Use your email marketing as a B2B lead generation magnet

B2B lead generation emails are being utilized more than ever in marketing. The sudden increase in their use is closely tied to the utility of emails. For long, emails have been utilized as primary tools for marketing and also communication. 91% of businesses use emails to create demand. It’s quite effective, efficient, and has a wide outreach as compared to other tools used in marketing and communication.

As much as emails are used on a daily basis, knowing how to write one to a good standard is quite a task. This is because the recipients are diverse, having different personalities, different needs, varied attitudes and specific preferences. Thus, crafting a B2B lead generation email that has an impact is more involving and may…

Chart of the Day: Marketing provide lower quality leads compared to those sourced directly by the sales reps

A Sales and Marketing SLA is important, but as we found out last week 21% of respondents characterize their company's Sales and marketings relationship as either misaligned or 'don't know'. But how often do marketing teams provide their sales team with quality leads? Not as often as they find their own. 38% of respondents said that leads sources by sales are the top source of sales, 33% say referrals are the top source of sales and only 25% of respondents believe leads sourced by marketing are their top source of sales. Sales respondents in organizations with an SLA between Marketing and Sales felt differently. Those respondents ranked marketing-sourced leads highest. Thanks to alignment, which sets clear expectations on the types of leads Marketing should provide and a feedback loop between departments, these sales…

Which are the technologies that are dominating the Marketing Automation space?

Did you know that when it comes to marketing automation, just six technologies hold more than half of the market share? Well, now you do – courtesy of competitive intelligence and lead generation company SimilarTech and inbound marketing agency Bold Digital Architects. The two companies recently teamed up to create a report on the State of Marketing Automation in 2017 and managed to draw up a couple of interesting conclusions. Before we go into further detail, here’s a short overview for your convenience: Six biggest technologies hold a total of 57 per cent of the market share. A total of 482,765 websites have been using marketing automation technology last year, representing an increase in usage. With more than a fifth of market share (21 per cent), Hubspot has the single largest market share. B2B companies are most inclined on using marketing…

Chart of the Day: Don't forget your Lead Scoring

We all know about Email Marketing Automation, but what is Lead Scoring? In the chart, we can see that Email Automation is the most popular at 65.50%, which is expected. The chart also shows how little people either know or use lead scoring, as it's only at 11.80%. Lead scoring is an excellent way of ranking prospects using a scoring method. These scores will help sales teams to prioritise leads or which should be nurtured by marketing more. In the beginning of the process, marketing and sales need to work together to decide on what their ideal prospect is and what we want them to do on your site. And then assign or detract points from the prospects score for doing those activities. For example: Visited Pricing Page = 20 points Visited Blog = 1 point Visited Careers Page = -20 points Each time a prospect visits one of these…

Simple recipes and tips to get you started with your Marketing Automation

Are you still sending out blanket e-shot campaigns to large, anonymous lists? The latest research from the Smart Insights - GetResponse Email Marketing and Marketing Excellence research 2017 shows that many businesses aren't yet tapping into marketing automation. More than half (54%) rated their use of marketing automation as limited including around 20% who weren't using it all.  If this describes you, then the 'shot' part might turn out to mean 'shot in the dark.' In an age where PPC and SEO let you reach a target audience actively looking for companies like yours, blunt emails are rapidly becoming a thing of the past or should be. Most companies already have all the ingredients - an email platform, a CRM full of client data, and an incoming source of leads gives you everything you need. Getting started can seem daunting,…

Is the Marketing Automation Industry about to be disrupted? 

Marketing Automation software is on the rise. In today's digital landscape, most marketing departments have to automate tasks such as emails, social media, and other website actions. The technology of marketing automation makes these tasks easier, by enabling companies to connect with their various customer segments or personas at designated times, based on set parameters that respond to a customer's relationship or previous interactions with a brand.

As marketing teams are required to establish more frequent and bespoke conversation with customers and other potential clients, marketing automation software has fast become a staple of most marketing teams.  

HubSpot and Marketo are the pioneers in this field, and remain the most widely used marketing automation platforms on the web, with tens of thousands of companies using them to optimize and automate their inbound marketing…

SMEs needn't be left behind by new Marketing Automation technology

A dismal 37 percent of shoppers say that the average retailer “gets” them. It’s perhaps for this reason that consumers spend a lot of time researching online before making a purchasing decision offline. And for the first time ever, - as data shows - there are more online sales than in brick and mortar stores in some sectors. The difference is that the new kids on the block - the ecommerce guys - are making use of technology to improve the customer journey, which is one of the most critical factors to keeping customers and attracting more business. In fact, C-suite executives reckon four particular technologies will be key for marketing success in the future: Cloud computing and services Mobile solutions The Internet of Things Cognitive tools This article examines the top marketing trends for 2017 that are specifically related to these four technologies,…

Your post-B2B event checklist

Momentum can be an uncommonly powerful force. Rarely will the opportunity to leverage it in the business world be greater than in the aftermath of an inspiring corporate event that your company has hosted. If all has gone as envisioned — and why wouldn’t it? — your team has bolstered relationships with established customers, and your brand has made a favorable initial impression on prospects. Returns on this marketing investment can only increase with some strategic and timely follow-up outreach. This is where there’s a disconnect between potential and reality, however: Industry research shows that 75 to 80 percent of leads are not followed up on after an event or exhibition. This failure to capitalize is catastrophic to marketing objectives. Time and effort have been expended without maximizing the benefit, and legitimizing an investment in similar future events becomes a more substantial challenge. Here’s the fix: Make sure follow-up strategies are discussed…

Chart of the Day: What makes you choose your marketing automation platform?

There is so much choice with marketing automation platforms now, with nearly every Email Service Provider (ESP) adding them to their grades. But what are others choosing their platforms for? Marketing Automation platforms aren't cheap, even the ones that are rather simplistic. So these are expensive investments, but what would drive a business to choose one platform over another? In the chart below we can see that the most important reason why a business goes with a specific marketing automation platform. 54% said that it was the ease of implementation. Now, I have implemented a fair few marketing automation platforms and ESPs, and yes they are a ball ache and can take a lot of time and planning. But is this really a fair reason to go with a specific platform and spend all that money? Just because it's easy? I…

Chart of the Day: Setting Up for Success With Email Automation

How much revenue per person, per campaign, can email automation generate for you? The below chart covers 4 activities, winback, browse abandonment, welcome series and abandoned cart emails. It's then split into average orders from under $50 to over $200. The best performing in 90% of the activities is the abandoned cart email, displaying from nearly $3 per person, per transaction to over $14. The only anomaly is when the order value is under $50, where the welcome email series has $2 per person, per transaction. Source: How segmentation and automation drive email marketing success Sample Size: U.S.–based companies sent in Q4 of 2016 — a total of 1.5 billion emails Recommended Resource: B2B Marketing Automation Guide …