someone who watches a video might be sent an email offering a white paper while someone who registers for a webcast may receive a call from sales.
- Sales follows up with the leads identified as contact-ready by the marketing automation tool.
The benefits of marketing automation are significant:
- Prospects remain engaged with your company, via relevant and personalized communications, until they are ready to speak with a sales rep.
- Sales performance improves since reps make fewer calls to more qualified leads. Your sales team has more information on each prospect so they can close more sales.
- Your house list becomes more valuable, since you can consistently communicate with all of the prospects in your database.
- Marketing productivity increases since many manual campaign elements become automated, and campaign metrics are easier to gather and assess. As a result, marketers can improve their campaigns on an ongoing basis.
Interested? BBI and our partner BlueBird Strategies can help you:
- Identify and implement the marketing strategy solution that increases your lead velocity
- Enhance your existing marketing automation solution through an expert assessment of your lead scoring, response triggers and content
- Develop high-quality content to enhance your thought leadership position and maximize conversion at every point of the sales cycle
Contact us to discuss how we can help you rev up your lead generation – and conversion – engine.
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>> Cloudmark Releases Anti-Spam Solution
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>> BigCommerce Integrates Social Media
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Webcasts 'R Us
For a leading telecommunications carrier, we develop webcasts to enhance relationships with current customers and to drive new customer acquisition. We recommend the topic, recruit the presenter and develop the presentation, including providing promotional support. Contact us to discuss how we can make you a webinar star.
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