B2Best Practice. How marketing automation increases your inbound marketing success. Published by

Transcription

1 B2Best Practice How marketing automation increases your inbound marketing success Published by

2 1 First things first. Inbound marketing is the process of helping buyers in your industry find your company. Many (cough, cough - MOST) of these buyers are nowhere near ready to actually buy. But, their engagement with your content quickly turns into brand preference, which gives you an awesome advantage over the competition the moment they are ready to buy. Marketing automation is a software that automates and regulates marketing tasks. The ultimate goal is for companies that implement to sell more efficiently and deliver more revenue. Inbound marketing WORKS. It engages prospective buyers, brings them to your website, educates them on your industry and services, then helps sales close deals faster. What a beautiful thing. Marketing automation WORKS. It monitors your website traffic, scores leads based on their activity and engagement, allows you to nurture them through multi-channel campaigns, maintains communication through , and continues their education as customers. Inbound marketing needs marketing automation to be successful. Don t worry, we ll show you the way. Learn why stand-alone inbound marketing is ineffective, where marketing automation steps in to help, and how to build your own marketing strategy that meets the needs of your department.

3 2 of B2B buyers initiate their buying process through online search And of these, of visitors land on your website by clicking on organic search results. (Yahoo News) Stand alone inbound marketing just won t do it Inbound marketing helps spark initial interest in your company and directs leads to your website through social or organic searches, effectively filling the top of your sales funnel. However, inbound marketing alone cannot move leads through the funnel - because of this, it shouldn t be used as a close tactic. Without an answer to the troubling, What now? question, your sales funnel will become overfilled with increasingly stale leads that don t have a clear next step in front of them. Luckily, with marketing automation, the software can kick in where inbound marketing steps back, surfacing potential buyers and dropping them into nurture campaigns to continue their education through s, high-value assets, and event opportunities. Successful inbound marketing/marketing automation partnerships keep your funnel stocked with valuable leads without becoming a bottleneck in the system.

4 3 Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Forrester Research) + - SiriusDecisions But with our powers combined... Combining your inbound marketing and marketing automation efforts is truly a balance of inbound and outbound marketing. Your outbound techniques, such as trade shows, sales calls to leads, and sponsored events, are designed, executed, and monitored through your marketing automation tool. These efforts increase awareness of your inbound channels, grow the success of your subscriber base, and increase the success of your inbound campaigns. Here s the order of events for successful lead generation and nurture with your inbound marketing/marketing automation strategy: 1 2 Start with inbound: Brainstorm, create, edit, and post content to your website, company blog, and social media profiles. Focus on increasing shares: Sponsor your tweets, design a LinkedIn ad, get employees and partners involved in posting, and sponsor industry sites. To hone in on your shares even more, make sure your messaging and tone are tailored for each inbound channel.

5 4 3 Capture audience information: Include links to gated content on your social sites or inside blog posts. Once you have their address, you can add it to their lead profile inside your marketing automation system and begin your outbound nurturing efforts. Marketing automation s in-depth website and campaign tracking gives you the freedom to make more holistic marketing decisions. Stand-alone inbound doesn t let you identify how knowledgeable leads are about your products or services and if they re ready to purchase. Tools like website visitor tracking, engagement statistics, and predictive lead scoring models provide actionable insights about which marketing campaigns performed better, to improve upon those efforts in the future. The evolution of social signals also plays a critical role in your marketing decisions. Now, we re able to join the digital conversation by interacting with buyers through their social media accounts and tracking each conversation inside our marketing automation tools. The way we approach campaign creation, the buyer cycle, and customer loyalty has shifted in the past decade. With thoughtful planning and implementation, inbound marketing through your marketing automation system should increase your lead generation while decreasing your cost per lead.

6 5 About Salesfusion Salesfusion helps small and medium sized B2B organizations drive revenue with smarter marketing. With Salesfusion s smart marketing automation platform, marketing and sales teams are delivering lead-to-revenue results more effectively and efficiently than ever before London Seattle Philly Scottsdale Atlanta Contact Information: sales@salesfusion.com facebook.com/salesfusion linkedin.com/company/salesfusion twitter.com/salesfusion youtube.com/user/salesfusionmarketing