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1 Swiftpage.com [Blog] Blog.Swiftpage.com

Automated Marketing

Practical Scenarios to Get You Started


Table of Contents Executive Summary _________ ________ 3

Part One: Lead Management Lead Gathering __________ ________ 4 Lead Nurturing before you have Permission to Email _______ 6 Lead Nurturing using Email _______ 7 Handoff qualified leads to sales ________ 9 New Customer Acquisition ______ _____________ 10

Part Two: Customer Nurturing Welcoming New Customers ___ _______ 11

Nurturing to increase customer retention _______ 12

Customer cross-selling ______ _______ 13

Swiftpage Glossary _______ 14 About Swiftpage 17


Executive Summary Automated marketing is a common, well-utilized tool in the enterprise marketplace. As a small business owner, you do not have the time or the expertise to launch a complicated marketing system that is normally managed by an entire department with seemingly unlimited resources. Swiftpage conducted an Automated Marketing survey that polled our small business customer base. When asked if they knew what automated marketing was, only 43% responded yes. Yet, when asked about their business’ marketing needs the most common answers were to nurture leads, gather leads and nurture customers. In order for you to be successful in promoting your products or services, you need a level of automation that saves time, money and eliminates the need for additional personnel.

The keys to small business automated marketing: Ease of use – You should be able to drop in your target list and know they will be receiving the right messages at the right time.

Inexpensive – A dollar spent on one initiative means a dollar not spent on another. You need to maximize every dollar that leaves your company doors.

Support for all list sizes – Your targets are laser-focused. You need the ability to send highly relevant messages to a well-defined group as well as general messages to a broader group.

Pre-packaged content – You need a solution that saves you time, not one that costs you time. An automated marketing solution that can provide these key requirements allows your small business to focus its limited resources and achieve maximum results. In this whitepaper we will walk through every aspect of lead management, from lead gathering and nurturing to handing leads off to sales and new customer acquisition. We also want to reiterate the importance of customer nurturing and offer practical examples on welcoming new customers, increasing customer retention and customer cross-selling. We hope this information is helpful to you and your business. Feel free to contact us with any questions at (877) 228-8377 or at [email protected].

75%68.7% 62.5%

50%37.5%

25%

6.25%

To nurture leads

To gather leads

To nurture customers

To welcome

new customers

To put on an event

To announce product updates

Other

Marketing Needs

Marketing Needs

mailto:[email protected]


Part One: Lead Management k Lead Gathering Before you can nurture leads, you must gather them. How does a small business generate leads inexpensively? The starting point is to have a place on the website that extends your company’s benefits and allows the viewer to request more information via web form. You can also motivate current customers to refer new leads with incentives. If your budget allows, purchase lead lists and use paid advertising (such as paid keywords) to drive traffic.

According to Econsultancy.com’s Online Lead Generation (B2C) Report 2009, the greatest benefit found from lead generation is the ability to increase prospect list and customer base. In fact, 65% of respondents said their use of online lead generation has increased in the last year. Additionally, 88% of responding organizations said that lead generation will become more important to their organization over the next 12 months. 68.75% of Swiftpage customers polled in the Automated Marketing survey stated that gathering leads is one of their greatest marketing needs.

Ways to Take Action: k

Website – Include a web form on your website or landing page that allows people to ask for more information about the company’s products or services. Ask for their name, email address and phone number. Also, ask them if they want to be called by a sales person. You can use the Swiftpage Survey tool to create this landing page yourself.

What elements should you consider when creating a landing page? No matter where a person clicks through from to your landing page (advertisement, social media link, direct mail, website homepage etc.) the messaging and overall look must be consistent. You also need to make sure to offer something more – more benefits, more education, more action. Catchy headlines are a great way to spark interest and preface the benefits you have to share. The consumer touch point or call to action is the single most important part of a landing page. Pay close attention to where your call to action is located and make sure it has the prime real estate on the page. It should be where all your content is pointing to.


Networking - Collect leads at a networking event and enter them into your database. One way to do this is by putting an offer on the back of your business card to sign up for your newsletter.

Referral – Send an email blast to your current customers with an incentive if they refer you. Include a form in the email that allows the customer to enter contact information for the new person they are referring. The incentive could range from a dollar prize, a gadget of sorts (iPod, iPad, Kindle, Flip Camcorder, etc.), or discounted product or service. You can also make it a competition, rewarding customers on the number of referrals they gave in a given time period.

Purchased List – Purchase a list from a list provider, such as Hoovers, with a demographic that you are interested in. Remember, you must gain permission to email this list. Do this by importing the purchased list into your database and create a direct mail or telemarketing campaign that directs the recipients to a landing page with an opt-in survey form or simply ask for permission to email over the phone. (See below: Lead nurturing before you have permission to email).

Desired Results:

A group of new leads in your database that have requested a call from sales. Make sure your sales team follows up with them right away.

A group of new leads in your database that need to be nurtured. (See below).


Lead nurturing before you have permission to email Swiftpage has a no tolerance SPAM policy that not only covers the stipulations of the Federal CAN-SPAM Act, but also requires all email addresses are permission based. Permission based means that email addresses have been gathered by means of direct opt-in. This means that individuals you are emailing must have directly requested information from you or your company. Print and Telemarketing (B2B only) are the best methods of communicating with a lead until he/she is interested enough to engage in a less expensive email relationship. Never send a marketing email to a lead before you have permission.

Ways to Take Action:

Perform a look up in your database to create a target list of leads that you do not have email addresses for or who you do not have permission to email.

Contact the lead through direct mail. For example, send a postcard to your targeted list that features your product or service. Within the marketing piece include a call to action that instructs the recipient to visit the landing page that extends the message and includes a web form to gain permission to email or to purchase.

and/or

Make a profiling call to the lead. Find out if they want to be contacted immediately by a sales person, or if they want to be sent more information via email.

Desired Result:

Have a list in your database of leads who want to be called immediately. Make sure that your sales team calls them in a timely manner.

Have a list of leads in your database who have asked for more information. This gives you permission to send them email. Create a series of automated marketing messages that educate your new prospect on the benefits and usage of your product or service over time (see below: Lead Nurturing Using Email).


Lead Nurturing Using Email According to Swiftpage’s Automated Marketing survey, email is the most common marketing medium to use.

93.75% of the survey participants said it was their number one form of communication.

How can we utilize email marketing to nurture leads efficiently? Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions says

that it is essential to create marketing assets that will generate interest at every stage of the buying process –

educational content at the beginning of the process and solution-oriented content for later.

Deliver a sequence of emails that will educate the recipient of the product or service over time. Have the email

sequence present a call-to-action such as: request a sales call, download a free trial of your service or purchase

online. Each email should include a link to either fulfill the action or a landing page that further informs them on

it. If the content and links are effective and action driven, your prospects will turn into qualified leads and your

leads into customers.


Develop a sequence of email marketing messages that will educate your leads about the product or service over time. An automated marketing sequence over a 30-day period: - Email 1 (Day 1) – An introduction to your product or service sharing the basics - Email 2 (Day 15) – An overview of the benefits you provide - Email 3 (Day 30) – A final push, summarizing your previous emails and emphasizing a call to action **remember to include an enticing call to action, both in text and graphic in each email.

For stage 4 of your automated marketing sequence, generate a priority ranked Call List based on the interaction each lead had with the email campaign.

93.75%

43.75%

31.25% 31.25%25% 25%

18.75%

Preferred Marketing Medium

Series1


Desired Results:

Have educated and interested leads that know about the features and benefits of the product or service.

Provide sales with a ranked Call List of interested leads. Make sure your sales team follows up with the hottest leads as soon as the list is generated so that your company remains top of mind to the qualified lead.

Leads purchasing online at any stage of the campaign as result of the call to actions in each email.


Hand Off Qualified Leads to Sales

Finding the balance between a sales person’s methods and the prospects needs are tricky. Many factors are involved in moving a prospect to become a customer. The factors that turn off a lead include contacting them too much and the lack of knowledge a salesperson has about their products or those of their competitors. This is why qualified leads are exactly what salespeople need. With automated marketing the leads have been qualified by one of the following:

Call Me Now: These are the leads who have specifically requested to be called via email, website, landing page or a telemarketing survey. This data can be automatically copied back into your database for proper follow up from your sales team. Call List: Through reporting and email tracking, emails generate a scored response of who is the most interested in the offering. The score is based on open and click data accumulated over the different emails that were sent. The scored Call List is transferred into your database and can be distributed to the sales team. The sales team can then divide and prioritize their calls based on score. (This specific process can be done using Swiftpage Drip Marketing or manually with filter and sign in the Swiftpage Call List).


Use your database to look up who has requested an immediate call from a sales person. Make sure your sales team calls them first.

Call your hottest leads based on the Call List you generated.

Desired Results:

The sales team is talking to leads who have said, “Call me now.” These leads are highly qualified because they want to be followed up with regarding your offer and have a very high potential of making a purchase.

The sales team is calling the most interested leads based on score data. They have a greater chance of closing the deal with these leads because they already have ‘x’ amount of information about them before they even pick up the phone.


New Customer Acquisition Each lead may have their own purchase process cycle that does not always match up with a company’s lead nurturing process. Most company’s marketing processes only focus on new leads. With automated marketing, it is easy to maintain a relationship with old leads until they are ready to move forward. Developing a sequence of marketing messages that informs the old lead about the industry, latest products and new services over an extended period of time keeps your company top of mind when the time is right. An example is a monthly email newsletter (see to your right).


Establish a series of marketing messages that send informative emails to the lead overtime in the form of a newsletter. This can include product information, company and/or industry highlights, promotions customers can take advantage of and educational content that will benefit your customer’s needs.

After a certain length of time, follow up with the olds leads in a more personal manner. Make your email message look like you are only sending it to a single person. You can do this by only using plain text and including mail merge fields that allow you to personalize the message (i.e. Dear [[First Name]]). Reintroduce yourself and the benefits you have to offer but do it in such a way that emphasizes their needs when it comes to your services.

Desired Results:

When the lead is ready to learn more they will fill out the form for more information or purchase online.

A Call List is created to show the “Old Leads” that are the most interested. The sales team can then place a call for those that are active.

Your integrated database allows the salesperson to see who has been previously called and if someone has already purchased, so they do not make unnecessary calls.

Leads purchase the product or service.


Part Two: Customer Nurturing k Welcoming New Customers You have successfully pursued your leads and they have thanked you by committing to your company. You worked so hard to create marketing messages that educated your leads on the features and benefits your product or service has to offer, but your hard work is not over. New customers may benefit from learning about the company and product or service that they just purchased. An educational and solution oriented automated marketing campaign will walk them through key features. In turn you can cut down on customer support activities and you have new customers that know they are valued and respected.


Establish an automated marketing campaign that sends a series of solution oriented emails to the customer about the product or service that they have purchased.

An automated marketing sequence over a 30-day period: - Email 1 (Day 1) – A thank you email and introduction to getting started with your product or service - Email 2 (Day14) – Some quick tips and list of resources to put your product or service into action - Email 3 (Day 30) – A link to a helpful tutorial and more helpful hints

Desired Results:

You will have a more informed customer with a positive start-up experience.

Ultimately, the customer will be better trained and require less customer assistance.

You have gained their trust and have the opportunity to cross-sell your products with ease (see below: Customer Cross-Selling).

Your new customers will become evangelists of your product or service.


Nurturing to Increase Customer Retention According to the Automated Marketing survey 50% of the participants said their greatest marketing need was nurturing customers. It is widely known that, customer retention is much cheaper than gaining new customers. The marketing and support expenses associated with a current customer are minimal compared to the expenses of pursuing a new customer. Keeping your customers happy and satisfied with your product or services will be a money-saver for you in the long run.

With automated marketing integrated within your database, your small business can communicate more often

and more effectively to maintain a positive customer relationship.


Use your database to look up customers and create an automated marketing campaign that includes a series of solution-oriented emails specific to their products or services. Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions lives by a “Rule of 5” for content creation and marketing. The rule suggests that you repurpose content to be consumed in various ways, so you can always reach who you want while staying relevant and adding value. This means you don’t have to rack your brain to try and come up with new content specific to your customer. Instead, you should find new, valuable ways to use the content you have already.

Create a landing page and reference it within your email to communicate a deeper level of detail, tips or strategies for use on your product or service.

Create a survey that asks for customer feedback. Make it simple asking questions such as how they rate your product, customer service or overall company. It is also good to add an additional comments section so that your customers can share freely their comments and concerns.

You can add a link to a survey in your newsletter and your integrated database will store the valuable survey feedback for each customer. You can also refer to your database to send relevant information to that person based on their purchase and usage history.

Desired Results:

Maintain a relevant email relationship with the customer, informing him/her about important industry and product issues.

Gather customer feedback using a survey. It is important that you do your best to address the questions, comments and concerns that are raised. By doing this, you relay to your customer base that you care what they have to say and that your respect their opinion.


Customer Cross-Selling Customer cross-selling is another way to increase the value of customer retention. You can use an automated marketing process to communicate new products or services to the correct audience at the correct time. Focus the messaging on the increased benefits the cross-sell promotion can offer your customer. Pay attention to the cross-selling opportunities that arise naturally. For example, if someone has a basic version of your product and you notice they are in need of more involved features, offer them the advanced version of your product to solve their need. By providing different price points for a specific product, determined by benefits, you create greater value with a greater price making a purchase much more beneficial to the customer. Make sure that you always stay relevant with what you are cross selling. The more you know your customers the more you will know what other products would benefit them. When a recipient continually clicks on a specific link within an email make sure you take notice and follow up accordingly. The most important aspect of cross-selling is making sure your approach is built around serving your customer’s best interests. Always instill the value an additional product has to offer and how it may solve the customer’s problems. Other ways to take advantage of cross selling includes offering recommendations by people based on their previous purchases. Amazon is a great example of this. When you purchase an item at Amazon, the site automatically recommends a list of items purchased by people who bought the same item you purchased.


Use your website as a tool to cross-sell, continually educating your customers on the value and variety your business has to offer. Determine which products or services pair the best.

Use your database to lookup the customers that fit the cross-sell criteria. These would be email recipients who interact with your email campaigns frequently and show a pattern of interest in a specific area of your business.

Load your database group to an automated marketing campaign focused on a series of email marketing messages that provides the benefits of the additional product or service.

An automated marketing sequence over a 30-day period: - Email 1 (Day 1) – Specific product or service updates including additional products that would be

further the product or service. - Email 2 (Day 14) – Benefits of the additional products and how they would solve your customer’s

problems. - Email 3 (Day 28) – Resources and education focused around additional products that could further

the product. - Call List (Day 30) –Follow up with those who showed interest in the cross-sell opportunity from all

emails combined.


Desired Results:

The sales team is calling the most interested leads based on score data.

Your database allows the salesperson to see who has been previously called and if someone has already purchased so the salesperson does not make unnecessary calls.

Current customers purchase the new product or service and further increase customer retention.


Swiftpage Glossary

Automated Marketing: Marketing campaigns that release and progress almost without human intervention. See Drip Marketing for a more detailed definition. Call List: Creates a prioritized list based on email interaction. The Swiftpage Call List is a ranked list of the hottest to the mildest contacts based on a score of opens and clicks. Multiple email blasts can be used to create the score. Call to Action: Words or graphics that urge the recipient of a sales message to take immediate action, such as "Write Now," "Call Now," "Click Here,” etc… These words can stand alone or be part of a graphic such as button. Customer Acquisition: The process of managing prospects and inquiries, generally generated by a variety of marketing techniques. It is the middle man between advertising or lead generation and customer relationship management. Drip Marketing: Swiftpage Drip Marketing manages the process of delivering on-going communication via email, print and telemarketing over time. Swiftpage Drip Marketing is integrated into several CRM solutions including ACT! by Sage, Sage Saleslogix, Sage CRM, Excel and its own hosted version, Swiftpage Connect. It allows for all of the activity of the Drip Marketing stages to be copied back into the integrated database history. A dynamic group created in the database can be synced to the Drip Marketing database before a Drip Marketing stage is executed. Federal CAN-SPAM Act: A law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations. Landing Page: The page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a promotional link in an email. The page will usually display sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link. Swiftpage has a landing page creation feature. A landing page is commonly placed in print pieces as a URL, given out on telemarketing calls and can be linked to from any email. Lead Generation: The creation or generation of prospective consumer interest or inquiry into a business' products or services. Leads can be generated for a variety of purposes - list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for customer acquisition. Lead Nurturing: A process by which leads are tracked and developed into sales opportunities. Lead nurturing usually begins with an unqualified lead that is entered into one’s database. The database with an integrated email service provider, like Swiftpage, is then used to send offers to the suspect to whom they respond through direct mail and calling before you have permission to email. Then with email also once permission is received. Leads are categorized based on their behaviors and subsequent offers are made based on that categorization. Leads either move into the next step in a sales process or are set aside for future development/nurturing. Purchased List: A list of contacts (by demographic, industry, or any other individual/company characteristics) you purchase from a list provider, such as Hoovers, to gain qualified leads to follow up on. Remember, you cannot send email to these leads until you have gained permission. Qualified Lead: A sales prospect whose potential value has been carefully evaluated through research


Surveys (and Web Forms): Surveys are a set of questions that are used to gain someone’s contact information, gauge customer satisfaction, register for an event and more. Swiftpage provides the ability to create surveys and web forms. The survey/web form can be linked to, from or within an email or embedded on a website or landing page. When someone submits the survey form, the information is entered into your integrated database as either a new contact or updating the data of an existing contact. The Swiftpage Survey can then automatically load the contact into a Swiftpage Drip Marketing campaign. Telemarketing: A method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, usually over the phone. Swiftpage offers a Telemarketing stage as part of their Drip Marketing tool. It is used to place a profiling call to gauge interest in the company’s products or services. The telemarketing caller places the call with a telesales script and fills out a Swiftpage input form. The form is copied back into the integrated database. If the result is voicemail then the operator can leave a message to go to the company’s landing page that describes the product or service. On that landing page, the lead can fill out a Swiftpage Web Form with their contact information. Swiftpage can provide a telemarketing vendor or provide the list in CSV format for the company to make the calls internally.


About Swiftpage

Swiftpage is a subsidiary of Summit 5, a software development company whose founders have a passion for changing the way people communicate. We work hard every single day to provide thousands of companies with a way to create, send and track their email campaigns. Swiftpage is also the first server-based email management system to be fully integrated into ACT! by Sage, the leading contact management system in the world. Swiftpage provides small businesses with the tools to construct professional email templates. We give you the ability to track your email campaigns and provides you with valuable information when contacting your clients. Swiftpage gives you the power to send emails without the fear of being blacklisted, as we maintain key relationships with Internet Service Providers. Swiftpage stands out from its competitors through its full integrations with ACT! by Sage, Sage SalesLogix, SageCRM and Microsoft Excel as well as its recently release free-standing automated marketing solution, Swiftpage Connect. Customers can spend their valuable time managing their existing database instead of maintaining the same list in two different locations. Swiftpage believes our customers should not have to change the way they do business, so we bring the sales and marketing solutions directly to them in their own environment. Whether sending email to database contacts, updating contact information from survey results, adding contacts to automated marketing campaigns, or receiving ranked lists of the most interested contacts, Swiftpage brings the tools to them. Our main goal is to make our users’ email marketing solutions simple and easy. Swiftpage exists to help you do the important work of communicating with your contacts.


Site Index

Swiftpage Drip Marketing - http://swiftpage.com/automate-your-business/drip-marketing.htm

Econsultancy.com’s Online Lead Generation (B2C) Report - http://econsultancy.com/us/reports/online-lead-generation-report

Deliverability Details - http://swiftpage.com/deliverability/index.htm

Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions – http://www.marketinginteractions.com

Swiftpage’s Direct Mail Services - http://swiftpage.com/DirectMail/index.htm

Swiftpage’s Telemarketing Services - http://swiftpage.com/Telemarketing/index.htm

Hoovers – http://www.hoovers.com

http://swiftpage.com/automate-your-business/drip-marketing.htm

http://econsultancy.com/us/reports/online-lead-generation-report

http://swiftpage.com/deliverability/index.htm

http://www.marketinginteractions.com/

http://swiftpage.com/DirectMail/index.htm

http://swiftpage.com/Telemarketing/index.htm

http://www.hoovers.com/

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