When we refer to the lead management process, we are describing the process that occurs from the initial attempt to generate a lead, to the time that the lead results in revenue. This process spans the top of the funnel where inquiries and suspects pour in and are then nurtured into opportunities and closed sales.

If you look at the amount of money spent on lead generation and the money spent on maximizing sales teams’ effectiveness, it’s incredible that this hasn’t bubbled up to the top of every CEO’s agenda. Understandably up to now, companies have concentrated their efforts strictly within the sales discipline, focusing on the sales process, team and methodology, which are all critical to overall sales success.

While optimizing these components for your business are indeed crucial to high performing sales teams, they no longer are enough.

How can your business start down the road to improved lead management without overhauling your entire business operation?

Download our newest Whitepaper – Changing Expectations: The Future of Lead Management to learn more.

Whitepaper topics also include:

• How to improve Marketing Effectiveness
• How to improve Sales Effectiveness
• How to adapt to the new Buy Cycle
• How to meet CEO expectations of increased revenues, reduced sales costs and ROI generation.

Download our newest Whitepaper – Changing Expectations: The Future of Lead Management to learn more.

Register to Download this White Paper

The panelists discussed a wide range of topics and answered questions relating to the changes needed by sales people in order to be more competitive in the future.

Topics Discussed:

• What changes are buyers making in their strategic buying process?
• How will technology continue to change the role of the sales representative?
• What adjustments should sales professionals make to their process, approach, skills and training to be competitive in the future?

Did you miss out on the event? Need answers to some of the questions listed?

Click here and listen to the entire broadcast: http://www.focus.com/roundtables/future-selling/

If you have other questions that weren’t answered during the event, schedule a demo to learn more about the future of sales and how it affects your organization.

LeadLife President, Lisa Cramer will be a guest speaker at “The Future of Selling”, a roundtable event hosted by Focus.

A panel of industy experts will discuss startegies for sales professionals to keep up with changes in the buying process.

To learn more about the event, click here.

Event Summary:

The future of selling is a big unknown, and if it is anything like the changes Buyers have made in the past decade we are in for some surprises. Our panel of industry experts will discuss, “Selling in the Future”. They will answer the questions, what changes are buyers going to make in their strategic buying process? What adjustments should sales professionals make to their process, approach, skills and training to be competitive in the future? And, most importantly how will this affect the state of selling in general?

For full event details and a list of speakers, click here.

1.    CEOs can finally get metrics they want from lead generation dollars spent – According to Fournaise Group, 72% of CEOs state that marketing is always asking for more money, but can rarely explain how much incremental business this money will generate.  CEOs need the ability to get a sense of the return for marketing dollars spent. It’s a reasonable request and one that has been elusive up until the last few years. Marketing Automation technology and a lead management process will afford companies this visibility.

2.    Cost of sales will decrease –Why do sales teams ignore over 80% of the leads coming from marketing?  Because they don’t value the quality of the leads.  As more prospects research online, more inquiries and suspects can fall into the top of the funnel, making the sales reps job more difficult and costly.  Sales reps are an expensive resource and are directly responsible for the revenue achievement within organizations; therefore, the productivity associated with that resource is critically important.  CEOs are always in favor of making sure that this costly resource is utilized in the most productive way. Marketing Automation can help pass warmer leads to sales (with more sales intelligence), making the sales reps likelihood for success per lead much more possible.

3.    CEOs will understand how marketing impacts the bottom line– This is definitely related to number 1 above.  CEOs are very focused on bottom line metrics of the company.  According to Fournaise Group, 77% of CEOs are frustrated that their marketers keep talking about brand, brand values, brand equity and other similar parameters that management has difficulty linking back to results that really matter: revenue, sales, EBIT or even market valuation.  Although marketing automation doesn’t help directly with money spent on branding, it does help with ROI of marketing campaigns and those things that compliment branding dollars spent.

4.    CEOs will see an increase in revenue – Marketing automation systems are not just for marketers but for a company’s bottom line.  The ultimate goal and metric for marketing automation is increased revenue with the same resources spent.  Over time, marketing automation should be helping to provide warmer leads to sales for quicker closes.  Additionally, with greater sales intelligence and insights (example: real time sales rep alerts), telemarketers, inside sales and sales people will have a better chance of finding people when they are on the website, landing pages and/or interacting with a campaign you’ve sent.

5.    CEOs will see how lead management becomes a competitive advantage – Marketing automation is only one component of lead management. Coupled with a process that spans lead generation through to revenue attainment, lead management can absolutely become a competitive advantage for your company.  We hear this from LeadLife clients all the time. With an increase in revenue, first call contact rates, qualified leads and much more (check out LeadLife’s client page for more stats and case studies), clients are quickly finding an advantage over other companies that are stuck in their costly legacy processes.

For more lead management resources tailored towards CEO’s, visit LeadLife’s CEO Solutions page.

Written by Jon VanZile
View original article online

After a decade of blistering growth, Pyramid Consulting reached a point that will be familiar to many marketers: it was time to formalize and organize its lead-generation system.

Pyramid provides global IT services and IT staff augmentation services. Headquartered in Atlanta, in 2010 it was named one of Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies, but it didn’t have a lead-management process in place, according to Randall McCroskey, Pyramid VP-enterprise solutions.

“Most lead generation was done through events, cold calling, referrals and networking,” McCroskey said.

Pyramid decided on an email marketing strategy and brought in LeadLife Solutions, Atlanta, to help design the program. LeadLife is a marketing automation company that offers lead-generation solutions, including email programs.

The goal of Pyramid’s program was to “establish a framework” for lead generation and increase engagement rates with the company’s product line, as well as helping the sales department score leads to determine which were hot and should be followed up immediately.

The challenge was tackled from two angles: a content strategy and a simple lead-scoring system that operated in real time.

The approach to content was built from the ground up, using material that was already available to Pyramid’s marketing department or writing new content.

“The strategy was to educate our audience on why they needed to engage Pyramid for mobile technology services,” said Nancy Thompson, account executive at Pyramid Consulting. “The content was unique to the emails. Pyramid had some white papers and other sales collateral, but most content for this program was created from scratch.”

As for qualifying leads, LeadLife helped design a system of email marketing metrics to paint a picture of a prospect’s behavior and interest.

“[The program] tracks all [of a] prospect’s digital behavior, such as clicks, page views, time spent on pages, frequency of visits and form-fills,” said Lisa Cramer, president of LeadLife Solutions. “For Pyramid, the scoring was used to measure each prospect’s engagement, which was a combination of clicks and page views. Based on their scores, they were assigned a rating to indicate whether they were a hot, warm or cold lead.”

One of the advantages to this system, McCroskey said, is that it operates in real time.

“We are able to see behavior of accounts we are currently calling on, some of which were slow to respond to traditional methods of engaging,” he said. “Real-time notifications allowed for warmer calls for the sales team, and the scoring and rating system helped us prioritize our time.”

Ultimately, the program allowed Pyramid’s sales team to schedule more sales meetings, and it increased engagement rates in the company’s email marketing efforts 100% compared to previous email marketing campaigns.

LeadLife’s Cramer said Pyramid’s success was due in part to observing a few bits of advice.

“Start simple and build on your lead-management campaigns,” she said. “You don’t need to have it all figured out at the outset. Also, use technology to fit your business process, not the other way around. And finally, always measure what you do. Otherwise, you won’t know how to improve.”

1. They can finally get visibility to the metrics they need – According to the eMarketer Article Measurement Challenges Stump Marketing Executives, December 16, 2011, “only 47% of US marketers believe they can effectively measure the return on investment of email marketing, and other types of marketing saw even smaller percentages.”   Yet CMOs continually wonder why they need to fight for budget.  Metrics will become even more important as the marketing mix expands with social media and other digital means. It’s crucial for CMOs to get the metrics they need to measure their impact to the company’s bottom line.

2. Marketing will become a more viable partner to sales – Why do sales teams spend up to 20% of their time generating their own leads?  Why do they ignore over 80% of the leads coming from marketing?  Because they don’t value the quality of the leads.  CMOs need to take responsibility for generating better quality leads for sales. As more prospects research online, more inquiries and suspects can fall into the top of the funnel, making the sales rep’s job more difficult.  CMOs and marketing need to take responsibility for generating quality leads for sales – not sending inquiries and suspects to sales and nurturing those leads further themselves. Marketing automation not only helps CMOs deliver better quality leads, it provides the sales team with better sales intelligence by showing what the lead was interested in.

3. They will receive a better ROI on lead generation – How much quality can one expect from basic email marketing – blast and send the leads that clicked to sales?  I guess it’s very dependent on the quality of the list and the quality of the message sent to that list.  With CMOs under the hot seat for ROI and lead generation dollars, marketing automation is a way of taking basic monthly email marketing to the next level.  Nurture prospects automatically based on what they’ve shown interest in.  By designing and executing more “intelligent” nurturing campaigns, you will see a definite increase in your lead generation efforts.  These campaigns will produce better quality leads and therefore should follow with better return.

4. They will finally know exactly which campaigns produce the most revenue – Marketing automation systems not only provide CMOs and VPs of marketing with tremendous visibility but also with a very clear way of seeing which campaigns are producing the most clicks, the most qualified leads and which are producing the most revenue. Whatever the measurement, marketing automation makes it very clear and easy for CMOs to receive reports as to which campaigns and which assets (landing pages, forms, emails, etc.) are producing the most revenue.

5. Your lead management process will become a competitive advantage – Marketing automation provides the platform for CMOs to take their marketing to the next level and really start taking advantage of digital marketing.  But to do this, they must not only embrace the technology but but also get the support from experienced resources to jump start their efforts.  To say that they do digital marketing, social media, etc. is one thing. But to really take advantage of what they learn in the digital world is quite another.  Embracing this new capability should be considered a competitive advantage.

Atlanta – December 16, 2011

According to SLMA, over 7,000 votes were cast for 79 nominees. Susan Campanale, VP of Marketing for the SLMA said, “These people are recognized by their peers as power players in the pursuit of ROI for marketing lead generation.”

This is third year in a row that Cramer has been named to the “Top 50” list. Earlier this year, she was also recognized by SLMA as one of the “Top 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management.” Cramer has dedicated her time and efforts to educating marketers and sales teams about the importance of marketing automation. She writes a weekly blog and has published articles in media outlets such as DemandGen Report, MarketingProfs, CRM Buyer and more. With more than 20 years as a technology leader, Cramer continuously strives to develop new ideas and best practices for marketers and sales teams worldwide.

“It is an honor to be voted to the Top 50 list for the third year in a row,” said Cramer. “I am definitely passionate about marketing automation and how it can impact a company’s revenue. At LeadLife, we pride ourselves on not only providing the technology that fits our clients, but also providing them the expertise they need to be successful.”

About LeadLife Solutions

LeadLife Solutions is a provider of an on-demand lead management solution that helps drive revenue by bundling a state-of-the-art marketing automation platform with highly experienced marketing and sales specialists. Our specialists augment your staff with the time and expertise to build and execute marketing campaigns. With LeadLife’s flexible and intuitive software, we can help you increase the value of your lead generation dollars online/offline, qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles and increase your marketing ROI. At LeadLife it’s not only about leveraging automation, but also delivering lead management best practices to increase marketing and sales success. For more information on our marketing automation bundled services, please visit www.leadlife.com or call 1-800-680-6292.

Post written by David Raab

LeadLife released a completely rebuild version of its marketing automation system last month.

The new system features a cleaner interface and revised capabilities that reflect what LeadLife has learned about the needs of small to mid-size companies since its original product launch in 2008. This involves a careful balance between complexity and power.

The best example of this balance, and the most notable change in the system, is campaign design. LeadLife originally used a linear sequence of steps, while the new system uses a branching flow chart. This is a somewhat unusual choice for a small business-oriented system, whose clients tend to find flow charts difficult to work with. But LeadLife – like many other marketing automation vendors – found its clients tend to design campaigns as flow charts. It therefore chose to build the flow chart interface but to exclude the more confusion-inducing features, like the ability to send leads back to previous steps in the same flow or to start new flows in the middle.

On the other hand, the system does include some features not usually found in small business systems. These include rule-driven, dynamic content blocks within emails, which LeadLife found many clients applied fairly easily. The system rule-builder also combines power with simplicity: for example, rules can reference specific links within an email (powerful) and the system automatically presents a list of links within the specified email (simple).

Probably more important, LeadLife has also bundled marketing services with its software. For example, vendor staff will design the campaign flows for the client, further reducing the risk that the flow chart will cause confusion. Vendor staff will teach the client best practices such as building several small campaigns instead of a single complicated one.

Services are provided with every level of the product, including the lowest price of $750 per month. Specific options include marketing strategy, content creation, design, lead nurturing campaigns, lead process definition, and analytics. Most are performed by LeadLife’s internal staff although copywriting and design may be sent to subcontractors.

Bundled services are LeadLife’s solution to the skill gap that keeps so many companies from adopting marketing automation or using it fully. Other companies have taken a similar approach. Still others have tried alternatives including keeping the system very simple, providing extensive training to use more complex systems, and using automation to handle complicated functions. Although most vendors apply them in combination, their emphases do vary. It’s not clear which choice will prove most effective — but a lot of money is riding on the outcome.

Back to LeadLife. The scope of the new product includes typical marketing automation functions: campaigns, email, landing pages and forms, lead scoring, behavior tracking, CRM integration, sales alerts, segmentation, and reporting. Reports and some other features are still a work in progress but the basics are in place. LeadLife is migrating its existing 70 customers to the new system over the next few months. The system is sold on a month-to-month basis (no long-term contract) and prices are based on email volume and services. Clients at all levels get the full set of system features.

About David Raab

David Raab, Raab Associates Inc. (www.raabassociatesinc.com), is a consultant specializing in selection of marketing systems and vendors. Clients have included major firms in financial services, retail, communications, and technology. Mr. Raab has written hundreds of articles for industry publications. Many of these are available without charge at www.archive.raabassociatesinc.com. Mr. Raab can be reached at draab@raabassociates.com.

View the original article: http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/2011/12/leadlife-bundles-services-with.html

Below are 5 reasons your CSO and sales team will love marketing automation:

1. They will sell more with less effort – marketing automation provides sales teams with greater intelligence about what information prospects are really interested in and potentially how interested they are in your product/services. Armed with this digital behavior (and more highlighted below) sales teams will make better quality calls to more qualified prospects – resulting in more sales. Additionally, real-time Sales Rep Alerts can help sales reps make calls to prospects when they are most likely to find them at their desks. Timing can be everything in sales and marketing automation certainly helps sales teams with timing.

2. They won’t waste time – depending on a company’s process with marketing automation, inquiries and suspects are often not sent to the sales team. This is unlike most current, legacy processes that exist today, where all inquiries, suspects, leads, etc flow to the sales team. With marketing automation, marketing can now capture all of these inquiries, suspects and leads. Rules within the system can help determine what should be sent to sales and what shouldn’t be. Sales should definitely be receiving more “qualified” leads than before.

3. They will make warmer calls – marketing automation is now tracking much more than existing CRM and/or email marketing platforms. In addition to clicks and opens, marketing automation will also tell the sales rep which pages the prospect viewed, how long they spent on the page and which communications that the company sent were responded to and when. Did the lead come back to the website on their own and not from an email? Marketing automation will give the sales person that information as well. Armed with this intelligence, sales can make warmer calls, discussing what that prospect has already shown interest in.

4. They will prioritize their time better – marketing automation systems can also provide sales teams with prioritization through lead scoring. Prioritization can now be based on not just the best prospect profile based on attributes/firmographics, etc but also can be based on behavioral information. Scores can be added for specific types of activity over time and/or reduced for inactivity etc. The higher the score, the higher the priority for the sales person to contact.

5. They will feel better about leads sent from marketing – with marketing automation, sales teams feel much better about getting the help they need from marketing. Whether it’s the increased sales intelligence they are receiving, the real time sales alerts, or just being able to focus on more qualified leads, sales definitely likes when marketers implement marketing automation within their organizations.