I have been alive during one of the most exciting applications of technology. Technology has been used to send people to the moon, create the internet, it initially connected us, or unconnected us I should say, using wireless technologies in our phones and laptops. How did we ultimately apply some of this technology? Great question. In my experience the internet and it's related technologies has been the most significant change during my lifetime.
With the internet and connectivity we have been migrating to online relationships more and more. Consider now some of the most popular internet platforms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...and many more. We are staying connected and spending more of our time online. What does this mean for businesses; small, medium, and large? Internet Marketing is getting more critical and more complicated. We can now collect data and be more precise in our marketing efforts. Marketing can even participate with customers and potential customers using surveys and message boards.
I would like to focus on Internet Marketing for the rest of this post. From Message Boards, followers on Twitter to likes on Facebook businesses need to become a part of their customers and prospects life and always be providing a value or stay relevant. Enter Marketing and Sales Automation platforms. If you have never seen one of these I encourage you to look into SharpSpring (http://sharpspring.com/). It's free to get started and will give you a chance to play around, learn terminology, figure out how this technology works and what's needed to get the most out of it. So here is a quick summary of how this fits into your marketing strategy.
Activity tracking: Most should know by now that web analytics is great for learning how visitors are using your site. Most marketing automation platforms allow for anonymous activity data to be associated with a lead once a form has been filled out. Now you can see what sections of your site someone was looking at, or what content was most important to them before you begin the sales cycle. You can also use this information to update how and what emails you send to them.
Campaigns: This is directly related to the last thought on Activity Tracking. Build campaigns to help organize your leads or have them flow down certain paths. Examples of campaigns are newsletters, announcements, special offers.
Lists: This is a simple concept but is important. Maintain lead lists to help target certain people with certain messages.
Forms: These are your contact forms. Notice the use of plural here. Most companies use various forms depending on the lead they are trying to capture. Think of a person very early in the buying cycle and how they may not want to give you a complete profile of everything. Take the opportunity just to get them in the database with a very short form and the promise of some great information. Later you can collect additional information from that person by having them fill out another form with more input fields. Also be sure your forms are relevant to the person who will be filling them out. Think of a Realtor, they appeal to buyers and sellers and should have different forms for each.
Integration: Many marketing automation platforms now integrate with sales platforms like SalesForce.com to help sales representatives continue nurturing those leads and customers. It is helpful to integrate certain activity data to help provide some notes to the sales person on exactly what that person was looking for. Data integration can become much more than just synchronizing leads between the systems. Consider the significance of reporting and all the ROI based data you now have at your finger tips since you can tie content to closed-won opportunities.
Ok, so I know I jumped ahead on that last part into sales automation but I wanted to paint a picture of all the possibilities that technology now supports. We are far from the days of launching a newspaper coupon ad and crossing our fingers only to check sales reports a month later to see how we did. Now we can see how we are doing and determine how we are impacting the buyers decision. Even better, we are not able to build a relationship with leads and customers using these technologies. Just remember to always be providing value. Be sure you are not sending emails to people because you can. Be sure each message gives them a reason to stay away from that unsubscribe button since you spent so much time and energy getting them into your database. Let's keep them there.
For more great information about getting your marketing strategies driving revenue do a search for the term "Revenue Marketing". There is also a great book on this topic available through Amazon available here:
Rise of the Revenue Marketer
http://amzn.to/18hPPc2
Brian J. has been involved in web design since 1997. He is the founder of True Vision Computer Services, Inc. His recent focus has been on web applications and information systems development.
His current role is a Solution Engineer at the Pedowitz Group where he applies his information systems experience to marketing and sales automation.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment