Getting Started with Marketing Automation in 5 Easy Steps Posted on November 3, 2015June 18, 2018 by jmiller If you are moving from an email marketing strategy to a marketing automation strategy, it can be overwhelming the first time you see how it all works. Once someone sees the level of sophistication of a marketing automation tool, it can cause spontaneous paralysis and a quick retreat into the old way of doing things. Don’t give in! Be ready to make a change…and…EVOLVE. I speak with customers every day about how to get started with marketing automation and how to avoid getting lost in the details. Marketing is not an exact science. You have to test, try new things, learn what works and improve. A solid foundation is the best starting point. Here are 5 steps to get started: Make an Offer Capture Leads Engage your Audience Stay in Touch Keep customers up to date Make an Offer The best way to attract a new client? Offer something that you have that they don’t have and want to have. Identify what that offer is and give them a taste of it. Come up with an enticing incentive, or lead magnet, to offer people in exchange for their contact information: Your offer could be something like: White paper Case study Report Free sample Free 30 minute consultation Leveraging existing content/expertise is the most efficient way to go. If you have multiple offerings, use them all. Test out different offers to see what works best to attract the right audience. Protip: Don’t give more than two offers on a single webpage, or more than one offer on a landing page. Capture Leads Putting a white paper on a website for instant download can limit perceived value. Don’t give away valuable content for free; require information in exchange for the offer. Design and embed a lead capture form on your website or landing page. The more value you offer, the more information you can request. For example, require an email address to sign-up for your blog, but request more information if you are offering someone 30 minutes of your time for a consultation. Protip: Make sure the information you request matches the offer. Engage your Audience Now that your contact has requested information, send them a little more information. An engagement campaign is a short term campaign that ultimately leads to a specific call to action, like request a meeting, signing-up, or downloading information. This type of campaign can be 3-7 steps over a 2-3 week period (this can vary depending on content available). Emails within an engagement campaign can include, but are not limited to: An introduction to your company A case study A testimonial Educational material The goal of the engagement campaign is to drive the contact into your sales process. Protip: A simple engagement campaign can have 2 emails and 1 phone call to follow up. Stay in Touch Not everyone is ready to buy right away, but it doesn’t mean that they never will. Build out a long term nurturing campaign to stay in touch will all of your contacts on an ongoing basis. A nurture campaign may include an email every 30 – 60 days. The goal of a nurture campaign is to educate your audience, offer validation as to why they should do business with you (case studies, testimonials) and simply to stay top of mind. The nurture campaign may have calls to action or offers that can pull someone into an engagement campaign or directly into the sales process. And, with marketing automation, you can track engagement activity; if someone starts to engage, a good marketing automation tool will trigger actions that can pull contacts into your sales process over time. One tip to help build out nurture campaigns is to use a resource like www.alltop.com, where you can leverage 3rd party articles and recommend them to your audience. Protip: 1 email sent every 60 days means that you only have to build 6 emails to stay in touch with your contacts for a year! Keep Customers Up to Date Don’t forget to share your blog, a newsletter or a deal of the month. “Just in Time” communications offer you the freedom to communicate when the mood strikes you. The objective here is the same as a nurture campaign but includes timely information; a new product offer, PR updates, recent newspaper articles, upcoming events. “Just in Time” communications can also be influenced by the season or time of year. Protip: Returning customers spend 20% more than first time buyers, so staying in touch with your customers is just as important as staying in touch with prospects. Getting started with marketing automation can seem like an enormous task. But, by taking a step-by-step approach, you can easily tackle attracting new leads, nurturing prospects, and staying in touch with customers.
6 Sticky Lead Magnets to Create for Your Website Posted on May 26, 2015February 25, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Want to attract more leads for your business? Solving a problem for your ideal customer makes your business irresistible to new leads. What is a Lead Magnet? A lead magnet is an enticing incentive for a prospective customer to leave you with their information. A good lead magnet attracts not just anyone in your market, but your ideal customer. It does this by addressing a specific problem that your ideal customer commonly needs to address. Why Include a Lead Magnet on Your Website? Whether we’re making a small decision like choosing a spot for happy hour, or making a major purchase like buying a car, we all do a hefty amount of research online before we’re ready to make a purchase. The same is true of your audience. A great fit for your product or service may visit your website to do preliminary research. But, they may not be ready to buy. Offering up a resource they can use now, without making a commitment to buy, is a great way to capture their contact info. For example, Less Accounting is accounting software for business owners. One of their lead magnets is to sign up to receive a weekly article about becoming a less stressed business owner. So, while Less Accounting’s ideal customer – a business owner – may not be interested in buying accounting software right now, they can always use tips on reducing the stress that comes with running a business. With this lead magnet, Less Accounting can capture potential prospect information and stay in touch with them until they’re ready to take a closer look at accounting software. Hooking a new prospect early in the buying journey gives you advantages like: Follow-up Opportunity. A lead magnet allows you to capture the name and email address of the contact, so you can send a follow-up email and stay top-of-mind until they’re ready to buy. Trust. If you can deliver value early in the sales process, you’ve indicated that you’ll be just as helpful after the sale. Prospect’s Interest. The type of resource your prospect downloads indicates their area of interest and helps you send more targeted messaging to them in the future. So, if you’re an insurance agent and a prospect downloads a guide on choosing the right auto coverage, you know to follow-up with more information on auto insurance – not homeowners or life insurance. 6 Lead Magnets to Try Ready to create a lead magnet for your site to start hooking more great prospects? Try one of these: Email Opt-In: Entice visitors to your website to subscribe to your email list. Offer an example of your latest email newsletter so that subscribers know what they’re signing up for. Checklist: Help your ideal buyer stay organized and tackle a problem with a helpful checklist. This can work well whether your business is B2B or B2C and both for top of funnel awareness and bottom of the funnel conversion. White paper: A white paper explores a major pain-point for your ideal customer. A good white paper should explain the challenge, and provide a solution. Guide: A guide is a step-by-step, in depth how-to for your ideal buyer. A good guide should give actionable steps that your ideal customer can complete to reach a specific goal. Video: It always makes a greater impact to show rather than tell. Do a video series of thought leaders in your industry, a video how-to course, a video testimonial from one of your best customers, or an animated “explainer” video of your product or service. Podcast: Not everyone is interested in reading a lengthy white paper or guide. Interview a thought leader in your industry for a podcast your audience can download or subscribe to and listen to on the go. There are a lot of distractions online, and just because the perfect prospect hits your website now doesn’t mean that he’ll be back when he’s ready to buy. Don’t let potential customers hit your website just to bounce. Even just one great resource on your website can help you attract and hook new leads, helping your list to grow.