Like many marketing concepts, lead lifecycle management has been open to quite a bit of debate and interpretation. In technical terms, you know it’s the transit of a lead through the entire process of evaluating, segmenting, qualifying, and becoming sales opportunities – but what’s the best way to identify, track, engage, and analyze the data throughout and in between every equally important stage?
According to our valiant marketing experts at Marvel Marketer’s, it’s automation. Designing for revenue happens with automation – no matter whether you are using a traditional pipeline or flywheel model.
That’s the what… now, how about the why?
Customer experience: The journey AND the destination
While you’re using marketing automation tools to streamline your lead lifecycle – automating tasks such as lead scoring, email campaigns, and follow-up – you are free to focus on generating revenue and building relationships with your soon-to-be customers. A positive experience that defines every step of the lifecycle builds a strong relationship.
What does a positive, conversion-friendly experience look like? F.A.S.T. (F being, spoiler alert … Fast!)
Fast response time can help you make the most out of your campaigns with a conversion rate of over 391%. The shorter your response time, the higher the percentage of sales-ready leads. Reaching out to leads within an hour increases conversion odds nearly 7x. optimized for creating appropriate and real-time responses to their leads.
Analytics-driven. A massive amount of data is involved in creating and maintaining a lead lifecycle, but tools that provide comprehensive reporting and analytics can keep data-driven decision-making happening at a nimble pace. Selecting marketing automation that seamlessly integrates with your CRM and email marketing platform will allow you to continuously refine your strategy as you understand more and more your target audience and information that’s relevant to them at each stage.
Set-up for Targeted action. Are you addressing concerns or objections at every checkpoint through email marketing, social media engagement, and/or targeted advertising? And, do you have a clear call-to-action at each interaction? When you’re designing for revenue, these steps can help you design not just for revenue, but for helping real humans with your products and services. Remember that behind every lead is a person longing for assistance, bringing all their wants and worries along for the ride:
- Define your target audience. Clearly define your target audience and segment them based on characteristics such as demographics, behavior, and interests.
- Create a lead magnet. Develop a lead magnet, such as an ebook, webinar or free trial, to attract potential customers into the funnel.
- Optimize lead capture forms. Make sure your lead capture forms are simple and easy to complete, and that they are prominently placed on your website.
- Send targeted emails. Use automated email campaigns to send targeted messages to leads at different stages of the funnel.
- Use lead scoring. Assign scores to leads based on their engagement and activity, and prioritize follow-up with the highest-scoring leads.
- Optimize your landing pages. Make sure your landing pages are optimized for conversion, with clear calls-to-action and minimal distractions.
- Use A/B testing. Test different elements of your funnel such as messaging, offers, and design to optimize conversion rates.
- Provide excellent customer service. Make sure your customer service team is trained to provide excellent service to potential customers.
- Monitor and measure. Continuously measure and analyze the performance of your lead lifecycle and make adjustments as needed to improve conversion rates and generate revenue.
With best practices for Marketo emails and landing pages, as well as strategic planning for revenue through Adobe Marketo Measure (AMM), Marvel Marketers can work with you to stay in line with brand, responsiveness, and messaging across the entire customer journey – from implementation and migration to integration and production.
Our certified and industry leading instructors with 100+ years of combined experience can answer your most pressing questions on marketing strategy and automation or tactical execution with a Superhero Power Up. Contact us to learn more.
