This document outlines the inbound marketing and SEO strategies used by IntraLinks to improve lead generation and conversions. It describes how the company fixed issues with its website infrastructure and search engine optimization, which led to improved tracking of leads and a significant increase in qualified leads and pipeline revenue. Key steps included streamlining web forms to collect only essential info, implementing analytics to track form submissions, and creating dashboards and reports to monitor lead handling processes and ensure follow up within 24 hours.
C3 2012 Inbound & SEO Strategies for the Best Lead Conversions - John Fernandez
1. #C3ny
#C3ny
|
September
19-‐20
|
New
York
City
Inbound
and
SEO
Strategies
for
the
Best
Lead
Conversions
John
C.
Fernandez
Director,
Online
MarkeGng,
IntraLinks
(NYSE:IL)
2. #C3ny
Who
am
I?
2
+ John
C.
Fernandez
+ TwiQer:
@JFernandez
+ Director,
Online
MarkeGng
+ IntraLinks
(NYSE:
IL)
+ 13
Years
Experience,
Formerly
At:
• Accoona
• X3D
• Chessclub.com
+ Searchlight
Customer
Since
3/12
3. #C3ny
About
IntraLinks
(NYSE:
IL)
3
+ 3,500+
clients
+ 90,000+
organizaGons
+ 2,000,000+
global
users
+ 55,000+
transacGons
+ Users
include
800
of
the
Fortune
1000
+ 2011
revenue:
$213M
+ Total
transacGons
valuing:
$19T
Industrial
Consumer
Pharma
Energy
Legal
Financial
Trans.
Fed./State
4. #C3ny
Today’s
Agenda
4
1
2
3
4
The
Challenge
How
We
Fixed
Infrastructure
(…
and
our
website)
How
We
Fixed
Search
(…
and
our
website,
and
how
Searchlight
helped)
What
Happened
&
Next
Steps
5. #C3ny
Our
Challenge
5
+ In
Online
MarkeGng
in
2009,
our
challenge
was
to
re-‐design
the
website,
but
there
was
a
problem…
• Company
had
over
$100
million
in
revenue
• Inbound
Pipeline
(not
even
revenue!)
was
very
low!
vs.
6. #C3ny
How
Low?
MQLs
SQLs
Pipeline $4.62M
424
$10.9K
4,992
Avg. $
2008
= Any lead passed to sales (Includes every
gated form, webform, phone call, email)
= Sales validated opportunities
= Avg. Dollar Value of Opps
= Total Value of Opps
8%
6
7. #C3ny
How
the
Inbound
World
Looked
in
2008
E-‐mail
Web-‐to-‐lead
Manual
Manual
7
+ No
Trackability
+ Very
Manual
+ No
Consistent
Process
8. #C3ny
Steps
to
Our
Soluon
8
+ Clean
Up
The
Website!
• Used
to
take
3
clicks
to
get
to
a
form,
made
it
1
• Used
to
take
4
clicks
to
get
to
a
phone
number,
made
it
0
• Un-‐gated
all
of
our
content
(Whitepapers,
Webcasts)
o Had
been
sending
all
gated
form
fill-‐outs
directly
to
Sales
as
“MarkeGng
Qualified
Leads”
9. #C3ny
Your
Contact
Form
9
+ Ask
3
QuesGons:
• 1)
What
does
MarkeGng
really
need?
• 2)
What
does
Sales
really
need?
• 3)
And,
more
importantly…What
does
the
user
really
need
to
give
you?
11. #C3ny
Form
Analycs
Are
Crical
11
+ Google
AnalyGcs
Funnel!
• Cost
us
about
$2,500
to
build
and
implement
• Gives
us
clear
data
on
how
users
proceed
through
the
Contact
Us
form,
where
they
abandon,
and
where
they
go
to
upon
leaving
12. #C3ny
Let’s
See
The
Numbers
12
+ We
lost
7
people
in
this
month
that
had
already
filled
out
First
Name,
Last
Name,
Title,
Company,
E-‐mail,
Phone
and
Country
+ …
and
MarkeGng
wasn’t
leveraging
this
data!
Easy
Decision:
Remove
the
field!
13. #C3ny
Pop
Quiz
What
%
of
Sales
Requests
Check
this
box
on
our
form?
46%
What
%
of
Non-‐Sales
Request
Check
this
box?
83%
We
were
completely
misroung
everything!
13
14. #C3ny
Steps
to
Our
Soluon
14
+ Pick
up
the
phone!
• Check
every
phone
number
on
your
website,
collateral,
etc.
o Who
picks
it
up
during
office
hours?
Off
hours?
Weekends?
o Made
sure
to
have
either:
– 24/7
Coverage
– Message-‐taking
capabiliGes,
and
reference
to
24/7
number
15. #C3ny
Steps
to
Our
Soluon
15
+ No
more
e-‐mail!
• Created
Eloqua
Forms
in
plain
HTML
for
internal
Customer
Service
representaGves
to
create
leads
in
Salesforce
that
can
be
tracked
16. #C3ny
Live
Dashboards
• Dashboards
for
every
region
and
segment
• Reports
for
delinquency,
broken
processes
16
+ Dashboards
for
every
region
and
segment
+ Reports
for
delinquency,
broken
processes
17. #C3ny
What
About
Sales???
17
+ No,
we
did
not
have
any
SLAs
with
Sales…
• SLAs
to
us
are
magical
unicorns
which
do
not
exist
in
our
universe…
+ But,
we
can
try
a
few
things:
• Decide
to
focus
on
very
key
to-‐dos
for
Sales,
and
creaGng
reports
for
Sales
Management,
even
if
they
do
not
have
SLAs,
can
bring
about
very
posiGve
Sales
behavior!
• Mailed
directly
by
Salesforce
to
Sales!
18. #C3ny
Report
#1
–
24
Hour
Delinquency
18
+ Great
way
to
create
“SLA”
behavior:
• MarkeGng
Qualified
Leads
where
status
was
sGll
“MarkeGng
Qualified”
and
Lead
Age
Hours
>
24
Hours
• Sales
will
more
quickly
respond
to
leads
as
to
not
get
on
this
report!
o Hence…Sales
will
respond
to
leads
faster
than
they
used
to
• Sent
daily
(Monday-‐Friday)
@7:30AM
19. #C3ny
Report
#2
–
$0
Opportunies
19
+ $0
OpportuniGes
Are
Awful
• Means
that
Sales
has
not
fully
validated
opportunity
• Weakens
MarkeGng
Metrics
by
reducing
average
opportunity
value
• Might
cause
Sales
to
“miss”
opportunity
o CreaGng
new,
non-‐tracked
opp!
• Sent
twice
weekly
(Monday
&
Friday)
20. #C3ny
Report
#3
–
Leads
with
Inacve
Sales
20
+ Sales
people
come
and
go…
• …but
Sales
Management
must
re-‐assign
leads
to
other
sales
people!
• This
is
criGcal
in
any
organizaGon
which
has
a
significant
amount
of
Sales
turnover
• Sent
weekly
(Friday)
21. #C3ny
Report
#4
–
Convert
Without
Opportunity
21
+ Salesforce’s
biggest
hole
• The
only
Gme
Salesforce
writes
the
campaign
code
to
an
opportunity
is
when
it
is
converted
via
a
Lead
èContact
conversion
process
• This
poses
major
challenges
for
exisGng
customers
• This
report
helps
us
plug
one
of
the
“leaks”
in
the
conversion
process
22. #C3ny
One
Thing
You
Should
Do
Tomorrow
22
+ Go
to
your
company’s
website.
• Call
every
phone
number,
ask
to
talk
to
someone
in
Sales.
• Fill
out
every
form,
and
ask
for
an
immediate
response.
• Wait…
o Keep
waiGng…
– Sll
waing?
» Then you have a problem.
25. #C3ny
What
was
missing?
25
+ NoGce
that
there
were
a
lot
of
things
I
didn’t
talk
about!
• Where
was
the
MarkeGng?
o Traffic
GeneraGon?
o Search?
– PPC?
– SEO???????
+ All
I
was
doing
was
infrastructure!
26. #C3ny
Let’s
give
an
example…
26
+ A
very
important
keyword
for
us
is
“Virtual
Data
Room”
• “A
virtual
data
room
is
an
online
repository
of
informaGon
that
is
used
for
the
storing
and
distribuGon
of
documents.”
-‐
Wikipedia
27. #C3ny
“Virtual
Data
Room”
Compared
to
Soda…
27
+ Brand
Leader
IntraLinks
+ Brand
Follower
V-‐Rooms
+ Generic
Virtual
Data
Room
28. #C3ny
Paid
Search
Conversions:
1/2010
-‐
2/2012
28
+ In
looking
at
paid
search,
Virtual
Data
Room
and
its
family
dominates
all
non-‐IntraLinks
brand
in
keywords
where
a
conversion
(Form
Fill-‐Out
to
Sales)
took
place.
Rank
Keyword
#1
IntraLinks
#2
IntraLink
#3
Virtual
Dataroom
#4
Virtual
Data
Room
#5
InterLinks
#6
Document
Repository
#7
Data
Room
Services
#8
IntraLinks
Data
Room
#9
Online
Data
Rooms
#10
Intra
Links
#11
Electronic
Data
Room
#12
IntraLinks
Com
29. #C3ny
Organic
Search
Traffic:
1/2010
-‐
2/2012
29
+ However,
in
looking
at
Natural
Search
(non-‐Paid),
the
keywords
skew
very
much
towards
our
brand,
but
Virtual
Data
Room
only
ranks
#88
in
terms
of
traffic
Rank
Keyword
#1
IntraLinks
#2
IntraLinks.com
#3
www.IntraLinks.com
#4
IntraLink
#5
IntraLinks
Login
#6
InterLinks
#7
IntraLinks
Designer
#8
Intra
Links
#9
InterLinks.com
#10
ww.IntraLinks.com
#11
www.IntraLinks.cm
#88
Virtual
Data
Room
30. #C3ny
Here’s
what
I
had…
30
+ Tons
of
B2B
Websites
talk
like
this!
• No
Images
• Tons
and
tons
of
boring
text
+ Where
was
my
“Virtual
Data
Room”
keyword?
31. #C3ny
Here’s
what
I
have
now!
31
+ With
the
new
website
on
March
1st,
we
were,
for
the
first
Gme,
able
to
have
a
page
dedicated
to
“Virtual
Data
Room.”
In
fact,
we
never
had
this
in
our
content
to
begin
with!
+ Also
added:
• SoluGon
Descriptors
• SoluGon-‐Specific
Images
• SoluGon
Infographic
• Case
Studies
• Contact
Form
35. #C3ny
Conductor
Recommendaons
35
+ Searchlight
had
idenGfied
many
issues
on
the
keyword
“Virtual
Data
Room”
which
we
needed
to
address:
o The
keyword
not
being
included
in
ALT
text
o Meta
DescripGon
Too
Long
o Numerous
Images
with
missing
ALT
AQributes
o MulGple
H1
Tags
o Etc…
37. #C3ny
Does
our
traffic
confirm
this?
37
0
50
100
150
200
250
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
Visits
Visits
38. #C3ny
This
helps
our
PPC,
also!
38
$0.00
$200.00
$400.00
$600.00
$800.00
$1,000.00
$1,200.00
$1,400.00
$1,600.00
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
Cost/Conversion
Cost/Conversion
39. #C3ny
So
what’s
next
for
us?
39
1
2
3
4
ConGnue
using
Searchlight
to
build
out
keywords!
ConGnue
using
Searchlight
to
resolve
issues
in
content/technology!
Remember
to
focus
on
the
user
behavior!
Measure,
Measure,
Measure!