Pinpoint the Actions and Outcomes That Elevate Leads to Revenue
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Lead-to-revenue management (L2RM) is frequently – and incorrectly – focused on moving hundreds or thousands of leads through a sales process that results in sequential attrition until a deal finally emerges. If you are using this funnel-based approach, your marketing isn’t working to its full potential. Join Adam Blitzer of Pardot, an ExactTarget Company, and guest speaker Principal Analyst Lori Wizdo of Forrester Research to learn how mastering the process for a single lead will enable your sales and marketing teams to better scale your process thousands of times, leading to a more efficient sales cycle and better overall ROI.
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Pinpoint the Actions and Outcomes That Elevate Leads to Revenue
- 1. #etwebinar! consideration Starring Adam Blitzer, VP of B2B Marketing Automation, ! Pardot an ExactTarget Company ! and! Lori Wizdo, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research! @adamblitzer @loriwizdo!
- 2. #etwebinar! The Funnel is not dead, but it… …implies that marketing is just a numbers game. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 3. #etwebinar! Success is not coming from putting more into this output machine! Average conversion ratios from Forrester’s Research End-to- MQL SQL Pipeline Won deal end All 32% 32% 28% 26% 0.75% (N = 211) (N = 196) (N = 201) (N = 195) Top 39% 37% 34% 32% 1.54% (N = 65) (N = 58) (N = 59) (N = 58) Performers Bottom 25% 28% 26% 21% 0.38% (N = 107) (N = 98) (N = 108) (N = 107) Performers You can’t get there from here! Base: Marketing decision-makers at B2B companies in the US and Western Europe with 100 or more employees; Source: Q4 2012 US and Europe B2B Technology Marketing Tactics And Benchmarks Online Survey © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 4. #etwebinar! The Funnel is not dead, but it… …doesn’t care about each individual lead. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 5. #etwebinar! The Goal is NOT… …to move hundreds or thousands of “leads” through a process of sequential attrition until tens or hundreds of deals emerge. Attract Capture Nurture Convert Expand © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 6. #etwebinar! The Goal IS… …to take a single lead through a process optimized... ...and then repeat that process hundreds or thousands of times. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 7. #etwebinar! The Funnel is not dead, but it… …is blind to the buyer’s journey. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 8. #etwebinar! Outside-In L2RM… Your process is important, but the buyer’s journey is key! © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 9. #etwebinar! How Inside-Out L2RM Goes Wrong: What’s working for “We are sending out mailings lead generation? to purchased lists and names we pull from data.com and RainKing. We are sending one email every three weeks, but our open rates are pretty low, and click-through rates are practically non-existent. What’s working for other companies like mine?” Source: Forrester Inquiry © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 10. #etwebinar! How Inside-Out L2RM Goes Wrong: How can I improve “How can I improve the conversions? conversions on my web forms? I want to ask for less information, but my VP of Sales and CEO say it’s not a lead if they won’t tell us their title, phone number, and size of their sales team at a minimum.” Source: Forrester Inquiry © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 11. #etwebinar! How Inside-Out L2RM Goes Wrong: How can I stop my “So, I see you just inside team from trying downloaded a to convert leads that whitepaper from our aren’t ready? website, does that mean that you’re ready to sign up for the free try-and-buy I told you about last week?” © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited Source: Forrester Inquiry
- 12. #etwebinar! The Facts of Life! 1 The numbers game is over! 2 It’s a buyer’s world! Marketing has to guide prospects through 3 the buying journey with kid gloves!
- 13. #etwebinar! Don’t freak out, but … !
- 14. #etwebinar! Buyer’s Stages in the L2RM Process awareness interest consideration commitment
- 15. #etwebinar! Use Buyer Journey Mapping to Plan Questions What? Who? When? Awareness Content Interest Consideration Commitment Packaging © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 16. #etwebinar! B2B purchases are made by teams “What is the typical level of seniority of the IT employees primarily involved with each of the following IT purchasing activities?” Individual contributor in IT Manager, non-IT Manager of IT Senior-most non-IT Senior-most IT decision-maker Awareness Scope Plan Select Implement Roll out Base: 1,001 US and European business technology decision-makers at companies with 100 or more employees; © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited Source: Q1 2011 US And European B2B Social Technographics® Online Survey For Business Technology Buyers
- 17. #etwebinar! awareness interest consideration commitment • Early-stage leads that don’t know they have a problem! • Be helpful – focus content on pain points, not your brand! • Not sales-ready – do not engage with a sales rep! • Be patient and watch your process at work! – Lead scoring and grading! – Look for key buying signals!
- 18. #etwebinar! Engaging Awareness-Stage Leads! • Inbound Traffic! – Blogging! – Social Media! – Natural Search! – Thought Leadership! • Outbound Promotion! – Paid Search! – Sponsorships! – Events!
- 19. #etwebinar! Business People are Social (for Business!)! 86% 32% Engage Are in social activity content creators while working 55% Cite online communities and forums as influencers on their decisions Source: Q1 2011 US And European B2B Social Technographics® Online Survey For Business Technology Buyers © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited *Source: North American Technographics® Online Benchmark Survey, Q2 2010 (US)
- 20. #etwebinar! Create Socially Consumable Content! • Keyword-specific • Conversationally human • High variety (blogs, microblogs, vblogs, podcasts, video, ebooks, webinars) • Repackage, Repurpose, Recycle © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 21. #etwebinar! Let technology simplify social…! • Maintain a constant presence (and save a lot of time) with scheduled social posts! • Simultaneously distribute content across multiple social outlets! • Make content easily shareable by adding share buttons to your blog posts and emails!
- 22. #etwebinar! …and make your efforts trackable! • Social data provides valuable insight for both marketing and sales! • Don’t waste time on what’s not working! • Look for content trends!
- 23. #etwebinar! awareness interest consideration commitment • Identified need for a solution like yours! • Deeper level of engagement! • Permission to move the relationship forward! • Target and respond! • May be ready for sales! – Define “sales ready”! – Set triggers!
- 24. #etwebinar! Engaging Interest-Stage Leads! • Nurturing! – Educational! – Program Specific! – Lost Leads! • Dynamic Content! – Each touch is personal! – Show them you know them!
- 25. #etwebinar! Why Lead Nurturing 1.0 Didn’t Work © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 26. #etwebinar! © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 27. #etwebinar! awareness interest consideration
- 28. #etwebinar! Case Study: Interest Phase • Kana created multiple drip nurturing paths based on previous downloads • The average CTR of their drip nurturing emails was 3x higher than a normal, un-segmented e-blast • Submission rates for new downloads were higher than on CPC landing pages (34.19% vs. 2.63%) • Site visits originating from drip emails lasted an average of 3:02, versus a 1:56 average visit time for all traffic
- 29. #etwebinar! awareness interest consideration commitment • Things are getting serious! • Want a deeper dive! – Product-specific information! • Looking to validate their choices! • Sales is leading the charge! – Give them alerts! – Show them a history!
- 30. #etwebinar! Engaging Consideration-Stage Leads! • Social Proof! – Provide references! – Use case studies! – Social media love! • Sales Engagement! – Product demos! – Proposals! – Solution consultants!
- 31. #etwebinar! Lead Scoring Best Practices Synch with Sales • Define qualified lead with sales, but do hold the standard high. • From the moment of first capture Start Early • Linked with anonymous behaviors 185 150 90 55 Accentuate • Late-funnel content consumption the Positives • Collegial activity levels Adjust for • Downgrade with passage of time or Negatives discovery of new negative data • Trigger new offers/workflows/alerts based on score Automate changes. Measure & Adjust • Revisit attributes, actions, and scores on a regular basis © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 32. #etwebinar! L2RM Improves Collaboration, 8-13% Percent of respondents who cited strong or very strong collaboration with sales on: A 35 No Marketing Automation Has Marketing Automation Base: 522 B2B high-tech marketing executives at companies with 100 or more employees; © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited Source: Q4 2011 Marketing Organization And Investments Online Survey
- 33. #etwebinar! Case Study: Consideration Phase • Valuable lead tracking information helped Wistia to customize their trial approach and improve their lead conversion from trial to lead to client! • Message was customized based on activity – those who uploaded 10 videos during their trial got different messaging from those who hadn’t uploaded any videos ! • Conversions from free trials increased from 20% to 30% after implementing nurturing!
- 34. #etwebinar! awareness interest consideration commitment • Company-wide Effort! – Stellar service! – Ongoing nurturing! – Renewals!
- 35. #etwebinar! consideration QUESTIONS?
- 36. #etwebinar! consideration @adamblitzer @loriwizdo Download the full report: http://www2.pardot.com/leads-to-revenue-report!
- 37. Thank you Engage beyond this event: Community Lori Wizdo http://forr.com/CommunityTM +1 617 613 8805 Blog lwizdo@forrester.com http://forr.com/BlogTM Twitter: @loriwizdo Twitter http://forr.com/ForrTwitter
- 38. #etwebinar! Thank you! Web! pardot.com! Adam Blitzer! VP of B2B Marketing Automation! ! ! Blog! pardot.com/blog! @AdamBlitzer! ! Twitter! @Pardot!
Editor's Notes
- You make it to the alter!
- Image Source: upcoming report
- Image source: not from a report
- ADAMOk, lets establish a few things we’ve learned from the research we heard today. It’s not about you and your process, it’s about the buyer and their journey
- ADAMSo, this new-fangled buyer’s journey is a bit more complicated than the good old funnel we’re all used to – isn’t it? It’s ok. Breathe. If you take a look across the top there, we are still dealing with three key phases in the buying journey: Awareness, Consideration and Purchase. That’s not so different, right? A little less scary? Heart rate is returning to normal. Here’s the thing – this journey isn’t just confusing for us as marketers, it’s confusing for the buyer too. They are wading through LOADS of information and trying to find a solution that really fits their needs. What I want to talk about today is what marketing can do to help shape this path on a personal level for each and every prospect, and what that might look with the help of a little technology.
- ADAMWe’re going to look at the journey a little closer, breaking it in to four key phases: awareness, interest, consideration, and commitment, and thinking about how marketing can help move leads down the path to purchase while still respecting the wants and needs of the prospect. We want to adapt and play in to what the individual is interested in, not shove generic campaigns down their throat. This helps us build a relationship with prospects that will stay with them long after the buying process is over.
- ADAMIn the awareness stage, leads are in their infancy. They are going about their daily business, and they might have a problem nagging at them in the back of their mind but they aren’t actively looking for a solution. In fact, you may not even know who this individual is. They may be interacting with you as anonymous, unidentified visitor that hasn’t converted into a true prospect yet. So guess was doesn’t work? Leading with your solution.Instead lead with educational content, put yourself out there as a thought leader, and let those prospects learn on their own who you are and what you do. Along the way, your process is working in the background watching how they interact with your content, scoring their activity, and keeping a keen eye out for when they are ready to advance to the next phase – InterestNow, before we talk about engaging with awareness-stage leads, I want to quickly point out an important thing about this cycle. It doesn’t follow a strict timeline. Sometimes a lead will come in on day one and fill out a “contact me” form. Just because it’s a brand new lead does not mean that it’s an awareness stage lead. Send that lead straight on through to sales, they have leap-frogged to the consideration phase.
- ADAMLet’s take a look at the awareness phase. What’s happening here? It’s the first step to beginning any business relationship, right? The buyer needs to be aware that they have a problem, a pain point – AND they need to be aware that your solution is out there as an option to solve it. So as a marketer who’s just looking to fill the funnel, what might you do? Well, there are a lot of techniques you can take, some better than others. You might do traditional advertising, hopefully via a targeted channel. You might sponsor an email promotion email list and talk about your product. You might even purchase a list – though I’d never recommend that practice – and then blast out to that list on your own and hope you get enough responses to fuel the funnel machine. You might attend a live event and collect names. Not all of these are bad practices. But how can we get smarter about them, and what do we do with leads that are in this phase? Use data. Be aware of how your marketing is working. Which white papers drive the most leads – ok, one level deeper – which ones drive the most QUALIFIED leads. Take a look at common search terms that drive traffic to your site and start using those terms to inspire your future blog posts.With today’s technology we don’t have to throw spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks. We can use metrics to understand which of our efforts are working the hardest and which we can toss in the trash.
- ADAM
- ADAMOur Q4 2011 survey revealed that 1/3 of marketers are not measuring social marketing successTracking social media interactions can teach you a few things.You can see content trends across different social networks – do infographics perform better on Twitter than on LinkedIn? Does adding a photo to your Facebook post mean more interactions?- Track prospect engagement with social through link clicks
- ADAMSo, interest-stage leads are a kind of like teenagers. They are aware of you, but the might ignore you a little bit. They are most likely researching more than one solution, so they are easily distracted by the shiny new thing another company is showing them. But, at this point they have converted by using a form, clicking on an email or social media link, meeting you in person at an event or something else that’s indicated they are ready to learn more.You have to work hard to keep them engaged, and you do this by providing super targeted information and responding to the cues they are giving off.Usually leads that have stayed engaged throughout the interest phase will reach the point where they are ready to be passed to sales. This can be automated via business rules. Sales reps should be ready and waiting, and should get an alert when a lead reaches the next phase.
- ADAMSo, what do we do with these fickle, distracted teenagers? We nurture the heck out of them. We grab ‘em and we don’t let ‘em go.The interest phase is about building trust. You want the prospect to see the answer to their problem at every turn. You do this by making the journey very personal. As the person is interacting with you, they are giving you a lot of hints about what they want. They are downloading certain pieces of content and not others. They are spending three minutes on one area of your site and only 3 seconds on another. They are using search terms that speak to what they are looking for. USE THAT INFORMATION. Populate custom call-outs on your site based on their interests. Change the next email they receive based on what they click on. If you’ve identified their industry, send a case study from someone else in a similar industry.
- ADAMHere’s a nice overview of how different content types play a role in the phases we just discussed. You can see how the content moves from general to specific – from educational to product-oriented – as the prospect moves through the buying cycle.So, if you do all of this super effectively, what happens?
- ADAM
- ADAMSo, our lead is moving it’s way down the path of the buyer’s journey. We’ve managed to educate them about the need for a solution. We’ve even gotten them interested enough to spend some time with our actual brand getting to know us on the surface level. Now it’s business time! I always look at the sales rep and prospect relationship as the opportunity to find out if there’s a love connection and if we have a future together. Even if a lead has met your threshold to engage with sale - they seem to hit all the highlights set forth in your qualified lead checklist – not every one is the right fit every time. So in the consideration phase, it’s like the engagement period. We feel pretty darn good about us as a match. We’re planning the wedding. But there’s still a tiny chance we might call the whole thing off.
- ADAMHow can marketing help enable sales during this critical period? Well, first and foremost – let them know they have reached the consideration stage. Make sure they get alerts when a new lead is assigned to them, when that lead becomes active, or when that lead shows a key buying signal like viewing your pricing information. Provide a score and grade to help them gauge how they should prioritize their prospects that day.Second, help them out by showing them a history of the prospect’s interaction with your brand. Make sure they know which products were of interest, which pain points they responded to. A lot of this can be gleaned from their website activity, email clicks, downloaded content and other items of that nature.Lastly, you can really help out sales by making it easy for them. This means making it simple for them to access marketing materials that are always up to date (hosted PDFs rather than downloaded copies are great for this), providing them templates when possible and making information available to them in their native land – the CRM. One more thing to think about as your buyers are continuing along this journey – be sure to remove them from marketing campaigns as they move on to new phases. For example, a lead who’s actively engaged with a sales rep may no longer need to receive high level nurturing emails. Failing to remove them from old campaigns when adding new touchpoints can result in marketing overload.
- ADAMI want to share a lead nurturing success story from a company called Wistia. ((Short intro about Wistia))Wistia was sending the same messaging to each and every prospect. They had one linear email track that sent out automated messages. To be honest, that’s more than a lot of companies have today. But they realized they were missing out by not providing a targeted, personalized experience. A key part of the consideration phase for Wistia’s marketing cycle was a free trial program. They realized that prospects that sign up for a free trial need very specific information about how to use their program, how many days are left in their trial, and what they can do to become a full-on customer when the trial ends. This simply couldn’t be done with a blanket program that’s sent to every lead.
- ADAMJust because you’ve won a deal, that doesn’t mean the marketer’s job is over. In fact, the sales person’s job is over but the onus is on marketing to start all over again and make sure that customer sticks with you for life, and hopefully becomes an advocate for your brand.What might marketing do to be involved in this? Well, the education never ends. Keep clients abreast of product updates, new product offerings (hello, cross-sell), educational opportunities, and more. Don’t stop teaching, chances are that people using your product are interested in industry trends, the next big thing, best practices and more. Engage with clients on social media, keep growing your relationship, and ensure that when renewal time comes they aren’t looking elsewhere (remember, your competitors might be out there nurturing them, too!)
- Remind people that they can download the full Forrester research report