Optimising your Business Marketing and Sales Funnel with Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a powerful technology that can help you drive more leads, convert more leads to sales, and optimize your entire marketing and sales funnel.

This page  provides a summary of recommended strategies and tactics we can implement in conjunction with marketing automation to increase your organisation’s sales and revenue by improving every stage of the buyer’s journey

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Top of Funnel Recommended Tactics

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At the top of the funnel, prospects often do not know anything about your brand or product offerings. The goal at this stage is to capture as many relevant leads as possible and begin categorising, prioritising and nurturing them. Emarkable suggests implementing the following for you to improve conversions at this stage.

 

CATEGORY AUTOMATION TACTICS AND RELATED DELIVERABLES
PERSONAS Build buyer personas that will be used for lead scoring, dynamic lists to segment and target leads, and dynamic content in emails and landing pages to improve conversions.
LEAD SCORING Establish rules to score leads based on how well they align with your target audience (e.g. custom attributes and personas) and their level of engagement with emails, website, social posts, etc.
AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION Create dynamic lists that automatically update when leads meet criteria for advanced targeting. Examples for this funnel stage include lists by persona, campaigns, product interest, and lead attributes, such as location, role and industry.
PAID SEARCH
  • Ads focused on brand, competitor, product and keyword searches
  • Targeted landing pages with lead-capture forms and custom auto-responder emails
  • Google Ads integration and campaign setup to capture end-to-end ROI
PAID SOCIAL
  • Audience-specific ads via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
  • Targeted landing pages with lead-capture forms and custom auto-responder emails
  • Campaign setup to capture end-to-end ROI
ANONYMOUS WEB VISITOR IDENTIFICATION
  • Set up VisitorID to identify leads who don’t fill out forms. VisitorID uses reverse IP lookup to match anonymous visitors to companies and provides a list of suggested contacts for outreach
  • Deliver daily/weekly emails of important web visitors to sales team for follow-up
ORGANIC CONTENT
  • Gated content pieces by product (e.g. eBook, how-to guide, checklist)
  • SEO-optimised pages on your website with lead-capture forms and custom auto-responder emails
ORGANIC SOCIAL
  • Connect social media accounts to SharpSpring and set up listening feeds to monitor brand, influencers, competitors, etc.
  • Build lead scoring rules and automations based on social interactions
  • Create library of Media Centre assets with trackable links that trigger automations
BLOG
  • SEO-optimised blog posts with lead-capture forms to acquire subscribers
  • Automated RSS emails that deliver published content daily, weekly or monthly to keep subscribers engaged

Middle of Funnel Recommended Tactics

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In the middle of the funnel, the goal is to transform prospects into sales-ready leads through nurturing. Every touchpoint is designed to further segment and prioritize leads based on their attributes, interests and behaviours and to deliver a highly personalized experience based on their unique buyer journey. Emarkable will implement the following for your business to improve conversions.

 

CATEGORY AUTOMATION TACTICS AND RELATED DELIVERABLES
AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION Segmentation tactics in this stage will use dynamic lists focused on important lead activity and additional information collected using progressive-profiling forms.  Examples include lists by product interest, lead score, important page visits.
LEAD SCORING Establish lead score thresholds that indicate which leads need additional nurturing, are candidates for business development rep outreach, or are sales-ready opportunities.
LOW LEAD SCORE NURTURE DRIPS
  • Series of emails per product that dynamically display content that changes based on persona or other lead attributes
  • Dynamic landing pages with progressive-profiling forms to capture incremental lead information for advanced segmentation/lead scoring
BDR OUTREACH CAMPAIGNS
  • Automatic assignment of business development reps (BDRs) to engaged leads who aren’t quite sales-ready
  • Notifications to lead owner (BDR) to kick off series of phone calls
  • Set of Smart Mails that BDRs can send based on whether they connect via phone
SALES MEETING CAMPAIGNS
  • Automatic assignment of sales reps to sales-qualified leads (e.g. hit lead score threshold or meet key criteria)
  • Series of dynamic emails with targeted landing pages that encourage leads to schedule a sales meeting
  • Lead owner alerts when meetings are scheduled
  • Automated meeting confirmation and reminder emails to improve attendance
TRADITIONAL OUTBOUND  EMAIL Individual emails with broader appeal, such as newsletters, company announcements, special offers, etc., to keep your company top of mind.
EVENT MARKETING
  • Pre-event email drips and landing pages with lead-capture forms to drive booth traffic and encourage on-site sales meetings
  • Post-event email drips to keep leads engaged after the event
WEBINAR MARKETING
  • Series of emails and dedicated landing pages to drive registrations
  • Automated registration confirmation and reminder emails to improve attendance
  • Setup integration with GoToWebinar/WebEx sync data to manage registrants

Bottom of Funnel Recommended Tactics

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At the bottom of the funnel, the goal is to convert opportunities into sales, including re-engaging with closed-lost opportunities.  Emarkable will implement the following for you to improve conversions at this stage of the funnel.

 

CATEGORY AUTOMATION TACTICS AND RELATED DELIVERABLES
AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION Segmentation tactics in this stage will use dynamic lists to help the sales team manage and prioritise their leads and opportunities. Examples include lists by sales rep, lead score, important page visits, and estimated purchase timeline.
POST SALES MEETING CAMPAIGNS
  • Series of emails by product that dynamically display supplemental information based on lead’s product interest
  • Sales collateral by product (e.g. customer testimonials, product feature sheets)
  • Trackable Media Centre links and automations to notify sales reps when leads engage with content
FOLLOW-UP MEETING EMAILS
  • Email drips that encourage leads to schedule additional meetings, as needed
  • Lead owner alerts when meetings are booked
  • Automated meeting confirmation and reminder emails to improve attendance
LONG-TERM NURTURE DRIPS
  • Series of emails designed to keep pipeline leads with longer purchase timelines warm
  • Trackable Media Centre links and automations to notify sales reps when leads engage with content
  • Automated sales rep reminders to reach out by phone periodically
VISITOR ID EMAIL DIGESTS Deliver daily/weekly emails of important web visitors to sales team for follow-up
LEAD ACTIVITY NOTIFICATIONS Notify sales reps via text or email when leads take (or fail to take) action, such as:

  • Visiting important pages (e.g. pricing page)
  • Hitting “read-to-buy” lead score thresholds
  • Opening/not opening important emails
  • Viewing/not viewing important content, such as contract proposals
  • Interacting with social media posts
  • Completing important forms
SMART MAIL TEMPLATE LIBRARY
  • Set of email templates optimized for conversion that your entire sales team can pick from to send to individual leads
  • Email Sync setup by sales rep so emails are sent via IMAP for optimal delivery
RE-ENGAGEMENT CAMPAIGN FOR LOST DEALS Email drips focused on leads that didn’t convert during initial sales engagements but remain qualified for future opportunities.
RE-ENGAGEMENT WITH FORMER CUSTOMERS Email campaigns by product designed to get former customers to reconsider your offering based on improvements that address their pain points.

Recommended Retention & Revenue Expansion Tactics

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The goal of these after-the-sale tactics is to increase the overall value of customers through upselling and cross-selling, by reducing attrition, and by turning customers into brand advocates.

 

CATEGORY AUTOMATION TACTICS AND RELATED DELIVERABLES
AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION Segmentation tactics in this stage will use dynamic lists to keep customers engaged and expand their relationship with IES Lean systems. Examples include lists for related products/services and customer advocate lists.
WELCOME/ ONBOARDING DRIPS Series of emails to new customers to create a smooth transition from sales to customer support/implementation teams.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION CAMPAIGNS
  • Series of emails with feedback forms to periodically measure customer satisfaction levels
  • Automatic segmentation of customers who are advocates or at-risk of attriting with notifications to internal team members for follow-up
CUSTOMER ADVOCACY & REFERRAL CAMPAIGNS
  • Automatic assignment of customers with high lead scores and/or satisfaction scores to “brand advocates” lists
  • Series of emails encouraging them to write a product review, refer a colleague, etc.
  • Landing page with referral form will automatically create new contact record, then trigger a thank you email to referring customer and intro email to the new contact
CROSS-SELL CAMPAIGNS PER PRODUCT
  • Automatic assignment of customers to dynamic lists of complementary products/ services
  • Series of emails that highlight benefits of those offerings
  • Trackable Media Center links and automations to notify sales reps when leads engage with content
UPSELL EMAIL CAMPAIGNS PER PRODUCT
  • Post-sale email drip focused on getting customers to upgrade from their initial purchase (e.g. added features, longer-term contracts, additional users/licenses).
  • Trackable Media Center links and automations to notify sales reps when leads engage with content

How do we get started?

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Implementation Overview

To implement the recommended funnel optimization tactics, Emarkable recommends getting started with the items outlined in Initial Setup. We’ll then work with you to layer on items in the Advanced Marketing Automation section based on your business needs and priorities.

Initial Setup
  • Create User Accounts and Permissions
  • Configure Mail Syncing for IMAP Accounts
  • Add Tracking Code to Your Website
  • Configure Sending Domain and DKIM
  • Add Forms to Website or Integrate Existing Form
  • Integrate Social Media Accounts
  • Configure Lead Scoring
  • Configure Important Contacts and Pages in VisitorID
Advanced Marketing Automation
  • Create Custom Lead, Account, and Opportunity Fields
  • Create Sales Pipeline(s)
  • Integrate Google Ads
  • Integrate Existing Sales and Marketing Technologies
  • Create Buyer Personas
  • Build Dynamic Lists and Workflows
  • Create Resource Libraries (Media Centre and Smart Mails)
  • Integrate Online Meeting Platforms (GoToWebinar, WebEx)

Analytics & Reporting

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Our goal is to help you gain a clear understanding of what’s working and what’s not, and measure the true end-to- end ROI of marketing initiatives.

Emarkable will provide comprehensive reports and analytics to help you make informed decisions and work with you to identify ongoing strategies to improve sales and revenue.

  • Campaign Tracking
  • Form Insights
  • Google Ads Reporting
  • Email Analytics
  • Web Insights
  • Macro Website Traffic Sources
  • Media Centre Tracking
  • Sales Forecasting and Analytics
    • Pipeline Value Report
    • Opportunity Health Report
    • Conversion Analysis Report
    • Sales Performance Report
    • Won/Lost Report • Activity Report
    • Follow-up Report

Advanced Customer Segmentation

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Engaging leads at critical points in their buying process is key to conversion. We will build personas and dynamic lists to automatically segment contacts based on relevant criteria—demographics, interests, and behaviors—and then kick off workflows to trigger emails, notifications, and other actions to convert leads at every stage of the funnel.

PERSONAS

Buyer personas help you then identify key prospects at scale based on important shared characteristics. Emarkable will work with you to define your target audiences and identify the best strategies for implementation. Personas can be automatically assigned based on info incrementally collected along the way, self-assigned by leads using a persona question, or manually assigned by staff based on personal interactions.

DYNAMIC LISTS

Using dynamic lists, we will help IES Lean systems segment contacts on a more granular level. These lists will automatically update as contacts meet key criteria, such as:

  • Blog subscriber lists
  • Webinar/event lists (e.g. registered, attended)
  • Lead-score based lists (e.g. engaged, sales ready)
  • Customer lists
  • At-risk customer lists (based on activity or satisfaction surveys)
  • Persona-based lists
  • Product/service interest lists
  • Visited “important” page lists
  • Related product/service lists  (upsell and cross-sell lists)
  • Campaign-specific lists
  • Lead attribute lists (e.g. location, industry, role)
  • Sales engaged/pipeline lists
  • Customer advocate lists (based on satisfaction survey and lead scores)
  • Suppression lists (e.g. do-not-call, unengaged leads, unsubscribes)

Integrated Social Media

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Social media management that is fully integrated with marketing automation offers powerful conversion tools not available with stand-alone solutions. Emarkable recommends linking your social accounts with SharpSpring to turn social interactions into more meaningful conversations that generate sales and revenue.

PUBLISHING AND POSTING

Easily distribute content across social platforms from a centralized hub. Assign campaigns to posts to see which channels and ideas perform best  and measure the ROI of social initiatives.

LISTENING

Follow conversations about your brand, competitors, and industry topics by filtering social feeds by hashtag, keyword, profiles, etc. Organise that feedback into customisable tabs, and see all activity from connected leads.

AUTOMATIONS

Automatically adjust lead scores based on social interactions to identify hot prospects and customer advocates. Notify the sales team when leads engage, or trigger a series of emails with related content.

If you have any questions about these tactics or are ready to move forward with a partnership, please don’t hesitate to contact us.