closed loop lead generation

Closed Loop Lead GenerationThe Small Business Guide to Growing Revenues Through the Acquisition, Retention, Management, and Conversion

of Sales Leads

Small Business eGuide Series

klearstrat Small Business eGuide Series

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Chris Marocchi is the Founder of Klear Strat, LLC, a marketing strategy, branding and lead generation services company servicing small businesses. Klear Strat is based in Laguna Niguel, CA. Prior to forming Klear Strat, Chris held executive marketing positions with The UPS Stores, CB Richard Ellis and ITT Corp. Follow Chris on Twitter @klearstrat.

AUTHOR:Chris Marocchi

https://twitter.com/klearstrat


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Introduction................................................................. ....4 Chapter 1. Set The Objectives …………………………….……..…6 Chapter 2. Determine Your Lead Generation Vehicle…....9 Chapter 3. Lead Capture………………...….………..….……………11

Chapter 4. Integration with CRM …………………….…..……….14

Chapter 5. Follow Up Activities …………………………………….18

Conclusion…………………………………………..…………..…..……...21

Glossary….........................................................................22

TABLE OF CONTENTS:


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The challenge small businesses face is how to grow revenues in an environment of growing competition. Many don’t possess the resources or tools to implement a comprehensive lead management program consisting of the following:

1. Growing a database of qualified prospects2. Increasing engagement with these prospects3. Nurturing interested but not-yet-ready-to-buy prospects4. Converting nurtured prospects into customers

Small businesses often make the mistake of setting an increase in lead generation as a solitary goal, without mechanisms in place to manage the lead relationship throughout its complete lifecycle.

A closed loop lead generation process addresses this issue by clearly defining the elements that belong in generating, capturing, and managing leads toward the ultimate goal of converting the leads into profit-generating sales. The “closed loop” phrase refers to the closing of the sales lifecycle of a lead .

This eGuide addresses the steps a small business can take to build an entire lead eco system to optimize online lead conversions to maximize profit generation.

INTRODUCTION•S

ET OBJECTIVES

•CHOOSE VEHICLES

•LEAD CAPTURE

•INTEGRATION WITH CRM

•CLOSING THE LOOP

CLOSED LOOP LEAD GEN PROCESS


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INTRODUCTIONGlossary

For your convenience, a glossary of terms used throughout this eGuide is provided at the end of the guide. Selected terms have been highlighted in dark blue and underlined so it’s easy for you to identify which words are defined. These highlighted words are hyperlinked to the glossary page where the definition is found.


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CHAPTER 1:Set the Objectives

“If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You Might End Up Some Place Else.” – Yogi Berra


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Set the ObjectivesAny online marketing campaign needs clearly defined objectives before you set out to communicate with your audience. Just executing a lead generation campaign does not mean you’ll a) generate leads and b) generate the leads that you want. You’ll want to start out by identifying the following:

1. Identify your target audience – what industry are you trying to reach? Is there a sub segment of that industry that is your target market? With whom are you trying to communicate – a buyer, CEO or operations manager? Who is the decision maker, and how will you best reach that person? Identifying your target audience up front will help clarify the vehicle and channel of communication.

2. Determine the best method of reaching your target audience – and how you will reach it. For example, if your product is a medical device, you will likely want to communicate though a highly technical medium, such as a white paper, though a channel that is respectable and credible, such as an online publication or site dedicated to health care practitioners.

CHAPTER 1


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Set the Objectives

3. What do you hope to accomplish ? - Any marketing campaign needs clearly defined objectives that will meet your sales goals, before you set out to communicate with your audience.

Some common goals or results include:– Sales conversions: What is your current rate of leads converted into sales, and what is the desired increase?– Leads captured: What percentage of new leads do you need to capture with each aspect of your marketing campaign? What is the quality of leads you are after?– Website traffic: How many unique visitors are visiting your website each month, and what pages are they visiting? How much time are they spending on each page?

CHAPTER 1


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CHAPTER 2:Determine Your Lead Generation Vehicles

“Select the vehicles that will most effectively reach and engage your target audience.”


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Determine Your Lead Generation VehiclesSelecting the proper vehicles for your lead generation program is critical to your campaign’s success. Performing qualitative research can help you observe how your target customers find information for making purchasing decisions.

Lead Generation Vehicle options may include:

• Text PPC and banner advertising (for those who spend a lot of time on Google searches)

• Video PPC advertising (for target customers who would respond well to visual imagery and perhaps a “how to” message)

• Emails, articles, blogs, social media, or other online content that drive viewers to a landing page on your website

Once you’ve selected the best vehicle(s) to communicate your message to your target customer, you’ll need to:

1. Develop a branded creative layout for your selected vehicle

2. Create a message that will resonate with your target customer

3. Create a clear call to action for the prospect to respond to

Also be sure you’re not repurposing a message inappropriately – for example, a TV commercial might not work in a video marketing campaign.

CHAPTER 2


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CHAPTER 3:Lead Capture

“Determine the best tools for capturing leads generated by your campaign.”


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You can achieve a 25% improvement in conversion rate by using a promotion-specific, standalone landing page (vs. sending paid search visitors to your homepage).

To capture inbound leads, you’ll need to create a landing page for each vehicle used in your lead generation campaigns. An effective landing page improves the percentage of visitors that become leads.

CHAPTER 3

Source: Omniture, 2012

Lead Capture

There are key areas of your landing page that will determine its effectiveness:

• Headline• Content

• Meta description• Keywords

• Share-ability• Navigation• Simple Form


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CHAPTER 3

Landing Page for Lead Capture

Additional Tip: You’ll also want to ensure that you only have one (1) call to action on your landing page. Don’t confuse the customer with two many options!

Example of Landing Page

Headline

Content

No navigation

bar

Simple Form

Keywords


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“Create the ability to import the captured lead into a CRM database.”

CHAPTER 4:Integration with CRM


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CHAPTER 4

Integration with CRM (Customer Relationship Management)The next step of the process is to select a CRM solution that enables sales lead capture and contact management. You’ll need to select a web-based solution that universally works with many different plug-ins and tools, allowing it to integrate easily with other systems. There are also several solutions that are affordable for small business owners.

Choosing a CRM Solution

In order to properly build your closed loop lead generating system, you’ll need to select a CRM solution that offers the following:

• Code generation for a web form that will capture data entered into the form fields . • Imports the data entered into the web form directly into the CRM contact management system.• Integrates with your email marketing tool or marketing automation systems.


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Benefits of CRM in Closed Loop Lead Generation

Once the customer’s information is captured in the CRM database, you’ll benefit in multiple ways.

1st, you’ll have that contact in your database for future lead nurturing activities.

2nd, you’ll be able to set up an automated response as soon as the contact is

imported to notify the customer and validate that their information was captured.

3rd, you will be able to set up automated email notifications to the assigned

sales person.

CHAPTER 4

Integration with CRM (Customer Relationship Management)Additional features that you’ll want included in your CRM solution of choice are:• A solution that is easy to set up and intuitive to use• Easy importing of existing contact databases• Integration with customer’s email system (to capture day to day emails in CRM)• Automated alerts that inform you when action is required


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There are a few things to keep in mind when designing an effective web form:

1) Just like the landing page, only include a single call to action. Make sure the call to action matches the action your lead gen vehicle asked them to perform.

2) Keep the form simple, as shown in the example to the right. Capturing the customer’s name, email address and perhaps company name is sufficient.

3) Be sure to test the form with your CRM solution to ensure you’ve set it up correctly and have properly set up notifications.

WEB FORM

CHAPTER 4

The most efficient way to manage the leads captured by the landing page is through a web form. Web forms can be customized by your web designer, and will require code to function on the landing page on your website. Web form creation software can also be purchased; the best small business solution, however, is one that is integrated with a contact management or CRM system.

Building a CRM Web Form

Research shows that the more fields there are to complete in a web form, the less likely it is the customer will complete the process.


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“Most failed lead conversions occur because the sales person thinks every inbound lead is hot, and drops it if it’s not. Most leads take time to nurture.”

CHAPTER 5:Follow Up Activities


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First, you’ll want to focus on what to do with the leads you have captured. Here are your next steps to consider:

1) Make sure your automated response mechanism is working and your leads are getting an immediate response. Invite your prospects to join/sign up for your social media, including newsletters and/or blogs.

2) Contact hot leads immediately! This includes any leads asking for a purchase order or other indication that they’re ready to buy. Preferably call them.

3) If your CRM or Marketing Automation solution allows you to schedule automated messaging beyond the initial automated response, craft a strategy for how you often you want an automated message delivered to nurture your prospect along.

CHAPTER 5

Now that your lead management ‘eco-system’ is in place, it’s time to focus on lead nurturing. It’s too soon to think about lead conversions, because the relationship building is just starting. Too many marketers make the mistake of disposing of leads because they weren’t interested at the time of capture. These leads are simply at a different stage of engagement – they’re “at or near the top of the funnel”. This chapter discusses how you can move them through the sales management cycle.

Follow Up Activities

Investing in a marketing automation solution will allow you to automate follow-up email sequences to nurture a warm prospect along the sales cycle until he or she is ready to buy. A lead scoring system can assist in your assessment of when the prospect is ready for a call.


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1) Webinars

2) Training Sessions

3) Seminars

4) Engage with email marketing, newsletter, social media and/or blogs

5) Promote special offers or bonus content in the form of special PDF reports, podcasts, eBooks, Whitepapers, videos, or training materials

CHAPTER 5

Blogger Ana Hoffman, creator of the Traffic Generation Café, suggests that the main reason leads aren’t converted is due to a lack of connection. Says Hoffman “What people REALLY want is a solution to their problem and YOU are the deciding factor between a sale (conversion) or a lost lead. If your leads don’t have an emotional connection with you, they will simply disappear in search of the solution to their problem.” Listed below are some tools you can employ to develop the right “connection” to your prospects:

Follow Up Activities

Remaining engaged with your prospects will allow the lead to see further evidence of your value and will help them feel emotionally ready to make a purchase.


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Congratulations! You have now been educated on the 5 Steps of the Closed Loop Lead Generation Process. By following these steps, you can ensure that your future online marketing campaigns will be more successful than ever.

To recap, we discussed the following process for the lead generation, capture and conversion lifecycle:

CONCLUSION

•SET OBJECTIVES

•CHOOSE VEHICLES

•LEAD CAPTURE

•INTEGRATION WITH CRM

•CLOSING THE LOOP

CLOSED LOOP LEAD GEN PROCESS

In order to most effectively evaluate your future success, it’s important to benchmark your past efforts and compare against your future campaigns. Be sure to select metrics for which the data is readily available to you so you can effectively compare the before and after results.


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Throughout this guide we’ve used terminology from the evolving world of marketing technology. In order to ensure that we’re doing the best job possible to clearly communicate the meaning of these relatively new terms with you, we’ve included this glossary with easy links from the words as they appear throughout the pages of this guide. We hope this helps!

GLOSSARY

Automated Response - an action that is initiated when a processing rule match occurs. By using processing rules, you can define an automated response to a detected condition, such as a prospect completing an online form (or other predetermined event in the customer relationship development). Responses come in the form of an email and usually acknowledge the completion of the event that initiated the auto response.

Banner Advertising - this form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser.

Call to Action - is a banner, button, or some type of graphic or text on a website meant to prompt a user to click it and continue down a conversion funnel.

CRM - Customer relationship management (CRM) - a model for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It provides a 360 degree view of customer data by using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support contact with the customer.

Contact Management - a software program that enables users to easily store and find contact information, such as names, addresses and telephone numbers. They are contact-centric databases that provide a fully integrated approach to tracking of all information and communication activities linked to contacts.

Conversion Rate – In internet marketing, the conversion rate is the proportion of visitors to a website who perform a specific action desired by the company, as a result of a subtle or direct call to action. Conversion rate = Number of Actions Performed/Site Visitors.


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GLOSSARYEco-system – The business process that encapsulates the steps and tools involved with lead generation, lead capture and lead management.

Form fields - a simple text box found within a web form that allows input of a single line of text

Keywords - Keywords are words or phrases that describe content found on a company’s website. Keywords are used on the web in two different ways: 1) as search terms for search engines, and 2) words that identify the content of the website.

Lead Generation – The process of creating sales prospects through the application of Marketing tactics to pique interest in a company’s target audience.

Lead Capture/Landing Page – In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a "lead capture page" or a "lander", is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result or an online advertisement. The landing page will usually display directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement, search result or link.

Lead Nurturing - a process by which leads are tracked and developed into sales-qualified leads.

Lead Scoring System - a tool that provides visibility into each lead's quality and where it stands in the purchase process.

Marketing Automation - marketing automation refers to automating the process of sending your marketing communications. Instead of a manual process that's time-consuming and subject to human error, marketing automation solutions enable you to create sophisticated and engaging campaigns that automatically respond to customer/prospect behaviors, lifecycle segments and other criteria.

Meta Description - the description that appears with your company or product listing results during an online search. It is shown as text to support a listing in natural search and does influence click through rate and relevance.

Navigation – the menu appearing on a website that facilitates movement from one page to another page. It is usually positioned at the top, bottom or left side of the site.


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GLOSSARYPaid Search - Paid search marketing is the process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engines. It is sometimes referred to as CPC (cost-per-click) or PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, because most search ads are sold on a CPC / PPC basis.

PPC – pay-per-click marketing is the process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engines. It is sometimes referred to as CPC (cost-per-click) or paid search marketing, because most search ads are sold on a CPC / PPC basis.

Qualitative Research - Data-gathering techniques that are focused on the significance of observations made in a study rather than the raw numbers themselves.

Repurposing - To use or convert for use in another format or product: repurposed the book as a compact disk.

Share-ability – the ability and ease of sharing content found within a web page with others through social media or blog sites

Target Audience - a specific group of people within the target market at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed.

Vehicles - A specific channel or publication for carrying the advertising message to a target audience. For example, one medium would be magazines, while one vehicle would be Time magazine.

Video PPC – The use of digital video in lieu of text in a PPC campaign

Web form - An HTML form on a web page allows a user to enter data that is sent to a server for processing. Forms resemble paper or database forms because web users fill out the forms using checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields.

Sources:• Silverpop• Wikipedia• Techterms.com• Forrester• Evolutionsearchmarketing.com

•Marketingterms.com• Searchengineland• Thefreedictionary.com• Marketingabout.com• Microsoft.com

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Klear Strat provides support to small businesses that are seeking a clear and concise marketing strategy to help launch a new business or product line with efficiency while maximizing marketing investment, no matter how large or small. Once the business plan is in place, Klear Start offers a full spectrum of marketing services through a virtual network of service providers hand selected to provide the best and most cost effective work for you.

We take care of selecting the resources and managing project work so you don’t have to. Almost anyone can build a website these days – but someone needs to determine messaging strategy, corporate branding, integration with CRM and/or eCommerce, marketing automation and SEO.

Click here learn more about our closed loop lead generation packages.

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