by bersondev | May 11, 2022 | Marketing, marketing automation, marketing technology
While most businesses know that adopting Marketing Automation is more important than ever, it’s just one part of the solution. To generate ROI, you really need to make full use of all of the platform’s features, including emails, content, nurturing programs, triggered messages, lead management, and reporting, just to name a few.
Achieving Marketing Automation success requires:
• A comprehensive strategy.
• Effective creative.
• Up-to-date processes and software.
• And the right people with the rights skills.
Whether you are investing in, or migrating to, new technology, everything from the initial set-up through campaign execution and follow-up is crucial. Investing in the right people with the right skills will allow you to better set up, create, and manage your marketing program. If your not using Marketing Automation or not using it to the max, you’re forfeiting ROI.
The good news is, if you don’t have the right team with the right skills, you don’t have to “buy” (hire staff)…you can “rent” the skills you need much more cost-effectively by using consultants to work with you to:
• Formulate or optimize your marketing budget.
• Ensure you’re using the Marketing Automation platform that’s best for you.
• Fill in your skills gap.
• Develop, design, and create content for your campaigns.
• Achieve revenue goals faster.
• Increase efficiencies and supercharge productivity.
• Speed up the sales cycle with automated workflows.
• Take your company to the next level.
As a recognized Marketing Automation leader for the past decade, we work with firms to help them utilize their marketing technology to increase revenue. To see how we can help you, schedule a no-obligation call or email Lori Berson at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com.
BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in Marketing Automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.
by bersondev | Apr 8, 2022 | Marketing, marketing technology
We typically associate the term “audit” with finance and taxes. Whether for taxes or marketing, the purpose of an audit is to uncover what you did and why, what’s working, and what should be changed.
A marketing audit should examine all of your work, your calendar, and the results to determine successful efforts, evaluate where you’re over- or under spending, check your ROI, and make some key decisions for moving forward. It’s best to audit your marketing processes and operations, data, content, and even your staff. Start small and be sure to set up metrics and benchmarks. The following seven steps will help you with the process:
Step 1: Select what you want to audit first.
For example: evaluate your marketing operations and creative workflow. Are you getting things out the door on time and on budget, or are there endless revisions and missed deadlines? Or look at your content – such as your email campaigns.
Step 2: Collect the facts.
Dig into your archives. When you’re auditing your content, for example, start by looking through your editorial calendar to see what was done this year. Set up a spreadsheet and add a line-item for each effort and the date it ran. Add another set of columns to track marketing metrics. To easily see patterns, try to limit your data by evaluating just a few key things. Go through all your campaigns and make notes.
Step 3: Gain insights.
What do you want to know about your operations, content, or ROI? Maybe you’d like to figure out your averages or track the highest- and lowest-performing efforts. You should also calculate the cost-to-effort ratios and compare successes from one year to the next. If you have KPIs established for your business, start there and create a chart to track the success of these indicators.
Step 4: Document your methodology.
As you’re tracking the facts, document your steps. Write down what data you used and how you calculated your numbers to easily recreate it in the future, if necessary.
Step 5: Create a report of the results.
Use high-level notes as well as granular examples that illustrate your points. To easily identify patterns, use visuals (e.g. graphs and infographics). This can be used as an executive-level summary and as a reference the next time you conduct an audit.
Step 6: Analyze your findings and make decisions.
Once you have all the facts, see what patterns emerge and then take action. What efforts performed well? Do you want to retry them or is it time to discard them? Review your organizational process and strategy. Determine bottlenecks, find where repeatable processes can streamline productivity and cut tasks that aren’t adding value.
Step 7: Repeat.
Schedule your audit(s) once a month, quarter, or year to re-evaluate how you’re doing. Like any metrics, it’s wise to capture data at the same time each cycle – for example, if you audit in July, audit next July – so you’re comparing apples to apples.
As a recognized Marketing Automation leader for the past decade, we work with firms to help them utilize their marketing technology to increase revenue. To see how we can help you, schedule a free consultation or email Lori Berson at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com.
BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in Marketing Automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.
by bersondev | Mar 1, 2022 | Lead Generation, Marketing, marketing automation, marketing technology
Marketing automation success requires more than just software. It takes strategy, creative, and the right team. Whether you are new to marketing automation or have a platform in place, here are sample questions and a worksheet for organizations that have marketing bottlenecks.
Lead Scoring Questionnaire
- Which channels contribute to your current customer acquisitions?
- What content contributes to your current customer acquisitions?
- What are the general steps your current customers took to become customers?
- Based on the earlier assessment of your marketing processes, how would you change your lead scoring model to improve these processes?
Lead Scoring Worksheets
To ensure you provide your Sales team with right leads at the right time, Marketing and Sales should develop the lead scoring model together.
To start, audit your sales-ready prospects and customers who have recently closed to learn their activities and behaviors. (Example: did 70% of your customers come from one lead campaign or lead magnet? Did they schedule a call with your sales team?)
As you clarify the type of leads that Sales prefers, you’ll be able to assign points to lead characteristics like attributes, activity, and engagement. Like campaigns, lead scoring is not a set it and forget it effort. After the initial set up, you’ll need to continue to evaluate your model and adjust it accordingly. Remember, Sales always prefers better qualified leads versus a higher quantity of leads.
PROFILE SCORE
This category helps you determine which contacts are a good fit for your Sales team. The Profile Score rules apply only once. (Example: when your contact enters a specific list based on their form submission, their score will be assigned.)
Make sure each contact has the attributes you’re looking for: job title, company size, industry. You can set up the rules to add points for attributes you prefer and subtract points for attributes that don’t work for your business.
BEHAVIOR SCORE
The Behavior Score shows you the contact’s activity. You’ll be able to identify implicit activity by your contact. (Example: the contact browses certain web pages.)
Depending on your scoring model, Sales might want to reach out to a contact based on their behavior. (Example: if a contact visits a pricing page on your website.) Behavior Scores are applied for every action taken so they can be applied multiple times.
ENGAGEMENT SCORE
This Score helps you identify explicit actions taken by your contacts and are potentially more valuable than implicit actions. A highly-engaged contact is expressing interest in your content. (Example: a form submit, clicking a link in an email.) Engagement Scores apply every time an action takes place.
All three categories: Profile, Behavior, and Engagement Scores give you an understanding of how well a contact fits your ideal customer profile, how active they are on your website, and how engaged they are with your content and business. You can have automated alerts sent to your Sales reps to reach out to contacts based upon your scoring rules.
Aligning customer marketing and Marketing Automation strategies can be challenging and time consuming. The right Marketing Automation platform and experienced external resource will streamline and simplify the process, ensuring that your Marketing Automation strategy is on-point, on-budget, implemented properly, and optimized for success.
To learn how to best use Marketing Automation to increase ROI, check out this article.
As a recognized Marketing Automation leader for the past decade, we work with firms to help them utilize their marketing technology to increase revenue. To see how we can help you, schedule a free consultation or email Lori Berson at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com.
BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in Marketing Automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.
by bersondev | Feb 27, 2022 | Lead Generation, Marketing, marketing automation, marketing technology
Marketing automation success requires more than just software. It takes strategy, creative, and the right team. Whether you are new to marketing automation or have a platform in place, here are sample questions and a worksheet for organizations that have marketing bottlenecks.
Sales and Marketing Questionnaire
- Is the ideal customer the same for Sales and Marketing? If not, what’s different?
- How effective is the hand-off of leads from Marketing to Sales? Are the requirements clearly defined?
- Would your Sales team agree on Marketing’s assessment of the effectiveness? Why (not)? Would Management agree with Marketing’s assessment?
- Are there any other departments (Support, Operations) you’d like to involve in this implementation? What would you need to ask them?
Aligning customer marketing and Marketing Automation strategies can be challenging and time consuming. The right Marketing Automation platform and experienced external resource will streamline and simplify the process, ensuring that your Marketing Automation strategy is on-point, on-budget, implemented properly and optimized for success. Check back for Part 5.
To learn how to best use Marketing Automation to increase ROI, check out this article.
As a recognized Marketing Automation leader for the past decade, we work with firms to help them utilize their marketing technology to increase revenue. To see how we can help you, schedule a free consultation or email Lori Berson at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com.
BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in Marketing Automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.
by bersondev | Feb 3, 2022 | Marketing, marketing automation, marketing technology
Marketing automation success requires more than just software. It takes strategy, creative, and the right team. Whether you are new to marketing automation or have a platform in place, here are sample questions and a worksheet for organizations that have marketing bottlenecks.
Tips to Create Quality Personas to Increase Marketing ROI
Persona Questionnaire
Created through research of your target audience, personas include a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside of your database that might align with your target audience. It’s important to collect qualitative and quantitative data to get a picture of your ideal customer, what they value, and how your product/service fits into their daily lives.
To create your personas, start by asking your target audience the following questions:
- What is your gender, age range, skills, title/role in the company, and background information?
- Can you make purchase decisions?
- What is your company/firmographic information?
- What are your most important daily responsibilities? Daily office routine?
- What obstacles make your life more difficult at work?
- What would make your life easier?
- What do you read daily and where do you get information that helps you do a better job?
Persona Guide and Sample
For help creating your personas and to view an example, download our Persona Guide.
Aligning customer marketing and Marketing Automation strategies can be challenging and time consuming. The right Marketing Automation platform and experienced external resource will streamline and simplify the process, ensuring that your Marketing Automation strategy is on-point, on-budget, implemented properly and optimized for success. Check back for Parts 3 through 5.
To learn how to best use Marketing Automation to increase ROI, check out this article.
As a recognized Marketing Automation leader for the past decade, we work with firms to help them utilize their marketing technology to increase revenue. To see how we can help you, schedule a free consultation or email Lori Berson at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com.
BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in Marketing Automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.
by bersondev | Jan 20, 2022 | Marketing, marketing automation, marketing technology
Marketing automation success requires more than just software. It takes strategy, creative, and the right team. Whether you are new to marketing automation or have a platform in place, here are sample questions and a worksheet for organizations that have marketing bottlenecks.
Marketing Bottlenecks Questionnaire
- What areas of your marketing funnel are consistently lacking volume, quality, and/or attribution?
- What other software do you use for marketing activities (CRM, HootSuite, etc.). How are the activities tracked?
- What marketing tasks are the most time consuming for you?
- What marketing processes do you want to improve?
- What defines marketing success in your company?
Marketing Bottlenecks Worksheet
Let’s review your current marketing processes — what’s generating traffic, leads, and conversions — and see where the bottlenecks lie.
Aligning customer marketing and Marketing Automation strategies can be challenging and time consuming. The right Marketing Automation platform and experienced external resource will streamline and simplify the process, ensuring that your Marketing Automation strategy is on-point, on-budget, implemented properly and optimized for success. Check back for Parts 2 through 5.
To learn how to best use Marketing Automation to increase ROI, check out this article.
As a recognized Marketing Automation leader for the past decade, we work with firms to help them utilize their marketing technology to increase revenue. To see how we can help you, schedule a free consultation or email Lori Berson at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com.
BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in Marketing Automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.
