TABLE OF CONTENTS

03 Part One: Introduction to Lead Generation 04 Chapter One: What is Lead Generation and Why is it Important? 07 Chapter Two: How Has Lead Generation Evolved? 11 Chapter Three: Defining a Lead 19 Part Two: Lead Generation Tactics 20 Chapter Four: Content and Blogging 31 Chapter Five: Website and SEO 56 Chapter Six: Landing Pages 62 Chapter Seven: Social Media and Lead Generation 83 Chapter Eight: 94 Chapter Nine: Paid Programs 114 Chapter Ten: Telephone-Based Lead Generation 119 Chapter Eleven: Middle-of-Funnel Lead Generation 132 Part Three: Optimize and Measure Your Lead Generation 133 Chapter Twelve: Testing and Optimization 140 Chapter Thirteen: Metrics 151 Chapter Fourteen: Lead Generation Technology 156 Conclusion: Lead the Way! 157 Appendix: References PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO LEAD GENERATION CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? LEAD GENERATION DEFINED Lead generation describes the marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing pipeline.

In today’s complex marketing Lead generation strategies that are climate, lead generation has discussed in this guide include: become a popular strategy to help create demand and get your • and blogging marketing messages heard • Website and SEO across multiple channels. Lead generation helps your company • Social media increase brand awareness, build • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) relationships, generate qualified leads, and ultimately close deals. • Content syndication

Through the various lead generation • Direct mail tactics mentioned in this guide, a • Telesales company can collect the contact information of potential targets in • Email marketing order to nurture them to eventually become customers. Lead generation • Lead nurturing and is useful for all types of , • Testing and optimization both small and large, and in both B2B and B2C companies—such as • Lead generation metrics financial services, healthcare, and automotive organizations.

5 CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? WHY IS LEAD GENERATION IMPORTANT? If you can generate quality leads for sales, you make their job easier—and more of your leads will be turned into revenue faster.

Just because someone Lead generation can help your sales If you can generate more leads for your downloaded a whitepaper teams spend more time selling and sales team, not only are you helping doesn’t mean he or she wants to less time with administrative tasks your company grow, but you are also talk to a sales rep. You don’t and prospecting, because you are helping marketing’s credibility. You are want your sales teams wasting giving them warm, well qualified no longer seen as a cost center, but as time cold calling from a list of leads. In fact, according to a recent a viable part of the revenue team. unqualified leads. Simply put, benchmark study by Marketo, cold calling doesn’t work in companies with mature lead today’s world of information generation practices achieve better abundance. You want your sales sales productivity and higher team closing deals and spending revenue growth. time actively selling, instead of wasting time calling Mature companies achieve 133% down a list of cold leads. greater revenue versus their plan than average companies, and 174% more than the least mature companies. Additionally, sales reps at mature companies spend 73% of their time selling (rather than on administrative tasks, training, etc.). At companies without mature lead generation strategies, sales reps spend only 57% of their time selling. CHAPTER TWO: HOW HAS LEAD GENERATION EVOLVED? CHAPTER TWO: HOW HAS LEAD GENERATION EVOLVED? TRANSFORMATION OF LEAD GENERATION Traditional lead generation has undergone substantial changes in recent years, thanks to new online and social marketing techniques. In particular, the abundance of information readily available online has led to the rise of the “self-directed buyer” and the emergence of new ways to develop and qualify potential leads before passing them to sales.

In the age of the self-directed Mission buyer, marketers need to find THEN NOW new ways to reach their potential Represent the company Representing customer customers and get heard through the noise. Finding customers Being found

Instead of finding customers through mass advertising and email blasts, marketers must now focus on being Mass advertising 1:1 Targeting found, and learn to build enduring relationships with buyers. This Demographic Behavioral massive shift has sparked a huge transformation in marketing. Mechanics & Tactics Point in time blasts Continuous relationships

Few/isolated channels Exploding/integrated channels

Measurement

3rd party data (Nielsen) Owned, big data

Intuitive decision making Fact-based decision making

Marketing’s mission, intelligence, tactics, and metrics have drastically changed. 8 CHAPTER TWO: HOW HAS LEAD GENERATION EVOLVED? TRANSFORMATION OF LEAD GENERATION

Information Abundance and Attention Economics With the rise of the , we’ve What information consumes is rather “The attention economy is not growing, which means we have to left the world of information scarcity obvious: it consumes the attention grab the attention that someone else has today.” behind, and entered one of of its recipients.” – Brent Leary, Co-Founder, CRM Essentials information abundance. This has transformed the buying In fact, according to Google process—and therefore the lead chairman Eric Schmidt, five exabytes generation process. Buyers are (or five billion gigabytes) of information overwhelmed by all of the noise, so were created between the dawn of they are learning to ignore the Unprecedented Changes in Buying civilization and 2003, “but that much messages they don’t want to hear, information is now created every and to independently research what two days, and the pace is they do want to know. rapidly increasing.”

The problem is that information abundance equals attention scarcity. This is known as “attention economics”. Social scientist Herbert Simon was the first person to discuss this concept, writing that “in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. THEN NOW

The shift from information scarcity to information abundance has changed buying behavior – and shifted power to marketing. 9 CHAPTER TWO: HOW HAS LEAD GENERATION EVOLVED? TRANSFORMATION OF LEAD GENERATION

The New Buying Process In the old world of information scarcity, Did the Customer Find the Product Vendor, or Vice-Versa? According to Forrester, buyers might be “lead generation” meant that marketing 100% anywhere from two-thirds to 90% of the way found the names of potential buyers through their buying journey before they contact “We found them” “We found them” early on in their buying journey, and 90% the vendor, making it difficult for sales to influence then passed those names directly to the buyer’s decisions. Buyers can now delay sales. Buyers expected to be educated 80% 80% 75% talking to sales until they are experts themselves. by the sales team, and sales expected to speak to uneducated, early-stage 70% Luckily, a solid lead generation strategy will help buyers who weren’t always qualified. you build trust and capture the interest of your 60% buyers during the self-education process, and Today, a variety of educational before they’re ready to contact sales. resources are easily found through 50% search engines, social media, and In this guide we will cover: other online channels. Through content 40% produced and distributed by • How to define a lead and his or her organizations, today’s buyer can learn 30% buying journey a great deal about a product or service • How to build a robust lead generation before even speaking to a salesperson. 20% “They found us” “They found us” strategy through This makes your digital presence more 10% 25% • How content marketing, social media, your important than ever. Both decision 20% website, optimization, and makers and influencers are now most 0% paid programs contribute to lead generation Decision Makers Contributors likely to find you—before you find them. • How to use Middle-of-Funnel (MOFU) marketing to build enduring customer relationships Today, customers are more likely to “find” product vendors than vice-versa. • How to test, optimize, and measure Source: Products Buyers Survey, March 2007 your lead generation campaigns Methodology: Fielded in March 2007 to SSI’s Business to Business Panel. N=478 10 CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD WHAT IS A LEAD? To build out your lead generation strategy, you need to start with the basics. Every organization will have their own definition of a “good lead”. If you don’t know yours, lead generation 101 is where you need to begin.

There are many definitions of a Sales and Marketing lead, and there are even more Lead Alignment Checklist definitions of a “good lead”. Here’s how sales and marketing can According to Marketo, in our own create a universal lead definition that revenue cycle, a lead is “a qualified is agreed upon by both teams: prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior”. 1. Schedule some time to meet. 4. Get the flip side of the story. Craig Rosenberg, sales and marketing Get all of your key stakeholders in a What does marketing consider a expert and author of the Funnelholic room and pick each other’s brains. bad lead? And what does sales blog, states that “there are two consider a lead not worth their time? elements to a lead—demographic and 2. Ask the hard questions. psychographic. When it comes to the For marketing, what does your 5. Agree on a definition and psychographic element, your definition target market look like? Who do write it down. Now that you have of a lead will depend on your company, you have in your system, and what your definition, write it down and where you’re selling, and who you’re are they engaging with? For sales, abide by it. Add it to your marketing selling to.” what prospects are you speaking automation system, post it up on to? What types of buyers walls—do whatever is necessary to Easy enough. But a company’s are closing? keep both teams on point. definition of a lead is not often agreed on by both sales and marketing. How 3. Decide how good is 6. Iterate your definition over time. do you come to an agreement? Simply “good enough”. Meet regularly to review this put, the two teams need to meet and Set a base level. What does definition. You should be iterating have a discussion until they can marketing consider a good enough and changing your definition as your agree—the success of your lead lead to get passed to sales? company grows and priorities shift. generation efforts depends on it. Conversely, what does sales think is a lead worth following up on? 12 CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD WHAT IS A LEAD?

Demographics Firmograhics BANT When profiling your leads, you Firmogaphics, which are used as You can also often determine a need to look at demographics— criteria by B2B companies, are prospect’s place in the buying quantifiable identifiers which organizational characteristics which process by analyzing his or her BANT characterize your lead population. help you find your ideal customer (Budget, Authority, Need, and Typical demographic attributes for organization, e.g.: Timeline) attributes. BANT is a more both B2C and B2B can consist of advanced lead qualification practice • Name of company the following: than demographic and firmographic • Company size analysis alone. • Gender • Company location • Budget: Can this lead afford your • Title product or service? • Revenue • Company • Authority: Does your lead have • Number of divisions • Years of experience the authority to purchase your product? Is he or she the decision • Number of products/services sold • Personal email vs. maker? corporate email • Geographic markets served • Need: Your lead has to need your • Education (B2C) • Industry product or service. Is there a pain that your product or service can • Age (B2C) • Products already owned solve? Income (B2C) • • Time: What is your lead’s purchasing timeframe? And does that align with your sales cycle? CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD WHAT IS A LEAD?

Lead Handoff Just as sales and marketing must • Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): Sales Notifications CRM-compatible tools like Marketo’s agree on the definition of a lead, they These leads are sales-ready, Once a lead hits a certain score Sales Insight offer a tightly integrated must also agree on lead handoff— which often must be determined threshold in your marketing way to notify sales about lead activity. when that lead gets sent to sales. through direct contact with sales. automation tool, your lead becomes The Sales Insight dashboard highlights This ensures a seamless transition Once sales has tested to an MQL and your inside sales lead the best leads and opportunities for from marketing to sales, and determine the qualifications of an qualification team should be notified sales to focus on, has icons to indicate immediate follow-up on hot leads. SQL, marketing can use that data to make contact. Because marketing urgency and key activities, and tracks to improve MQL quality. automation tools sync with many interesting behavior that indicates Lead Stage Definition customer relationships management hand-raising. To agree on lead handoff tools (CRMs), this data can be qualifications, your sales and transferred directly into the lead Also consider using “Act Now” scores, marketing teams must define record in a CRM. which elevate leads to “Act Now” together the two main categories of status when they engage in activities lead stages: Marketing Qualified that indicate buying intent. At Marketo, Leads (MQLs) and Sales Qualified these include: Leads (SQLs). • Filling out a free trial form • Marketing Qualified Leads • Filling out a “Contact Us” form (MQLs): These prospects are considered viable marketing • Downloading key late-stage leads, taking implicit scoring content criteria, explicit scoring criteria, and (if available) BANT (Budget, • Viewing a weekly live demo Authority, Need, and Timeline) • Viewing a “deep dive” demo into consideration.

Marketo’s Sales Insight dashboard, showing lead activity and score. 14 CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD WHAT IS A LEAD?

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Once you’ve agreed upon the lead Take a look at an example of how we lifecycle and handoff process, how have implemented SLAs: can you ensure that sales follows through on your hot leads? At Marketo, we have implemented Service Level Agreements (SLAs) DAY 0 Notification between sales and marketing to ensure proper follow-up. DAY 1 If untouched, reminder SLAs are written agreements between sales and marketing, ensuring closed loop lead processing DAY 2 If untouched, reminder cc boss by indicating specific timeframes for follow-ups. If a lead is not followed up on within the indicated timeframe, an DAY 3 If untouched, alert executives alert is sent to a sales rep’s boss, and ultimately to the executive team.

A critical element to note: SLAs only work when sales is If stale, reminder heavily involved in the process and DAY 7 champions the SLAs internally. DAY 8 If stale, reminder cc boss

DAY 9 If stale, alert executives

Notifications and alerts ensure follow-up from sales on promising leads.

15 ASK THE EXPERTS: WHAT IS A LEAD? Q&A WITH TRISH BERTUZZI, PRESIDENT & CHIEF STRATEGIST, THE BRIDGE GROUP

MKTO: What are your top tips for MKTO: How should sales sales and marketing alignment? and marketing agree upon lead definitions? TB: To truly get serious about sales and marketing alignment, you have TB: This will never happen, but it is to measure the leaders of both my dream scenario: first, sales and teams on the same goal—revenue. marketing executives should get Not all personnel on the marketing together and create lead definitions. team need be 100% revenue- Next, they should each grab a list of focused, but whomever is “large 100 companies and put them and in charge” should have the through the qualification same compensation plan as the VP process—I’m not talking about the of Sales. Live and die by the revenue reps, here, but the execs themselves. sword, baby! Then, based on the real world output they have created, they sit back down On the flip side, sales leaders need to re-examine their lead definitions. to belly up to the bar. Assume that How awesome would that be? only 50% of your pipeline (at maximum) will ever come from marketing efforts. What’s your strategy for making up the rest of that pipeline? Figure it out, get your reps executing against the strategy, and stop pointing fingers at marketing!

16 CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD MAPPING LEAD GENERATION STRATEGIES TO YOUR FUNNEL The next step is to understand your lead’s buying journey. Revenue funnels may vary between companies, but we’ll use Marketo’s funnel to show how buyer intent and campaigns can be mapped to different stages.

At Marketo, we break our funnel up into Top-of-Funnel (TOFU) three parts: Top-of-Funnel, Middle-of- A person in this buying phase is at • Engaged: We don’t move names Funnel, and Bottom-of-Funnel. (Note that the beginning of your sales and into the next stage until they have a lead only enters our database after they marketing funnel, and is aware of had a meaningful interaction with cross the red dotted line.) your product or service but is not us. Engaged individuals know they ready to buy. Individuals in the TOFU are in our system, and they expect stage should be primarily offered us to email and communicate with educational materials. them over time.

We break the TOFU stage down into • Target: Once an individual has three sub-stages: engaged, we use our lead scoring to find out whether they are a • Name: This indicates an qualified potential buyer—which individual whose name has means they fit our demographic officially entered our database— and behavioral criteria. but names are just names, not leads. Names are not yet engaged with our company— just because they dropped their business cards in a fishbowl at an event doesn’t make them actual leads.

17 CHAPTER THREE: DEFINING A LEAD MAPPING LEAD GENERATION STRATEGIES TO YOUR FUNNEL

Middle-of-Funnel (MOFU) Bottom-of-Funnel (BOFU) This buying phase occurs in the middle Note: the majority of leads are This buying phase occurs at the bottom of your sales and marketing funnel. A not sales ready. This doesn’t of your funnel, and indicates that your person arrives here after he or she has mean the SDR’s conversation lead is close to becoming a customer. displayed buying behavior, engaged was a waste of time—human Your offers for BOFU leads are very with your content, and is potentially a interaction is an important part of specific to your product or service—think sales lead. Your offers for MOFU leads developing (or nurturing) datasheets and are still educational, but they will be the relationship. pricing guides. more geared towards your product or • Sales Lead: If leads are qualified service—in Marketo’s case, buying We break the BOFU stage down into two buyers, the SDR then passes guides or ROI calculators. sub-stages: them to an AE (Account Executive). That sales rep has We break the MOFU stage down • Opportunity: At Marketo, only sales seven days to either turn the sales into two sub-stages: reps can create opportunities. Leads lead into an opportunity and have in this stage are sales accepted and • Lead: This stage is where a target a sales interaction, or to send that are actively being worked by sales. In actually becomes a lead. At lead back to marketing for fact, opportunities are how both our Marketo, we score our targets more nurturing. marketing department and SDRs get using Marketo’s lead scoring paid. We actually maintain an capabilities. When our scoring opportunity quota to make sure suggests that it’s time to reach out, enough opportunities are created we connect with them personally. each period. Note: if people are paid Once an SDR (Sales Development based on opportunity creation, Rep) has a conversation with opportunities require a very solid, them, we convert them into an agreed-upon definition. They can not official sales lead. And if they are be subjective. not yet ready to buy, we can recycle them back to the target • Customer: Lastly, we have the stage for more nurturing. customer stage! These are closed- won deals. PART TWO: LEAD GENERATION TACTICS CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING WHY IS CONTENT MARKETING IMPORTANT? Content is the foundation of your lead generation efforts. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “the marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience—with the objective of driving profitable customer action”.

Think of content as the fuel for all of your marketing campaigns—from “Customers are now smarter, more email to social to event collateral. connected, more informed, more influenced Marketers have come to rely on and influential socially, and less likely to content to engage prospects and respond to campaign-bait. Marketing has to customers in today’s new buyer What Form Can My Content Take? landscape. You must create content create content people actually want.” that educates, inspires, and begs to be – Tim Barker, Chief Product Officer, DataSift Content is more than just ebooks. It can come in many shared. It should help leads overcome forms, so think outside of the box! challenges and achieve their aspirations. If you are able to do that, • Articles • Kits • Templates leads will flock to you, and you’ll gain • Blog posts • Large definitive • Videos their trust. Trust is ultimately what • Case studies guides • Visual content creates customers out of leads. • Cheat sheets • Podcasts • Webinars • Checklists • Reference • Whitepapers guides • Ebooks • Workbooks • Slideshares • Email • Surveys • Infographics

21 CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING WHY IS CONTENT MARKETING IMPORTANT?

When used effectively, content marketing can: Ask the Experts: • Shape a brand preference and influence future purchases What is the biggest mistake marketers • Generate social media shares and make in their content marketing strategy? inbound links

• Put customers in the driver’s seat “A lack of formal business “The biggest mistake is to strategy around content. Right create content that your boss or • Help fuel search engine optimization (SEO) efforts now, most marketers are client loves, but your customer filling content buckets, and • Increase brand awareness doesn’t. If your customer loves lack a true business objective (such as your content, that means it’s meeting the • Generate quality leads for less revenue, cost savings, or customer loyalty) needs of the people you are trying to reach, money (when compared to more behind their content initiatives. traditional marketing) which your boss or client will love by default. But the inverse isn’t true. If your boss/client Secondly: patience. Most brands still call loves it, but the customer hates it...well, who content marketing a campaign, which implies there is a stop date. Content cares? Ask yourself: What would your content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. We look like if your customer signed your need to take a longer-term view of how we paycheck?” communicate with our customers.” – Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, Marketing Profs – Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP VS. PROMOTIONAL CONTENT At the outset of your content planning, it’s important to make a distinction between promotional content and thought leadership. Thought leadership demonstrates a deep understanding of your prospects’ and customers’ pain points, and guides them toward solutions.

Any vendor can publish feature- At Marketo, we create content that Content Marketing CTAs focused brochures and other is simply meant to help people That said, even educational content Regardless of what your ask is, your product-related content. But the become better marketers. We also should have a strong, clear, call-to- CTA must: trusted vendors—the ones that try to create assets that educate our action (or CTA). What is a CTA? It’s rise above the noise—are those audience about marketing the part of your marketing message • Stand out focused on helping their target automation as a platform, and how that should persuade people to act. • Clearly define what you want audience. Buyers naturally it can help marketers be more Your standard CTA might ask the the lead to do gravitate toward these vendors. effective at their jobs. Instead of reader to subscribe to your blog, constantly pushing sales messages download another ebook, or to sign • Create urgency to our leads, we want to teach up for a demo. people the benefits of investing in • Be positioned in a prominent area marketing automation.

So while we are talking about our core competency—marketing automation—we are educating our audience with thought leadership, rather than pushing our solution. ASK THE EXPERTS: CONTENT MARKETING WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF CONTENT MARKETING HOLD?

“Marketing departments will “I think it’ll look less like a continue their transformation into separate thing—’content mini-publishers. Analytics and data marketing’—and more like, well, will be critical, but knowing more marketing! The future of all about our customers’ consumption habits will create marketing is in programs that are useful, honestly a more complex need for useful content. The empathetic, inspired, and based on data or majority of journalists will be hired by non-media creative insights. To quote my friend Tom companies. We will start to see non-media Fishburne: ‘The best marketing doesn’t feel like companies buy up smaller, niche content titles in marketing.’ And that’s the place where I think all both digital and print form.” organizations will eventually end up.” – Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute – Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, Marketing Profs CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING THE CONTENT PLANNING PROCESS Like any element of your marketing, you shouldn’t dive into content marketing without a strategy. Content marketing isn’t about creating content for its own sake—it’s about engaging prospective buyers. To do that effectively, you need a plan that reflects your goals, an understanding of your target audience’s top concerns, content ideas that align to these concerns, and a calendar for developing content on an ongoing basis.

Creating Your Personas Conducting Interviews The first step is to create your buyer and Research personas—most brands will need To create your buyer personas, you • Challenges/pain points: Your more than one. A buyer persona can should conduct interviews with persona’s challenges, and the be defined as a representation of your customers, prospects, and members emotions which accompany ideal customer. Personas are of your sales and customer service those challenges developed based on customer teams. You can also send out • Preferred content medium: demographics and behavior, along surveys and do your own research. How your persona likes to with your own understanding of their absorb content motivations and challenges. Focus on the following topics when creating each persona: • Quotes: Bring your personas to Buyer personas help you: • Background: Basic details life with actual quotes gathered during interviews • Determine what kind of content about your ideal customer and you need his or her company • Objections: The objections you anticipate from your persona • Set the tone, style, and delivery • Job details: Key job during the sales process strategies for your content responsibilities, likes and dislikes about job • Role in purchase process: • Target the topics you should be Persona’s influence in the writing about • Main sources of information: Where your persona does his or decision making process • Understand where buyers get their her research • Marketing message: The information and how they want to messaging that speaks directly consume it • Goals: Persona’s primary and secondary goals to this persona CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING THE CONTENT PLANNING PROCESS

Mapping Your Buying Stages Now that you’ve defined your Here’s a great example of a buyer personas, you need to create a journey template, created by Sales buying journey that will convert these Benchmark Index: personas into customers. A buying journey maps a buyer’s decision making process during a purchase. Mapping this allows you to: BUYING PROCESS MAP • Understand the process your buyers go through when considering your product BUYING NOT IN THE PROBLEM STIMULATED OPTIONS EVALUATION PREFERRED FINAL APPROVAL IMPLEMENTATION or service PHASE MARKET DEFINITION RECOMMENDATION

KEY BUYER Observe Market Event Occurs Indentify and Explore promising Conduct detailed Finalize Submit final Implement chosen • Develop a content strategy that ACTIONS Trends involve options evaluation of short contractual and proposal to formal solution stakeholders listed options commercial terms approval process speaks directly to buyers, Problem Surfaces Track Competitive Narrow down the Achieve expected regardless of their stage in the Activity Research possible list of options Secure Check references benefits buying journey Problem Studied options stakeholder consensus about Reconfirm preferred option Reconfirm Validate decision Consequences of Establish functional decision to buy Problem Identified functional requirements requirements Finalize the business case Finalize internal Is it worth solving Refine the request to Draft ROI business case purchase Can it be solved

What Options are Available

Sales Benchmark Index Buying Process Map

26 CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING THE CONTENT PLANNING PROCESS

To map your own persona buying Buying Phase journeys, create a spreadsheet with a Actions & Buyer Doing Buyer Action Questions Buyer Asks separate tab for each buying phase, Questions (Y/N)? and fill in the following items:

Event #1

Event Occurs Event #2

Event #3

Problem #1

Key Buyer Actions Problem Surfaces Problem #2

Problem #3

Consequences of Problem Identified

Consider Alternatives for Solving the Problem

Phase Exit Criteria

Questions for each buying phase of a persona’s buying journey

27 CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING VISUAL CONTENT As content marketing is more widely used, readers are becoming inundated with text. That’s why visual content is such an important way to engage. At Marketo, we’ve found that good visual design can make even “copy-pasta” content stand out.

Make Every Piece Visual Whenever possible, take your content to the next level with a visual element. You don’t have to create custom illustrations for every ebook— just think about creating visual interest, whether it’s with a custom cover or interior graphics.

Take a look at an example from a Marketo ebook on budgeting. Our topic—common marketing budget pitfalls—could have potentially been dry, but we jazzed it up with a compelling (and fun) design. With over 20,000 views, this content piece has done particularly well.

Marketo’s Marketing Budget Pitfalls ebook

28 CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING VISUAL CONTENT

Repurposing Content to Make it Visual For a quick win, repurpose content 13,000 339,000 you already have into something more visual. For instance, use content from EBOOK VIEWS SLIDESHARE VIEWS an ebook to create an infographic or a slide deck. You might find that the visual asset is more shareable and easier to consume.

We took content from one of our ebooks, Amplify Your Impact: How to Multiply the Efforts of Your Inbound Marketing Program, and created a VS. visual slide deck to promote on SlideShare.

As you can see, while the ebook got 13,000 views, the slide deck got a whopping 339,000 views on SlideShare! Standard collateral vs. visual content

29 CHAPTER FOUR: CONTENT MARKETING COMPANY BLOG Your blog is a great resource for generating leads. Just remember that someone reading your blog may not want to immediately sign up for a demo—they may not even know what your product is—so aim for less ambitious calls-to-action (CTAs). Ask your readers to subscribe to your blog, or to follow you on social channels.

By opening the door to further conversation, you are taking the first step towards generating a quality lead. A well-executed blog The Top 3 “Do’s” will keep your readers interested, encourage them to come back for for Starting a Great Blog more, and eventually spark their Brian Clark, Founder and CEO, Copyblogger curiosity about your company.

1. Do understand who you’re 2. Do uniquely position your 3. Do create an initial content trying to reach. Start by thinking content. Think media first, not strategy and editorial calendar. “Don’t focus on having a in terms of audience archetypes. marketing. You’re basically creating You’ll naturally adapt and revise great blog. Focus on This keeps you focused on a digital magazine, but you’re using both based on the real-time producing a blog that’s quality content, which begins the a different business model than feedback you get, but you need sales cycle but doesn’t make the other media companies—you’re a “best guess” approach based great for your readers.” customer feel “sold” to. selling your own products and on your research. And don’t – Brian Clark services, not advertising. forget you’ll have to hustle to get Founder and CEO, Copyblogger attention until you’ve built an audience that will spread the word for you.

30 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE FORMS When it comes to converting leads and making lasting impressions, your website is where the magic happens.

KISSmetrics, an analytics and Using Website Forms testing company, puts it best on You can’t convert leads unless they The medium-sized form also asked for their blog: “Your leads are only as fill out a form. A good lead capture number of employees and industry; the good as the website that form might ask for only first name, longest form also asked for a work produces them”. last name, email address, company, phone number, and which CRM and job function. You can add more system they used. They also provided these two or fewer fields depending on your compelling stats: needs, but always err on the shorter The results? As you’ll see, the shortest side—with forms, less is more. form performed significantly better • You have 0-8 seconds to than the longer forms: persuade your audience with Why Short Forms Perform Better your headline and . When it comes to conversion rates, Short (5 Fields) Medium (7 Fields) Long (9 Fields) • Approximately 96% of visitors short forms outperform long forms. Conversion: 13.4% Conversion: 12% Conversion: 10% that come to your website are not It’s common sense—people don’t Cost per: $31.24 Cost per: $34.94 Cost per: $41.90 ready to buy (but they may be want to waste time filling in willing to provide contact information. But to prove our point, First Name: * First Name: * First Name: * information in exchange for Marketo decided to perform an A/B Last Name: * Last Name: * Last Name: * valuable content). test of short forms vs. long forms. Work Email: * Work Email: * Work Email: * We tested three form lengths—one Company: * Company: * Work Phone: * So how can you optimize your site for with five fields, one with seven, and Job Function: * Choose One Job Function: * Select Company: * lead generation? Let’s take a look. one with nine. The shortest form # Employees: * Select Job Function: * Select asked for name, work email, job Industry: * Advertising # Employees: * Select function, and company. CRM System: Select Industry: Advertising

Marketo’s A/B test on conversion rates for short forms vs. long forms

32 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE FORMS

Although you may want a long form to Do Tech Buyers Provide Accurate Information During Registration? feed your CRM, you’ll be sacrificing leads in exchange for more data. And, Never Rarely Sometimes Always as explained on the following page, you can still get additional data using Phone 12% 23% 27% 38% other methods.

Company Size Another factor to keep in mind: the 11% 18% 31% 40% more information you ask for, the less likely people are to tell the truth. Custom 10% 22% 39% 29% Take a look at this graph from MarketingSherpa, which highlights problems with self-submitted data. Job Title 11% 32% 53% The more detailed information a lead fills out, the more likely he or she Company is to lie. 10% 31% 55%

Industry 8% 30% 59%

Email 7% 24% 68%

Name 5% 22% 72%

Source: MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm. Connecting Through Content Phase III. August 2007. Methodology: N=2,700

33 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE FORMS

Filling in the Blanks Extra-Intelligent Forms Short forms may get you more The majority of Marketo’s content (and more truthful) responses, but assets are ungated, meaning there they might not provide the data you is no form fill-out required. On need to effectively segment leads in occasion, however, we create your marketing automation tool. A “Premium” content—this is content potential solution is to use progressive we use to directly gather lead data. profiling. Progressive profiling—which Typically, this is Middle-of-Funnel is often supported by your marketing content, like an analyst report, automation platform—allows you to buyer’s guide, or one of our flagship collect information and build Definitive Guides. These are always qualification over time. Each time a marked by a lock icon— person fills out a form on your site, consistency is key. the progressive form asks for more information. That said, we don’t need to put a form in front of visitors who are If you don’t have the ability to use already in our database. To avoid progressive profiling, carefully repeat fill-outs, our intelligent forms determine what you need on a form, consult the Marketo API, as opposed to what you want—again, determining whether we already keep it short and sweet. have contact information for a visitor. Another solution is to use data If we don’t, they need to fill out a augmentation services, Marketo’s form before downloading a premium Real-Time Personalization Platform, asset; if we do have contact powered by Insightera, which can information, we simply greet them, help you “clean” and augment your and allow them to download the data. You may only have five fields on asset with a single click. your form, but these services can fill in the blanks. Marketo’s intelligent forms distinguish known from unknown visitors.

34 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE FORMS

Social and Landing Page Forms Consider adding social sharing buttons to your web page forms. This increases the chance that a lead will engage with your content by sharing your landing page, and can expose your content to a wider audience. Many marketing automation platforms offer built-in functionality to add social sharing capabilities to landing pages.

Place your social share buttons in a prominent location and choose the social channels you include wisely—for simplicity’s sake, consider including only the most popular ones.

Social Share Buttons FPO

35 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE CALLS-TO-ACTION (CTAS) The bread and butter of your website lead generation campaign is the call-to-action (CTA). Your website can be a powerful lead generation tool—get creative, and start converting.

Collecting Website Leads We’ve already described the qualities of a call-to-action (CTA) in our section on content marketing, but here’s how they should function on your website.

On the Marketo website, our most important CTAs are our free trial, our four minute demo, and our invitation to “Contact Us”. Notice that the button colors stand out, and the CTAs are very clear. The viewer knows exactly what to do. We also pin our most important CTAs to the screen, so no matter where a viewer scrolls, the CTAs follow.

Marketo’s pinned CTAs

36 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE CALLS-TO-ACTION (CTAS)

Contact Us If a lead wants to contact your If you click on a “Contact Us” button This landing page collects lead company directly, make it as easy anywhere else on our site, you get sent information, includes a customer as possible. There is nothing more to a landing page. We actually use quote, and has a few additional CTAs, frustrating than failing to find a longer forms there, because we want in case the lead is interested in company’s contact information or these leads to be qualified—meaning watching a pre-recorded demo, contact form. At Marketo, we they really want to contact us. signing up for a live demo, or visiting display our phone number in our the resource library. header, embed a “Contact Sales” form in our product pages, and display a “Contact Us” button (which links to a landing page) on every page of our site.

Our “Contact Sales” embedded form ask leads for their first names, last names, work emails, phone numbers, companies, and the number of employees at their companies. We also leave a field for comments and questions.

Marketo’s “Contact Sales” embedded form

Marketo’s “Contact Us” landing page. CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE CALLS-TO-ACTION (CTAS)

Asset Download Chat Another common way to generate Consider using a chat service to leads on your website is through your collect leads on your site. Like a content asset downloads. If your “Contact Us” CTA, chats are great for content marketing strategy is aligned leads who have a question, but don’t with your lead generation efforts, you want to pick up the phone. Chat should already have assets that will services (like LivePerson) enable a interest your website visitors. And that lead to enter his or her contact means you can ask for lead information and chat with an information in exchange! educated representative. Marketo Live Chat

There are many theories about We use a chat feature on our product putting a form in front of content and pricing pages. On both pages the assets (known as “gating”). You can chat only pops up after a viewer has gate all of your assets, only gate your spent a certain number of minutes Middle-of-Funnel or premium assets, on the page. or you can ask a lead to fill out one form to access your entire library. The initial chat pop-up asks if the There is no right or wrong way to do viewer has any questions. Once a this, but at Marketo, we only gate our visitor clicks on the CTA, indicating Middle-of-Funnel or premium assets they want to chat, they are brought to (like third-party research reports, or a lead capture form asking for his or our Definitive Guides). her first name, last name, and email address. He or she is then routed to a representative who can answer any questions.

Chat lead capture form

38 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE CALLS-TO-ACTION (CTAS)

Free Benchmark, Grader, or Survey Depending on your product or service offering, you might consider offering your website visitors a value-add in the form of a benchmark, grader, or survey tool. For our Definitive Guide to Engaging Email, we teamed up with SnapApp to create a widget, which asked our visitors a series of questions about email marketing engagement.

We scored each survey taker, and included a CTA to “Learn More”. The CTA routed each respondent to a landing page where they could input their lead information.

If you are offering a value-add that helps visitors gauge their own effectiveness, you are more apt to Marketo’s email survey, accompanying The Definitive Guide to Engaging Email collect quality lead information.

Marketo’s email survey results and CTA

39 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE CALLS-TO-ACTION (CTAS)

Subscriptions Contest Another way to generate leads on A contest is another way to generate your website is to offer a subscription lead information. Host a contest on to your blog, email program, or your homepage to entice visitors to resource center. In exchange for a share their information. Everyone loves lead’s email address, you will send a chance to win something! Contests your blog digest, newest assets, or can also promote social sharing—just other valuable offers. make sure you include social sharing buttons. We’ve placed a subscription request form in our resources section, where One note: before running a contest, it gets prime real estate at the top of consult your attorney to make sure the page. The form offers free tools it follows legal guidelines. and best practices for visitors in exchange for their email addresses. We also let our visitors know that we respect their privacy, and make it Marketo’s subscription request form clear that if they fill out the form, we will send them updates. CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO BLOG OPT-INS Your blog is one of the best places on your website to generate leads. While your blog’s primary purpose is as a source of thought leadership and expertise for your target audience, your blog can also help you achieve measurable goals—especially when it comes to lead generation.

You can do this by using blog The Lightbox Sidebar Header or Footer opt-ins, or subscriptions, as Pop-ups can be irritating, but they An opt-in form in a sidebar can be very If someone wants to sign up for your conversion points on your can also be very effective—they’re effective. If you “pin it”—anchor the blog, the header is often the first place website. When your audience certainly worth testing. Lightbox opt-in on users’ screens as they scroll they look. Your footer is also a logical subscribes to your blog, they can opt-ins can appear after a certain down the page—it’s never out of sight place to put an opt-in form. In fact, either receive an email digest or amount of time has been spent on the (or out of mind). At Marketo, we use a even if you have an opt-in elsewhere an RSS feed of posts. In return, page, or you can present one to sidebar opt-in for our blog. on your blog, you might also include you can add their information to visitors as they navigate your site. On one in your footer. your lead database. Marketo’s blog, we decided to present a lightbox opt-in to non-subscribers Within Your Content once every six months. After that, our If your blog is popular, consider adding subscriber numbers skyrocketed. your opt-in form at the end of each blog post or article. If a visitor has taken the time to read a post, you already have a certain level of buy-in, so it’s an appropriate time and place to ask for more!

Marketo sidebar opt-in

Lightbox opt-in offer on Marketo’s blog

41 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE USABILITY It doesn’t matter how many CTAs, amazing content pieces, or contests you run—if a prospect is confused by your website’s layout, there’s a good chance he or she will “bounce” (leave your website) instead of converting.

Help your readers understand Website Scannability what you do and where they Structure your homepage and each Here’s an example from the Marketo can find the information they interior page to be easily skimmed. website (the lighter areas indicate more need. Here are the factors that Most visitors will not read all of your clicks and hovers): make your website effortless content, so make the most important to navigate: items stand out. Your most essential content should be at the top of your page, followed by any additional details, and the bottom should contain related information. Bulleted lists and bolded headings can also draw your leads to the most important information.

You can implement a heat mapping tool, such as Crazy Egg, to get a better visualization of where people click, how they scroll, and how they interact with your site. This simplifies later decisions about where to put your copy and CTAs.

A heat mapping screenshot, provided by Crazy Egg

42 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO WEBSITE USABILITY

Clear Conversion Paths To create intuitive conversion paths, On Marketo’s homepage, our main you need to get into the head of your navigation options are “Products and target personas. Who are they? What Solutions” (product information and resonates with them? As they search Marketo offerings), “Customer for the right information, what paths will Success” (customer testimonials and Resource Center they want to take? stories), “Resources” (content assets and thought leadership), and “About” Content is a critical part of lead (all about our business). It’s clear which generation, so your website should be option leads to information about our rich with awesome assets. That said, we product suite, and which leads to know that not everyone has a wealth of downloads of our ebooks. content resources at their fingertips. Try to offer a few well-placed pieces that suit the interests of your prospects.

As Manya Chylinski wrote on the Content Marketing Institute’s blog, a solid resource center helps your customers and company because:

• It enables customers and prospects to easily find the information they seek. • It encourages serendipitous discovery of content. • It increases the “stickiness” of your website.

Marketo’s homepage, with our four main navigation menus 43 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO CHECKLIST: USING YOUR WEBSITE FOR LEAD GENERATION

Homepage Website Content Landing Pages Product/Service Pages Resources Page

Highlight the latest/hottest Use attention-grabbing Include your logo Use strong calls-to-action on Organize your content headlines each product page content logically Write a great headline Use eye-catching visuals Tie customer needs to Make contact information Make your content easily solution benefits Focus on a single clear on the page accessible, with one click Write catchy copy call-to-action Make calls-to-action clear List pricing information Include visual thumbnails Include ways for people and prominent Entice readers to (if applicable) of each asset to opt-in to content respond to your offer Use consistent voice Address customer pain points Make sure each page is Use plenty of bullet points optimized for SEO Write clear and concise copy Feature relevant visual(s) Copy edit for typos and grammatical mistakes Include a short form to capture leads Keep paragraphs short Display a “Thank You” Use easy-to-read font page pointing to a related offer Make content scannable

Use compelling imagery (little or no stock imagery) CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) Your prospects are searching for what you sell—but will they find you? Search marketing is about getting found by prospects through search results and converting them into opportunities. The higher you rank in organic searches, the more people will find you.

So how do you achieve good rankings? In June 2013, inbound marketing company Moz surveyed 128 SEO professionals to determine the impact of broad algorithmic elements in Google search. As you The Google Crawler can see from this pie chart, Google considers many elements of a Your site’s rank in Google search results webpage when determining rank. depends on all of the factors displayed on Moz’s pie chart, but also on Googlebot, which crawls the web and (according to Google) “discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index”. Googlebot uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to index from each site. And what does Googlebot look for? A site with lots of great content and well- formatted media.

Results of Moz’s June 2013 survey of SEO professionals

45 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

The Top 3 Tactics for Quality SEO Traffic By Rand Fishkin, CEO, Moz

All marketers need a cogent, 1. Be the exception. 2. Better content > more content. 3. Your snippets are as nimble, long-term strategy for If everyone in your field (or your Don’t be fooled into thinking that important as your rankings. their marketing as a whole, search results) is earning their you need to produce something Don’t get more obsessed with and knowing how SEO fits in is rankings, links, and attention every day or every week. moving up the rankings than the key. Lots of individual one way, try to find a new path. Sometimes, long projects that you are with crafting the best tactics work temporarily— Imitation is the best way to stay produce immensely valuable, message in the search results. sometimes for years, even— one step behind. Innovation is hard to imitate materials are much Your titles, meta descriptions, but the engines continues to the way to leap ahead. more valuable. URLs, publication dates, and evolve, new results types more all influence how likely you emerge, and users change are to earn a click. Often, their behavior. Organizations winning the click-through battle possessing clear strategy can will earn you higher spots in the shift their tactical approaches rankings over time. and continue to reach the audience they need with the message that converts best.

46 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO AUTHENTIC CONTENT Google is constantly optimizing to focus on quality content, as is evident in their recent release of Hummingbird. Named for its precision and speed, Hummingbird represents a big change in Google’s approach to search.

In previous updates, Google So how should marketers respond to focused on improving their Hummingbird? By focusing on relevant, indexing; next they high-quality content. Smart content Ask the Experts: concentrated on identifying marketing is one of the best ways to spam. With Hummingbird, nurture relationships with your prospects What types of content Google is trying to improve the and customers, but it requires a whole other side of the search. mix of techniques. Optimization is vital to works best for converting They’re trying to get better at that mix, but so is the constant creation of listening—at finding out what valuable materials. You need to drive SEO traffic to leads? users want to know. traffic to your site, but you also need to keep your audience on the page. “If you’re targeting keywords This shift shouldn’t come as a that are conversion-likely (they surprise to marketers. Google has If you’re continuously creating the kind of have true purchase/signup/ announced a string of updates in content your audience is looking for, the the last few years, each one new algorithm will help them find you. action intent), it pays to have altering the best practices for SEO. That’s why Hummingbird is a win for your pages that are both worthy of being shared customers, and ultimately a win for you. and contain enough information to drive the conversion. Talk to your customers and to your evangelists (those who help your message “Just because you get ‘SEO traffic’ doesn’t mean it’s good traffic! Be sure that spread), discover what makes both tick, then your content appeals specifically to your target audience—avoid the attempt to combine them.” temptation to write too much ‘thin’ content in order to ‘go viral’. Instead, provide – Rand Fishkin, CEO, Moz meaningful resources for buyers in each stage of your sales funnel.” – Nate Dame, CEO and Founder, SEOperks

47 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO AUTHENTIC CONTENT

Power Content At Marketo, we create “power content” to rank highly for certain terms, with the goal of making our resource pages a premiere educational source. Power content can be lengthy, but it’s Power Copy Checklist always educational, catering to customer needs and Google’s According to Nate Dame from SEOperks, ranking preferences. your power copy should include the following:

For example, we wanted to rank A definition of your main keyword, for the phrase “marketing and the reason you’re referring to it automation”, so we added power content to our marketing The reason the keyword is important automation resources page. to your site’s visitors Notice the “Pull to read more” Between three and five additional tab—this allows us to include headings with applicable content lengthy copy, while keeping our resources above the fold. Data and statistics (if available)

Since launching our marketing A quote from one or two experts automation power copy in on the topic February of 2013, we have seen a Your company’s relationship to 114% total increase in organic site the keyword traffic to our resources page. A conclusion, with a call-to-action

External resources and suggestions for further reading Marketing automation power copy on Marketo’s website keeps our ranking high.

48 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO KEYWORDS When creating your SEO strategy, first determine your keywords–i.e. what you want to rank highly for–and then optimize for those terms.

This means that when someone Keyword Research Consider scheduling a keyword Once you determine what keywords searches for that term, you’ll Try Google Adwords Keyword brain-storming session with your will resonate, check to see which come up in the first results. Planner to find new search terms. team. You want to have a solid list of websites already rank for that keyword. Keywords should be chosen Before you implement your new keywords—you could have 10, 50, or Next, look at the ads that your based on: keywords, research click-through- hundreds of words, depending on competitors are serving up. The more rate (CTR) estimates in Keyword your business and goals. ads, the higher the value of your • Relevant business goals Planner, so that you can determine keywords—and the harder it will be to • Traffic opportunity conversion success over time. Tools Because your keywords will also be rise above the noise. Search volume like Google Webmaster can help you used in Pay-Per-Click and other online can tell you how popular your • Competition measure your results. ad campaigns, think about the keywords are. Make sure people distinction between early and late actually search for your keywords, but When researching keywords, stage keywords. You want your offers the higher the keyword search volume, ask yourself: and copy to resonate with buyers at the more money your keywords will the right place in their buyer journeys. cost. • How relevant is this keyword to my website, my products and services, and my content?

• If someone searches for this keyword, will he or she find my offerings useful?

• Do we have content to offer for this keyword or will we have to create content?

• Will traffic for this keyword deliver leads to our sales team? 49 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO KEYWORDS

Keyword Document Once you’ve created a spreadsheet or document of keywords you want to rank for, grade their priority and list their target URL, making it easy for your whole team to use those keywords. At Marketo, we use a keyword document for our blog, so we know what to link to. Remember, Google doesn’t like exact-match keywords, so look for phrases that relate to your target term. Just make sure that your keywords are used naturally—no keyword stuffing!

To avoid using exact keywords (which Google penalizes), try creating phrases that include your keywords. For example, instead of “revenue marketing”, we use the phrase “how to tie marketing effort to revenue”.

50 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO ON-PAGE SEO In the past, on-page SEO consisted of meta tags, alt tags, encoding, title tags, canonical URLs, keyword stuffing, and more. But, as we’ve explained, SEO has changed with Google’s updated algorithms.

Page Title Headline Try to use one primary keyword in Your headlines should support the each page title tag. Page titles affect keyword focus for the page. If a how Google ranks your page, but visitor clicks on your page title and they can also make your site look expects a certain outcome, your H1 more appealing in search results. A (or header) should deliver! There’s compelling page title that states some industry-wide debate about exactly what a page is about can whether titles and H1s should entice a user to click. A good match exactly, but make sure practice is to put your primary they are similar. keyword close to the beginning of the title, as opposed to the end.

Using keywords in page titles boosts your search rankings 51 CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO ON-PAGE SEO

Images Content URLs Load Time Averages Using images on your page can Make sure your content is educational The structure of your URL is still Slow load times hurt your Google actually help you in rankings, because and relevant to your readers. Keyword important. URLs should be concise, rankings, even if you have great traffic can come from image-based stuffing (or overloading a page with but should also include your keywords. content. Why does Google care? They search engines like Google Images. keywords specifically to improve SEO) Your URLs should mimic the site page want to give their users easy-to-access For high rankings, Moz suggests that is a big no-no, and Google has gotten structure—for example, information—not content that takes your images have a title, filename, wise to the practice. Moz suggests a marketo.com/content-marketing forever to load. surrounding text, and alt attribute. test to ensure your keyword is clearly a page about content placement reads naturally: have a marketing on the Marketo website. non-marketing friend read the page, and then ask if he or she thinks a term is suspiciously prominent. If he or she says yes, you should revise.

In blog posts, a good rule of thumb is g to use your keyword two or three .jp _1 ip times per short post, or between four _Tr ris _Pa and six times for long ones. y ip : M Tr e is m r na Pa ile y F : M tle Ti CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO ON-PAGE SEO

Authority and AuthorRank Google Authority and AuthorRank Here’s how to create a take social signals and content Google+ author tag: authority into account, so that search engines can give smarter, 1. Sign into your personal more relevant results. Claim Google+ profile ownership of your content by linking 2. From your profile page, hit the it to your Google+ page. “About” tab on the top menu. By Google+ Author Tag editing the “Links” section, you can let Google know you are a content author for websites or blogs.

3. From the page you want to show authorship of, you can link your Google+ profile by adding “rel=author” to the page’s HTML anchor tags.

Once you have created your author tag, you can show up in search results as the author of a particular page. CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO THE PERFECTLY OPTIMIZED PAGE– ”CHOCOLATE DONUTS” ACCORDING TO MOZ CHAPTER FIVE: WEBSITE AND SEO LINKS Establishing link-based authority on one of the major search engines requires a mix of on-page SEO and link building efforts.

The exact mix is hard to pin On-Page Links External Links down, but authority is To show Google that a page is According to Moz’s survey (see p.43), established though a trusted link relevant to people searching for your link authority factors (such as the profile—and a good amount of keyword, you need to create links to quantity and quality of links to your thought leadership content. that page, using variants of that domain and specific pages) are the keyword as anchor text. For biggest factor in your rankings. This instance, we want our event means you need other sites to link to The Relationship Between Social marketing resource page to rank your domain and the pages for which Media and SEO highly for the term “event marketing”, you want to rank. so whenever we use the phrase As SEO and social have become “event marketing” on another page, For good reason, external links improve increasingly intertwined, Google now we link it back to the resource page. your ranking authority more than your uses social signals to determine how own on-page links—more so if the your company ranks in search results. external sites are relevant to your Engagement from your followers on business. Also, the higher the external social can actually boost your SEO. site’s authority, the more credit Google Fostering social engagement requires will give you for the link. valuable content: the more useful people find your content, the more they’ll Here are some easy tips to get started engage and share. with link building:

• Make sure your content is relevant, educational, fun, and link-worthy.

• Make sure the sites that link to you are reputable and have good content.

• Ideally, the anchor text in the link from the external site should use a variant of your keyword phrase. 55 CHAPTER SIX: LANDING PAGES CHAPTER SIX: LANDING PAGES LANDING PAGES FOR LEAD GENERATION Landing pages are customized pages that your leads are directed to from a social media page, an email send, an event invitation, a paid ad, or a search engine result.

No matter how much time or money you spend on a campaign, if your landing page doesn’t resonate with your audience, they will bounce— potentially never to return. The goal of your landing page is to keep a potential customer interested enough to keep reading—ideally, they will fill out your form and become a lead.

Most leads take only a few seconds to decide whether they’ll read a page or bounce. Does the page make sense immediately, or is it hard to understand? Is it relevant to the link your lead clicked on, or does it seem out of place?

57 CHAPTER SIX: LANDING PAGES LANDING PAGES FOR LEAD GENERATION

Be Campaign Specific Your landing pages should be Next, check out the landing page specific to your campaign. on the right that this ad links to. The Although creating a new landing landing page copy (and the offer) is page for every campaign isn’t consistent with the ad. easy, it’s a critical part of conversion and optimization.

As an example of what we mean, here’s a PPC ad placed by Marketo, targeting the phrase “marketing automation”.

Marketo PPC ad

Marketo landing page for a marketing automation ad CHAPTER SIX: LANDING PAGES LANDING PAGE DESIGN Err on the side of simplicity with your landing page design. Use your design layout carefully—the wrong design for your audience can immediately detract from the offer and ultimately the conversion. Simply put: design can have a polarizing effect.

Consider including the following Removing Navigation design elements in your landing It may be tempting to include your pages: main navigation links on your landing pages (“If they don’t like this offer, • Company logo they’ll be able to find something • A banner image or heading else!”), but these can distract your leads from your CTA. In eye tracking • A “hero” shot—a mock-up of studies, it’s been found that your ebook or offer, or a photo navigation panels draw attention of your webinar speaker away from your offer and conversion. • Social sharing buttons Remember that your main goal isn’t a visit to your website—it’s lead Basically, you want to follow the conversion for a particular campaign. K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple, Silly) rule with After they convert, feel free to send a logical, well-designed landing your leads additional information— page—your lead shouldn’t have to just don’t muddy the waters at your wade through clutter. initial interaction.

A simple, streamlined landing page for a Marketo webinar 59 CHAPTER SIX: LANDING PAGES LANDING PAGE COPY Your landing page copy and CTAs should be clear and direct, and should give your prospects a good reason to provide their information.

As you write your landing page Scannable Content Keep it short and sweet with a bold copy, use these four steps as a People simply don’t read full landing headline, one or two short guide: pages—they scan. Studies have paragraphs of explanatory copy, and shown that, at most, people read bullet points to show your leads why 1. Set up the problem three pieces of your landing page: they should click through. To engage leads without overwhelming the 2. Talk about the solution 1. The headline page, consider using interactive Reassure Your Lead elements such as an audio clip or a 3. Point out the WIIFM 2. Bullet points Your leads are risking their privacy (or more) (What’s In It For Me) short video. by filling out your form. Reassure them with 3. Bio (if applicable) 4. Deliver the goods The landing page to the left offers privacy statements, customer testimonials, (such as an ebook, video, our Definitive Guide to Marketing and guarantees. You want your leads to feel or webinar registration) Automation. It includes a bold safe giving their information to a reputable headline, bullet points, a fun video, company—add copy or imagery to and instructions. There is no reinforce that trust. superfluous copy—it is simple and concise.

Your landing page doesn’t need to sell your product and company, but it does need to have a very clear offer. Focus your landing page around a single CTA, which must be relevant to the ad, email, or link that your lead originally clicked on. Avoid additional offers, or additional information about your company.

Landing page offering The Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation 60 CHAPTER SIX: LANDING PAGES CONFIRMATION AND THANK YOU PAGES After a customer converts, take time to thank them with an email, or send them to a confirmation page.

Confirmation and thank you pages are an important way to track conversion.

These also give you the opportunity to deepen the relationship by making another offer, promoting your blog, asking for feedback or a social share, or running a poll. In fact, over 40% of prospects are willing to share additional information after they convert.

Take a look at the landing page to the right for Marketo webinar registrants. The page asks you to register for more events, and gives you a list of resources that relate to the webinar content.

A Marketo “Thank You” page

61 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION OPTIMIZING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR LEAD GENERATION Using social media to brand your business isn’t groundbreaking anymore. Been there, done that? But although social is still important for branding and generating buzz, it’s increasingly used for lead generation.

At Marketo, we’ve found that tapping into social media channels “For successful lead generation on can transform your lead generation efforts from blah to wow. social, equip your buyer for success. Be personable, connect with your prospect’s challenges, and give them a Social for Lead Generation Power Tips next step to move forward.” – Chris Brogan 1. Don’t take yourself too seriously CEO and Founder, Human Business Works 2. Organic isn’t enough on its own; don’t be afraid to pay to boost your presence

3. Focus on valuable content and solid offers

4. Create strong calls-to-action (CTAs)

5. Always add value

6. Never forget that social is a two-way street CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION PEER-TO-PEER INFLUENCE MARKETING Social marketing is shifting away from company-to-buyer marketing, and toward peer-to-peer influence marketing.

Need proof? A recent Forrester “To what extent do you trust each of the following types of advertising/promotion?” survey found that only 20% of buyers (4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [do not trust at all] to 5 [trust completely]) believe what a brand says about itself, because people view any Brand or product recommendations from brand-to-buyer communication as an friends and family 61% 70% advertisement. Conversely, 70% of Professionally written online reviews (e.g., buyers trust the recommendations of CNET, consumer reports) 33% 55% their friends and family. Consumer-written online reviews Self-seleced (e.g., Amazon) 38% 46% digital pull content When people learn about your brand Natural search engine results through social, it gives you the (e.g., Google, Bing) 37% 43% opportunity to turn those “Likes” into Information on websites of leads. By adding elements of social to companies or brands 23% 32% your campaigns, you empower Sponsored search engine results customers, prospects, and fans to (e.g., Google, Bing) 24% 27% become brand advocates. Emails from companies or brands 11% 18% Leveraging the power of peer-to-peer US communication delivers no- or low-cost Posts by companies or brands on social networking sites (e.g., , ) 10% 15% EU* brand lift and increased brand Information on mobile applications authenticity. Because your audience’s from companies or brands 10% 12% Europeans trust all advertising peers have nothing to gain by communications less Ads on websites than Americans recommending a product, peer-to-peer (e.g., banners) 8% 10% Digital word of mouth is one of the most credible Base: 57,499 US online adults (age 18+) Text messages from push content forms of “advertising”. 8% 9% *Base: 15,654 EU-7 online adults (age 18+) companies or brands Source: North American Technographics* Online Benchmark Survey (Part 1), Q2 2012 (US, Canada) * Source: European Technographics* Online A Forrester Research survey on consumer trust in advertisements Benchmark Survey, Q3 2012

64 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION SOCIAL SHARING Social sharing amplifies your message and your lead generation efforts, but getting people to share isn’t easy.

People are motivated to share by: Social Sharing Offers Keep these motivations in mind, and • Polls and voting: Everyone 1. Reputation enhancement try to align them to your social offers. has an opinion, and most 2. Access to something exclusive Consider adding some extra oomph to people are happy to share. your social campaigns and messaging Build relationships with 3. Opportunities for by employing one of these tactics: campaigns that engage your co-creation/authorship audience and compel them to Utilizing the 80/20 Rule for social • Refer-a-friend: Create a share their opinions. You can 4. Competitions compelling offer for both the also gain valuable information So what kind of content should you post referrers and referees. This taps 5. Altruism about your leads’ likes and on social channels? Social media has into the same power as peer-to- dislikes, which can help you many different functions, including lead peer recommendations—people plan future campaigns. generation, brand awareness, and are far more likely to trust their relationship building. To be effective, you “When it comes to sharing on social, friends. Of course, this is also a • Flash deals: Create a sense of need a good balance of promotional pick the channel where you can best fantastic way to collect urgency with a strong CTA and content and thought leadership. We lead information. a time limit—these cause leads tell your story. If you’re better in advise marketers to use the 80/20 to act quickly. Flash deals can video, use YouTube. If you’re brief rule—80% of your content should be • Sweepstakes: Create a contest quickly increase brand and quippy, use Twitter. Pick what informational/educational, and 20% and get your entrants to spread the awareness and bring in you like.” should be self-promotional. word on your behalf. Everyone new customers. – Chris Brogan, CEO and Founder, loves winning, and contests are Human Business Works highly shareable on social channels. You can also gain important lead data through entry forms.

65 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION FACEBOOK Facebook boasts the largest user base of any social network, so it’s essential that you have a presence there. Formerly dismissed by marketers as too “personal” for business correspondence, it’s become an increasingly common way to deliver messaging. With more than 1.1 billion users, and many opportunities for paid advertisements, Facebook is a critical element of any lead generation campaign.

Contagious Content So what works on Facebook for lead At Marketo, we are always “Facebook is great because it allows you to humanize generation? The key is to strike a experimenting with different types of balance between offering content ads, new content, and eye catching your brand—companies often forget that people that is valuable for brand positioning, visuals. We also track our success aren’t ‘all business’ when it comes to social media. and offering content that is fun and using Marketo and Facebook Insights. They want to have fun, not engage with robots.” shareable on social channels. If you We’ve found that to successfully can show value to your followers, generate leads on Facebook, – Carra Manahan, Marketing Programs Specialist, Marketo your lead generation efforts can have you need: a true network effect. 1. Compelling messages

2. Eye catching visuals

3. Mass audience appeal and shareability

4. A clear CTA

5. Personality!

66 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION FACEBOOK

Facebook News Feed Promoted Posts Facebook’s News Feed uses an • Hide Post/Spam: Amplify your lead generation and How do promoted posts work? You algorithm to determine whether your What types of posts does a user engage your followers (and your can promote a post (including status posts get displayed on a user’s News usually hide or mark as spam? followers’ networks) by putting paid updates, videos, blog posts, and Feed, which is critical for lead efforts behind some of your top posts. offers) directly from your News Feed. • Clicking on Ads: generation. So how do you get your Remember, when using promoted Any post you promote will Do users interact with the ad? posts to appear? This algorithm has posts for lead generation purposes, automatically appear higher in the gone through numerous iterations, and • Device Considerations: there should always be a strong News Feed, so more people will see it. (like Google) will continue to change Can multiple devices handle CTA—ask followers to download an over time, but it always responds to your content? asset, attend a webinar, or learn about You can also determine a specific content engagement—if users and a new product. You want people to budget for each promoted post. Your their networks interact with your • Story Bumping: have something to click on. budget will depend on your personal content, it will show up in the feed. If A post may be older, but is it still business objectives, but Facebook not, it will be dropped. being interacted with? prices promotions based on your fan count and budget—they can range Here are some other factors that the from $10 to $1000. algorithm considers: At Marketo, we promote assets and • Affinity: daily blog posts with strong Facebook How close is the relationship CTAs, and we’ve seen a big uptick in between the user and content? visibility since we started doing so. Recently, we created a Facebook • Weight: promoted post for our Definitive Guide What type of action was taken on to Engaging Email, which led to 9,923 the content? clicks; 6,765 actions (“likes” and • Decay: comments); a 3.976% click-through- How current is the content? rate; and cost us $0.70 per click.

• Post Types: What types of posts does a user typically interact with?

Promoted Facebook post from Marketo 67 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION FACEBOOK

Facebook Ads Custom Audiences Facebook ads provide highly If you’re using Sponsored Stories or targeted opportunities to reach paid ads, you can target a specific your audience. They appear on the set of users, or custom audiences, right side of a user’s screen, and with whom you’ve already are similar to traditional Pay-Per- established a relationship—either Click (PPC) ads—you place a bid on on or off of Facebook. These how much you want to pay per audiences can be defined by the click, or you can pay per thousand following attributes: people who will see your ad. And much like a typical PPC ad, the cost • Email address depends on the popularity of your • Facebook user ID keyword terms. • Phone number You can choose to link Facebook • Facebook App user ID ads to pages on your website, or to your Facebook page to get more • Apple IDFA “Likes”. You can also target Facebook ads based on a variety of • Location demographic criteria including • Age location, job title, age, industry, gender, and more. • Gender

• Education

• Interests

• Connections

68 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION FACEBOOK

Tracking and Results Facebook’s Page Insights application provides fantastic analytics, tracking a variety of engagement and ad performance metrics. Leveraging this data internally can help you begin the conversation about your program ROI on social.

Page Insights lets you see:

• Page “Likes”

• Post reach

• Engagement

• Organic/paid reach per post

• Post clicks

• Post “Likes”

• Comments

• Shares

Facebook’s Page Insights analytics 69 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION TWITTER Think of Twitter as a virtual water cooler for marketing professionals: it’s a vibrant community where businesses can generate leads, and thought leaders can discuss relevant industry topics. With 218 million users, Twitter can’t be ignored.

At Marketo, Twitter helps us Promoted Tweets foster continuous, real-time We’ve had great success with Twitter enables you to target tweets For tweets promoted in search results, engagement with our customers Promoted Tweets, a form of paid ads based on the following criteria: we run two offers every two weeks, and prospects. We use Twitter that appear in a user’s feed, targeted with three different tweets focusing on to spread the word about to followers and users who fit our • Interests 15 keywords and five countries. Fresh, specific product offerings, and criteria. Our Promoted Tweets contain • Keywords in timeline relevant content offers with the right as a forum for potential timely and engaging offers, like messaging yield click-through rates of customers to learn more about contests for free trips to industry • Gender up to 17%, with a cost-per-prospect at us and our products. And like events, or links to relevant thought around $14. This, of course, will vary • Geography Facebook, Twitter offers many leadership. We use Promoted Tweets based on your offer and the relevancy opportunities for marketers to to create demand for new content • Device of your content. collect and generate leads. assets, upcoming events, or demos. • Similarity to existing followers We always see significant spikes in Every Promoted Tweet that we run relevant tweets during industry events, leads to a form, which improves our Marketo also uses Promoted Tweets in so we decided to capitalize on that, chances of gaining user data. Like Twitter searches. These tweets target using Promoted Tweets in search Facebook ads and Google Adwords, users based on particular keyword and results during key conferences such as Promoted Tweets use a Cost-Per- hashtag searches. Dreamforce. This allows us to be part Click (CPC) pricing model. of relevant conversations while the Here’s how Promoted Tweets appear conversations are still hot. By targeting in a user’s timeline: event-specific hashtags and relevant keywords like “”, we can tap into prime lead-generating moments. Being a part of real-time conversations means pouncing on real-time opportunities.

Promoted tweet in timeline 70 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION TWITTER

Promoted Accounts and Trends Twitter also offers two additional Promoted Trends enable a business promoted ad options—Promoted or an individual to promote a Accounts and Promoted Trends. With particular trend or hashtag, which Promoted Account ads, businesses appears on the left-hand side of a can make their Twitter accounts show user’s screen, under “Trends”. Note up under the “Who to follow” list on that promoted trends carry a hefty your Twitter page. This can be targeted price tag—according to Mashable, based on who a user typically follows, placement costs about $200,000. whether it’s a similar advertiser or an industry thought leader.

Promoted accounts can also be A Promoted Account ad from Pulsar, placed among In this “Trends” list, GoPro Camera’s promoted organic “Who to follow” suggestions hashtag tops the list. placed in search results when someone searches for a particular topic or hashtag. CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION TWITTER

Twitter Lead Generation Cards Tracking and Results Twitter Lead Generation Cards permit Twitter Lead Generation Cards can When people choose to follow you businesses to collect lead information also sync to your marketing on Twitter, you’ll be notified and can directly from Twitter. How do these automation tool, but note that Lead review their conversations in work? When individuals expand your Generation Cards only have a full dedicated streams. This helps you tweet, they see a form, a description name field—most marketing identify opportunities to engage. of your compelling offer, and a CTA. automation tools collect names in a Twitter Words of Caution Twitter handles, names, and email first and last name field. Also, Twitter We’ve seen immediate results from addresses are already filled in, so all a Lead Generation Cards do not our efforts on Twitter: our average A little self-promotion is good for business, lead has to do is click the CTA. capture company data. Because of lead-conversion rate from emails and but if your entire tweet history is about you this, you can’t (yet) push the lead online campaigns is between 2-3%, and your company, you’re doing it wrong. information to most CRM tools. but some of our Twitter campaigns have yielded conversion rates as Use the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content high as 14%. should be helpful or entertaining, 20% should be promotional

A Twitter Lead Generation Card from Marketo 72 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION LINKEDIN LinkedIn goes beyond personal profiles and status updates; it’s a great resource for networking, influencer relationship building, and lead generation opportunities through paid programs. Because users visit the site for purely work-related purposes, LinkedIn lends itself to making business connections.

Company Page Building out your company page is the first step to optimizing LinkedIn for lead generation. Your company page tells users who you are, what you do, and why they should follow you.

Follow these key best practices when building out your LinkedIn company page:

• Optimize your company page for keywords—people frequently run searches on LinkedIn, so make sure you show up in results.

• Add tabs to your company page— these are usually “Careers”, “Products”, and “Insights”. Your “Products” tab should be optimized for search.

• Post on LinkedIn at least once daily to establish your presence.

• Consider adding videos and other media to your product pages to further engage users.

Marketo’s LinkedIn page 73 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION LINKEDIN

LinkedIn Sponsored Updates LinkedIn Ads To get into the lead generation Sponsored Updates allow you to LinkedIn ads give companies the game, LinkedIn began offering target users—you can choose to chance to target their audience in Sponsored Updates, allowing include or exclude users based on powerful, unique ways. How? The companies to put paid promotions the following criteria: information found on a user’s behind status updates. These LinkedIn profile is different than • Location promoted updates are seen by your other social networks, and it’s followers and targeted users • Company name particularly helpful for businesses. outside of your follower network. This data maps well to the lead Like all other social ads, LinkedIn • Job title data you want from users—such as updates should include a visual, job title, company, industry, • Skills and then link to a gated asset. geographic location, and other • School name demographic targeting.

• LinkedIn Group associations LinkedIn allows you to customize your ads—you can opt for text-only • Gender ads, images, or video ads. • Age However, according to LinkedIn, A Sponsored Update from Marketo on LinkedIn adding an image to your ad can bring you 20% more clicks. CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION GOOGLE+ Google+ is quickly becoming an essential part of any business’s social media strategy, but it’s also a must for lead generation. Already boasting 90 million users, Google is making Google+ accounts mandatory for all Gmail users and those who want to post comments on YouTube. Google+ also now plays a major role in SEO.

About Us Page Use the “About Us” page on Google+ to give audiences a quick overview of your business. From there, you can link to specific pages and services, directing potential customers to the most important pages on your website. Make sure your copy is SEO friendly, but—as always—avoid keyword stuffing.

On Marketo’s Google+ “About Us” page, note that we include our tagline, keywords, and links that direct viewers to our highest ranking pages.

Marketo’s Google+ “About Us” page 75 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION GOOGLE+

Claiming Ownership Google+ Hangouts of Your Content Google+ Hangouts are a great way We’ve already discussed Google to generate buzz, sharing, and brand AuthorRank in our chapter about awareness. Gather thought leaders SEO, but it’s worth noting that in your industry for a panel or a Google search results greatly favor topical chat. Send out invites to your those who engage with Google+. customer and prospect base, and Google Authorship is how Google make sure you promote heavily authenticates authors, and how it on social. begins to “trust” you as a quality source of content.

Jazz up your virtual meetings or panels with fun effects in Google+ Hangouts CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION SLIDESHARE Readers are inundated with text, which means marketing professionals can’t rely solely on whitepapers and blog posts to reach prospects and customers. It’s now vital to include visual elements in all of your marketing campaigns.

SlideShare is a service that hosts Creative Topics and Visuals Optimizing for SEO your slide decks and presentations Content marketing through SlideShare Creating slide presentations that rank SlideShare presentations are easily online, but it’s also much more— can help you establish yourself as an for certain keywords can be much embedded into other sites, which will it’s an essential part of any expert in your field, using highly easier than ranking a post on your also drive SEO results. Each time successful content marketing consumable visual elements. When it blog. To give your presentations a someone embeds your presentation, strategy, and a powerful social comes to lead generation, SlideShare fighting chance in the world of search it serves as an inbound link to community with a reported 60 can help you attract audiences who engines (as well as in SlideShare’s your content. million monthly visitors. might ordinarily skim past your own search results) include keyword- content. Some people might want to rich titles, descriptions, and tags. read a 10-page ebook, while others Write your titles and descriptions with want to consume their information SEO in mind. quickly and visually.

77 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GENERATION SLIDESHARE

SlideShare Forms When it comes to lead generation, forms are where SlideShare really shines. With SlideShare, you can embed a lead generation form directly into your presentation, which pops up after some or all of your presentation is complete. Users can enter their information to download the slides and learn more about your company.

If you are using a marketing automation platform, you can sync your leads directly into your database and add them to a nurture program.

Use SlideShare forms to generate leads.

78 ASK THE EXPERTS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GEN ROUNDTABLE WHAT SOCIAL CHANNEL WORKS BEST FOR LEAD GENERATION?

“Although many think “At Social Media “There are three that Facebook is a terrific Examiner, we’ve found channels that are great platform to build a strong that LinkedIn has the for lead generation. community of fans, it’s highest conversion rate, Facebook’s ad interface even more powerful when you turn your but Facebook delivers a higher quantity and their targeting capabilities are raving fans into quality leads that you of leads for us. We have a much larger impressive—you can get very granular can communicate with and build a fan base on Facebook (192,000+) and ensure you’re reaching the right relationship with outside of Facebook.” compared to LinkedIn (11,000+), and audience. LinkedIn has generally given – Amy Porterfield have multiple dedicated staff manning us the best leads, because you can Social Media Strategist our Facebook account.” target by job titles, companies, – Michael Stelzner company size, or industry. Lastly, we’ve CEO and Founder, Social Media Examiner had success with lead generation forms on SlideShare, where we host all of our slide decks, from webinar decks to shortened versions of our ebooks.” – Carra Manahan Marketing Program Specialist, Marketo ASK THE EXPERTS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GEN ROUNDTABLE WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL FOR LEAD GENERATION?

“Social media platforms “Now that Twitter has “More and more are becoming more introduced Lead companies are investing sophisticated in terms of Generation Cards, in their brand’s social giving marketers which allow advertisers presence, and at the opportunities to strategically attract to collect leads directly from paid ads, I same time, social platforms are leads. It’s no longer all about attracting think we will see more of this type of investing in features that help drive lead fans and followers—the appeal of social lead generation across the various generation. If you’re not using social media marketing is gravitating more social networks—especially as those media for your lead generation efforts, toward turning those fans and followers networks become more reliant on you’re missing out on a great into warm leads. These leads are advertisers who are seeking to opportunity. We’ve seen great ROI from genuinely interested in hearing from you. generate leads.” adding a social component to almost – Amy Porterfield – Michael Stelzner everything we do—whether it’s a simple Social Media Strategist CEO and Founder, Social Media Examiner social share button or a fun contest.” – Carra Manahan Marketing Program Specialist, Marketo ASK THE EXPERTS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GEN ROUNDTABLE WHAT ARE THE KEY SOCIAL COMPONENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION STRATEGY?

“You need to know “Generating leads with “At Marketo, we’re aware where your audience is social comes down to that a social media spending time and have offering a valuable free manager doesn’t just post a keen understanding of offer. It’s important to a few tweets or Facebook their interests, likes, dislikes and overall remember why people are on social statuses every day—they also have a challenges. If you can create giveaways networks: to connect with people. Thus strategy for reaching lead generation that they perceive as highly valuable, it’s critical to offer up major value if goals. To have an effective lead they’ll be more than happy to give you you’re going to interrupt their main generation strategy, you’ll need to make their names and email addresses in reason for being on the network. Said sure that you have awesome content, the exchange. That’s how list building on another way, people using social right people, and creativity. Content is social media sites works best—with an networks have a low tolerance for what fuels social media—without it you irresistible giveaway, promoted on your overly promotional content.” would have nothing to offer your social media channels. This not only – Michael Stelzner audience. Dedicated staff ensure that builds goodwill and establishes your CEO and Founder, Social Media Examiner you’re following a strategy, not just using authority, it also builds your email list social at random. And creativity is key for with people that are genuinely breaking through the noise.” interested in what you are all about.” – Carra Manahan – Amy Porterfield Marketing Program Specialist, Marketo Social Media Strategist ASK THE EXPERTS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEAD GEN ROUNDTABLE WHAT DO YOU SAY TO PEOPLE WHO THINK SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT EFFECTIVE FOR LEAD GENERATION?

“I would say they are “People who think missing out on a huge social media is not opportunity, and will effective for lead struggle to build up their generation need to give email lists if they don’t begin to it a try! I can’t stress how important it is experiment with social media to test before drawing conclusions. opportunities to attract quality leads. You’ll need to try different methods, I would also say that their competition keeping in mind that not everything you is very lucky!” do will be a success. Not every post on – Amy Porterfield every social channel will get a ton of Social Media Strategist engagement—you need to figure out “Social networks are the which messaging and content resonates fastest and lowest cost best with your target audience.” way to generate leads, – Carra Manahan Marketing Program Specialist, Marketo bar none.” – Michael Stelzner CEO and Founder, Social Media Examiner CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING

CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS WITH EMAIL MARKETING Email is a cornerstone of many marketing campaigns. Whether you’re hosting an event, sending out a new piece of content, or promoting a new service offering, email can deliver relationship-building communication at every stage of the funnel, especially to those leads that you already have in your database.

That said, marketers often Today’s buyers have short attention struggle to generate the open spans and intelligent browsing rates, click-through rates, and habits—they want personalized, conversions they’d like to see. relevant information at all times. In fact, according to a recent research study by That’s why marketers must create MarketingProfs, the average engaging email campaigns—not just open rate for a B2B email is batch-and-blast. To rise above the 19.9%, and the average click- noise, your emails should be through rate is 5.4%. According trustworthy, relevant, conversational, to marketing solutions firm coordinated across all channels, VerticalResponse, the average and strategic. open rate for a B2C email is between 15-20%, and the Email marketing done right can help average click-through rate is nurture leads already in your around 6%. database and bring them closer to becoming a customer.

84 CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING EMAIL TIMING AND FREQUENCY Time your emails depending on your audience, based on captured user data and other parameters.

When to Send an Email How Often to Send Emails Although there is no true “best” • Time zone: By capturing IP We’re often asked how often time of day to send your emails, addresses at opt-in, you can marketers should send emails, there are certainly some best segment your list and send and ultimately, the answer practices you can consider: emails based on where depends on the level of perceived Early bird subscribers live, so that your value you deliver in each email. For If a subscriber • Time of opt-in: emails reflect the correct instance, daily deal emails, such Time of opt-in opts into your newsletter at 2pm time zone. as those from Daily Candy, Time zone PST, you can reasonably assume Groupon, and Living Social, have that subscriber is often online • Domain: Send emails to high value and merit daily at 2pm. subscribers who register frequency. For most businesses, personal email domains • Early bird: If you schedule your however, once a day is much too (gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc.) Domain emails to arrive in the early much. A general rule to follow: during the early morning and If you find yourself wondering morning, you can be at the top of evening hours. Those using the email pile when folks arrive at whether you’re sending too work-related domains many emails, you probably are. the office. Note that as (company.com) should smartphones become more receive emails during the day. ubiquitous, people check their email earlier and earlier in the day—often long before they actually get into work. CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING EMAIL CALLS-TO-ACTION A strong, clear call-to-action (CTA) is a crucial element of any great lead generation campaign.

If you have three things to We covered CTAs in our section on promote this week, but you don’t content, but here’s an example of a want to email your database strong email CTA (on the right). It’s three times, it might seem wise obvious what we want the reader to to combine the offers with an do—attend one of our LaunchPoint email that covers all three. partner webinars. Unfortunately, this can dilute your message and confuse the Instead of driving your readers directly recipient. You want your recipient to your website homepage, it’s always to know exactly where to focus better to point them to a landing page and what to do. created specifically for your offer (see our section on landing pages for more landing page best practices). Same rules apply: make sure your CTA stands out and that the copy is compelling.

Email with a strong CTA 86 CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING EMAIL SUBJECT LINES Your subject line, in conjunction with a trusted From address, is what drives opens. Make it clear and concise, and don’t be afraid to try something creative—you can always A/B test before sending it to your entire list.

Here are some best practices to improve your open rates:

• Frame your subject line as a • Make a psychological appeal. question. Questions compel According to Copyblogger, the readers to open your emails as subject line “You are not alone” they pause to consider the gets an average open rate of answer. Nab their attention with a 90%. As you write your subject simple question mark. lines, keep basic human psychology in mind. • Try a list. This is where your “Top 10” and “5 Tips” subject lines • Be conversational. Don’t be come in. People gravitate towards afraid to use conversational short, easily digestible information. language in a subject line. Your leads are people, so use natural language that references real-life interactions.

87 CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING EMAIL COPY An opened email is one thing; a read email is another. There is truly an art to crafting email copy that will convince someone to click.

Remember, your readers will scan Here are some tips for writing through hundreds of emails on email copy: any given day, making quick decisions about which are worth • Short and sweet: We find it’s their time. best to say things simply. Try using short sentences and bullets to At Marketo, we send thousands of make your emails easy to scan. emails, and we test every email • Cut out the marketing-speak: design and copy to ensure that our Marketing jargon can immediately readers click through. turn off your reader. Make your copy clear and conversational.

• Address a pain point: Your email copy can speak to a problem you can solve for your reader. Offer a clear, concise solution.

• Don’t forget to proofread: Multiple people should review every email you send for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. If you can, set your email aside for a few hours before sending—with fresh eyes, you’re more likely to catch mistakes. ASK THE EXPERTS: EMAIL MARKETING ROUNDTABLE TRUE OR FALSE: You can have the most compelling subject line, the best call-to-action, and an unbelievable offer, but if you don’t have a list of email addresses to send to, nothing else matters.

“This is true, but to be “Absolutely true. Email “This is absolutely true. more precise, you need a marketing begins with An email list—ideally one quality list. A list of your database. I am that is obtained through unengaged, unresponsive always amazed when permission-based best contacts is nearly as bad as not having a my students and clients tell me that practices—is a critical aspect of any list at all. The size and quality of your growing their list is not one of their solid email marketing program. It starts subscriber list is a direct indicator of how priorities! Your newest subscribers are with the opt-in form—setting successful you will be at reaching your often your most active subscribers and expectations around content, value, email marketing goals.” so, logically, it makes sense to prioritize timing and frequency. Then it’s all – Adam Holden-Bache growing your database. And the bigger about delivering on that promise. This CEO and Managing Director, Mass Transmit your list, the more opportunities you is where trust is earned or lost. The list. have for conversions.” The list. The list!” – Katy Pay – DJ Waldow Co-Founder, Plan to Engage Evangelist, Marketo ASK THE EXPERTS: EMAIL MARKETING ROUNDTABLE WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WHEN DESIGNING EMAILS FOR CONVERSION?

“They don’t offer value to “Not designing their “They forget about the recipient. They make emails for conversions! I mobile. If you look the content about what find that most email at the mobile email they want people to marketers (or their statistics, usage has know, rather than what people want designers) are actually designing their been growing rapidly over the past few to hear.” emails to be aesthetically pleasing, years and will continue to do so. More – Adam Holden-Bache rather than focusing on designing for and more people are viewing and CEO and Managing Director, Mass Transmit conversions. You need to test your CTAs interacting with emails on their smart and copy, and make the most of your phones. However, very few email headlines and imagery to support your marketing messages are optimized for main objective. Too many equally mobile. This is where responsive design weighted CTAs make it confusing for the comes into play.” reader as opposed to setting a clear – DJ Waldow task for the reader to follow.” Digital Marketing Evangelist, Marketo – Katy Pay Co-Founder, Plan to Engage CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING PAID EMAIL PROGRAMS Paid email programs extend your reach, attract your target audience, and increase the size of your database. With paid email, a sponsored email to high-quality targets is sent out on your behalf. Pick a reputable organization with a high-quality database that is filled with your target audience.

Targeting with Paid Emails Vendor Selection Which organizations in your industry Most organizations allow you to If you turn to a vendor for paid email 4. Determine pricing model: Some are known for relevant news or target subscribers based on the programs, here are some steps we vendors price based on cost-per- particularly engaging commentary? following criteria: recommend that you take: lead, others price based on cost- Check to see if those companies offer per-thousand individual sends • Audience: Who are you trying to sponsored email programs. If you are 1. Check out a vendor’s media kit: (or CPM). reach? Target based on title, sending emails out through a well- Most vendors will have a media kit industry, and other on their website. Read through the respected organization in your space, 5. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate: demographic criteria. kit to determine list demographics, they probably have an organically Be very clear about the metrics and program offerings, and grown list that speaks directly to • Topics: What topics are your goals you are trying to hit. Negotiate payment terms. your audience. audience interested in? Many with your vendors based on vendors allow you to target expected outcome. based on topics that leads have 2. Get on the phone: Go over engaged with in the past. program details, success metrics, and payment. • Region: If you are doing a geo-targeted campaign, have 3. Ask about data replenishing: your vendor segment based You want to know how large the on location. vendor database is and how they replenish their database. Do they As you write copy for your paid email clean their database frequently, program, be aware that the verifying that their list still wants to recipients may or may not know who receive communications? Keep your company is, so branding and your eye on the percentage of new clarity are critical. Focus on bold, names in a vendor’s system. eye-catching visuals, a very clear CTA, and concise copy. 91 CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING PAID EMAIL PROGRAMS

Getting the Cost Down Paid email programs can be pricey, but there are low-risk ways to try a new channel. Consider splitting the cost with a good partner in exchange for lead sharing. If you’ve co-created a content asset, you could find a Considerations for Paid Email Campaigns vendor whose database is relevant to both partners. Note: if you plan to Paid email programs can be very different than share leads, make sure you emails you send to your database. When creating a include the proper verbiage on paid email program, be sure to: your landing pages. 1. Work with good vendors. Make sure they 4. Don’t send to dupes. Particularly if you are Also consider trades. You might be update their house lists, are flexible, and are using a vendor who has a similar database to working with a vendor that has a willing to negotiate. Good vendors will make your own, you want to prevent simultaneous similar target audience to yours. their database sizes transparent, and will sends to the same people. Consider using a What if you send out an email on their help you determine the best lead generation third- party service like Optizmo to prevent behalf, and they send out an email on package for your business. duplicates. Send Optimizo your list and your your behalf? You can often cut costs 2. Have a backup plan. If you thought your vendor’s list, and Optimzo will send back one by trading. email would generate 500 new leads, but concise list. you received 200, have a plan to fill in the 5. Ask for a make-up drop. Sometimes your gap. If a technical problem was to blame, send just doesn’t go as well as expected. Be some vendors will let you negotiate a aggressive and ask that the vendor re-send make-up send. your email. 3. Don’t be afraid to use the same content 6. Evaluate over time. Be sure to revisit your multiple times. Every time you do a send, program a few months later—your success even to the same database, only a small numbers may have changed. percentage of people actually download/ read the asset you include. While you should never send the same email twice, you can re-send an asset in a new context.

92 CHAPTER EIGHT: EMAIL MARKETING EMAIL MARKETING METRICS Always measure your email campaigns, whether they are emails to your database or through a paid program, to drive testing, iteration, and program successes.

What you measure will depend on 5. Clicks/Click Rate/Click-to-Open 6. Unsubscribe Rate: The rate at your priorities. Here are seven Rate: The rate at which leads click which leads clicked the common email metrics to on a link, button, or image within “unsubscribe” link in the email and your message. The rate is only then successfully opted-out. consider measuring: calculated once—so if a recipient clicks numerous times, the click is 7. Marked-as-Spam Rate: The rate at 1. Sent: The number of emails that only recorded once. The “click which recipients reported your email actually moved through your rate” is the total number of clicks as spam, divided by the number sent Marketo Engagement Score sending mail server/marketing divided by the total number of or delivered. automation tool. Marketo counts emails delivered. The “click-to- The Marketo Engagement Score is a “sent” emails as valid contacts who open” rate is the total number of proprietary algorithm that our Data were sent an email. clicks divided by the total number of opened emails. Science Team created to determine 2. Delivered: The number of emails exactly how engaging each message is. It that were sent and not rejected by combines multiple data points such as the receiving server—note that clicks, opens, conversions, unsubscribes, “delivered” emails don’t necessarily and program successes, and then applies land in the recipient’s inbox. a statistical algorithm to create a single 3. Bounced: The number of emails measure of engagement. that were rejected by the receiving server.

4. Open/Open Rate: How many recipients opened and viewed the email. Marketo defines “opens” as emails that were opened at least once, and the “open rate” as the number of opens divided by the number of delivered emails.

Marketo Engagement Score 93 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS PAID PROGRAMS AND LEAD GENERATION While inbound marketing has been getting a lot of buzz lately, a well-rounded marketing mix should include both inbound and paid techniques. Inbound alone can’t always drive someone to buy, so smart marketers use outbound and paid techniques to introduce their companies, amplify their messages, and expose their leads to content.

Paid Programs Defined We’ve already talked about using Paid programs also tend to include paid efforts in your social and email content that’s geared toward the marketing, but paid programs can mid-stage buyers. Middle-of-Funnel also include events, online ads, and content can help push someone content syndication. through your sales process at a faster rate because engagement Because paid communication is can indicate buying intent. highly targeted, and usually includes Cost per Lead (CPL) explicit CTAs, they work particularly Combining paid with inbound well for lead generation. In fact, marketing can multiply the number In paid programs, “cost per lead” or many people think about lead of views you generate, dramatically “investment per lead” refers to the generation as exclusively done increase sharing, and ultimately amount of money spent to earn each through paid/outbound marketing. increase the number of potential lead. You can divide the program customers who see your content. investment by the number of leads you acquired to come up with this metric.

95 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) SEARCH ADS With pay-per-click advertisements, your ad is placed as a “sponsored result” on the top of search engine results, and you pay for each received click. You can tailor your PPC ads to appear when specific search terms are entered, creating highly targeted ads.

PPC ads allow you to limit how much you’ll spend, and unlike traditional advertising, you can adjust your copy or CTA within hours.

PPC Keywords The keywords you choose for your PPC campaigns should be close to your top SEO keywords, but you’ll probably have more. Some companies have hundreds of PPC keywords, depending on their business and goals. As with your SEO keywords, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner to help you brainstorm and research keyword popularity.

PPC ads purchased by SAS, tableau, and Marketo for the search term “how can I track marketing analytics?”

96 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) SEARCH ADS

PPC Ad Copy A great PPC ad has good copy and Relevancy and Targeting an engaging headline, but you only To really resonate with the needs of have 25 characters for your headline your leads, your copy should directly and 70 characters for your copy. So address a customer pain point. You you have to say a lot in a very small want your leads to immediately see amount of space! value in clicking on your ad.

According to Search Engine Watch, As an example, if you type the term Negative Keyword Campaigns there are five golden rules of PPC “buying marketing automation” into ad writing: Google, you’ll see one of Marketo’s Consider using negative PPC PPC ads—one that addresses that keywords, e.g. keywords that will cause 1. Use clear, easy to understand exact request with an analysis of your ad to not trigger. For example, if language twelve automation vendors. The ad you sell high-end jewelry and are copy states that the report is free, 2. Use vivid and emotional bidding on the word “watches”, you adding additional value. language might exclude any search that has the word “cheap”. Remember your PPC 3. Focus on keywords and the campaigns are budgeted by cost-per- intent behind them click, so every click makes a difference to your bottom line. 4. Have a compelling offer and CTA

5. Don’t go overboard with Excluding specific words or phrases abbreviations and that aren’t relevant to your product truncated phrases or service can help you reach your ideal prospects.

97 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) SEARCH ADS

PPC Headlines Marketo runs this PPC ad, targeting PPC headlines have to pop—and the keyword phrase “lead nurturing” quickly. Don’t be afraid to use strong (see right): language to create a sense of urgency. You also want your headline to convey We assume that a person searching authority. Your ad will likely be for “lead nurturing” is doing research competing against other PPC ads, so —they’re probably not ready for an make yours stand out by reviewing aggressive pitch. As you can see, we other ads that show up for offer them an educational piece of PPC ad from Marketo, targeting the keyword phrase “lead nurturing” your keywords. content (The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing) instead. Call-to-Action Strategy PPC ads are a great place to Ad Extensions Here is an example of a Marketo showcase your content, keeping in You can add additional information PPC ad with extensions—a mind that people who search for your to your PPC ads with ad Google+ follower number and three keywords may be unfamiliar with your extensions, including: additional links. company. This means that it often doesn’t make sense for your call-to- • Your business location and action to be a sales pitch. Instead, offer display map them a piece of content that is • Links to additional pages on your applicable to their search query. site (aside from your chief CTA)

• Product images and prices

• Phone number Marketo PPC ad with additional extensions • The number of your company’s Google+ followers

• Seller ratings (if applicable)

98 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) SEARCH ADS

Google Quality Score According to Google, your PPC ad’s • Landing page quality: Google Quality Score is “an estimate of The relevancy of your landing page how relevant your ads, keywords, and and how easy it is to view landing pages are to a person seeing and navigate. your ad”. If you have a high Quality • Your keyword/ad relevance: Score, Google thinks your ad and How relevant your ad is to landing page is relevant to searchers— your keyword. so you will rank higher for the same bid amount! • Your keyword/search relevance: How relevant your keyword is to Google tabulates Quality Score based what the customer searches for. on the following criteria: • Geographic performance: • Your keyword’s expected How successful you have been in click-through rate (CTR): the regions you are targeting. This is calculated based on past CTRs and how the keyword has • Ad performance on a site: historically performed in your ad. How your ads are performing on Google and other partner sites. • Your display URL’s past CTR: How often your display URL • Targeted devices: received clicks. How well your ads perform on mobile and tablet devices. • Your account history: Your overall CTR on all ads Your Quality Score affects your ad and keywords. position, your eligibility for ad extensions and other formats, and your actual cost-per-click (CPC). In other words, a high Quality Score is a big deal. CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) SEARCH ADS

PPC Measurement With PPC ads, you can quickly • Conversions: A conversion You can combine these change your copy, CTA, landing refers to the number of times a measurements to come up with page, or offer. To take advantage of lead takes the action that you other important metrics: this flexibility, pay close attention to intended—downloading a piece • Click-Through Rate (CTR): how your ads are performing. of content or asking for a demo. You can keep track of Clicks/Impressions. The percentage of impressions that Measure the following metrics for conversions either in Google yield clicks. your PPC campaigns: Analytics or your marketing automation solution. • Cost Per Click (CPC): Spend/ • Impressions: An impression Clicks. This refers to the amount measures the number of times As an example, Marketo offers of money that you are spending your ad is displayed when an integration with Google per click, taking your entire someone types in your AdWords that enables joint campaign spend into account. search term. customers to view conversion • Conversion Rate: Conversions/ • Clicks: This is the number of data from Marketo in AdWords, Clicks. This is probably the most times a viewer actually clicks providing insight into which important of all the paid search on your ad. clicks resulted in qualified leads, opportunities, and metrics. This is the percentage of new customers. your clicks that turn into actual conversions. • Spend: The amount of money that you have spent on your campaign. ASK THE EXPERTS: PPC Q&A WITH MIKE NIERENGARTEN, CEO, OBILITY CONSULTANTS

MKTO: What makes PPC effective MKTO: How do you see PPC lead for lead generation? generation strategies evolving in the future? MN: No other channel can provide the same level of targeting, segmentation, MN: As marketers and consumers get and performance measurement. PPC more sophisticated, decision-makers is distinctly measurable, but it’s not are beginning to want higher quality, limited. In your lead gen efforts, you more compelling content. They’re can adjust performance on a starting to get creeped out by microcosm level—tweak a bid by aggressive retargeting and social geography and hour, test ads and advertising. Marketers need to take a offers, or target a specific company. step back and better understand the customer journey at an atomic level. If MKTO: How do PPC strategies for a prospect has downloaded this piece B2B differ from those in B2C? of content, watched this demo, and read this analyst report, what content/ MN: Lead generation PPC requires offer/phone call/direct mail piece is qualification, nurturing, and most going to close the sale? importantly education. In B2B, your PPC strategy is content-based and PPC managers are going to need to lead quality focused; you need to recognize that simply generating new incorporate data from both marketing leads is not enough. PPC needs to be automation and CRM systems. You an effective lead nurturing and sales also want your PPC strategy to focus enablement program. The future PPC on campaigns that drive MQLs and strategy includes lead generation and high pipeline-to-cost ratios—not just lead nurturing. PPC managers really cheap conversions or need to be able to grasp the full high impressions. sales funnel.

101 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS CONTENT SYNDICATION As we’ve covered, prospective buyers start their purchasing journey on many different channels, so it’s important that you establish a multi-channel presence. One way to deliver high-value content to the right prospects is through content syndication—promoting your whitepapers, articles, news releases, and more on third-party sites and newsletters for greater reach and engagement.

Content Syndication Targeting Content syndication works best with When working with content mid to late stage offers. It can help syndicators, you can generally target you move leads further down your your leads based on numerous funnel, and gauge those leads who demographic features, such as: are closer to making a purchase. • Geography (e.g., “all English- Content syndication websites (like Zift speaking countries”) Solutions, Outbrain, and NewsCred) gate your content, capturing a • Job Type (e.g., “only Sr. Marketing prospect’s information so that you Managers and Directors”) can market to them later. • Company Size (e.g., “100+ employees”)

“Creating and curating • Industry Type high-value content so it can (e.g., “all industries” or “only IT”)

easily be found and shared Here is an example of a content is essential.” syndication registration page. The – Stephanie Bridges, registration form shows you which Product Marketing Expert demographics you can target with your content. Use registration forms to segment your audience.

102 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS CONTENT SYNDICATION

System Integrations Use an API to sync your content syndication program leads with your marketing automation solution—that way, you won’t have to wait for an Excel file from the vendor.

Following up fast, and with a high-value offer, is critical to success with content syndication campaigns, since many of the leads won’t know who your Quick Content Syndication Tips company is. If you don’t follow up fast, they won’t connect your email to the Heed these words of caution when content they downloaded a week ago. choosing a content syndication vendor:

As with any email correspondence, • Be vigilant. Some site owners • Keep prospects fresh. Find out how feature a very clear CTA and an image mistake permission to republish often the vendor adds fresh at the top. If your content is synced content as permission to prospects to its database so your with your marketing automation, you repurpose. Be cautious of who you content isn’t circulating with the same can quickly send a relevant follow-up. share your content with, and only audience. Occasional breaks from a work with reputable, established syndicator between contract companies. Find out which other renewals can help your numbers. websites your content will be • Use mid-stage content. By using placed on. mid-stage content in your paid • Get credit. Confirm that your content syndication programs, you company is getting credit for its are selecting leads that are further work. Ensure that your logo will be along in the buying cycle. kept intact and your company will be named.

103 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS DIRECT MAIL You may think direct mail is a thing of the past, but it’s still effective for very targeted communications.

Maybe you’ve developed a Target Your Creative content asset for high-level In today’s digital marketing world, executives who don’t usually direct mail campaigns need to be browse the web and have innovative. Don’t send a postcard with cluttered email inboxes. a cut and dry marketing message— That’s where direct mail comes in make your direct mail campaign because a physical piece of targeted, and make it pop. Don’t use correspondence can stand out. the same messaging in a direct mail campaign to CEOs that you’d use for If your marketing automation a marketing practitioner. software and CRM system has a direct mail application, you can track Here’s a clean, sophisticated direct your direct mail from the moment the mail piece, inviting director-level vendor creates the package to when executives to an exclusive event: it hits the prospect’s desk.

Direct mail piece from Telindus

104 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS DIRECT MAIL

Avoid Looking Like Junk Mail Overloaded text, or verbiage like “Free______”, “No Gimmick”, and “Pre-Approved” can send the wrong message to your audience. Keep an eye on the design, and make sure to test.

Instead of sending mail that looks like junk mail, make sure your design is clean, streamlined, and creative.

Here are two highly creative, artfully designed direct mail pieces:

Direct mail piece from Skype

Direct mail piece from Hell Pizza 105 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS DIRECT MAIL

Multi-Channel Direct Mail The best way to use direct mail is to The Marketo Fortune build a whole campaign around it, Cookie Campaign using email, social, blogs, To engage a targeted list of accounts, and events. we used a mix of tactics including direct mail, email, social, and sales. We recently drove $200,000 in revenue with a direct mail campaign. Here was the campaign flow: How? By being creative and multi- channeled in our efforts. Here’s a 1. Sales nominated a select group of 4. Once the email was sent, a follow-up target accounts for the campaign. call was scheduled with the sales rep quick case study: through Marketo’s integration with 2. We sent personalized baskets to Salesforce. targeted executives at each account. These included fortune 5. We also created specialized, cookies, a printed version of a campaign-specific social and web Definitive Guide—one of Marketo’s posts to reaffirm our campaign large pieces of thought leadership messaging and imagery. content—and a personalized letter.

3. When the package was signed for, we received a notification through Marketo, and a follow-up email was automatically sent. CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS EVENTS Whether you are hosting a small private function, a large-scale international tradeshow, or an executive-level webinar, event marketing can be an integral part of your lead generation mix.

Events offer you the chance to define your brand, clarify the solutions you provide, establish personal connections with participants, and give your prospects and customers the chance to interact with each other.

As every marketer knows, there’s no better advertising than the direct words of a satisfied customer. Events also provide a venue to convey your company’s thought leadership and personality through speeches, content assets, and presentation style.

107 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS EVENTS

Webinars Called webinars, webcasts, or web Use Your Webinars to Educate Webinar Content Repurposing conferences, these events can take Many companies fail to produce Once the webinar is over, you can the form of web-delivered quality webinars that map to early or generate additional leads, engage presentations, discussions, or mid-stage leads, focusing instead registrants that didn’t attend, and workshops. Typically lasting 30-60 on webinars that are very product or continue the conversation with minutes, webinars can be delivered service-centric. It’s important to repurposed webinar content—your in real-time, or in pre-recorded form. develop educational, thought slide decks and your webinar leadership webinars that resonate recording. Post your slide decks on With real-time webinars, you can with Top-of-Funnel (TOFU) leads. SlideShare, post your recording on allow attendees to participate by Once you draw them in, you can YouTube, and feature both on your asking questions directly of the take a more promotional approach website. Promote your recording on presenters. Recorded webinars can in your follow-ups. social channels and send it to all be hosted with other content on your registrants directly after the event. website, adding a video element to As an example, we recently hosted your content mix. Webinars can help a webinar called Graduating From you generate new leads and nurture Email Marketing to Marketing known leads. Automation. While marketing automation is our core competency, we didn’t mention Marketo-specific information in the webinar at all. Instead, we educated our audience about the benefits of marketing automation in general. Don’t try to make the sale before your audience is ready to buy. CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS EVENTS

Virtual Events These events have the look and Your Virtual Booth Booth Content feel of an offline event, but are You wouldn’t design a tradeshow Most virtual events allow you to include hosted in a virtual environment, booth that doesn’t suit your company, content in your booth and elsewhere combining the educational and the same goes for your virtual within the exhibit hall. It may be elements and ease of a webinar booth—rather than using a default tempting to throw up some product or with the networking and interactive appearance and setting, adhere to service-specific datasheets, but your features of a trade show. your own style guide. best bet is to include thought Participants visit a virtual booth, leadership pieces. As with any lead where they can collect materials, Many platforms allow you to chat both generation technique, make sure you meet the staff, ask questions, and privately and publicly with your booth are addressing pain points, but not even pick up some virtual swag. visitors. Keep your public chat box shoving your sales messaging down clear of clutter, and use it to moderate your audience members’ throats. discussions, promote your content Marketo recently hosted a virtual event and/or session, and welcome visitors. and all of the offered content was If it’s appropriate to answer a question Top-of-Funnel thought leadership, privately, simply move the discussion rather than pure promotion. off your public chat.

The virtual booth at a Marketo virtual event Top-of-Funnel content offerings at a Marketo virtual event CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS EVENTS

Physical Events From pre-event promotion, to the Games and Interactive booth and follow-up, physical Booth Tools events arguably involve more During a physical event, it’s not moving pieces than any other type unusual for hundreds, if not of marketing program. That said, thousands, of people to be packed trade shows, conferences/summits, into an expo hall. Every vendor is and roadshows offer you something trying to lure people into their booth, invaluable—the chance to engage so how do you stand out from the directly with your prospects and competition? At Dreamforce 2012, create relationships face-to-face. Marketo attracted crowds with a meme generator: Think of a trade show as a museum, Marketo’s meme generator at Dreamforce 2012 and every booth as a different exhibit. Which exhibit would you rather check out—the one with a bland fact plaque and a pre- recorded explanation of the exhibit, or the one that lets you play?

110 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS EVENTS

Contests and Sweepstakes Sweepstakes and contests can Trade shows are a huge investment humanize your brand, but they for participants and attendees can backfire if you don’t take two alike—especially supersized aspects seriously: the terms and conferences like Salesforce’s conditions, and the fulfillment Dreamforce, Microsoft’s process. Make sure the terms Convergence, SAP’s Sapphire, CES, comply with legal standards and SXSW. Why not reward your and are completely prospects and customers for their transparent, and have a solid investment? A sweepstakes builds plan for fulfillment in mind. brand buzz, but it can also build your database with qualified contact Unique Collateral information before the show even Many companies are moving starts. Use a sweepstakes during an away from printed collateral at event to drive booth traffic. For their booths and sessions, but instance, for Dreamforce 2013, consider still providing one or two Marketo ran a sweepstakes to items that attendees can take win a Smart Car. home. A good rule of thumb is to provide one asset that explains We also hold a “Road to Dreamforce” what your company does (in an contest each year, offering winners a engaging way, of course) and one Dreamforce Full Conference pass, piece of thought leadership—this VIP access to exclusive Dreamforce can be a fun, visual ebook or a Marketo’s Smart Car sweepstakes parties, and money for airfare, printed infographic. Stay away lodging, and extras. This contest lets from basic whitepapers—if it isn’t us know who will be attending the visually appealing, it’s likely to be event, and also gets us new leads. thrown away.

111 CHAPTER NINE: PAID PROGRAMS EVENT PROMOTION CHECKLIST

Pre-Event Promotion Checklist: Following up after the event is just as critical as your promotion. A one-third attendance rate is typical, so follow up with attendees If appropriate, kick off your event with a press release and those who registered but didn’t attend. For the highest possible click-to-open rates, follow up fast. Schedule a series of emails (we’ve found the third email usually drives the most registrations!) Post-Event Promotion Checklist: Include a calendar invite (ICS file) in the email, so folks can add the event to their calendars Send a thank you email immediately after the event

Create your confirmation process: Send slides, if applicable, within 45 minutes of the event

Send a confirmation email immediately after registration Send recordings, if applicable, as soon as they’re available— ideally by the next day Send a reminder email two days prior to the event Consider a phone call to those who meet your demographic Send a final reminder email one hour before the event criteria. Your follow-up call should happen within a few days of the event’s conclusion Steadily promote on social channels

Consider a call down with your inside sales reps to get more registrants, or run an automated campaign with a voicemail service like Boxpilot ASK THE EXPERTS: Q&A WITH PATRICK CAVA, SR. MANAGER OF PRODUCT AND PARTNER MARKETING, CERTAIN

MKTO: What kinds of events are Additionally, event marketers will MKTO: What do you say to people most effective for lead generation? leverage technologies that can more who doubt that event marketing is easily connect the right people, start to effective for lead generation? PC: This will differ for every company, measure the qualitative value of those depending on your target audience engagements, and tie those back to PC: In Content Marketing Institute’s and their stage in the buying cycle. tangible revenue. 2013 study, in-person events were Roadshows and industry tradeshows rated more effective than any other are great at providing the initial touch Given the pace of technology content marketing tactic, and for early stage buyers, especially for innovation, lead generation at events according to a 2013 CMO council companies that want to build brand 20 years from now will be a much more report, 31% of respondents consider awareness. For larger organizations seamless experience. Just as Marketo events essential to doing business. with a broad user base and diverse is able to easily aggregate all the But in that same CMO report, only product line, user conferences can be “interesting moments” of a customer’s 34% of those respondents actually great for developing leads at every interactions over various digital applied those metrics to assess ROI. stage of the buying process. marketing channels, you’ll see an increase in the ability to passively gain Fortunately, event marketers no longer MKTO: How will event marketers insight into the behavior and interests need to rely on anecdotal evidence or generate leads in 2014? What of attendees at in-person events, less meaningful statistics such as about in 2024? enabling organizers to focus less on number of attendees to measure simply gathering leads and more on event success. PC: In 2014, we’ll see an increasingly deepening those connections through personalized attendee experience at the quality of content and connections By integrating event management events, in which the content is curated they’re providing. software with marketing automation to the needs of each participant and and CRM, you can assess real event the engagements are targeted to return compared to other digital achieve their specific goals. marketing programs, and assess indirect lead generation benefits, such as an increase in brand awareness or social sentiment. 113 CHAPTER TEN: TELEPHONE-BASED LEAD GENERATION CHAPTER TEN: TELEPHONE-BASED LEAD GENERATION INSIDE SALES TEAMS Telesales, or inside sales reps, can be a big contributor to successful lead generation. Your sales team qualifies your leads and adds a personal touch.

An important distinction here— telephone-based lead “The most successful lead generation isn’t the same as telemarketing. Telesales generation/lead provides the human interaction management programs have needed to turn your marketing dedicated phone resources leads into opportunities and sales. whose sole job in life is to Insidesales.com’s 7 Rules to Increase Contact Ratios take raw inquiries and Lead Qualification 1. Call back as fast as you can! 4. Time of day matters. It has been qualify them before they are with Inside Sales A lead that is contacted within said that the best time to call a lead is Inside sales teams (at Marketo, we sent directly to sales.” five minutes, compared to one between 8am and 9am or between contacted after 30 minutes, has 4pm and 5pm. Make sure your reps call them Sales Development Reps, – Craig Rosenberg, a 100x higher contact rate. are available at this time. or SDRs) have one focus: to pass The Funnelholic Blog the baton from marketing to sales. 2. Be persistent. If you call once, 5. Day of the week matters too. Our SDRs review, contact, and you’ll earn 37% of a lead’s Studies show that Tuesday and qualify marketing-generated leads potential value, two phone calls Thursday are the best calling days. and deliver them to Sales Account will earn you 61%, and six phone Use sales tracking tools to determine calls will get you 90%. what works best for your audience. Executives (or AEs). This ensures that every single lead marketing 3. Optimize calls. Ask your lead 6. You need a direct dial line. You passes to your sales team is as when the best time to contact don’t want to deal with gatekeepers. qualified as possible. Your inside them is. You can do this by Consider including a form that asks sales reps should offer every lead putting a field in a form. for this information. value, making a positive impression, 7. Get the right technology. Whether creating future demand, and it’s a marketing automation tool to becoming trusted advisors. help you manage your leads, or a caller ID tool like LocalPresence, technology helps. 115 CHAPTER TEN: TELEPHONE-BASED LEAD GENERATION INSIDE SALES TEAMS

Building Your Team Expectations Compared to the cost of not calling a The average number of leads each Marketo multiplies these numbers You can also look at the ratio of inside qualified prospect and missing out inside sales rep can handle depends (50 x 20 x 2/3) to gauge how many sales reps to quota-carrying sales on a deal, the cost of calling a lead on your follow-up process. meaningful activities each inside sales representatives. At Marketo, the that isn’t ready to become a sales Marketo’s rigorous process involves rep should complete every month. We marketing and inside sales team lead is low. Set your lead scoring bar multiple calls and emails over a divide that number—about 650—by generate 80% of the sales pipeline, so low enough that your inside sales three-week period. We base our 2.6 to account for how many times an we bias towards a relatively low ratio: team calls a relatively high number of expectations of each inside sales inside sales rep will call each lead on one inside sales rep for every two or people, and keep your inside sales rep on the following assumptions: average. These calculations form our three AEs. If your inside sales team team amply staffed. expectation that each inside sales rep generates fewer leads per AE, or if you • Each inside sales rep can can work 250 quality leads per month. follow a less exhaustive follow-up Your inside sales teams should be complete 40 to 60 meaningful Of course, if your follow-up process is process for each lead, this ratio can be college educated, and have some activities each day (50 on lighter, you may expect each rep to as high as 1:4 or 1:5. experience on the phone in a sales average)—meaningful can be work 400 (or more) leads function. Additionally, your reps defined as a good phone call or each month. should be outgoing, motivated, and email exchange. have excellent communication skills. • Each month includes an average of 20 business days.

• Inside sales reps work their inbound queue about two-thirds of the time. (The other third comprises outbound prospecting, training, inviting prospects to events, etc.) CHAPTER TEN: TELEPHONE-BASED LEAD GENERATION PAID TELESERVICES If you want to outsource your outbound prospecting or need additional manpower, paid teleservices are ideal for ramping up call volume. And, thanks to improved training and ROI tracking, today’s options are a far cry from yesterday’s telemarketing services.

Types of Teleservice Vendors Choosing Your Teleservice Vendor There are many ways that teleservice Appointment Setting Services Your sales team is the front line and • Location—Is the vendor located vendors can help augment your lead Is your sales team wasting time with often the first human interaction that a overseas? If so, ensure that best generation efforts. Here are the cold calls and appointment setting? lead has with your company, so make practices are applied and that different types of vendors you might Consider investing in appointment sure you contract with the very best. you can reach them during your encounter in your research process. setting services from companies like According to The own business hours. Consider By Appointment Only. Most of these Association, here are some key having a third party visit the Automated Voicemail Campaigns services have live reps who make elements to keep in mind when location on your behalf. Automated voicemail campaigns over 175 calls per day, and charge choosing a teleservice vendor: (through companies like Boxpilot) can only by results. • Compliance—Does the vendor add a personal touch to your call • Experience—Does your vendor comply with all relevant call downs without tying up your inside Skilled Calling Agents have the right type of experience in center regulations? sales teams. These services allow you If you want a more personal touch, your industry and space? to send pre-recorded voicemails from consider hiring services like Televerde • Culture—Does your vendor often anyone at your company—even the or The Bridge Group to help augment use temporary services, or do they CEO—to a targeted list. A service like your sales team. These companies have full-time staff? If they have a this is cost-effective, fast, and can be offer dedicated teams of skilled full-time staff, how is their turnover particularly useful when announcing a calling agents who specialize in lead rate? Visit your chosen call center new product launch or confirming generation, lead nurturing, and inside if possible. event registrations. sales. Skilled calling agents are particularly experienced in handling objections, and can be a great option for smaller companies.

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Managing Teleservice Vendors When outsourcing your outbound Results First Ask for a Dedicated Team Operational Details calling efforts, you need to closely Make sure you have agreed upon Your teleservices vendor should According to The Direct Marketing manage the process. A great metrics and a distinct set of provide you with a dedicated team Association, you should agree to the experience with a teleservice vendor expectations. Are you aiming to who can learn your business over time. following operational details with can produce stellar results, but if the generate, qualify, or nurture leads with Aim for a team of agents who have a your selected vendor: relationship is managed poorly, you your vendor? Present your criteria at sales background rather than a might find yourself with poor leads the outset, or your experience might telemarketing background, particularly • What information is to be and a lack of ROI. not meet expectations. if your product or service has more of a provided to leads? relationship-based sale. • How will the management of Train About Company and Industry data and contacts be Your leads need to believe your And throw out the script! Your vendor processed? teleservice vendor is part of your should be employing smart sales reps company, which makes training a who can be agile during a • What are the calling hours must. Seek out quality teleservices conversation. Another smart move? during which you want your reps firms, who will have methods of Test the reps yourself. Do a variety of to work? learning about your value proposition test calls to evaluate their expertise. • How will you monitor and record and space, and firms who specialize in their calls? your industry. Do you have buyer personas built out? If so, use them to • Is there a quality control process give your teleservices firm insight into in place? your business and buyers. Once you have these nailed down, create a Service Level Agreement with your vendor that outlines all of these elements.

118 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL DEFINED Once you’ve invested in your lead generation strategy, you want to get the most out of every lead. Many companies do a great job at generating Top-of-Funnel (TOFU) leads, but most new leads aren’t yet ready to buy. That’s where a solid Middle-of-Funnel, or MOFU, strategy comes in.

Remember the new buyer, in the Too many marketers think their job is age of self-education and done once a lead becomes a information abundance? Like customer, but some of the same TOFU leads, most MOFU leads techniques described in this section still aren’t ready to engage with a can also be used for marketing to sales rep, but they eventually will current customers (known as be. It’s up to you to build your “customer lifecycle marketing”) with relationship, becoming a trusted cross-selling and upselling. source of relevant information.

Through lead nurturing and scoring techniques, you can make your lead generation efforts worth the investment.

120 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD NURTURING Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of when they buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready. When done well, lead nurturing plays a critical role in your lasting relationship with both customers and prospects.

Why Lead Nurturing is Critical to Lead Generation Without lead nurturing, leads who 98% may seem like a high As this MarketingSherpa chart aren’t ready to buy will simply fade percentage, and it is. But if you have a demonstrates, combining lead away—and that’s a lot of leads. strong Top-of-Funnel lead generation nurturing with your lead generation program, your database will gain a lot efforts can dramatically increase ROI. From Marketo’s own database, of early-stage leads. So what do we we’ve learned the following about do? At Marketo, we nurture them. leads in the “target” stage of our sales funnel—remember, targets are Lead nurturing isn’t about sending known leads who have engaged the occasional email (what we call with our company, and fit our “marketing at random”), and it isn’t demographic/behavioral criteria: about promotional batch-and-blast campaigns either. Lead nurturing • 98% of our targets are not takes every lead’s interests and opportunity-ready buying stage into account, building • Target to opportunity time is awareness and affinity towards your 123 days, on average brand while the lead is self-educating. Lead nurturing throughout the • 80% of our leads are slow customer lifecycle also helps improve leads—leads sent to our inside retention through upsell and cross- sales reps more than a month sell opportunities. after entering our database

MarketingSherpa Average ROI 121 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD NURTURING

The 6 Most Important Elements of a Lead Nurture Campaign Jon Miller, VP of Marketing and Co-Founder at Marketo

1. Be relevant. If you’re not 3. Establish permission and 5. Don’t make conversions your 6. Forget traditional metrics. being relevant, your leads will expectations upfront. A big part goal. Your goal with nurturing is You can’t measure the either opt-out, or they’ll of email marketing is to set and to keep in touch and develop a effectiveness of nurturing emotionally opt out when consistently meet expectations— relationship over time. Keep your based on open and click rates, they stop paying attention. nurturing is no different. At the nurture emails casual—after all, especially if there isn’t anything opt-in or soon after, let them know your lead is probably reading it to click. The only real way to measure nurturing is to pull out 2. Don’t be promotional. Early what to expect. on a mobile device, in line a control group who you aren’t stage buyers don’t want at Starbucks. nurturing, and to measure the product pitches or sales 4. Optimize for mobile. 48% of differences between those offers – they want to be emails are currently opened on populations over time. educated or entertained. mobile, and that number is Promoting yourself in a lead growing. Many (if not the majority) nurture campaign is like of your emails will be seen on a going on a date and talking mobile device. about yourself the whole time—you won’t get that second date.

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Engagement Marketing and Lead Nurturing We already know that batch-and- “Most marketers treat lead nurturing as an extended form of blast email campaigns lead to automated batch-and-blast—heavy on product pitches and noisy, ineffective, and irrelevant offers, light on educational content. Without taking the time to messages that weaken your chances to connect with potential develop personas, buying cycles, and mapping leads to their buyers. Engagement marketing, on place in the buying process, marketers will fail at lead nurturing.” The 4 Elements of Effective the other hand, nurtures leads Engagement Marketing – Jeff Pedowitz, President and CEO, The Pedowitz Group through relevant, multi-channel conversations at every stage of the 1. Relevance sales funnel. By creating a 2. Two-way communication conversation with your buyers 3. Multi-channel interactions throughout the nurture journey 4. Continuous conversation instead of blasting them with irrelevant messages, you can strengthen your relationship with the buyer over time. CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD NURTURING

Basic Lead Nurturing If you’re new to lead nurturing, setting Stay in Touch Campaigns Accelerator Campaigns “One of the biggest mistakes up your initial campaigns can be These campaigns are useful for all Accelerator campaigns attempt to daunting. We often see companies prospects who aren’t ready to engage move prospects through the sales we see marketers make with bite off more than they can chew with with sales. This type of campaign funnel faster with relevant “nudges”, lead nurturing is overthinking overly-complex nurture campaigns, sends out relevant content to usually triggered by specific buyer and overdesigning their lead but we recommend that you start prospects over time, helping to behaviors or sales updates. By simple. Think big, start small, and educate them and building trust in your observing the type of content a nurture programs at the gate. move quickly with one of these basic company. By touching prospects prospect requests, visits to your They become intimidated by lead nurturing techniques. regularly, “stay in touch” campaigns website, and interactions with your the hugeness of the project, keep your brand top-of-mind, so that brand on social, marketers can adapt Incoming Lead prospects will contact you when their nurturing approach accordingly. or they put together a Processing Campaigns they’re ready for the next stage. Use accelerator campaigns for behemoth nurture plan that Incoming lead processing campaigns prospects displaying strong interest. takes too long to actually get are a great way to make a positive first A stay in touch campaign may look like impression, which will improve a lead’s the following: Lead Lifecycle Campaigns started. Instead, start with perception of you forever. Before you Lead lifecycle campaigns maximize one track for all of your • Day 1: Introductory email introduce yourself, make sure you marketing’s investment in lead personas—not seven. If understand your lead’s personal • Day 10: Email offering new content generation by ensuring leads will never you’re currently doing preferences and stage in the funnel. related to first download and grow stagnant or lost, even if sales subsequent web activity does not engage. As a general lead random acts of marketing, nurturing rule, leads should never just even one track will be a • Day 15: Personal email from “sit” during the buying process. There sales rep are three important stages of lead huge improvement.” lifecycle campaigns: lead handoff, lead – Jon Miller, • Day 30: Email offering best recycling, and new customers. practices ebook or video VP of Marketing and Co-Founder, Marketo • Day 45: Call from sales rep to “check in”

• Day 75: Personal email from sales rep offering a demo 124 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD NURTURING

Buying Stage Campaigns Interest-Based Campaigns Set up nurture campaigns that If a lead downloads an ebook on Standard Triggered Lift map relevant materials to your social marketing from your site, Nurture Interests lead buying stages. Create why not keep them interested by mid-stage and late-stage tracks sending them similar material? In and include content that engages an interest-based track, you offer Open % 21.7% 34.0% 57% throughout the buying journey. content that is related to a Early-stage leads should be particular interest or theme. At Click to 23.4% 37.1% 59% nurtured with your “stay in touch” Marketo, we’ve had big success Open% campaign. Your buying stage with interest-based campaigns— Open and click-to-open rates in standard nurture programs, vs. interest-based nurturing campaigns can also be mapped compared to standard nurture directly to personas, to ensure tracks, we’ve seen a 57% lift in you’re targeting the right people opens and a 59% lift in with the right content. click-to-opens.

Buying stage lead nurture campaigns in Marketo

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Lead Nurturing with Marketo’s Customer Engagement Engine Because buyers today are As you begin to think about multi-channeled in their buying multi-channel lead nurturing and behavior, you should be multi- engagement marketing, consider the channeled in your lead nurturing following tips: efforts. Tools like Marketo’s Customer Engagement engine help you to • Listen and respond. Observe • Know which content to send • Opt for an easy-to-implement deliver dialogues that are far more and react to individual behaviors and when. Send content that solution. Don’t rely on IT to get relevant and engaging than basic in real time. resonates based on a lead’s your program off of the ground— lead nurturing campaigns. actions, and never send look for a lead nurturing solution • Communicate both online and duplicate content. that lets you create engagement offline.Amplify your message programs on your own. with conversations on social • Build relationships over the channels and at offline events. entire customer lifecycle. • Simplify your content Send relevant content to management. Never send the • Don’t blast your audience. This buyers at every stage of the same content twice, and becomes particularly important if sales funnel. automatically de-activate content you are running multiple email when it is outdated. campaigns. Advanced nurturing • Measure true engagement. systems like Marketo’s Customer Track customer engagement Engagement engine prevent you with your entire program, as well from sending too many emails to as with each component over one lead. time. Marketo’s Engagement Score can help you determine how engaged each lead is with your content.

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Follow the 4-1-1 Rule At Marketo, we use the 4-1-1 rule: for every four educational or entertaining messages that we send, we also send one Middle-of-Funnel offer (like tips to help you make a business case for our product) and one later-stage, slightly more promotional offer (such as a demo). This helps us balance our messaging and keeps us from coming on too strong.

“You don’t want to be sales-y or pushy with prospects. At the same time, you want to nudge things along, or else you’ll end up in the ‘friend zone’. Just like with flirting, you might occasionally touch their arm—you want to let them know you’re interested. That’s where the 4-1-1 rule comes in.” – Jon Miller, Marketo’s Customer Engagement engine VP of Marketing and Co-Founder, Marketo

127 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD SCORING Lead scoring—a method of ranking leads for their sales-readiness, agreed upon by sales and marketing—is essential to your lead generation. By scoring leads based on the interest they show in your business, their current place in the buying cycle, and their demographic fit, you get a better idea of where each lead is in his or her buying cycle.

Lead scoring tells companies Hard ROI of Lead Scoring Lead Fit whether prospects need to be Determining lead fit, or explicit lead fast-tracked to sales or lead Revenue Growth vs Peers scoring, is based on observable or nurtured further. The best lead directly shared information, often scoring systems use collected via an online form or We pass everything to sales demographics and and let them cherry pick 24% registration process. Demographics firmographics, as well as and firmographics tell you how well a behavioral scoring (such as prospect fits your ideal buyer profile. In clicks, keywords, web visits, We score leads based on fit 24.5% Part Three: Defining a Lead, we and social interactions). discussed BANT qualification (budget, Companies who use lead authority, need, and timeline), scoring see a huge lift in ROI, We score leads based on fit demographics, and firmographics, all as well as interest 32% and their sales teams spend of which should be used to score less time selling. your leads.

Sales Time Spent Selling Also consider scoring for negative demographic fit—you might choose to negatively score someone with a We pass everything to sales and let them cherry pick 50% generic email address, invalid phone number, non-existent company, or who says they are a student. Focus on We score leads based on fit 52% leads that could become deals.

We score leads based on fit as well as interest 63%

From Marketo Benchmark: lead scoring based on fit and interest grows revenue and reduces sales time 128 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD SCORING

Lead Interest Lead Recycling Scoring lead interest, often called Sometimes a lead is not quite ready implicit lead scoring, is done by Latent Behaviors Active Behaviors to buy, even after being contacted (Engagement) (Buying Intent) tracking your prospect’s by sales. If, after contacting a lead, behaviors (e.g. online body a rep determines that the lead is not language) to measure his or her • Early stage content +3 • Pricing pages: +10 sales-ready, the lead should be level of interest in your product or sent back to marketing—we call solution. For instance, a lead that • Attend webinar: +5 • Watch demos: this “recycling” the lead. downloads a simple whitepaper • Visit any webpage / blog: +1 • +5 overview When leads get recycled, they are has shown engagement with your • +10 detailed brand, while downloading a • Visit careers pages: -10 either returned to your basic pricing sheet shows true buyer • Mid-stage content +8 nurturing campaign or, even better, intent. Implicit lead scoring can • Decay inactivity: -1, -5, -10 added to a specialized nurture also mean inferring additional • Late-stage content +12 track. These campaigns have been information about a prospect optimized according to specific Behavioral lead scoring based on • Searches for branded based on the quality of the data email and online activity keyword “Marketo” +8 information the rep collected during you have (like the location of his or the sales interaction—such as the her IP address). reasons why the prospect didn’t move forward, or that lead’s BANT score.

129 CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD SCORING CHECKLIST

Which attributes or behaviors will you consider as you score your leads? Check off the boxes you think should be included in your model.

Explicit Scores to Consider:

Individual-specific Individual-specific Relationship scoring rules demographic scoring rules demographic scoring rules Title Rankings/stock indexes: Fortune 500/Inc 500, etc. Account type (potential vs. actual) Role Number of employees Customer Prospect Purchasing authority Company revenue Partner Number of direct reports Revenue growth (growing, declining, etc.) Competitor Level of manager (to whom do they report?) Company financial viability Previous relationship Years of experience Number of divisions Ex-customer Specialties Number of products sold (SKUs) Lost opportunity Type of email used (Gmail, corporate, Yahoo) Location Product(s) purchased Years at current position City Phone area code Complementary technologies used Designations/certifications State Headquarters or satellite (CRM, ESP, ERP, CMS, MRM, MA) Honors and awards received Zip Location of branches Recycled count Social network participation Country Size of branches Lead source Social network connections Website traffic Website Social network influence Website plug-ins Sponsorship Public recommendations Year founded PPC Affiliations—groups and associations Organizational structure Content syndication Career interests (proprietorship, partnership, corporation) Online ad Personal interests Geographic markets served Budget defined (monthly, quarterly, annually) Degrees received Partners Timeframe (project completion deadline) Fiscal year end Industry CHAPTER ELEVEN: MIDDLE-OF-FUNNEL LEAD GENERATION LEAD SCORING CHECKLIST

Behavior-Based Scores to Consider:

Livestreamed events Web pages Community Additional Behaviors Registered for Viewed landing page Submitted an idea Viewed Filled out form on landing page Submitted multiple ideas Commented during Used instant chat functionality Read about best practices Asked questions during Used “request a call back” functionality Read about ideas Reviewed follow-up recording Viewed–any Visited knowledge base Rated event Viewed–product specific Read about product information Viewed–pricing Asked a question Surveys Viewed–customers or reviews Asked multiple questions Visited Viewed–multiple web pages Answered a question Completed Viewed–multiple web pages in 1 week Answered multiple questions Viewed results Shared via social sharing Shared a best practice Participated in multiple surveys Browser used Shared multiple best practices

Tradeshow Search Activity Podcasts Attended Searched for company name Listened Visited booth Searched for product name Listened multiple times Watched demo Searched other (scored on term) Downloaded Attended multiple tradeshows Search engine used Subscribed

Roadshow/Seminar Online courses Videocasts Registered Viewed information on Viewed Attended Registered for Viewed multiple times Attended multiple events Completed Downloaded Registered for multiple Completed multiple PART THREE: OPTIMIZE AND MEASURE YOUR LEAD GENERATION CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION WHAT TO TEST IN YOUR LEAD GENERATION CAMPAIGNS When it comes to lead generation, the more you test, the more you know. You can’t optimize your lead generation unless you test it first. But many marketers don’t know where to start with testing—you need a clear plan of attack.

Program Testing First, use control groups. Apply the You can test almost anything: It’s also possible to measure program or treatment that you want combinations of “touches” (actions to measure to only one subset of • Programs and tactics. Did a taken by your company to engage your target buyer group, and leave particular webinar have an leads) rather than individual touches. the rest of the group as-is. All other impact on conversions? This is a great way to test lead factors being equal, you’ll be able to • Messages. Which message nurturing tracks—it allows you to test attribute any difference in buyer and/or copy resonated the most and measure the effectiveness of an behavior to the program. with our target audience? entire lead nurturing track, rather than the effectiveness of individual emails or • Contact frequency. How often offers. Should you want to test multiple should we send an email? campaigns at one time, you can use multivariate testing methods. • Spending levels. What happens if we double investment in display advertising? CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION TESTING TYPES The two most common types of tests are A/B and multivariate; you can run either (or both) on your lead generation programs. Services like Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) and Optimizely can help you take your testing to the next level. But first, you’ll need to knowhow you want to test.

A/B Testing Multivariate Testing A/B testing, or split testing, Multivariate testing compares a compares the conversion rates of much larger number of variables, and two assets (such as landing pages, produces more complex information. emails, or website pages) by splitting With multivariate testing, you can the traffic or email send between compare a combination of multiple both, and then comparing results. designs, CTAs, imagery, and copy You can also perform A/B/C tests choices. To run a conclusive How long should you run an A/B test? and A/B/C/D tests. multivariate test, you need to show statistically significant numbers of According to Neil Patel at KISSmetrics, A/B testing your lead generation leads your different combinations. you should run A/B tests for at least a assets and campaigns is inherently Because high traffic or large week: “Even if you hit statistically simple, as you’re only testing a single databases are needed to run a significant conversion rates, these will vary variable at a time. This makes it multivariate test to its full potential, a lot during the first few days of a test. easier to form actionable they are best for large companies. Also, your variations should produce at conclusions. A/B testing is also the least 100 conversions before you consider ideal choice for smaller companies running them off.” with less traffic or smaller databases—smaller amounts of Unsure of how many tests you should traffic or leads can’t handle a more run? Find out how many versions you complex test. should run, or the number of days you should run each version, with our Landing Page Split Calculator.

135 CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION THE 5 STEP TESTING PROCESS According to Optimizely, a website optimization platform and leader in online testing, these are the five steps every company should take before launching a test.

Step 1: Define Success Step 2: Identify Bottlenecks Step 3: Construct a Hypothesis Step 4: Prioritize Determine what you want to achieve Identify what isn’t working. Maybe Determine a possible solution. If no Prioritize your hypotheses based on through testing. What are your you’re getting a lot of traffic to a key one’s filling out your form, maybe you predicted impact. For instance, you ultimate success metrics? What will website page, but people aren’t need to shorten the number of fields, might predict that moving your form you improve through testing and actually converting or downloading move the form to a different part of the will have more impact than shortening optimization? For lead generation, your gated ebook. Ultimately, it’s the page, or change the download button your form, so test the new form consider the successes that turn into bottleneck that you will want to test. color. Your first hypothesis might be location first. Depending on your clicks, conversions, and leads—think that your forms will work better with resources, you can always run of these as macro-conversions. three fields instead of five. This is only multiple tests. Next, consider micro-conversions— your starting place—experiment, smaller steps you want leads to take, continually validating or invalidating such as clicking a button, watching a your hypotheses to form new ones. video, or sharing a blog post.

136 CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION THE 5 STEP TESTING PROCESS

Step 5: Test Time to test! Read on for a series of With approximately 1000 more opens Use a Large Enough Sample Size best practices for running accurate, and 500 more clicks, the personal The larger the sample size, the conclusive tests. address was much more successful. stronger your results will be. That being Our confidence level was 99%, said, you obviously want to use the Isolate Variables, meaning that our results were 99% winning version as soon as you can. If Identify Your Control reliable, rather than due to chance. For you start too big, you’ll expose half of a Your control is the unchanged a test like this, a confidence level above huge group to a less effective email, version of your email or landing 95% is commonly considered landing page, or website page. The page—the version you’ve already “statistically significant”. And because best practice is to start out on the been using. For an A/B test, choose we isolated only one factor, we were smaller side, keeping in mind that you one variable of the control to isolate able to easily identify the reason for the can always repeat the test if your and change; for a multivariate test, higher number of clicks. Marketo now company needs extra convincing. Or isolate multiple variables. uses personal names in our email you can leave the landing page test sends whenever we can. running a little longer to build the Marketo recently ran a simple email sample size. marketing A/B test, in which we changed a single aspect of our Control: “From” address. In this test, we used our usual “From” address (“Marketo From: Marketo Premium Content Premium Content”) as our control, To: Miles Gotcher and tried a personal “From” address Cc: with half of our emails in a Subject: TEST | [New Gartner Report] The 2013 Leaders in CRM Lead Management particular campaign: Test:

From: Ryan Hammer To: Miles Gotcher Cc: Subject: TEST | [New Gartner Report] The 2013 Leaders in CRM Lead Management

Marketo’s email marketing A/B control and test 137 CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION THE 5 STEP TESTING PROCESS

Eliminate Confounding Variables Draw Appropriate Conclusions Be sure to control for any extraneous Once you have your results, factors that could be affecting the determine whether a statistically results. To reduce these factors, you significant difference exists don’t just need to leave your control between your two versions. unchanged—in an A/B email test, for Instead of performing the example, you’d also need to send significance tests yourself, you can your test emails at the same time, simply search online for “A/B have your two versions of your testing significance calculator”, or landing page running simultaneously, “email testing significance and make sure that the test is calculator”. It’s never a bad idea to randomized. If you’re using Marketo, use two different online calculators you could send the two versions of to double-check your results. your email to a random sample of 50% of your designated email list. You could also equally split the traffic to your landing page URL between the two different versions of your landing page.

138 CHAPTER TWELVE: TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION 30 THINGS TO A/B TEST FOR LEAD GENERATION

Content Site Navigation 22. Test different images in social ads. See which ones get the best 4. Test gated content against non-gated 12. Test the order of your menu items in results. content. Find out which gets more your site navigation. downloads and whether users are 13. Test the display of your navigation Email willing to fill out forms. bar. Do visitors prefer a horizontal or Dan Siroker 5. Test how your content is displayed. Do vertical orientation? 23. Test length and copy of your email subject lines. Co-Founder and CEO, users prefer to scroll down the page, or click through to another page to learn Optimizely Forms 24. Test personalized vs. more? un-personalized emails by using 14. Test the length of sign-up forms. the recipient’s name in the subject Copy 15. Try a special offer, discount, or or email text. promotion to increase signups. 6. Test different headline texts. 25. Find the optimal time to reach your Try headlines that are more 16. Try asking for different information in audience by measuring open rates straightforward, goofy, or creative. your form fields. on different days of the week and at different times. Pete Koomen 7. Test paragraphs vs. bulleted lists. Mobile Site Co-Founder and President, Personalization Optimizely 8. Test shorter vs. longer copy on your 17. Try different displays and navigation website, emails, and landing pages. options. Blinds, buttons, and blocks 26. Test different page designs and are a good place to start. messaging for new vs. returning visitors. Calls-to-Action Visual Media Ads 27. Test auto-filling form fields related 18. Test the headlines on your paid 1. Buy now? Purchase? Check out? 9. Test different types of imagery on your to a visitor’s site location. Add to cart? Change your CTA text landing page—people vs. products vs. campaigns to see what gets on your buttons to see which illustrations are a good place to start. more clicks. 28. Create seasonal or location-based offers and test them on visitors word or phrase converts the 19. Try changing the display URL on 10. See how stock images stack up living in specific locations. most visitors. against images of your employees or your ad. 2. Vary the location of your CTA customers in action. 20. Try different landing page Pricing and Shipping button—make some more 11. Test auto-play against click-to-play. variations—copy, image, CTA, prominent than others. and form. 29. Test a free trial offer vs. a free 3. Test different colors, shapes, demo offer for short-term and and sizes for CTA buttons on Social long-term conversions. your website. 21. Change the size and placement of 30. Test annual billing vs. monthly your social icons to see what billing on your pricing page. Which compels users to share more often. generates more subscriptions? CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS METRICS PLANNING In the age of the self-educated buyer, marketing is in a unique position to reinvent itself as a core part of a company’s revenue engine. As the function that “owns” the relationship with self-educating prospects, marketing is now responsible for a much greater portion of the revenue cycle than ever before.

If you can confidently identify how your lead generation campaigns truly deliver financial returns, you’ll “The #1 mistake I see lift your marketing team’s influence demand gen marketers and credibility even further. And if make is not measuring you understand how your campaigns perform, you can also program performance make the right strategic investments regularly. It’s critical to have to improve results over time. your immediate metrics to Before you can prove your lead examine program generation ROI, you have to performance (such as establish your metrics. Planning and investment/new name or developing concrete metrics to track your lead generation investment/MQL) but you campaign and investment is no also need to look at business easy task—but it’s an essential one. metrics like opportunities In the next few pages, we’ll discuss best practices for establishing your and pipeline.” expectations and criteria. – Heidi Bullock, Senior Director of Marketing, Marketo

141 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS METRICS PLANNING

Establish Goals and ROI Estimates Up Front When planning any lead generation As part of planning any program, you campaign or marketing investment, need to answer these three questions: your first step is to quantify your expected outcomes. All too often, • What will you measure? marketers plan programs and commit • When will you measure? Set the Right Goals their budgets without establishing a concrete set of expectations about a • How will you measure? It’s important to set goals, but they have program’s impact. to be the right ones. According to Brian In almost every case, you will need to Carroll at MECLABS, marketers should The solution is to form up-front goals, take specific steps to make your ask themselves the following about every benchmarks, and Key Performance programs measureable. This often goal or KPI they set: Indicators (KPIs) for each lead includes setting up test and control generation campaign. Modeling your groups, or varying your spending levels • How does this goal drive revenue ROI goals will help you to: across markets to measure relative or profit? impact. You’ll also need to track the • Identify the key profit drivers that appropriate attributes of your • Does this goal give the executive most affect the model and marketing programs—target audience, team something they’ve asked for ultimately your profits message, channel, offer, investment or want? • Create “what if” scenarios to see level, or other relevant attributes. • How does this goal align my how changing parameters may marketing team with sales? vary the results and impact profitability

• Establish the targets you will use to compare actual results

142 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS METRICS PLANNING

Investment in Lead Generation Once you’ve established your goals and expectations, you need to know exactly how much you’re spending on lead generation. 89% of organizations use spreadsheets to track spend, but this gives you limited visibility into how your investment tracks to your forecast. You also can’t track spend across multiple budgets and line items.

In order to track your lead generation investments, consider a tool like Marketo Financial Management, which tracks budgets in a sophisticated and agile way across all of your marketing programs. Tools like Marketo Financial Management can compare your budget to your current and total spend, and can also allocate and reallocate budget as necessary. Marketo Financial Management also syncs to internal ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems and pushes actual costs to Marketo’s Revenue Cycle Analytics, giving you actual data that aligns to program costs. This data makes it Marketo Financial Management metrics showing planned vs. actual spend possible to accurately assess your programs. 143 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS OPPORTUNITY INFLUENCE

Tracking Touches Across All Influencers In order to track FT and MT for all But look at the names that are also deals, you need to know how your associated with the company. If you marketing influences each contact hover over Sarah Miller’s name, you in the sales process—you may have see that she is the CEO. Click on her touched influencers more than you name and you’ll get an entirely new have touched the final decision picture. Marketing influenced Sarah maker. You need marketing many times over the course of her automation to connect the dots and lead lifecycle. She downloaded show marketing’s total contribution ebooks, visited the blog, and to a deal over time. attended a webinar.

For example, the Opportunity Clearly, she was a heavy influencer in Influence Analyzer in Marketo (at the decision to ultimately sign up for Marketo’s Opportunity Influencer Analyzer right) shows every marketing our software. In fact, in this scenario, interaction with an account over Sarah asked Manny (her director) to time. The blue portion represents contact the company directly. Without the account before the opportunity the ability to see all of marketing’s was created; the graph turns green interactions with an account, you when the account became an active would miss this level of insight. opportunity. At first glance, you might get the impression that To track program effectiveness, you marketing had little effect on this have to track marketing’s influence account—they brought in some over the entire history of an account. leads, but nothing more.

Marketo’s Opportunity Influence Analyzer 144 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS FIRST-TOUCH AND MULTI-TOUCH ATTRIBUTION Now that you know how much you’re investing, you can accurately track return on your lead generation programs. But you can’t look at just the first touch or last touch to determine how your overall strategy is working—common wisdom is that it takes seven touches to convert a cold lead to a sale.

You need to examine how all of First-Touch vs. Multi-Touch your programs are performing A distinction that we make at Marketo simultaneously. is between first-touch (FT) and multi- touch (MT) pipeline. When a deal is made, first-touch credit is given to the program that originally created or acquired the lead. Essentially, your first-touch numbers tell you whether you’re attracting the right type of people with Top-of-Funnel campaigns. Multi-touch, on the other hand, examines the value of every marketing interaction with an account in terms of driving opportunities, pipeline, and revenue—this shows you how all of your marketing programs work together.

Actual data from Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics on FT and MT Program Attribution

145 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS FIRST-TOUCH AND MULTI-TOUCH ATTRIBUTION

Pipeline to Investment (FT) (MT) (MT) To dial in deeper, track your program Program Channel Investment Opportunities Opportunities Ratio channel, investment, FT, and MT opportunities created from each Website $0 1,247 1,925 N/A channel. You also want to track your MT ratio (pipeline divided by Paid Online (PPC+Email) $3,919,554 889 1,093 8.4 investment) so you know what works Webinar $594,110 228 510 25.8 and what doesn’t. At Marketo, we characterize ratios higher than 10 as Nurture Email $15,750 19 472 898.3 good programs, programs scoring Tradeshow $1,276,977 426 353 8.3 above a seven as “fine”, and programs scoring less than five Nurture Email -CTA $26,665 13 250 280.8 as inadequate. Micro-Event $689,858 87 145 6.3

Our pipeline generation data chart Roadshow $470,119 80 119 7.6 shows that on average, 52% of our programs are above a seven. We can Sales Outbound $0 1058 106 N/A see that some of our programs aren’t Blog $0 25 103 N/A working as well, and we know what needs to be fixed. We know that Nurture (New) $0 0 72 N/A webinars perform fantastically, with an MT ratio of nearly 54. Tradeshows Content Syndication $483,264 57 63 3.9 are a 6.9, sponsored emails a 3.8, Virtual Trade Show $329,825 128 58 5.3 and content syndication is a 9.6. Marketo pipeline generation report Source: Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics, June 2013 *Percentage of all programs in channel that achieve MT Ratio > 5

146 ASK THE EXPERTS: 5 LEAD GEN METRICS THAT MARKETERS SHOULD TRACK

At Marketo, we like to look at these on a 3. Cost per Sales Accepted 5. Multi-Touch ROI (by program): monthly basis: Opportunity: Cost per MQL can be a Many programs will look great great early indicator of the health of from a first-touch ROI 1. Number of MQLs your lead generation initiatives, but perspective. You probably want (marketing qualified leads): sometimes you have to look further to invest more in those over time. down the funnel. If you have a sales Other programs will look terrible David Cain Remember the famous quote in team and they run lengthy sales from a first-touch perspective, but VP of Marketing, Marketo Glengarry Glen Ross? (“These are the Glengarry leads! And to you, cycles (anything longer than one don’t be so quick to stop running they’re GOLD!”) The fact is, week) you’ll find that the Cost per those programs. Some programs Access to quality metrics is the key to marketers must acknowledge that Opportunity is an important metric tend to be extremely influential any marketer’s success. You’re not all leads are created equal. It’s and might not correlate exactly with after a lead has been created. If investing a lot of time and money into important to put quality measures in the Cost per MQL trend. Take a longer you take a multi-touch ROI view of building awareness and demand for place (e.g. a lead score) and only term perspective, examining all spend your programs, you’ll find that your company’s products or services, count leads that pass a certain and the resulting opportunities over a some of your best performing so it’s incredibly important to quality threshold as MQLs. By period of time. If this metric is trending programs look like losers from a understand whether things are eliminating the “bad” leads from your the wrong way, you’ll want to dive first-touch perspective. performing as expected. Are they calculations, you’ll get a more deeper into your programs. paying off? Are they trending in the accurate picture, and you’ll gain the right direction? trust of the sales team that depends 4. First-Touch ROI (by program): As a on you for a living. lead gen marketer, your job is to determine what programs to run. Every marketer will need a different set 2. All marketers have MQLs and opportunities are helpful, of metrics—it all depends on the types Cost per MQL: limited resources. If you’re running but at the end of the day, it’s all about of lead generation programs that make lead generation, make sure you are the financial ROI of your marketing sense for your company. But maximizing the results you generate. investments. Which programs are regardless of what your primary lead To achieve the greatest results with bringing in quality leads that eventually gen activities are, there are some the resources you have, you’ll want convert to dollars for your team? How important high-level metrics that you’ll to minimize the cost per MQL. much revenue resulted from those probably want to monitor. programs? And how much did you spend to generate that revenue? CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS MARKETING’S CONTRIBUTION TO REVENUE To prove marketing’s contribution to revenue, you need to know how much pipeline you are directly creating, and where leads sit in the revenue cycle at any given time.

Revenue Cycle Modeler At Marketo, we look at these important metrics in our Revenue Cycle Modeler, as shown below. The green line represents our sales funnel, where individuals start as anonymous leads, eventually becoming customers.

Digging deeper, our charts show us Marketo Revenue Cycle Modeler exactly what’s happening in each stage—how many leads are in each stage, how much time leads spend there, conversion rates, and so on. We can also see how those values are trending over time.

Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics Deep Dive 148 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS MARKETING’S CONTRIBUTION TO REVENUE

If you are able to dig deep into your Marketing Forecast -4 -3 -2 -1 CUR +1 +2 +3 data, you can determine how many Commit 244 254 263 263 273 282 295 302 opportunities you generated during Target 257 266 276 286 292 302 311 321 any given period, and forecast what -4 257 266 276 286 – – – – you will generate in subsequent periods. Next, you can cross check -3 – 273 276 270 276 – – – to see how you are actually doing -2 – – 305 276 276 289 – – when compared to your opportunity Previous Month – – – 276 282 302 311 – quota. Here is one way to present Current Month – – – – 294 305 315 331 the information. Commit Target Forcast Actual

Marketing forecasting CHAPTER THIRTEEN: METRICS FOCUS ON METRICS THAT IMPROVE LEAD GENERATION When it comes to metrics, you’ll deliver the best ROI when you measure to improve marketing ROI, not just prove ROI. Each measurement should ultimately guide you toward improved company profitability.

By using sophisticated marketing automation platforms, you can “We’re entering an age in evolve your mix of tactics based on concrete measurements. Each marketing where data- measurement is meant to inform science, machine learning, your program improvements and social data mining are and align you closely with strategic objectives. coming to the forefront. Yes, marketers will still need the emotional hook in their message and creativity, but marketing is rapidly becoming a science as much as an art.” – Tim Barker Chief Product Officer, DataSift

150 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY CHOOSING YOUR LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY The right lead generation technologies will save you money, help you do more with less, measure and optimize your programs, and ultimately allow you to grow your lead generation programs faster. And that means you can help your company grow faster, and more efficiently.

To give you an idea of the breadth of available technology, take a peek at this Marketing Technology LUMAscape, which attempts to organize today’s marketing technology ecosystem. Although you probably won’t choose technologies in all of these categories (nor will we go into detail about every single one), you should certainly consider investing in a few. CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY CHOOSING YOUR LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY

Customer Relationship Marketing Automation Social Media Management Social Media Tracking Management (CRM) Marketing automation allows If you are planning to have a Social media tracking tools provide A CRM tool is where your sales companies to streamline, automate, presence on social channels for lead metrics, which makes them teams track leads, opportunities, and measure marketing tasks. It also generation, you may consider particularly important for lead closed/won deals, and customers. allows marketers to create adopting a social media generation. Through these Although CRMs are used primarily workflows, increasing operational management tool. This type of platforms, you can track and by salespeople (and sometimes by efficiency and growing revenue technology enables your social measure your social interactions, your customer service team), you faster. Marketing automation features teams to easily post, schedule, and and respond to customer and lead need to know how yours functions include: email marketing, landing engage on all of your social exchanges on all of your social and integrates with your other pages, campaign management, lead channels. Social media channels. Note that some technology solutions. CRM tools generation, lead scoring, lead management tools allow you to view marketing automation tools, like integrate directly with marketing nurturing, social marketing, multiple social channels at the same Marketo, also provide similar social automation platforms for closed- marketing resource management, time on one dashboard, effectively functionality. Popular social media loop lead tracking and reporting. marketing analytics, and more. streamlining your efforts. Popular tracking tools include Radian6, Popular CRM systems include Basically, marketing automation social media management tools Sysmos, and Lithium. Salesforce.com, Microsoft enables marketers to excel at the include Hootsuite, Crowdbooster, Dynamics CRM, Oracle, SAP, business of marketing (and lead and Argyle Social. and SugarCRM. generation)! Popular marketing automation platforms include Marketo and Eloqua (Oracle).

153 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY CHOOSING YOUR LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY

Website Analytics Event Technologies A/B Testing Your lead generation programs will Whether you’re hosting physical You need solid metrics to optimize “Marketing is an exciting drive traffic to your website, which is events or virtual events, a your email sends, landing pages, why you need a complete picture of sophisticated event solution can URLs, and website for lead place to be right now, but it how those campaigns are affecting make the big day (or days) go generation, and A/B testing tools can also feel very website traffic. You also need to smoothly. Event tools can help you can give you that data. A/B testing overwhelming. Marketers feel track the effects of your website register participants, gather and tools can track engagement, clicks, optimization tactics. Website organize lead data, send conversion, sign-ups, and more. pressure to be very metrics- tracking tools allow you to determine notifications to attendees, and Marketers can experiment with the driven, content producing traffic increases and decreases, follow-up with registrants. They placement, wording, and visual geniuses, social stars, and conversions, content engagement, can also help you optimize by elements of their materials, finding call-to-action performance, and collecting attendee feedback, the combinations which yield the spreadsheet wizards. I am pro more. Popular website tracking tools setting up your next event for even highest ROI. Popular A/B testing any tool that simplifies some of include Google Analytics, Omniture, more success. For physical solutions include Optimizely and this for marketers.” and Crazy Egg. events, try Certain or TapCrowd; Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). for virtual events, ReadyTalk and – Heidi Bullock GoToWebinar are popular options. Senior Director of Marketing, Marketo

154 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY CHOOSING YOUR LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY

Predictive Analytics SEO Technology Predictive analytics tools leverage As we’ve discussed, optimizing your historical data about your prospects website pages for high search and customers to predict what they’ll engine rankings is an ongoing—and do next. Based on information in your crucial—task. An SEO tool can help marketing automation tool and CRM, you decide which terms you want to combined with data on transactional rank for, analyze your competitors, behavior and social media optimize your website, and then engagement, these tools build track and measure the results. predictive models and assign scores Popular SEO technology providers to leads in your database. Marketers include MOZ and BrightEdge. can then use these scores to increase engagement and decrease churn. ForeSee and SAS are both popular predictive analytics providers. CONCLUSION LEAD THE WAY! We know that marketing is a tough job—after all, we’re marketers ourselves. We also know that there’s no perfect, one- size-fits-all approach to lead generation—just use the channels and tactics that help you reach and engage your target audience. Keep their challenges, goals, and concerns top of mind; deliver information and content that solves their pain points; nurture those relationships and engage them over time—you’ll soon be filling your funnel with high-quality leads. APPENDIX

Blogging Email Marketing Lead Generation Marketing Analytics

Brian Clark Katya Constantine Justine Arthur Mike Damphousse René Power Rohit Bhargava Copyblogger Digishopgirl Media BT Expedite Green Leads Barret Dixon Bell Influential Marketing Group @copyblogger @digishopgirl @justineloua @damphoux @renépower @rohitbhargava www.copyblogger.com www.digishopgirl.com www.btexpedite.com www.green-leads.com www.bdb.co.uk www.rohitbhargava.com

Kim Garst Adam Holden-Bache Tim Barker Ashleigh Davis Richard Robinson David Cain Boom! Social MassTransmit DataSift Rackspace Google Marketo @kimgarst @adamholdenbache @timbarker @ashforddavis @robinsonRG @davidcain kimgarst.com masstransmit.com datasift.com www.rackspace.com www.google.com www.marketo.com

Content Marketing Kath Pay Sam Boush Koen De Witte Adam Sharp Chuck Hemann Plan to Engage Lead Lizard LeadFabric CleverTouch WCG Ann Handley @kathpay @samboush @kdewitte27 @ctmadam @chuckhemann Marketing Profs plantoengage.com www.leadlizard.com www.leadfabric.com www.clever-touch.com www.wcgworld.com @annhandley www.marketingprofs.com DJ Waldow Michael Brenner Holly Donahue Eric Wittlake Rajiv Narang Marketo B2B Marketing Insider The Economist Intelligence Unit Babcock & Jenkins eBay Doug Kessler @djwaldow @brennermichael @hollygoblighty @wittlake @rajivnarang Velocity www.marketo.com www.b2bmarketinginsider.com www.eiu.com www.bnj.com www.ebay.com @dougkessler www.velocitypartners.co.uk Event Marketing Gerry Brown Andrew Gaffney Stephen Yeo Wes Nichols Ovum Content4Demand Panasonic System MarketShare Rebecca Leib Patrick Cava @gerrybrown @agaffney Communications Europe @wesnichols Altimeter Group Certain ovum.com www.content4demand.com business.panasonic.eu www.marketshare.com @rebeccaleib @patrick_cava rebeccalieb.com www.certain.com Heidi Bullock Matt Heinz Jeremiah Owyang Marketo Heinz Marketing Crowd Companies Joe Pulizzi Dan King @heidibullock @heinzmarketing @jowyang Content Marketing Institute ReadyTalk www.marketo.com www.heinzmarketing.com www.web-strategist.com/blog @joepulizzi @readytalkdan joepulizzi.com www.readytalk.com Brian Carroll Brent Leary Tom Webster MECLABS CRM Essentials Edison Research @brianjcarroll @brentleary @webby2001 b2bleadblog.com www.crm-essentials.com brandsavant.com

Brian Carter David Lewis InfiniGraph DemandGen International, Inc. @briancarter @demandgendave www.infinigraph.com www.demandgen.com

157 APPENDIX

Marketing Automation PPC Sales SEO Social Marketing Website Conversion

Jon Miller Pat East Trish Bertuzzi Nate Dame Chris Brogan Tim Ash Marketo Hanapin Marketing The Bridge Group SEOperks Human Business Works Conversion Conference @jonmiller @ppchero @bridgegroupinc @seonate @chrisbrogan @tim_ash www.marketo.com www.hanapinmarketing.com www.bridgegroupinc.com seoperks.com www.humanbusinessworks.com sitetuners.com

Jeff Pedowitz Mike Nierengarten Andrew Hunt Rand Fishkin Carra Manahan Bryan Eisenberg Pedowitz Group Obility Consulting Inbound Sales Network Moz Marketo Eisenberg Holdings @jeffpedowitz @nierengarten @inboundsales @randfish @carramanahan @thegrok www.pedowitzgroup.com www.obilityconsulting.com www.inboundsales.net moz.com www.marketo.com www.bryaneisenberg.com

Ken Krogue Scott Levy Amy Porterfield Jeff Eisenberg InsideSales Fuel Online @amyporterfield Eisenberg Holdings @kenkrogue @fuelonline www.amyporterfield.com @jeffreygroks www.insidesales.com www.fuelonline.co www.bryaneisenberg.com Mike Stelzner Craig Rosenberg Chris Penn Social Media Examiner Chris Goward The Funnelholic Blog Shift Communications @mike_stelzner WiderFunnel @funnelholic @cspenn www.socialmediaexaminer.com @chrisgoward funnelholic.com www.shiftcomm.com www.widerfunnel.com

Danny Sullivan Neil Patel Search Engine Land KISSmetrics @dannysullivan @neilpatel searchengineland.com www.kissmetrics.com

Dan Siroker Optimizely @dsiroker www.optimizely.com

158 ABOUT THIS GUIDE #DG2LG

Written By: Designed By: About Marketo: Dayna Rothman Davis Lee Marketing Software. Sr. Content Marketing Manager, Marketo Creative Director, Marketo Easy, Powerful, Complete. @dayroth Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO) provides Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with Lynn-Kai Chao the leading cloud-based marketing offices in Europe and Australia, Marketo software platform for companies of all Additional Contributors: Graphic Designer, Marketo serves as a strategic marketing partner sizes to build and sustain engaging to more than 2,700 large enterprises and Jon Miller customer relationships. Spanning fast-growing small companies across a VP of Marketing, Marketo Special Thanks To: today’s digital, social, mobile and wide variety of industries. For more @jonmiller Heidi Bullock offline channels, the Marketo® information, visit www.marketo.com. Sr. Director of Marketing, Marketo solution includes a complete suite of Maggie Jones applications that help organizations Marketo, the Marketo logo, Marketing Content Marketing Specialist, Marketo David Cain acquire new customers more Nation and LaunchPoint are trademarks @maggiejonezzz VP of Marketing, Marketo efficiently, maximize customer loyalty of Marketo, Inc. All other trademarks are and lifetime value, improve sales the property of their respective owners. Miles Gotcher effectiveness, and provide analytical Marketing Programs Coordinator, Marketo insight into marketing’s contribution to revenue growth. Marketo’s Carra Manahan applications are known for their breakthrough ease-of-use, and are Marketing Programs Specialist, Marketo complemented by the Marketing Nation™, a thriving network of more DJ Waldow than 190 LaunchPoint™ ecosystem Digital Marketing Evangelist, Marketo partners and over 40,000 marketers who share and learn from each other to grow their collective marketing expertise. The result for modern marketers is unprecedented agility and superior results.

159 [email protected] DG2LG-01142014 www.marketo.com © 2014 Marketo, Inc. All Rights Reserved.