Inbound Marketing is a transformational approach to attract prospects with valuable content at each stage of the buyer process.

Lead Nurturing: An Overview

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An Overview of Lead Nurturing: For Every Business

Up to 95% of qualified prospects visiting your company’s website are there to research but are not yet ready to make a purchasing decision; ultimately, as many as 70% of these prospects will buy from you or your competitors. How do you gradually mold these prospective leads into buyers?

This is where lead nurturing comes in. A lead nurture program involves adapting calculated marketing strategies to share useful, relevant information with prospects regardless of how ready they may or may not be to buy. The goal is to establish your brand and build a relationship based on trust and credibility, which will ideally position you to be their first choice once they are ready to make a purchasing decision.

First, identify a set of new prospects by monitoring certain activity on your website, such as who has downloaded a white paper or filled out a form, and determine which leads are ready to be sent to sales and which need to be nurtured. This can be achieved through a lead scoring methodology, which should take into account demographic attributes; budget, authority, need, timeline (BANT); lead source; and level of engagement with your materials.

For those prospects that you have determined to be nurturing candidates, establish permission to be included in your nurturing campaign by asking prospects to opt in or out. This is the first step in building a relationship that is based on trust and relevancy. At the very least you need to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act by providing a clear way to opt out, but you might want to go the extra mile and ask for explicit permission on registration forms. Not only does this earn you the prospect’s trust by proving your concern for privacy, but it also increases your deliverability and sender reputation scores.

Throughout the nurturing process, gradually send pertinent information over time. Timing is critical; consider the duration of the buying process and the communication approaches you will use to determine the best frequency of communication. A general rule is to contact prospects at least one a month but no more than once a week.

Personalize the content of your communications to ensure that it will be relevant to your prospect, which will keep them interested in staying on your list. Develop profiles of your prospects that include characteristics that will help you best tailor your communications to their needs, rather than simply providing less valuable generic content.

Do not let leads sit at any point in the process. You should always be communicating with prospects and continuing to move them along a cycle, even if they are not ready to buy. Pay attention to a prospect’s activity and engagement with your website and adjust your communication according to these cues. Accelerate communication with prospects identified to have a higher interest, and reduce communication with prospects that are slower to respond.

By building a positive impression of your company and keeping the prospect engaged and interested throughout the lead nurturing process, they will be more likely to select your company once they decide it’s time to buy.

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Social Media for Financial Advisors

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I am heading out west to San Diego today to speak at the Charles Schwab Impact 2009 Conference. It should be a great event and I am looking forward to meeting Advisors from around the country and discussing keys to Internet Marketing and social media. One of the top issues Advisors face is navigating the compliance considerations from FINRA.

I think that FINRA needs to update and improve its direction related to Internet communication and advertising so that the use of tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Podcast, YouTube, Blogs and other tools can be more clearly understood. For example – once content is approved by the compliance officer- why should there be restrictions in the syndication links to the content across these networks?

Here is a Slideshare of my talk. Let me know what you think.

I am working with Advisors to address these strategies and challenges and I am seeking input, so feel free to comment:

  • What are some best practices for using social media to promote a Financial Advisor firm?
  • How should an Advisor use Twitter, Facebook, a Blog or Linkedin?
  • Why does it matter?

 

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Digital Marketing Strategy Checklist

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When setting out to develop an Internet Marketing strategy, you need to connect the dots between a wide range of business,  marketing, technology and project elements.

A web strategy today involves a lot more than your web site. In the late 1990s it was very much about defining your branded online presence via the web site and related web services and online applications. Today, with the important roll of  Search and Social Media, your brand presence must now consider delivering impact and engagement across the broader social web and involves a far more sophisticated strategy for inbound marketing and lead capture.  With that in mind, if you are about to embark on a comprehensive Internet Marketing Strategy, you might want to get answers to a range of questions. So, here is a list, but let’s add to the list- what have you found as critical success factors and key issues that should be addressed in developing your internet strategy.

1) Market, Audience and Sales Model – You need to define the underlying business model for marketing and sales so that you can tie your Internet Marketing Strategy to business goals:

  • What is your revenue generation strategy?
  • How will you capture market share?
  • Who is your customer and what are their needs, intents and values?
  • What are the major market segments we wish to target?
  • What defines these segments and what are their major characteristics?
  • What is the typical customer life cycle for each segment?
  • What are the various dialogue needs across the life cycle chain and what implications does that have for the business operations model?
  • What are the demographic, psychographic, and channel preference factors of the targeted audience segments?
  • What capabilities will be needed to meet this targeted audience’s needs?
  • Who is the competition and what are their strengths, weaknesses?
  • What is the overall differentiating business strategy to capture market share?
  • What is the closed-loop marketing model and funnel process?
  • What opportunities are being created by the emergence of new media and technologies?

2) Functionality and Services – Now that you understand your core business model and your audience, what are the capabilities that your audience will be seeking to engage your brand online – both at your site(s) and across the social and mobile web?

  • What segment needs and intents will be addressed?
  • What is the unique functionality required? (transaction, database, content, syndication, lead capture, community, collaboration, forms, Configurator, eCommerce transactions, search, customer service, eNewsletters, events, eMail database, browser requirements? Privacy and Security? Accessibility?
  • In addition to basic site requirements, will the project seek to include interactive web platforms (such as logins, BLOGS, Forums, and Q&A chat rooms) in aims to enhance outreach tools?
  • Have you considered strategies regarding mobile devices/ web / social media?
  • Do you currently have any site utilization monitoring tools in place?
  • What role will your supplier play in determining the audience analysis?
  • Design concepts development and selection

3) Branding and Design – maybe you already have a brand identity – including logo marks and look and feel -but  you may also need to develop a “brand architecture” that ties together all your related product and services into a unifying identity – both on and offline.

  • Do you have an overall brand strategy? Offline and Online?
  • Have you a set of creative concepts under consideration?
  • Have these creative concepts been mapped to specific audience needs and/or business strategy drivers?
  • Which existing sites best approximate the desired look and feel? functionality?, info architecture?
  • Do you need a logi, brand architecture or single mark?
  • What are the various branding concepts that will suit our identified target segment?
  • Is the brand achieving Completeness, Transparency, Flow and Dialogue with the user?
  • How will we roll out the branding?
  • How will it be represented and communicated to the market?

4) Content and Information Architecture – How do you arrange your content into a clear information architecture that your audience can understand and access?

  • What content will the business will deliver (media types?)?
  • Do you have readily available content?
  • What effort is needed to design and develop the content? Initial? On-going?
  • Are there content partners and providers/ syndication that we have to consider?
  • Is there an archive of photos or other art that might be used for the site?
  • If appropriate, would the company commission original illustration or photography?
  • What is a representative site map?
  • Is their a wire frame model outlining envisioned experience?
  • How do the navigation scheme and content schema function?
  • are we considering tagging models? taxonomy? semantic models?
  • How should the content be organized for usability?  What IA works best given known constraints?

5) Marketing and Promotion – After you build out your sites, Internet presence, content and services, how are you going to attract the audience?

  • What are our traffic growth estimates and how do we intend to achieve them?
  • What is our awareness strategy, advertising strategy?
  • What are the SEO/ SEM marketing requirements?
  • Are their viral or velocity marketing opportunities?
  • How are you engaging the social web and online influencers?
  • Do you have a print and media marketing plan?

6) Technical Architecture Design – Once you have defined an overall business and functional blueprint, it will be a lot easier to select the right technology foundation to handle your needs.

  • Do we need to address an existing systems/ technology assessment, existing technology?
  • Are there preferred technology standards?
  • What content management and web services platform is required?
  • What are the hosting and managed services requirements?
  • What kind of user volumes will you expect at the site?
  • Do you need listening platforms to gauge sentiment on the broader web?
  • How effective is your audience intelligence platforms and data management skills?
  • Do you need specialized technology for mobile deployment, database marketing?

7) Operating Model – This is a key step to your strategy – defining a core business and process model that will ensure your digital assets and systems are well managed and that your content and services are up to date.

  • What are the operational procedures that will need to be in place to deliver the Internet Marketing Strategy?
  • What are the staffing skills and capability needs? Content? Service?
  • Do you understand what the potential impact on your existing organization will be?
  • Is there a team currently in place for site management? Do they require continuing training and support?

8) Implementation Plan – With all the core business, marketing and technical elements framed out, you can now better layer in an overall project time line driven by critical business commitments.

  • Is there a compelling event or critical implementation date? What is the required time line/ milestones?
  • Is there a project charter?
  • Is there a Business Case in place? Benefits?  Investments?
  • Is there budget to match ambition?
  • Have stakeholders & team members been identified?
  • What are the key assumptions, constraints and risks?
Feel free to add to the list and contribute to the discussion..
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Fixing the B2B Revenue Engine

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With the advent of new media and digital marketing, marketing and sales needs to be joined at the hip. There is a lot of focus now – even more than usual – on sales and the revenue model and how to make it work. With tougher economic times, business leaders are looking with even greater scrutiny at how the revenue model is working and what levers to pull to make it work better. The usual focus is on the sales team– putting in harder metrics and drivers in place to force the issue and make sales happen. The real opportunity, however, is by looking a little more broadly and connecting the pieces that make an overall “revenue architecture” work. There are 100s of drivers for revenue generation – including pricing and product quality – but what is often overlooked is how effective marketing and sales are coordinated to link the complete value change from awareness to closed deals. With the advent of digital marketing and social media models, the line between marketing and sales is increasingly blurred. Organizations need to be thinking less about one-off campaigns and more about continuous conversion strategies across the value chain funnel from brand awareness to closed deal. Successful organizations are using a new marketing model – increasingly centered on using digital marketing platforms to drive end-to-end awareness and demand, nurture opportunities and close business. Here are some elements we see within high-performing organizations- put these in place successfully and your marketing and sales machine should begin to work well: Setting and communicating clear strategy

  • Identifying the differentiated market positioning
  • Organizing the target market into durable segments
  • Tailoring messages and offers to each segment
  • Setting a go to market strategy that aligns resources to opportunity
  • Price your products and services competitively

Driving visibility and awareness

  • Create awareness and brand identity with the right mix of new and old media
  • Become visible digitally with SEO, your web presence and your digital outposts in social media
  • Provide value to your audience across each stage of the buy-sell process
  • Offer a consistent and quality brand experience at each interaction

Engaging across the funnel

  • Use information and tailored offers to nurture prospects across the funnel
  • Work all the channels with your content- web, events, blogs, social media outposts, digital video
  • Maintain achievable metrics for frequencies (e.g. sales calls)
  • Ensure sales force effectiveness – including product/ service knowledge and sales skills
  • Motivate your sales teams effectively based on your target markets and product mix
  • Use your customer evangelists to help you articulate your value
  • Recognize the value of your investments in sales people
  • Increase share of existing clients with crop rotations, continuations and colonization’s
  • Deliver to drive client satisfaction – keep clients from going out the back door while you’re new clients are coming in the front door
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