Let’s talk about your marketing automation platform. How many of its functions do you use? If you are like most B2B companies, you have about three or four main processes with which you implement your email marketing strategy.

 

But that’s like having a Ferrari in your garage and using it once a week to do your grocery shopping in the local supermarket. You don’t utilize it and you don’t even impress anyone with such a high-end car. It’s simply a waste.

 

So why treat your email marketing strategy this way? Sure, it’s possible to send triggered email campaigns to your email marketing lists using your marketing automation software. But that’s not what your marketing automation platform was made for, and it certainly isn’t what it is best at. The purpose of advanced marketing automation is to manage your leads and elevate your entire email marketing process to a higher level.

 

Does Adopting Automated Processes Seem too Challenging?

 

Yes, we know, people across all teams are so busy accomplishing their daily tasks, they have no time for new stuff. There’s often a natural tension between marketing and sales. Getting the buy-in from managers is an undertaking. They ask for assurance and quick, presentable results.

 

These are challenges, not barriers to your email marketing strategy, and you don’t have to face them alone without guidance. If you use it the right way, your email marketing automation will make everybody's daily activities simpler and smoother. We’ll show you how to utilize the full potential of your marketing automation platform, so it will improve the cooperation between marketing and sales.

 When you use marketing automation successfully, both teams benefit, because their strategies are aligned and translated into a step-by-step process with clearly defined responsibilities. This means less friction and misunderstandings, and more successful lead management as well as nurturing and profitable sales.

How so? With an organized lead management process, fewer leads fall through the cracks. Communication through email marketing becomes more targeted and purpose-oriented.

 

Why Your Email Marketing Strategy Needs Lead Management

 

The marketing automation platform lets you track, record, monitor, and evaluate your leads and tighten their lifecycle. We are not talking about implementing massive changes, but about mapping out the stages of your customers’ journey, then breaking them down into smaller steps and identifying indicators. This lets you optimize your lead scoring and set specific goals for your email marketing strategy.

With an effective lead scoring system

 You can identify your most valuable leads and use automation processes to nurture them adequately.

You can define your funnel and customize content for various lead types in different funnel stages.

You will not waste your time on leads with low potential.

When you create a scoring threshold

 You define when a lead moves from marketing to sales based on the scoring, and allocate responsibilities accordingly.

  • You can nurture each lead according to their score with the best-suited content through automation.

  • Your automation tool makes sure you don't neglect promising leads that no one feels responsible for.

What Do You Measure?

 

Measure the performance of each lead and account in four dimensions:

  1. Lead fit - Collect information about demographics and BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time). For example, a Director of Procurement is a top decision-maker and will receive a higher score than a programmer.

  2. Lead interest - Monitor the overall online behavior of a lead in the context of the account; social media activities, the regularity of site or blog visits, number of individual leads belonging to the same account, and so on.

  3. Lead behavior - Track engagement with your content and site, i.e., someone who registered for a webinar scores points, when they attend they score additional points and if they send feedback, they accumulate a higher score yet.

  4. Buying stage and timing - Consider all the above and look for additional indicators, such as a rapidly growing company, or previous purchases.

An effective lead scoring system has a direct connection to your CRM database. It’s critical to keep the database updated and as ‘clean’ as possible, so your marketing automation platform receives accurate data. Wrong data, as well as duplicate data, can harm your marketing activities and sabotage your entire email marketing strategy.

 

Start Doing More With Your Marketing Automation Now

 

Does that seem like a lot to digest? Get a free consultation session in which we evaluate the current state of your marketing automation and help you get more out of it. We can guide you in setting up your scoring process, integrate information from the CRM, and show you how to adopt it quickly and efficiently in your automation software. To get your free consultation contact us now at info@SRpro.marketing.