Posts Tagged ‘Lead Management’

Interview: Carlos Hidalgo Shares Tips on Turning Recycled Leads into Revenue

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Carlos Hidalgo, President and CEO of The Annuitas Group, a well-respected B2B Marketing thought leader and a recognized expert in marketing automation, recently participated as an “Expert Chef” in the Lead Nurturing Cookbook on a recipe we created for nurturing leftover or dormant leads. The recipe delivers a 7-step process for implementing a revival nurturing program and Carlos provides tips and insight on how to make it even more delicious.

To expand on some of the important concepts Carlos discussed in the Cookbook, I asked 5 questions about nurturing leftover leads and how to ensure that your content and approach matches your target audience. Here’s what he had to say:

EM: In the Lead Nurturing Cookbook, you offer tips on nurturing leads that have been discarded or never followed up on by Sales. What should Sales and Marketing agree on before implementing this nurturing program?

CH: There are several things that Marketing and Sales need to agree to before implementing a lead nurturing program. First and foremost their needs to be a defined Lead Qualification process. This begins with an agreed to set of definitions that define every stage of the buying process – from response, to various levels of leads (MQL, SAL, SQL), all the way through to defining a customer. Organizations should then begin to apply characteristics to these definitions as a way to define what characteristics make-up an MQL or SAL. These characteristics should include things like demographic data, behavioral information and when appropriate BANT. Once this is complete, companies can then begin to develop their lead scoring model and assign the numerical attributes to each characteristic.  Without a lead qualification process established, it will be impossible to determine what needs to be nurtured (the majority of your initial contacts) and what needs to be routed to sales.

Secondly, in order to develop a successful lead nurturing program, defining the buyers journey for each product, BU or service will be key. By documenting the buyers journey you will then be able to map the proper content to each stage and it is the content that will fuel your nurture campaigns.

EM: What are some examples of content offerings that might resonate with leftover leads?

CH: When trying to re-engage these leftover leads, it is important to understand that just because your organization did not respond to them an effective way the first time around, it does not mean they did not continue their sales process. With this in mind, it is important that you rebuild confidence with these contacts (since they were originally ignored they are no longer leads as to much time has passed). In order to do this the buyer wants to know that the vendor they choose understands their issues, their market and has a good understanding of the market at large.  The best content for this is thought leadership in focus. This can be in the form of podcasts, video series, webinars, etc.

Peer driven content is also a very powerful use of content to re-engage. Many studies have shown that at every stage of the buying process peers have the largest influence. It would be wise of organizations to harness some of this content and push it out to these leads and also pull them into sections of their website that showcases user content in form of case studies, user video, user generated blog content, etc.

EM: In this recipe, we point to a stat that as many as 80% of leads do not receive the proper follow up, what can organizations do to change that and ensure they are not wasting leads?

CH: The best thing an organization can do to avoid wasting 80% of their leads is develop a lead management process. This is a collaborative venture between both marketing and sales and is not something that should be viewed as a quick fix. When speaking of developing the process, this goes beyond just lead qualification (as described above) and lead nurturing. The process areas that need to be considered in the development of a lead management process are as follows:

  • Data Management
  • Lead Planning
  • Lead Routing
  • Lead Qualification
  • Lead Nurturing
  • Content Blueprint Development
  • Metrics

Without a process in place, even if an organization has automation technology, they will not have the ability to ensure that each lead gets managed properly.

EM: In general, what do you think is the first step b2b marketers should take when developing a lead nurturing strategy?

Assuming the process is in place (as if you have no developed process you won’t have successful nurturing), you must identify the buyers journey.  By understanding the road a buyer takes to purchase, you will then be able to map the right content that will better engage your buyers. As a part of this process, it is key to understand your buyer persona (and more than likely there will be more than one). More and more decisions are made by groups, not just individuals and as part of the journey to best-in-class you will want to develop content and nurturing that engages each of those buyers.

EM: One of you tips for this recipe is to define your ideal personas (or customer profile) in advance, what should this process look like and who should be involved?

This is simply defining who your ideal customer/prospect is and should involve both Marketing and Sales (beginning to see a theme here?). One of the best places to start is taking a look at your current customer base. Define what verticals they are in, their revenue, what they purchased, what their needs were/are, etc. Keep in mind that this is not a one-time exercise. As you gain more intelligence about your buyer, it will allow you to refine your profile accordingly.

Carlos is a known thought leader in B2B marketing for his keen insights on the development and implementation of lead management process, and is also a recognized expert in marketing automation. Most recently he and his brother Jay topped the rankings in the SLMA’s 2009 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management. He is a frequent speaker, blogger and guest contributor of many articles on B2B marketing.

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Jeff Erramouspe

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Posted in Content Marketing, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing | No Comments

Gartner’s MarketScope for CRM Lead Management – An Observation on Analysts’ Ratings and the Factors that Drive them

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

“MarketScope for "CRM Lead Management" http://bit.ly/gISNVP Wonder which Positive ones are Gartner customers. And which Caution ones aren't.”

-          Tweet from @KurtMW, aka Kurt Weisenberger, Sr. Marketing Manager at Planview

I saw this tweet from one of our customers earlier this week and thought to myself, “Hmmm, I had the exact same question”. Of course, I think the answer is pretty obvious. Anyone who has played the analyst evaluation game understands the score – in order to be rated favorably, it really helps to also be a client. I’m not suggesting it is the only criteria, but I’m certain there is a very strong correlation in this report between a having a Positive rating and being a Gartner client and having a Caution rating and not.

Perhaps I’m just being overly defensive, but it isn’t clear to me (nor most of the readers I’ve talked to) exactly why we’ve been given a Caution rating. They could be concerned about our relative size, but regardless of size we have grown consistently over the past three years and 2011 is off to our best start in that time.  The report indicates that we only provide support in the US, yet we’ve got many international customers and partners, including Yamaha (Japan and Germany), HighDeal (France, recently purchased by SAP), AXA (Australia, through our distribution partner PRM), and Naseba (Bangalore and Dubai ), to name a few. We also serve customers who have complex lead management requirements, including Dell, Aetna, Jefferson Wells (a division of Manpower) and UPS, so the implication that we are only for those with “simple lead management requirements” is insulting to both us and the customers who count on us for their marketing automation and lead management needs.

Some of our prospects have said that our competitors who are Gartner clients are using this report against us.  Fortunately, most marketers have played the game and understand the caveats that go along with such reports.  I’d encourage all who are using this report as part of their decision process to dig behind the data.  Make sure that you talk to existing users of your considered vendors to get the full story.  You might find that caution is required where you wouldn’t expect it.

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Jeff Erramouspe

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Posted in B2B Marketing, Lead Management, Marketing, Marketing Automation | No Comments

Thought Leadership Interview: Brian Hansford Provides Insight on Using Marketing Automation Effectively

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

Technology is a critical driver of transformation within the B2B marketing and sales arena. There’s no question marketing automation solutions are becoming standard for best-in-class organizations. However, marketing technology alone cannot improve marketing performance.  That’s why process change and training must accompany marketing automation adoption.  To gain some insight on how organizations can get the most out of their solutions, I asked Manticore partner Zephyr 47’s Brian Hansford to answer 6 questions about how to plan for and use marketing automation effectively.

You talk a lot about the importance of developing a process around marketing automation. What are some important steps necessary for building a solid marketing process?

Marketing automation solutions are process enabling tools that bring structured workflow to demand generation and lead nurturing.  That said, before an organization even begins shopping for solutions, the customer buying process must be mapped and understood as clearly as possible.  This includes learning how prospects learn about an organization; the prospects’ initial engagement points; how leads are cultivated, qualified and assigned to a sales rep or channel partner; and ultimately what causes a lost sale or purchase.

Additionally, the infrastructure requirements must be understood.  Where are the integration points with a CRM system?  An organization must understand how customers buy and the ideal workflow between marketing and sales.  There isn’t a silver bullet answer with marketing automation.  The better the upfront plan, the better the chances for success.

What are some common mistakes you see organizations make when implementing a marketing automation platform? How can these be avoided?

Common mistakes can be avoided with solid planning.  Most often we find organizations that buy a solution before defining an end-to-end demand generation and customer acquisition strategy.  Another common mistake is not developing a decent picture of the target audience and the content they need at different stages in their buying cycle.  (These are sometimes called ‘personas’.)

With marketing automation, it is better to start with a basic campaign strategy and evolve into more sophisticated practices.  Also, and this is critical, make sure the sales organization is brought in and prepared to manage leads they receive from marketing.  Demand generation without collaboration with the sales team will lead to failure.

What are a few key components necessary for marketing automation success?

At a high level, I believe an organization should do the following:

  • Process definition
  • Cross organizational support, collaboration and communication with sales
  • Set objectives and expectations
  • Training
  • Start simple - and grow from there
  • Test often for optimal performance
  • Measure the right metrics that ultimately impact revenue

Which tools does marketing automation provide to senior managers that they cannot get elsewhere?

Ultimately marketing automation provides ways for senior managers to gain better visibility on customer engagement and revenue opportunities.  The managers can use this information to optimize customer focused processes throughout the organization.

What do you think is the #1 benefit marketing automation provides to an organization?

Marketing automation enables organizations to cultivate more revenue and reduce lost opportunities with predictable and ongoing campaign workflow.  The days of 1.2% direct mail response rates are long gone - at least in the B2B tech space.  Influencers and decision makers want high value content that will help them make the right purchase decision for their organization. I believe marketing automation provides a method for marketers to engage prospects and customers with the content they need based on their stage in a buying cycle.

How has buying behavior changed in the last 5 years and how should marketing and sales adapt?

Buyers are more in control of their research, evaluation, and decision making process than ever before.  And that’s a great thing!  Web search fueled by Google’s leadership and the proliferation of social media channels have provided pivotal channels for buyers to find and consume high value content.  Marketers must adapt to this shift and deliver content at the right time, to the right people.  Relying exclusively on outbound email, direct mail, and telemarketing doesn’t work anymore.  Organizations must make content easy to find and consume.  Marketing automation solutions are ideal to enable organizations carry out this mission.  Ultimately, this should help the sales team engage with more leads that are better qualified by marketing which in turn should convert to revenue in a shorter period of time.

Brian Hansford is the president of Zephyr 47, a services agency that is passionate about helping organizations gain and retain new customers and accelerate sales cycles.  Brian has nearly 20 years of marketing and sales management experience in the dynamic software and services industry working with companies such as Citrix, Open Text, Captaris and several start ups.

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Jeff Erramouspe

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Posted in Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Marketing Automation, Marketing Performance, Thought Leadership Interviews | No Comments
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