The final 2 months of the year are when Marketing teams go into “swan mode”; not much is happening on the surface, but below the waterline it’s as busy as ever getting ready for the next calendar year. So what better time to pick through 4 key ways to supply your Sales team with a full pipeline of leads?
Let Your Work Flow
If we had a pound for every time we’ve heard “email is dead”, we wouldn’t have to sell software.
The “internet minute” format is a particular favourite of ours, as it shows very clearly how much email is still used as a channel. Far ahead of text messages, Snaps, Tweets and Instagram posts combined.
But not all emails are created equal. The simple tenet “right person, right place, right time” has never been more relevant as you try to cut through the noise of an average inbox.
The way to manage this without going completely bananas is with targeted workflows.
We lean particularly on 3 sets of workflows; Net New, Download Nurture and Tech Targeted.
The Net New workflows scoop up every person who is visiting our website for the first time, and delivers our best content based on whether they work in Sales, Marketing, or a senior role.
For the Download Nurture workflows, we categorise all our resources into Email Marketing, Lead Generation, and Marketing Automation. We then send extra content on the same theme a few days after the initial download, to take that initial interest and run with it.
Tech Targeted workflows need a little more work at the back end, but in essence we look for what CRM a lead is using, and whether they use one of our competitors. If so, we send over relevant case studies and testimonials from current customers who were in the same setup.
Social: Owned vs Earned Audiences
While social media seems obsessed with the quest for a viral post, a continuous rate of more middling engagement is much more valuable when it comes to your business goals.
The best metric for measuring this top- to mid-funnel success is Owned versus Earned Engagements. Owned engagements are engagements (Likes, Shares, Comments etc.) from those who Follow you on a particular network. Earned engagements, therefore, come from those who do not Follow you, but have simply seen your post via a shared contact.
While Earned engagements potentially represent your ability to reach new audiences with relevant content, Owned engagement shows you have durability and credibility with your audience. Continuing to earn engagement from people who have decided to Follow you shows that you are still delivering content that they find useful/relevant/entertaining.
Get Your Data In Order
When it comes to gathering data, both ends of the spectrum are equally dangerous. If you don’t have enough data on your audiences, you won’t know who you’re going after, what they want, or the best way to give it to them. If you have too much data, you tie yourself in knots, working out whether Marketing Managers who drive Audis are more likely to come to a GDPR seminar than those who drive BMWs.
We deal with the balance by being clear on our Killer Values:
These 6 criteria make sure that we don’t waste time with the wrong prospects. This isn’t entirely selfish; if for example a company isn’t already doing some kind of email marketing, they aren’t going to be able to get the full value from our product and would end up frustrated. Far better for both sides for them to cut their teeth on a simpler product, then come to us once they are equipped to use all of Spotler’s functions to the full.
Setting up for CRM Success
When we presented our session, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter was just beginning to unfold. Many sources expressed concern about the impact of changes to verification, or of laying off roughly 50% of the staff. This serves as a reminder that access to your social media audience could be lost or removed at any moment. To mitigate this risk, it is safest to store all your contacts in a CRM, and use email (and SMS) to build a relationship which doesn’t rely on a third party.
The other reason that CRM remains important is that it is a natural link between Sales and Marketing. Once you’ve defined your Killer Values, you have the key info that both teams need to discover and record. Nobody enjoys updating CRM records, but by tightly defining the important information which needs to be in there, you make as light a burden as possible.
Go Burst Those Pipelines!
While it’s tempting to go chasing after every channel every day, being an effective marketer means getting the basics right, and getting them right consistently. We hope we’ve given you some food for thought about the essentials of your marketing mix, and how you can wield them effectively.
Ready for an extra dose of Spotler? Book a one-to-one demo and we’ll show you exactly how our tools can be your competitive advantage.
