What is Eloqua?

We’re glad you asked.  As you’ll see on our marketing material, Eloqua is the category-defining marketing automation leader and provider of best practices expertise for marketers around the world. Our mission is to make our customers the best marketers on earth.  But what does that really mean?

Let’s start with how we help you become the best marketer on earth.  The first step towards that is allowing you to have the best possible understanding of your prospects and customers.  We do that by letting you see your prospects’ Digital Body Language so you can understand your prospects, their interests, their role in the buying process, and whether they are ready to buy.

The image gives you a good sense of some of the detail we provide in tracking digital body language, things like:

• All aspects of your web visit, including visits to company blogs and landing pages
• Response to all marketing; email, direct mail, or offline
• Capture of any web forms, whether they are hosted on your site or with Eloqua
• All search terms and queries used on all major search engines
• Tracking of any specific area of your website that conveys interesting meaning

With a good understanding of their digital body language, you can then score your leads in order to understand which are ready for sales and which are not.  Scoring against not only who they are, but also, how interested they are is key.  Who they are may not change too rapidly over time, but their interest level may suddenly increase as a business event pushes them towards solutions like yours.

Some unique points about how Eloqua helps you score leads:

• Ability to separately score the “who” from the “how interested” (explicit/implicit) and rate accordingly
• Showing raw scores and ratings within your CRM system exactly as you want to see it
• Unique scoring for each product line if you have more than one product line
• Scoring on more complex concepts, like whether the prospect is from a named account

Those leads that are ready, you can then pass over to your sales team, automatically, and according to the appropriate lead routing rules for your business.  Whether you are using Salesforce.com, Oracle CRM On Demand, MS Dynamics CRM, or any other major CRM system, we can automatically present the lead to your sales team in the way you want.

The depth and flexibility of Eloqua’s CRM integration is unique in the market because it:

• Has access to all objects in the CRM system; contacts, leads, accounts, campaigns, tasks, and any custom objects
• Is completely flexible, letting you customize any business process for how leads are updated, handed to sales, or clawed back
• Is compatible with any CRM system you select
• Allows marketing and sales to each manage their own unique data model, but define exactly which fields are to be synchronized
• Is set up with one click, out of the box, for any new client, but can grow to accommodate any business process

The leads that are not ready for sales need to be nurtured until they do show purchase interest.  The art of lead nurturing is that you are maintaining a conversation that can last for months, quarters, or even years.  As with any conversation, being aware of the changes in mood of the party you are talking to is key.  Understanding their digital body language, to watch for signs that they have begun to emotionally unsubscribe is key.

Lead nurturing with Eloqua gets you to success faster because:

• Our ability to personalize content in emails and landing pages based on what is known about a person, or what they do, is without parallel
• Our email sending infrastructure (and industry relationships) consistently achieves the best deliverability rates in the industry, assuring your messages get through
• Monitoring active/inactive ratios through Eloqua allows you to ensure your audience remains engaged and you are not losing their interest
• With Eloqua, you can empower your sales team with a nurture center that allows them to select a nurture program for their prospects based on the conversation they are having with them if they see they are not ready to buy at that moment

As you use marketing automation to score and nurture leads, you’ll need to understand whether your efforts are successful or not.  By taking a top-down view of your lead funnel in your marketing analysis, you can begin to understand the effect of your efforts.  A “balance sheet” view shows you what leads are in the funnel at the moment, and an “income statement” view allows you to see how things have moved over time.

Eloqua’s Marketing Analysis stands out because:

• Deep and flexible analysis is available from the level of a tactic, such as an email or a landing page, all the way to high level campaigns
• A unique approach allows you to understand how each campaign contributed to revenue, even in a multi-campaign, multi-buyer environment
• Graphical dashboards, and emailed alerts allow real-time delivery of metrics to execs and key sales team members
• The deep integration Eloqua provides with your CRM system also allows many reports to be run in your CRM environment if that is where users are comfortable

By understanding your buyers, determining which are ready for sales, and nurturing those that are not, you can become one of the best marketers on earth.  We’ve been helping marketers achieve great things for almost 10 years now, and have spent a long time making sure that the technology, ideas, best practices, and community is in place to make sure that you also succeed.  In creating the space and defining the category, we’ve also written a book about Digital Body Language and how to use it to succeed in your marketing.

This history of success is unique with Eloqua and of great benefit to you because:

• Each business process brings unique challenges, and we’ve wrestled with solving them already, so you won’t run into any surprises that prevent you from success
• Each industry innovates in unique areas; whether it is in technology, financial services, real estate, or sports marketing.  Eloqua is unique in that we are able to bring ideas, innovations, and experience in demand generation from one industry to another
• The best practices we have developed are available to you out of the box, meaning you don’t need to reinvent the wheel each time
• We have the largest and most experienced team of success managers and certified partners, in North America, and around the world, dedicated to your success

Simply put, we have the people, the technology, and the experience to make you one of the best marketers on earth.  We would enjoy an opportunity to speak with you about how.  If you’re interested in learning more, please come visit us at www.eloqua.com and learn more.  We look forward to speaking with you.

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/b2b-marketing/what-is-eloqua-marketing-automation-whos-who/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/b2b-marketing/what-is-eloqua-marketing-automation-whos-who/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/KHcTPMqohYI/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/twitter-tools-for-managing-followers-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip252/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:22:50 +0000 Leigh Anne Wallace http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1524 Now that most of us having been using Twitter for a while, you might have looked at your followers and those you follow and thought to yourself “who are these people”.  I came across a great article by Josh Catone, “10 Twitter Tools to Organize Your Tweeps.”  With so many Twitter apps out there, Josh organizes the best ones to manage your Twitter followers:

Find Out Who You’re Following

1. Twitter Grader – Using a detailed 5 piece algorithm, Twitter Grader assigns every user you run through its system a grade from 1-100. Using this tool you can investigate how engaged the people you’re following are and that can help you decide if you want to keep following them. To me this seems a little tedious but the Twitter Elite tab is very interesting.  You can even check out the top Twitter users in your city or state.

2. Twinfluence – Twinfluence is a scientific approach to measuring the influence of Twitter users. It’s another set of metrics you can use to help you figure out who you want to follow. It is kinda like having the biggest nerd in school do your homework for you.  Again this one can be a bit tedious to analyze each person you follow.

3. Tweetcloud – One of the most important factors when deciding whether you want to follow a Twitter user is what sort of content they tweet about. If someone tweets mostly about topics you don’t care about, they might not be the best person for you to follow. Tweetcloud creates a tag cloud of a person’s tweets to give you a bird’s eye view of the type of things they tweet about.

I am sensing a opportunity here.  All of these apps are great but I don’t have time to look at each person I follow individually.  Do you?

Find Your Friends

4. Twitter Karma – Twitter Karma is a great app that lets you sort through all of your follows and see who’s not following you in return, who you have a mutual follow/follow-back relationship with, and who is following you that you’re not following back.

5. Friend or Follow – Friend or Follow does essentially the same thing as Twitter Karma, helping you figure out who your friends, follows, and fans are on Twitter. The difference is in the presentation, and it might be a little easier to use for those with a large number of follows or followers.

6. Qwitter – Once you’ve done your initial cleaning, Qwitter is a nice app that will update you via email whenever someone stops following you. It will even let you know what you tweeted that caused them to stop following you, which could be useful (if you lose five followers every time you tweet about your cat, for example, that might be a hint to stop talking so much about your cat if you want to retain followers).

UPDATE: We’ve had some reports that Qwitter hasn’t been as reliable lately as it had been in the past. An alternative service that also notifies you when you lose a follower is Twitterless. If you really want to keep on top of when your followers jump ship, it might be a good idea to sign up for both services to make sure you have all your bases covered.

Get Rid of Inactives

7. Nest.Unclutterer – Nest.Unclutterer will automatically block Twitter users who are following more than a certain number of people or who have been inactive for a certain number of days. You can specify those thresholds and white list certain tweeps so that they are exempt from the cleaning. Nest.Unclutterer is actually less about who you’re following, and more about making sure people following you are actually friends you want to be associated with.

8. Twitoria – Twitoria scans through your Twitter account and finds anyone who has been inactive for the past week, two weeks, month, two months, six months, or year.

Manage it All

9. TweetSum – TweetSum digests all your new followers, rates them using what they call the DBI (”Douche Bag Index”), a number that supposedly weeds out Twitter users likely to be annoying, and then lets you easily follow them back or categorize them as tweeps you don’t want to follow. You can see a list of recent tweets for each new follower as well, which is helpful.

10. Tweepler – Tweepler is a new follower management application that lets you make quick, one click decisions about whether to follow people back or drop them into an ignore pile (out of sight, out of mind). In addition to being able to view recent tweets, Tweepler gives helpful stats about new followers, such as average tweets per day.

I personally like to follow lots of people and then create a group on my TweetDeck that lets me pick the people I want to make sure to pay attention to.  Will you make it into my Awesome Marketers group?

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/twitter-tools-for-managing-followers-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip252/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/twitter-tools-for-managing-followers-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip252/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/eda9zMi-mxY/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/whitepaper-downloads-on-linkedin-leads-youre-willing-to-pay-for/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:16:46 +0000 Amy Hawthorne http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1551 LinkedIn seems to be the most commonly used social network amongst most B2B Marketers. Or at least the one where people seem to be seeing real results.  Today we’re able to participate in groups with those we have things in common with, answer questions, and look up contacts/prospects and see how many connections away we are. To date there has been no real way for Marketers to collect leads in a systematic way. Well, it looks like this is changing.

Yesterday, LinkedIn CEO sent out a tweet saying he just downloaded his first whitepaper from LinkedIn.

This new feature doesn’t seem to be available to everyone yet but here’s what we do know:

• There will be a form to collect info. from those that download
• Looks like costs will range from $40 - $100 per lead
• LinkedIn users will not have to pay for whitepapers
• Whitepaper ads will can be targeted by title and industry
• Content is still king here. People are only going to download interesting content that provides value.
• Whitepaper titles are going to be even more important. It’s what’s going to catch your target’s eye.
• When someone downloads a form, they are basically opting in for follow up communications.
• In addition to the targeted advertising, there will be a whitepaper directory for LinkedIn members to search for relevant content.

Here’s another example of how B2B Marketers are able to mix their social media with direct lead generation. Once this is rolled out, I think we’ll give it a try. How about you?

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/whitepaper-downloads-on-linkedin-leads-youre-willing-to-pay-for/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/whitepaper-downloads-on-linkedin-leads-youre-willing-to-pay-for/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/3v_y4I1Rw4g/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/powering-marketing-automation-with-targeted-leads-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-251/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:04:32 +0000 Guest Blogger http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1539 Written by Steven Woods, CTO of Eloqua and the author of the recent book Digital Body Language.

Amy was kind enough to ask me to write a post to the B2B Lead audience to answer a question that frequently comes up.  What is the relationship between Demand Generation/Marketing Automation, such as what we provide at Eloqua, and Targeted Contact Discovery, such as Reachforce’s service.

It’s a great question, and the answer touches on a number of areas.

The key relationship is the critical importance of understanding your target audience.  The cost of raw, untargeted data continues to drop.  With various social or data scraping services in the market today, the cost of a raw name, even a name with title information attached, has been reduced to pennies.

However, this has led to a market dynamic where untargeted marketing messages are prevalent, and the ability to precisely target the right buyer with the right message at the right time is the most important differentiator.

Role-based contact discovery is a crucial step in understanding who is a potential buyer of your product or services.  Going beyond title to discover actual functional role allows you to precisely identify the individual who would, when the time is right, progress through a buying cycle and purchase your product or services.

And this is where demand generation, such as the platform we provide at Eloqua, comes in.

The key synergy is that by using a demand generation platform to understand the digital body language of our buyers, we can identify the critical second piece of the equation - where each buyer is in their buying cycle.  By understanding the stages of a buying process for your product or service, and then using scoring to map each potential buyer to the stage of the buying process he or she is at, you can see whether they are at the education and awareness stage, are discovering potential vendors, or are validating a vendor as their final choice.

With a clear understanding of the “who” (based on role-based discovery) and the “how interested” (based on reading their digital body language), targeting the right message to the right person at the right time becomes possible.

However, there is another crucial link.  Even though the differentiated value of understanding role, vs just title, is clear to most marketers, the difference may be lost on the CFO.  Demand generation processes allow you to paint a much clearer picture of the value of one name over another.

With Eloqua, you can rethink your marketing analysis around the full buying funnel.  By taking a top-down view of your marketing analysis, you can begin to get a clear picture of where each buyer is in their buying process.  As you do this, you can begin to push your analysis of the value of a name further down the buying funnel.  Determining, through using lead scoring, which source of names actually turns into Marketing Qualified Leads and revenue opportunities allows you to view the value of the incoming names more clearly.  If a targeted name costs more by a factor of 5, but converts into revenue opportunities at 10X the rate of untargeted names, it is clearly more valuable.  Demand generation allows you to prove that value further down the buying funnel.

A third critical link is in sales understanding.  Sales needs to engage with individual buyers in individual conversations.  The only way to do this is for them to understand the interests of each buyer.  Targeted discovery allows you to provide your sales team with insights into what the potential buyer’s role and major focus areas are, while Eloqua allows you to provide your sales team with insight into their area and level of interest through giving them insights into the buyer’s digital body language.

With these approaches in place, it is even possible to reverse the standard approach of seeking, through targeted lead discovery, folks in the right roles, followed by using lead nurturing to cultivate and generate interest.  Interest may already exist, and can be identified through seeing individuals from ideal target companies anonymously visiting your website. In this case, these companies, where interest has already been seen, can be passed automatically to Reachforce for targeted lead discovery.  This provides you with an immediate win, as you have a person in the right role, at a company that is already showing interest in your product or solution.

Together, targeted lead discovery through Reachforce and demand generation through Eloqua form a powerful combination that allows you to find the right person, at the right company, showing the right level of buying interest.  For your sales team, there can be no better lead than that.

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/powering-marketing-automation-with-targeted-leads-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-251/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/powering-marketing-automation-with-targeted-leads-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-251/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/2bD53dfb-Mw/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/six-mistakes-b2b-marketers-continue-to-make-with-organic-search-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-250/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:10:55 +0000 Leigh Anne Wallace http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1517 Trying to handle Search Engine Optimization in-house can be a challenge for many B2B marketers.  I handle all of the web design/content/SEO here at ReachForce with zero formal training on the subject (granted I do have a wonderful developer but he basically just executes on my plans).  I recently came across an article I had earmarked a while back that I wanted to share with anyone out there who is also trying there best to get this whole SEO thing right.  In “Six Mistakes B2B Marketers Continue To Make With Organic Search,” Galen DeYoung outlines where many B2B marketers are falling down:

Inadequate site architecture

To be found for a specific keyword, there needs to be an optimized landing page on the website that revolves around that search term. Simply put, this means you need to review your business and ensure your site has at least one page that promotes each specific revenue stream. However, the complexities of B2B keyword strategy—which include the lack of shared lexicons in most B2B verticals—mean that you may have to create and incorporate several landing pages for each revenue stream. For instance, an accounting firm promoting litigation support services may have a page on expert witness services, but it may do well to also consider having a page on forensic accounting.

Simply put, most B2B websites need more content, both to respond to likely organic search and to be seen as being by the search engines as an authoritative site on a given topic.

If you are having difficulties creating this content, try looking for it other place.  Take a look at your whitepapers, past articles, press releases, and blog posts.  You might find content that just needs a little tweaking to work for the website.

Lousy meta descriptions

When B2B marketers actually specify the meta descriptions for site pages, they often write from an internal standpoint, using corporate and internal lingo that doesn’t speak to the searcher. (Unfortunately this is often true for the actual content as well. ) Typically, B2C marketers are much better at writing meta descriptions that promote click-through. When you write meta descriptions for B2B, think about what will entice the searcher (your prospect) to click on your search result versus all the others on the page. While you can write as much as you want, Google will only display about 165 characters. Make sure you use those characters wisely to create a keyword-rich, compelling message. You’ve only got a few seconds before searchers decide on which results they will click.

Not analyzing organic landing pages

Many B2B marketers don’t bother to evaluate, let alone manage, organic landing pages. Test your organic landing pages for all significant, ranking keywords. You may rank highly in the search results for a given search phrase. You may even have a meta description that drives click-through. But is the page searchers land on the page you want them to land on? If not, optimize a different landing page or make changes to the content at the current landing page.

Not monitoring analytics

The analytics associated with PPC landing pages are often scrutinized in great detail. Bounce rates are analyzed. Alternate landing page versions are tested. Ad copy is tweaked. Yet organic landing pages rarely see the same rigor, despite the fact that B2B purchasers tend to first look at and click on organic results almost twice as often as they do paid search results. So, dive into your analytics and do the same for your organic visitors. Isolate your organic traffic. Look at the organic landing pages. Analyze the bounce rates. Adjust landing page content. Tweak meta descriptions. You’ll be glad you did.

Failing to optimize printed marketing assets before converting them to the web

B2B marketers are frequently guilty of mindlessly posting lots of print marketing communications to their websites, often in lieu of html content. Hundreds of hours and great sums of money have been spent creating these pieces, yet most people won’t spend even an hour to optimize these pieces before posting them to the web. These often include PDFs of brochures, case studies, technical or white papers, and product and spec sheets. While these represent valuable, influential information, if you don’t optimize them, they won’t show up in the search results; the only people that will find them are those who actually visit your site. Why not make sure searchers can find them, too.

Duplicate title tags and meta descriptions

B2B sites are often rife with duplicate title tags and duplicate meta descriptions. In addition to decreasing the chances that more of your site’s pages will rank well, this practice will likely lead to less of your site’s pages being indexed by the search engine. Moreover, it’s a clear sign that you haven’t optimized your site for searchers. Title tags and meta descriptions help determine whether a searcher is actually going to click on your search result. Today, there’s really no excuse for this. You can easily check for duplicate title tags and meta descriptions using Diagnostics>Content Analysis in Google Webmaster Tools.

Be sure to check out the full article for all of Galen’s tips.

Looking for more Online Marketing Tips? Download 30 Online Marketing Tips from The B2B Lead

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/six-mistakes-b2b-marketers-continue-to-make-with-organic-search-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-250/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/six-mistakes-b2b-marketers-continue-to-make-with-organic-search-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-250/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/cWKypwxNlcI/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/funnel-leakage-we-all-have-it-what-are-you-doing-about-yours/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:31:51 +0000 Amy Hawthorne http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1501 MarketingSherpa is a great resource for studies and stats.  Even if you are not a member you can sign-up to receive their weekly newsletter and chart of the week.  This week’s MarketingSherpa chart of the week really peaked my interest.

We’ve been working with the folks at MathMarketing (Hugh Macfarlane, author of The Leaky Funnel) lately and have been having a lot of discussions about the marketing and sales funnel, the lead flow into the funnel and the leads that leak out. The ones leaking out have me wondering…

With the introduction of marketing and salesforce automation systems, B2B lead generation teams are able to better measure and analyze activities that drive leads into the funnel and ultimately to customer wins but what about those that fall out?  Where do all of these leads go?  And who’s in charge of keeping them in the mix?

How Organizations Manage the Pipeline from Lead to Sale

Click here to see a larger, printable version of this chart.

The 2 at the bottom of this chart further confirm that there’s still work to be done here and I’m not the only one wondering about leaked leads.  We work so hard for these leads and just because they aren’t ready to buy right now they are getting kicked out. We’re missing opportunities and most of us probably don’t even know it.

What are you doing about leads that have leaked?  Do you have a way to get them back into a nurturing cycle?  And most importantly, is the sales team providing information on why the lead was kicked out or back?

What’s working for you?  Please do share.

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/funnel-leakage-we-all-have-it-what-are-you-doing-about-yours/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/funnel-leakage-we-all-have-it-what-are-you-doing-about-yours/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/QMYBsOqH-_k/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/10-things-to-consider-when-creating-a-social-media-policy-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-249/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:59:30 +0000 Amy Hawthorne http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1485 One of my favorite social media news sites, Mashable, had a great post a couple of weeks ago worthy of sharing with our readers.   Sharlyn Lauby, the post author and president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) put together a list of 10 things to consider when creating a social media policy.

Leigh Anne and I try to stay pretty active out in the new social world and we often get asked if we have a social media policy here at ReachForce.  We don’t have one, but as we continue to grow our team we might consider it in the future.

Sharlyn says, “Whether you’re writing your social media policy from the get-go, or letting it develop organically in reaction to situations as they arise, here are 10 things you should definitely consider. These 10 tips will help you steer clear of pitfalls and allow you to focus on what’s important: engaging the customer.”

1. Introduce the purpose of social media for your organization- focus on the things that employees CAN DO rather than what they can’t do.  it’s all about leveraging the positive to get people to engage and bring value to your social media efforts.
2. Be responsible for what you write - Your team needs to take responsibility for what they write, and exercise good judgment and common sense. You’d think this is obvious, but better safe than sorry, right?
3. Be authentic - Include your name and, when appropriate, your company name and your title. People want to interact with other people in the social world, not business (aka sales people).  Here at ReachForce, when we’re participating in the social world, instead of including our ReachForce URL, we include a link back here, to the The B2B Lead.  We figure it’s more comfortable and gives our audience and followers a better snapshot of who we are personally.
4. Consider your audience -When you’re out and about remember that your readers could include current customers, potential customers, as well as current/past/future employees, your boss, your board members, and of course your mom. Consider that before you publish and make sure you aren’t alienating any of those groups.
5. Exercise good judgment - Refrain from comments that can be interpreted as slurs, demeaning, inflammatory, etc.  You’d think this was obvious too but remember if it ends up on the internet someone will find it.
6. Understand the concept of community - The essence of community is the idea that it exists so that you can support others and they, in turn, can support you. You need to learn how to balance personal and professional information, and the important role that transparency plays in building a community.
7. Respect copyrights and fair use - This should be a no-brainer, but just in case: always give people proper credit for their work, and make sure you have the right to use something with attribution before you publish.  i.e. These tips come from Sharlyn Lauby via Mashable.
8. Remember to protect confidential & proprietary info - Transparency doesn’t give employees free rein to share just anything. Common sense here please, it could cost you your job.
   
9. Bring value - share relevant activities or news with your community, fellow bloggers and other social media followers.  Do your customers really care what you had for lunch?  I doubt it.
   
10. Productivity matters - But, your social media usage won’t get you very far if you don’t execute on the core competencies of your business. Remember that in order for your social media endeavors to be successful, you need to find the right balance between social media and other work.

Looking for a sample policy?  IBM has published their social media guidelines publicly for anyone to read. It’s a great policy, though rather long.

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/10-things-to-consider-when-creating-a-social-media-policy-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-249/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/10-things-to-consider-when-creating-a-social-media-policy-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-249/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/K_hq7mDFlxY/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/explicit-vs-implicit-lead-scoring-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-248/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:43:44 +0000 Leigh Anne Wallace http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1346 Lead Scoring is hot right now and for good reason. As marketers, we finally have the technology tools available to enable us to score and qualify leads before passing them off to sales.  What a lot of people are talking about is activity based or implicit lead scoring. This means scoring a lead based on the actions they are taking like downloading an eBook or attending a demo.  There is another side to lead scoring, explicit or attribute based lead scoring.  This is a way of scoring a lead based on things like title, geography or industry.

Here are some actions to consider for implicit lead scoring:

• content download
• email open/click-through
• website visit
  • number of pages visited
  • time on site
  • time spent on product pages
  • time spent on careers page
• event attendance
• viewed webinar
• viewed product demo

When you are scoring a lead based on their actions, remember that some actions will actually lower a lead’s score.  You might consider taking points off for those leads that are visiting your careers page.  Also remember to track inactivity.  A lead that was hot six months ago but has had no activity in the past six months should probably lose points and be downgraded from hot lead status until they re-engage.

Here are some attributes to consider for explicit lead scoring:

• title
• department
• industry
• budget
• propensity to purchase
• role in the decision making unit

If you don’t have all of this information about your leads you can gather it through your web lead forms or through surveys.  We have found internally that our sales team prefers to know more about a lead’s explicit attributes rather that their actions.

The best lead scoring programs will have both explicit and implicit components.  Talk to your sales team to find out what they value most.  They will also have insight into what types of leads convert.  Look back to see where your current customers came from.  Did they download a certain whitepaper?  Did they click through a specific email?  Did they attend a webinar?  Determine your ideal buyer profile.  Are they VP level?  What industry are they in?

Once you have your lead scoring program in place, don’t forget to educate your sales team on what that means.  Make sure they know how the lead attained the score.  Also be sure to allow sales to turn those leads back to you if inactivity warrants further nurturing.  No matter how well you research ahead of time to score the leads the most approriately this is still a learning process. Ask for feedback from your sales team to make sure you really are passing over hot leads and adjust your programs as necessary.  Happy scoring!

]]> http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/explicit-vs-implicit-lead-scoring-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-248/feed/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/explicit-vs-implicit-lead-scoring-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-248/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/B2bMarketingAndSalesTips/~3/T-YZuy_k5Pc/ http://blog.reachforce.com/sales-and-marketing-tips/fear-factor-direct-mail-b2b-marketing-and-sales-tip-247/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:16:58 +0000 Leigh Anne Wallace http://blog.reachforce.com/?p=1475 I am always looking for ideas on how to stand out in the crowd, so when I saw this idea on two different blogs, I had to share it.  In case you missed Dianna Huff or Drew McLellan sharing this interesting direct mail they received themselves, both were sent a FedEx package with chocolate covered grasshoppers inside.

The package said, “You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper. They’re farm raised, covered in chocolate and rich in protein. So, not only will you be breaking boundaries, but you’ll be eating healthy, too.”  A note was attached with the real promotion, “Entrepreneurs can change the world. Join the movement now! grasshopper.com/idea”

According to a Fox News video, a company in Needham, MA sent the grasshoppers to 5,000 “of the most influential people in the U.S.” in the hopes that these people would then talk about the company and its campaign.

Drew and Dianna seemed to have different takes on the success of the campaign.

Drew loved the campaign - Bottom line — it worked.  3-D mailings may cost a little more money — but they deliver big results when they are done well.

The folks at Grasshopper.com decided to send out 5,000 of the attention-hopping packages to entrepreneurs, bloggers, celebrities, journalists and customers.  They spent 3 months assembling the list and made sure the packaging and cross promotion (Twitter, YouTube, bloggers, their website, etc.) were all in order.

This was a very well thought out and executed campaign.  Bravo to the Grasshopper gang.

While Dianna seems to have mixed thoughts - So, the company got me and lots of other people to write about its campaign — which according to the Fox News video, was the company’s objective.  But, it didn’t get me to buy — or even consider its service. Is the campaign a failure or success?

To me, 5,000 doesn’t seem to be a particularly targeted audience but it did seem to get the company the coverage they were looking for.  After all, I didn’t even get the chocolate covered grasshoppers, and I am writing about them.

Obviously this campaign worked best because the name of the company is Grasshopper but the idea of a bold direct mail piece is possible for anyone.  Something else to learn from the campaign is to not just focus direct mail on prospects.  You might get more bang for your buck with bloggers and thought leaders.

Photo credit: Drew’s Marketing Minute

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