Referral marketing is becoming increasingly popular among B2B companies. In the digital age, referrals are more important than ever for businesses of all sizes. They provide an effective way to reach potential customers and build relationships with them.

Referrals can be used in both B2C and B2B contexts, but they are particularly valuable for B2B businesses that need to establish trust before closing a sale. When decision-makers receive recommendations from people they know and trust, it gives them confidence that the product or service is worth investing in. According to reports, 59% of businesses that have referral programs have better lifetime value clients while 69% close deals faster.

B2B referral programs are a form of marketing that encourages customers to refer your brand to other companies using a formalized system.

If your business simply asks customers to spread the word about your brand in an informal email or phone call, then this isn’t referred to as a referral program. Instead, B2B programs use a streamlined referral page that allows clients to enter information about their peers and easily refer them to your business.

From setting clear objectives to using the right customer reference management software, read all about the steps you need to follow to launch a successful B2B referral program.

Start With an Excellent Product or Service

It may not seem like an actionable step, but the first thing you need to do is have an excellent product or service because when a client refers your business, their reputation and relationships are at stake. They can lose the trust of their peers if they recommend products or services that are not as advertised or if someone else can find a higher-quality product for a cheaper price.

The conclusion here is that you can have an excellent referral program but if your product or service quality is subpar, it will be difficult to convince existing customers that you are worth referring.

Set Clear Objectives and Goals for the Referral Program

To achieve success, it is essential to clearly define your program’s objectives and goals. It not only provides a roadmap to guide the program but also metrics to measure progress.

The company’s mission and purpose should guide the objectives while still maintaining quantifiable, achievable goals. Clarity in the objectives and goals of a program helps guide and provide direction for all of the stakeholders.

Develop and Nurture Customer Relationships

In B2B, relationships are the foundation of your overall success. Get to know your clients, understand their needs, and make sure to support and engage them throughout the relationship.

For instance, if they need more assistance to learn how to use your service or product, send them an email or an in-app tutorial that guides them through the process.

You will also have many chances to promote or mention your B2B referral program by engaging with your clients. Asking for referrals is not awkward when you are making an effort to provide a positive brand experience; it feels like a natural part of the conversation.

When looking to create a well-coordinated B2B customer referral program and get the most out of customer relationships, you should also consider using customer reference management software. With this type of software solution, businesses can easily connect with their customers and build relationships that will help them grow. It also helps businesses track and manage customer feedback, so they can make informed decisions about how to improve their products and services.

Decide When Exactly to Ask for Referrals

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Referral marketing is all about timing. Customers will perceive you as desperate and pushy if you ask them too soon. However, if you ask too late, the customer may not be the most willing to send referrals.

The general rule of thumb is to ask customers for referrals when they’re most satisfied with your brand. However, remember that the best time to ask depends on your product or service.

Here are some scenarios in which referral invitations would be very welcome:

• After the customer has reached a certain milestone
• After using your product for one year
• Once a customer responds positively to a survey
• After receiving a customer testimonial
• After a successful experience in customer service

Share Marketing Materials

Don’t let your customers do all the talking about why you’re the best. Let your brochures, whitepapers, or one-pagers do the work instead. This will not only ensure that your prospects get the right message about your company but also make it easier for the referrer.

These referral program marketing materials are designed to make it easier for referrers to share information about the company with their network, increasing brand awareness and driving more sales. By providing these materials, businesses can ensure that their referral programs are successful and profitable.

Final Thoughts

With these five key steps to launching a killer B2B referral program, you can go on and start asking your best customers for referrals. With a B2B referral program, you can have control over the sharing process, which helps you build trust and credibility with your prospects.

The post 5 Steps to Launching a Successful B2B Referral Program appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

However, just bringing in leads won’t do. You need a strategy to convert those leads into sales.

Converting leads into sales is crucial for the success of any company, including your B2B business. However, lead conversion is easier said than done. Turning a potential customer into a paying one can be a challenging and time-consuming task, especially in the B2B arena, where your potential client is another business looking for the best and most cost-effective deals out there.

How do you convert such skeptical buyers?

In this article, we’ll take you through a few tips for successfully converting your B2B leads into sales.

#1 Make Sure You Nurture Your Leads

Nurturing your leads is an essential aspect of converting them into sales.

A B2B lead that is left unnurtured is less likely to convert. A potential client needs to know you care about their business and are interested in helping them achieve their goals.

You can nurture your leads by providing them with valuable content such as blog posts, webinars, eBooks, and whitepapers. You can have them sign up for these updates and ensure that you’re also providing cost updates or offers on your services or products. The key is to not make them feel as if they’re just one of your clients. Being a bit more humane in lead conversion is just as important.

Doing all this will help establish trust and build a relationship with your potential customers and encourage them to do business with you.

#2 Understand Your Customers’ Needs

To successfully convert your B2B leads into sales, you need to understand their needs. Your potential customers are looking for solutions to their business problems. If you can provide them with a solution that meets their needs and can help them profit from their own business, they are more likely to become paying customers.

Understanding your B2B client’s needs means listening to them, asking questions, and doing your research. It’s important to know their pain points and the challenges they face in their business so that you can offer the right solution, which in this case is your product or service, to help them and their business.

#3 Build Credibility and Trust

Credibility and trust are critical when it comes to converting your B2B leads into sales. Your potential customers need to trust you and believe that you can deliver on your promises. You can build credibility and trust by providing social proof such as case studies, testimonials, and reviews. This will show your potential customers that other businesses have used your product or service and have had success.

#4 Offer a Personalized Experience

A personalized experience can go a long way in converting your B2B leads into sales. Your potential customers want to feel like you understand their unique needs and that you are offering a solution tailored to them. You can offer a personalized experience by sending customized emails, providing one-on-one consultations, and offering personalized recommendations based on their specific needs.

For an effective personalized experience for your clients, you can bring in a contact center service provider with native English speakers. Such customized experience delivery is the reason why contact center service provider Blue Valley Marketing works with only US-based call centers and agents.

You can visit them at www.bluevalleymarketing.com to learn more about why they choose to work with US-based call centers, how it ensures a personalized experience, and how it helps them cater to clients like IBM and Microsoft.

#5 Focus on the Features Instead of the Benefits

To your potential B2B customers, features are important, but they don’t necessarily sell the product. Benefits, on the other hand, show them how your product or service can help them achieve their business goals and solve problems related to their business.

For example, if you’re selling a project management tool, you might highlight the benefit of increased efficiency rather than the feature of task tracking. It might be that the task tracking feature is what’s helping to improve efficiency, but your client will not know or care about that unless you first highlight the benefit of said feature.

#6 Follow Up and Stay in Touch

Following up with your potential customers is critical if you want to convert your B2B leads into sales. Many businesses may not be ready to make a purchase from your company immediately, but they may be interested in doing so sometime in the future. Therefore, stay in touch with them and continue to provide value, updates regarding prices and offers, and even share short and sweet seasonal greetings from time to time.

Once all this is ensured, you’ll see that converting your B2B lead into an actual sale doesn’t have to be so difficult.

The post 6 Tips for Successfully Converting Your B2B Leads into Sales appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Account-based marketing (ABM) has emerged as a powerful contender in this new era, offering a highly targeted approach that promises to redefine the way businesses connect with and win over customers. But is it as good as advertised?

This article examines the meteoric rise of ABM and the factors contributing to its success. In the following sections, we will uncover why this strategy is set to dominate the future of B2B sales and marketing. Let’s jump right into it.

Account-Based Marketing: An Overview

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach to B2B sales and marketing that focuses on identifying, targeting, and engaging high-value accounts.

Instead of casting a wide net and hoping to attract potential customers, ABM hones in on specific companies or individuals that are most likely to drive revenue and growth for your business.

By concentrating efforts on these key targets, marketers can create personalized campaigns that resonate with decision-makers and foster lasting relationships.

The Shift From Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing has long relied on casting a wide net — think email blasts, cold calls, and generic advertisements — in the hopes of catching a few interested prospects. But as more companies compete for attention and customer expectations evolve, these one-size-fits-all strategies start to lose their charm.

This shift in effectiveness has paved the way for ABM, enabling companies to focus on high-value accounts with precision and tailor their campaigns accordingly.

By concentrating resources on high-priority targets that are more likely to convert, organizations can create more personalized experiences that resonate with decision-makers. Ultimately, it helps them to foster meaningful interactions with prospects and gain a competitive edge.

Below, we explore the essential principles and advantages of account-based marketing. This knowledge will help you make the most out of your marketing efforts for your business’s growth.

Targeted Identification

The first step in any ABM campaign is identifying the most valuable accounts to target. It involves analyzing data and leveraging insights from your sales and marketing teams to pinpoint prospects that align with your ideal customer profile.

Factors such as company size, industry, revenue potential, and strategic fit might be considered during this process.

Emphasis on Personalization

In a world where consumers are bombarded with ads and promotional messages every day, personalization has become essential for cutting through the noise. ABM allows marketers to create customized content that speaks directly to the needs, wants, and pain points of specific accounts.

This step may include creating custom landing pages, crafting personalized emails, or developing account-specific marketing materials showcasing how your products or services can solve your clients’ requests.

This level of personalization increases the likelihood that your message will be heard and helps build trust and rapport with potential customers. When they feel understood and valued, they’re more likely to engage with your brand and consider doing business with you.

Better Alignment Between Sales and Marketing

One of the most significant benefits of ABM is how it fosters tighter collaboration between sales and marketing teams. By targeting specific accounts, both departments can work together to develop strategies and create content that appeals to the unique needs of each prospect.

This alignment leads to more efficient use of resources, as marketing efforts are concentrated on high-value targets. It also results in a more seamless experience for the customer, as they interact with a brand that truly understands their needs and can offer tailored solutions.

Improved ROI

When it comes to measuring success, ABM is a game-changer. Because campaigns are focused on critical accounts, it’s easier to track the impact of your efforts and evaluate the return on investment (ROI).

Thanks to zeroing in on high-value targets, businesses often see higher conversion rates, shorter sales cycles, and larger deal sizes.

Additionally, these types of targeted campaigns tend to be more cost-effective. Instead of wasting resources on mass marketing efforts that yield little results, companies can allocate their budgets towards initiatives that have a direct impact on revenue generation.

Scalability and Adaptability

As businesses grow and evolve, so too must their sales and marketing strategies. One of the most attractive aspects of ABM is its scalability. Whether you’re targeting 10 or 1,000 accounts, the principles remain the same — focus on high-value targets and tailor your approach to their specific needs.

This adaptability makes ABM an ideal solution for firms of all sizes and industries. Account-based marketing offers a flexible framework for driving success, no matter where you’re at in your growth journey or what challenges you face.

The Bottom Line

The world of B2B sales and marketing is experiencing a paradigm shift, with account-based marketing at the forefront of this change.

As traditional tactics lose their effectiveness, ABM’s targeted approach, emphasis on personalization, and alignment of sales and marketing teams provide a strategic advantage to businesses seeking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive landscape.

With its ability to yield higher conversion rates, foster stronger relationships, and generate improved ROI, it’s no surprise that ABM is set to become the future of B2B sales and marketing.

As we move forward, companies that adopt this innovative strategy will be better equipped to navigate the challenges ahead and achieve sustained growth and success.

The post Why Account-Based Marketing Is the Future of B2B Sales and Marketing appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Are you struggling with your outreach or just want to re-invigorate your leads list? Then you need a B2B database provider. A B2B database provider will provide you with direct contact information for prospects and profiles of people you want to connect with. Some providers also provide more in-depth solutions, such as a CRM to manage your pipeline and email marketing software. In this article, we are going to look at the top 5 B2B database providers that can help you win new business now!

What Are the Benefits of Using a B2B Database?

By using a B2B database, you don’t have to waste your time trawling through the web trying to find prospects. Another benefit of using an external B2B database is you ensure your company stays compliant with the latest data laws, which are constantly changing and complex. You also don’t have to lose hours out of your day maintaining and updating your in-house database.

With all this extra free time, you can focus on actually contacting prospects and pitching your products and services. All of these extra sales calls and emails add up, resulting in a huge boost in revenue. If you want to streamline your sales process and improve your overall efficiency while at the same boosting the quality of your leads lists, then check out the B2B database providers below!

1. SignalHire

SignalHire has one of the biggest B2B databases in the world, with over 650 million contacts. The database is international, and astonishingly the data is 97% accurate. You can easily search the database via the prospect’s name, company name, email, or phone number and find detailed contact information, including direct emails and mobile phone numbers.

In conjunction with its epic database, SignalHire has an incredible browser extension prospecting tool. With this browser extension, you can instantly pull contact details for prospects from company websites and LinkedIn. All you need to do is open a prospect’s LinkedIn profile and tap the extension. And just like that, you will have their email, direct number, and social media profiles!

SignalHire is loaded with features, including an email verification tool that will instantly let you know if an email address is active. With this tool, you can also perform bulk searches and find up to 1000 emails at a time. SignalHire is also integrated with all top CRMs, including Salesforce and Zoho, allowing you to upload prospect information directly to your CRM. Learn more about this awesome B2B database provider here!

2. OneMoreLead

OneMoreLead has over 55 million verified prospects. Their database has over 27 million companies and 170 million employees. This incredible resource lets you build a targeted and high-quality leads list in minutes!
OneMoreLead uses advanced analytics and powerful filtering to ensure you can quickly find the prospects which are perfect for your business. You can save all of your searches and, thanks to OneMoreLead’s integrations, instantly port your leads lists to your CRM.

OneMoreLead provides detailed information for all prospects, including role, email, direct phone numbers, and more. They will also provide you with awesome email lists so you can start making sales right away. If you want to get in direct contact with more prospects, then we recommend trying out OneMoreLead.

3. ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo is one of the biggest and most well-known B2B databases on the planet. ZoomInfo leverages troves of data to help you identify your ideal buyer and inform you when to make contact. ZoomInfo has a massive B2B database that you can effortlessly search through to find prospects. They have over 150 million verified email addresses and over 65 million direct phone numbers.

ZoomInfo has a great feature called buyer intent. ZoomInfo will identify prospects who are searching the web for similar solutions to what your company is offering. You then can make contact just as the prospect is at the beginning of their buyer’s journey. This tool not only helps you find new prospects but ensures you reach out to them at the perfect time.
Another awesome feature ZoomInfo has is Website Visitor Tracking. With this feature, ZoomInfo will convert your anonymous website traffic into prospects by adding real names and email addresses to the people visiting your site. This is one of the most advanced B2B databases on the planet, and they continue to add new features to their software.

4. Ampliz Salesbuddy

Ampliz gives you the data to power your business! You can use this software to quickly identify your customer persona through their prospect fit score. Ampliz will provide you with direct phone numbers, emails, and LinkedIn profiles.
The database has over 7 million companies, and the data is 95% accurate. Ampliz’s database has over 120 million B2B contacts and 21 million phone numbers. They will even give you 10 free credits so you can fully test out their database.
Ampliz has a great filter system where you can quickly sort through contacts and find decision-makers. If you want actionable leads today, try out Ampliz and take advantage of their contact filters – Industry, Revenue, Location, Title, and Seniority now!

5. Leadspace

Leadspace has been dominating the B2B database industry since 2007! They leverage data from over 30 sources. Their database features over 70 million companies and 300 million B2B contacts.

Leadspace offers intelligence solutions for data management and masters at supercharging your inbound and outbound lead generation efforts. Leadspace has impressive B2B customer data, and users are able to significantly increase their conversion rates. The software will help you attract new consumers by transforming your customer interaction method.

Final Thoughts

There is no reason to waste your time trying to build leads lists manually. Instead, use a B2B database provider and, within minutes, have a 1000-strong lead list. The great thing about B2B database providers is the speed with which you can find prospects and the accuracy of the contact information. Suppose you are sick of ringing the front desk of companies and sending marketing emails to general email addresses. In that case, it is time to get the direct contact information for your prospects with the number 1 B2B database provider SignalHire. With this incredible resource, you can find the direct number and email address of any prospect on the planet!

The post B2B Database for Marketing: Top 5 Providers in 2023 appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Why is the B2B Customer Journey important?

The B2B customer journey map is an essential tool to help you understand how your customers interact with your business. It can be used to identify where customers are dropping out of the process and why and showcase opportunities for improvement.

A B2B customer journey map represents the steps in a business-to-business (B2B) purchase funnel or process. A single purchase may have multiple touch points across online, offline, and digital channels before the sale are complete. For example:

• You might start by searching for a product on Google.
• Then you’ll visit an eCommerce site like Amazon to get more information about that product before buying it from them directly or from another retailer who has placed their listing there (like Walmart).

What is a B2B Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of a customer’s path from initial awareness to purchase. It is used to understand how customers move through the sales funnel, showing where they encounter friction along the way and outlining opportunities you can take to improve your marketing campaigns.

A typical customer journey includes three stages: 

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision

The most important thing to remember about creating a B2B customer journey map is that it should be tailored for your business and not necessarily based on existing approaches or templates (for example, “buying” vs. “selling”). The goal isn’t just to create an infographic that looks nice but rather one that helps you understand how your customers behave before making purchases from you again (or not).

How to Map Your B2B Customer Journey

As mentioned earlier, you can use a customer journey map to understand the customer journey better. You need to identify the stages of your B2B customer experience and their touchpoints. The goal is to gather information on how your customers move through these stages and what problems or opportunities they encounter at each stage.

The first step in mapping out this process is identifying which processes you want to map. Each business will have unique processes for buying products or services from it, so it’s crucial not just to map out every possible step in the buying process but rather just those steps relevant to your specific business and industry. 

Once you’ve identified these steps, think about how they fit into the bigger picture of how people interact with your brand: Is there anything before or after? What influences them throughout? How does this relate again when thinking about other touchpoints (e.g., advertising) later down the road?

How does a B2B customer journey differ from a B2C customer journey?

While a B2C customer journey map would show how a customer moves through the sales funnel, a B2B customer journey map is more concerned with where they come from. The most important difference you’ll notice is that in B2B, customers are more likely to research multiple suppliers before making a purchase decision.

Peers and colleagues also influence them, so when creating your map, think about who your ideal buyer might be. You should include their name or role alongside their attributes.

You can also see how B2C differs from B2B here:

• For example, in eCommerce, it’s not uncommon for consumers to search Google using keywords such as “best running shoes” or “cheap laptop.” But when researching new office furniture in an enterprise software company, prospects often use phrases like “quality desks” or “corporate chairs.”

How can you use a customer journey map to nurture leads?

The customer journey map helps you identify the best channels and content for each customer journey stage.

For example, if you are selling health products, you may want to use an ad campaign on Facebook or Instagram during the awareness phase of the purchase process.

Once they have moved into the consideration phase, you can create an ad that’s similar or complementary to your previous posts. 

You could also send them a text message with information about similar products or include them in a newsletter that’s sent via email.

The next step is converting these leads into sales by following up through email and phone calls (if appropriate). This should be done at different stages for it not to be too intrusive—for example: sending emails after three days and then calling two weeks later with a reminder of what they ordered if no response has been received thus far.

The future of eCommerce customer journeys

As eCommerce continues to evolve, businesses must keep up with the changes and continue adapting their customer journeys. As technology advances, customers are expecting more personalization of the purchase process. So, as you plan the next iteration of your current B2B customer journey map or start fresh with a new one, make sure that you’re taking into account these four things:

• Personalization – The more personalized the experience is for each customer (especially during checkout), the better their chances of converting.
• Automation – Customers want automated processes. This means streamlining any manual steps in your sales funnel and ensuring alerts are sent when something goes wrong so that issues can be quickly resolved.
• Transparency – Customers want open communication channels between themselves and businesses/service providers so they know what’s happening at all times (and vice versa). This furthers trust between the parties involved and ensures everyone knows where they stand throughout the process.
• Global Reach – With globalization on the rise and companies expanding worldwide, having a global-ready eCommerce website is becoming increasingly crucial for brands looking to gain market share abroad.

A well-structured customer journey map will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing strategy.

A well-structured customer journey map will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing strategy. It’s a visual representation of the customer’s journey, in which they go from being aware of your brand to becoming a loyal customer (or not).

The size of each stage should correspond to the length of time spent in it. For example, if someone visits your website for just a few minutes before leaving without converting, there’s something wrong with your homepage or landing page. Still, if that same person spends hours on your site before making their first purchase, then there might be something wrong with how you’re using social media platforms such as Facebook Ads or Pinterest Ads.

An excellent way to think about this is by comparing two different scenarios: Scenario one involves having no customers; scenario two consists of having millions of customers, but none are satisfied with how your company is meeting their needs. 

Scenario one is much better than scenario two (although it would be even better if both scenarios were eliminated), so any business would want more people like scenario one rather than more people like scenario two—and what makes them different?

Final thought

Understanding what your audience is looking for and how to provide it is vital. By mapping out the customer journey and identifying pain points, you can create a more personal experience that will lead to more conversions.

The post B2B Customer Journey: How Not to Get Lost? appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

8 Factors Creating Pressure on Growth

1.     Innovative Business Models

A new revenue model that defines how a company creates and capitalizes economic value.

2.     Customer Value Chain Compression

Customer value chain compression because of advanced technologies, internet platforms, and other direct-to-consumer models that enables reduction in friction and the number of steps in customer journeys.

3.     Transformative Mega Trends

Global forces that define the future world with their far-reaching impact on business.

4.     Internal Challenges

The internal organizational behaviors that prevent a company from making required changes.

5.     Competitive Intensity

A new wave of competition from start-ups and digital business models that challenge the standing conventions of the past.

6.     Geopolitical Chaos

Chaos and disorder arising from political discord, natural calamities, pandemics, and social unrest that impact global trade, collaboration, and business security.

7.     Disruptive Technologies

New, disruptive technologies that are displacing the old, and significantly altering the way consumers, industries, or businesses operate.

8.     Industry Convergence

Collaboration between previously disparate industries to deliver on whitespace cross industry growth opportunities.

How to Use Influencer Marketing to Overcome These Challenges

The adoption of influencer marketing has matured in consumer-facing industries, but many B2B companies are still exploring the benefits of influencer marketing in increasing consumer engagement and building a robust brand identity.

The influencer marketing life cycle is identification, engagement, then action. Identification is identifying the right influencer to achieve the necessary engagement and business outcome. Engagement is the type of influencer program, such as timeline, events, and content creation. Action is the quantitative indicators, such as leads, and qualitative indicators, such as brand association.

Some companies that use Influencer Marketing include Dell, American Express, and Nike. A few ways Dell uses influencers are on their podcast, blog posts, and even attending their events. American Express is a huge fan of influencers by using them on social media and allows their influencer to share their story, such as “My Travel Style” on YouTube. Nike has been using influencer marketing for many years to, even before influencer marketing became huge. Nike’s main influencer marketing is their signed deals with athletes.

To have a successful influencer marketing campaign, you must follow these 3 steps:

1. Know your purpose

Get a clear outline on what you are trying to achieve in this campaign. Are you trying to sell your product or gain followers? Decide on the goals and what available resources you have.

2. Focus on Fit

Influencer marketing is successful when you focus on how an influencer fits with your brand than their follower count.

3. Measure Results

No matter what marketing campaign you do, you always want to measure the results afterwards.

How to measure B2B Influencer Marketing

Setting goals is one of the most important parts of any marketing campaign. Here are some goals to look at in an influencer campaign:

1. Increase Brand Awareness
2. Reach New Target Audiences
3. Increase Sales
4. Manage Brand Reputation

To measure this campaign, look at:

1. Clicks
2. Impressions
3. Conversions
4. Sales

How to Find B2B Influencers

Many platforms (Heepsy, The Room, and Fourstarzz Media) can help you set up and manage your campaigns with branded content. You should ensure that your platform can help you find genuine influencers and not people who’ve inflated their follower count with fake followers or bots. You should always conduct your own research on an influencer before beginning a partnership though.

Influencer Marketing ROI compared to Other Marketing Channels

Instagram is known for its influencers. Your posts can deliver big results on Instagram. Here are some Instagram business stats:

1. 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business
2. The average Instagram business account grows its followers by 1.69% each month.
3. 1 in 2 people have used Instagram to discover a new business
4. 44% of people use Instagram to shop

Influencer Marketing Trends for 2022

Are you ready to grow your business this year? Start creating video content. Make sure your content has value behind it. Find new social platforms and creator tools. Focus on micro and nano influencers. Just get creative!

Additional Influencer Marketing Resources:

Everything You Need to Know About Influencer Marketing (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Influencer Marketing Guide: How to Work With Influencers (Hootsuite)

4 Ways an Influencer Marketing Agency Can Grow Your Brand (MMP)

The post B2B Influencer Marketing Tips appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

The annual study is available in versions for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). Per the title above, this blog will focus on B2B findings. If you are interested in B2C content marketing survey results, click here.

The key theme is that the pandemic opened up B2B marketers to use content marketing. Without in-person events and face-to-face selling, many who had previously paid little attention to content marketing suddenly became aware of its power.

Strategy, Opinions & Overall Success

For some, 2020 was the year of quickly adapting their content marketing strategy. For others, it was the year to finally develop one.

2022 is starting to look a little different. 77% reported that their organization has a content marketing strategy. Of those, 58% said their strategy is moderately or slightly different now versus pre-pandemic.

Most content marketers said their organizations value creativity and craft in content creation and production. Over the last year, many have been asked to do more with the same resources. Half of all respondents said it has become increasingly difficult to capture their audience’s attention. But 29% of respondents said their organization was extremely or very successful with content marketing in the last 12 months. The top contributing factor was the value their content provides.

Team Structure & Outsourcing

As we’ve found in past years, many organizations have small or one person content marketing teams serving the entire organization. Large companies (1,000+ employees) are the exception.

How does the work get done? The data suggests that many companies are both outsourcing content marketing work and asking internal staff with other responsibilities to take on more. However, those who have dedicated internal content marketing resources tend to be more successful with content marketing.

Outsourcing trends

In a consistent year-over-year trend, around half of all surveyed used outsourcing. The percentage was higher for large companies and lower among the least successful. It makes sense that the least successful are doing more content marketing work in-house, as many from that group are in the early phases of content marketing maturity and may be laying the foundations internally before seeking outside help.

The challenges with outsourcing were finding partners with adequate topical expertise, finding partners who understand/can empathize with our audience, and budget issues.

Companies did whatever it took to grab content. Some lost some staff and others took on more work to make things work in their company.

Content Creation & Distribution

One thing that changed during work-from-home was collaboration.

The top technologies B2B organizations use to assist with content marketing are analytics tools (83%), social media publishing/analytics (80%), email marketing software (75%), and content creation/calendaring/collaboration/ workflow tools (73%).

As you see below, content assets have changed a little in the years. Short articles, videos, and virtual events became more popular during the pandemic and are here to stay. But the best results from content created were virtual events, research reports, and short articles.

The best video formats include virtual events, interviews with industry experts and how-to videos.

When it comes to marketing, some businesses do not like to spend a ton of money on it. Below are the top organic platforms B2B marketers used to distribute content.

The top 5 social media platforms were:

1. LinkedIn
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. YouTube
5. Instagram

Among the respondents whose organizations used paid content distribution channels, 77% used social media advertising/promoted posts.

Metrics & Goals

Three out of four respondents (75%) said their organization measures content performance. Those who measure said website engagement (69%), conversions (67%), website traffic (65%), and email engagement (64%) provided the most insight into B2B content performance in the last 12 months.

ROI is key in a business. Among the 75% of respondents who measured content performance, 36% indicated they’re doing an excellent or very good job.

Some of the goals marketers achieved include:

1. Brand awareness
2. Build credibility/trust
3. Educate audience(s)
4. Build loyalty with existing clients/customers
5. Generate leads

Looking More into 2022

The top four content marketing-related areas that marketers said would be most important to their organizations in 2021 and 2022 were:

1. Changes to SEO/search algorithms (62%)
2. Data management/analytics (50%)
3. Content marketing as a revenue center (44%)
4. Changes to social media algorithms (42%)

Algorithms have been named a top concern in our past research, but data management/analytics has overtaken that in importance.

8 Key Takeaways

1. The pandemic prompted new strategies to capture audience attention.
2. Small teams are still the norm.
3. Outsourcing budgets appear to have freed up a big, and the biggest challenge was finding partners with topical expertise
4. Virtual events and webinars produced the best results.
5. Marketers spent more on paid content promotion.
6. Content marketing budgets grew — and are expected to continue to grow.
7. Changes to SEO/search algorithms and data management/analytics are top-of-mind issues in 2021/2022.
8. In addition to spending more on events, marketers expect more investment in videos, owned-media assets, and paid media in 2022.

For more information on these findings, download the full report here.

Additional Content Marketing Resources

Complete Guide To Build Links With Content Marketing

11 High-Converting Content Frameworks To Model in 2022

5 Content Frameworks That Drive Quality Leads

The post Content Marketing Study – 2022 B2B appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers manage various tasks throughout the day. They should measure results, develop strategy, meet deadlines, and execute deliverables without getting distracted. So, how do they juggle all of those responsibilities?

When it comes to B2B marketing and sales, your marketing technology stack can make a difference in efficiency and productivity. Plus, it keep things up-to-date for you. So, if you’re a B2B marketer who wants to streamline sales and marketing, below are some of the solutions you should consider:

1. Project Management Tools

In terms of critical B2B activities, it’s tough to achieve a real return on investment (ROI) until you focus on alignment and break down crucial business goals. Since there are teams involved in running a business, it’s best to keep all your teams on the same page when working on a project. With this in mind, a project management tool may come in handy to streamline efforts and coordination, thereby enabling better results and reducing conflicts.

Project management tools are often used to create better planning, where you can schedule tasks among the team members and link the deadlines to them. Such tools also provide an overview of the projects and data registered in a single interface.

2. Content Marketing Software

For B2B companies, content marketing plays an essential role in building brand awareness, connecting with customers, and improving search engine visibility. As you start to advance your content marketing strategies, there’s a need to measure, implement, and plan your content marketing campaigns. In this case, you’ll need to use content marketing software.

A good content marketing solution can help increase your conversions by helping you deliver valuable content to the right group of audience at the right time. With this, it’ll help build trust and nurture your leads.

3. Accounting Software

Accounting and financial processes are some of the most crucial operations that businesses perform, which serve as the primary backbone of business activities. Therefore, having a solid B2B accounting software solution is necessary. With this solution, you can improve, accelerate, and streamline accounting-related processes, which can deliver measurable and dramatic value to your business.

One of the best things about using accounting software for B2B companies is that it helps maintain compliance. A good accounting solution allows you to keep up with the regulatory standards with its features, such as transaction tracking, reporting and analysis, data management, and auditing. It also ensures data accuracy, which reduces the errors caused by tedious and manual data entry.

Accounting solutions can also increase staff productivity by reducing the burden placed on your finance team members. With their functionalities, it’s possible to automate routine and manual tasks and help you stay updated with your taxes.

4. Sales Management Software

Another solution to consider if you want to streamline your B2B marketing and sales is sales management software. Designed to help increase lead conversions and simplify sales activities, it has more to offer for B2B companies.

With sales management software, it provides you a great view of your customers. It offers accurate customer service, sales, and marketing information to your business, so your department stays organized and in sync. Sales management software enables you to make well-informed decisions based on up-to-date and real-time information with detailed customer preferences and characteristics.

Since data is easily projected and managed in sales management tools, it’s also not impossible for B2B marketers to generate accurate sales forecasts. This can provide great relief for all sales managers.

In addition, sales management software makes it simpler to determine qualified leads and focus on them. You and your sales team can monitor the progress and status of your sales and of your leads because the information you need can be viewed in a single interface. The best sales management software comes with a drag-and-drop feature that allows you to manage your sales and organize leads based on their status.

5. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions

CRM solutions aren’t strictly sales tools. B2B marketers may use these tools for several tasks, such as targeted marketing, campaign management, and audience segmentation.

With the right CRM solutions, there are various benefits you can enjoy. One of these is better visibility. A CRM tool can give your team members effortless visibility over where your prospects are in the pipeline, providing them a better view of what leads are more likely to convert.

CRM solutions also reduce the admin burden of your B2B sales team. With their features, you don’t need to spend more time nurturing low-prospect leads and pulling together data, which may result in new holes in your sales funnel. For this reason, all your efforts are more targeted, which improves your marketing and sales alignment.

CRM also provides opportunities to leverage customer data profitably. It can help improve your sales funnel and turn it into a profit-driving and actionable tool.

6. Marketing Automation Software

While CRM is what most B2B marketers prefer for sales, it’s also an excellent idea to consider marketing automation software. It helps B2B companies to streamline the marketing and help refine all marketing strategies based on the performance and data. It also automates daily tasks, such as social media posting, emails, and lead generation activities.

While marketing professionals use marketing automation tools frequently, it’s essential for the sales team as well. It helps your sales team members automate sales, mainly when there’s a lengthy buying process.

7. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Software

ABM has helped many B2B companies to build personalized and scalable marketing campaigns. It also allows companies to take an account-specific approach and measure the results against the set key performance indicators (KPI).

To achieve great results with account-based marketing strategies, you should back them with an ABM solution that will provide accurate data. With a well-defined target audience and data, your marketing team can better evaluate and categorize leads using ABM, enabling you to boost your lead generation results.

8. Video Conferencing Software

As B2B companies manage expenses in the pre-sale method, one of the contributors to the costs is demos and meetings at client sites. For this reason, businesses prefer video conferences for online meetings and sharing their offerings.

Video conferencing tools also help reduce communication issues with remote clients, stakeholders, and team members. With today’s pandemic, many conferences and events are called off globally. As a solution, more businesses arrange video conferences instead.

Several tools also come with audio recording and screen sharing features for an excellent user experience. With the different paid and free tools available for video conferencing, searching for the best one for your needs can be both stressful and time-consuming. So, make sure to choose wisely to meet your communication needs when doing sales and marketing activities.

9. Social Media Management Tools

When it comes to B2B marketing and sales, social media is a powerful tool. This is especially true if your company works with different clients using various social media channels daily. Unfortunately, social media management isn’t as easy as writing a short post with a beautiful photo. To achieve success, you need to have strategy, precision, creativity, and tactics.

Luckily, you can use some social media management tools to efficiently and easily manage your content across various channels. Depending on your needs, most tools can give you a hand in community management, social listing, reporting, and publishing content.

With a social media management tool, you can also schedule posts ahead of time. As a B2B marketer, it can be challenging to post on every social media platform. It’s not only time-consuming, but you also need to craft the type of content suited for the platforms to grow your business and reach your goals.

By using a social media management tool, things will be much easier for you since it’s possible to visualize what you’ll be posting and align them with your goals. It also saves your time and keeps up with the round-the-clock nature of social media. So, if you don’t want to spend more time publishing content on social media channels manually, it’s time to invest in an excellent social media management tool.

Even if this kind of solution is an additional expense to your business, it can help you achieve your B2B marketing and sales goals. Just be sure to use the tool that will fit your needs.

10. Customer Service Software

The other solution that can help streamline your B2B marketing and sales is the use of customer service software. This tool can help ensure smooth outbound and inbound communication across various channels and resolve problems.

The best customer service software often includes tools for live chat, help desk, ticket management, and customer service. Such improve customer experience helps you generate new leads.

At present, there are many customers service tools you can consider. They vary by platform type, scale, compatibility, features, and industry use. However, if your budget is tight, you can first start using the free ones for your marketing and sales tactics.

Conclusion

Engaging with potential customers is never easy for most B2B companies. Fortunately, with the solutions above, you’ll be able to streamline your marketing and sales, making things easier for you. While it’s not the complete list, it’s an excellent start. Implementing new technology for your business processes might seem challenging, but it can help your company grow over time.

The post 10 Solutions to Streamline B2B Marketing And Sales appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

As reported by Forbes on September 22^nd, 2020 by Elizabeth Shea.

Why B2B Reviews Should Be An Essential Part of Your Marketing Mix

No matter what industry you’re in, gaining third-party validation and customer reviews is important. Just like a consumer is more likely to buy a well-received product on Amazon or Travelocity, your customers are more apt to purchase your services if you have peer groups and other customers actively touting the benefits of working with your company and its solutions.

Statistics show that 92% of business-to-business (B2B) buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review, and displaying five product reviews can increase conversion rates by 270% compared to having no product reviews.

Building Trust — And A Customer Base

To improve your organization’s chances of getting noticed, ensure that your company is prominently featured on one of the many sites that specialize in corporate and product reviews. A positive review can go a long way toward building your clientele and engendering trust between you and your customers.

Most of these sites will give you the added bonus of better search engine visibility. Just as a consumer searching for restaurant reviews on Google will likely be directed to Yelp, there’s a good chance that an IT decision-maker searching for a technology product will be presented with a list of results that include at least one or two of the top B2B review sites.

For example, my company, REQ, has relied heavily on Clutch reviews over the past few years, and it’s been one of our organization’s bigger lead generators. Some of the new clients we work with first noticed us on this review site. A few other review sites to explore include G2, Capterra (perfect for product reviews), Serchen, GetApp (a great solution if you’re looking to market an app that you’ve developed), TrustRadius and GoodFirms (like Clutch, an ideal resource for services companies).

Why, When And How To Ask For A Review

Consumer organizations never hesitate to ask their customers to leave a review, and neither should you. Indeed, I’ve found that most clients are flattered and delighted to share positive feedback when I ask them to write a review for REQ.

It’s best to inquire whenever you’ve done something extraordinary. For us, that could come in the form of a big story we were able to place, a great marketing piece that has generated a lot of leads or simply by delivering an exceptional experience over a period of time.

While basking in that glow, pick up the phone (calls are more personal than email and give you a chance to interact) and politely ask your client if they’d be willing to leave a review. Have a candid conversation and collect their feedback. Learn what they like about you (as well as things you could improve upon) and take this time to answer any questions they may have. Consider making things personal by asking them if they’d like to recognize the efforts of a specific team member. This will give you the opportunity to shape your customer’s review, rather than relying on an unsolicited post that may not reflect your messaging.

After your customer leaves a positive review, do something in return for them — a thank you note, bottle of wine or a different gesture to show your appreciation. It’s yet another way to build your relationship.

Which Sites Are Best?

Focus on review sites that provide you with some measure of control. For example, there are many sites on which anyone can provide feedback without asking your permission. Other sites may require clients to interact with you before they post their reviews, giving you more control over what gets posted.

Remember that some review sites might be more appropriate for your organization, depending on the type of audience you wish to target. A Clutch review is going to reach marketing and IT services users, for example, while Google Reviews tend to be more general. Steer your clients toward sites that your potential prospects and customers are most likely to be reading.

While some sites are free or have free tiers, others offer premium subscriptions that provide more features. For a fee, you may be able to get expedited submissions, lead matching or a higher placement in site search results. Whether or not you choose to pay may largely depend on the readership of the site — a site that caters primarily to your industry, for example, might be worth the money if it leads to a greater number of leads.

What Not To Do

Reviews should be organic and come from the heart. Therefore, it’s generally not a good idea to offer incentives for reviews or seek out reviews to meet some sort of corporate directive. That can come off as disingenuous when you’re looking for authenticity.

Don’t ask clients to post reviews on multiple sites, which can easily get tiring for them. A single great review on the right site is enough.

Finally, don’t ignore negative reviews. Instead, use them as a chance to engage with your customer. Find out what happened to lead them to post that feedback. Do what you can to make it right. If you’re proactive, you can literally turn a negative into a positive.

An Essential Addition to Your Third-Party Marketing Mix

Companies generally seek third-party recognition and validation through analysts, influencer relations and media coverage, but adding peer- and user-generated feedback to this marketing mix can help you take things to a new level. A positive review can create goodwill between you and your client and, since they’re public record, be used in sales collateral. They’ll give you a better chance at converting new customers, building trust in your products and services and owning the categories that are most critical to your business.

Reviews are an essential when it comes to having a new customer or even a current customer.

Additional Reviews Resources

5 Examples How to Use Customer Reviews in Your Marketing Campaign (InstaPage)

Creating an online review management strategy (Sprout Social)

15 Strategies to Promote Positive Customer Reviews for Your Brand or Business (HubSpot)

The post B2B Reviews are Important appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Continue reading or consider checking out our lead generation or sales enablement services to grow your pipeline and get a marketing assessment to analyze your current workflows.

1. Page View

What are some of the key pages on your website and what do they tell you about your visitors? You can brainstorm “topic areas” you have on your website and send visitors unique, triggered emails based on their specific interests. Some topic area examples include:

• Industry (ex: manufacturing, distribution, etc.)
• Product content (ex: a specific software you offer, or a certain functionality)
• Prospect validation (ex: viewing your case studies, testimonials, etc.)

After you define some of your key topic areas, you can create a series of emails targeted to those visitors and establish a workflow to send them those emails. Targeted/segmented emails such as below have, on average, a 14.32% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click rate than non-segment campaigns (WordStream).

In the example below, we are enrolling visitors to our ‘Distribution industry’ page in a workflow that contains a series of 4 emails:

• Email 1 – Do you have any questions? A simple, text-based email asking the visitor if they have any questions on our distribution offering and offering some additional resources.
• Email 2 – A link to a read a distribution blog on our site.
• Email 3 – A link to download a distribution whitepaper on our site.
• Email 4 – A link to a distribution case study on the website with a invitation to request a demo or consultation.

Bonus: you can update contact properties (ex: industry) based on page views too!

2. Downloads or Form Submissions

This workflow uses similar logic to the ‘Page View’ one above. If a visitor downloads something on your website like a guide or whitepaper, demo, attends a webcast, etc., you can establish a series of highly-targeted emails that continues to nurture them with additional content or promotion for future events.

In the example below, the visitor has downloaded our “Guide to Financial Management for CFOs”. From this download, we can make two assumptions about the prospect: 1) they are a CFO or in a finance position, and 2) they are interested in financial management topics/improving their existing finance processes.

• Email 1 – Thank you email. A simple, text-based email asking the visitor if they have any questions on the download, a link to access the download at any time, and offering some additional resources
• Email 2 – An email with a link to an article: 10 Tips For Automating Your Financial Management Processes
• Email 3 – A link to another whitepaper on the site: 2020 Trends all CFOs Need to Know
• Email 4 – A link to a financial management case study on the website with a brief product overview and invitation to request a demo or consultation.

We send the thank you email on a very slight delay, and then delay emails 2-4 for at least 7 days each.

You can take the example above and apply it to nearly any industry, application, or topic. The key is to make the content extremely relevant to the original download!

Now, HubSpot does allow you to setup or schedule follow-up emails directly within the form editor. Within the forms tool, you can schedule up to three follow-up emails (with delays) for a specific form. However, these will all be simple, text-based emails without the full functionality available within the HubSpot drag and drop editor. A couple of other downsides to establishing follow-ups via the form is you won’t have the option to set goals, and therefore, conversions, and add any final automated steps to the end of the email series like updating contact properties.

3. Form Abandonment

Don’t let a form stop your prospects from downloading or consuming your content. After all, you already have their contact information!

If one of your contacts views a page with a form, but does not submit it – you can setup a workflow to email them the content “un-gated”. Be sure to monitor the prospects activity to see if they DO consume the content after being sent the un-gated version.

In the example below, the prospect has viewed our on-demand demo video page but did not fill out the form. We would love for them to watch the demo to move them further down the funnel and don’t want the “intimidating” form to discourage them. Therefore, we sent them an email that contains a link to watch it directly. Even better, you can use an ‘If/Then’ branch to send a followup email based on the action they take (ex: watching/engaging with the content vs. not).

• Email 1 – A simple, text-based email with content similar to: I saw you had interest in a demo.. You can watch it directly at this link: ___.
• Email 2 – A thank you message/followup email sent to those that watch the demo: “Thanks for watching the demo.. if you have any questions, or would like to setup a custom demo..” with a link to some additional resources.

Bonus: enroll a contact in one of your nurture workflows, or update their lifecycle stage based on an action taken in this workflow!

4. Assigning Leads to Your Sales Team for New Contacts

This workflow will vary depending on the size of your sales staff, your qualification process, sales team segmentation, and other factors. The good news is that this workflow is very flexible and can accommodate nearly any sales process. Check out some of the different use cases below to update the contact’s owner automatically.

If you have a 1-person sale team, you can simply assign the lead to that person. Alternatively, we have come across clients where 1 person on the team does the qualification and assignment of new leads. In that scenario, you can also simply assign the lead to that contact, who can then reassign it after they go through their qualification process:

If you have a larger sales team, you may want to rotate the leads between your team members. This workflow will allow you to evenly distribute assignments amongst a team or specific owners. In the example below, we are rotating the leads evenly between our US-based team:

Please note, this functionality will require you to have a Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise account.

And finally, you may want to use some of the information about the prospect to assign to your proper sales team member. For example, if the prospect is located in Illinois, you would want to assign to your sales rep that covers that geographic area. Or, if they are interested in a specific product, you would want to assign it to the sales rep for that product. And so on. Be sure to add a small delay after enrollment to make sure that HubSpot has updated the appropriate field before the if/then branches start working.

5. Setting Lead Status

When someone fills out a form on your website, their lead status is left blank by default. However, the lead status can be such a useful field for segmentation down the line that we would recommend leveraging it. If used correctly, you can ensure your team is contacting new leads or following up on leads that are in progress.

Here is how to set the lead status to “New”:

Now, you can update that lead status to “In Progress” after your sales team has engaged with the lead. This workflow will update the lead status after any activity (email, call, meeting, or note) has occurred on the contact record.

6. Changing Lifecycle Stage

We work with many clients who handle moving contacts through lifecycle stages in HubSpot manually based on their unique sales process. For example, they will move a prospect from ‘Qualify’ to ‘Develop’ after a phone or email conversation takes place. 

However, sometimes larger clients with a larger volume of leads need to handle this automatically in order to ensure their sales team is focusing on the most important leads. In order to achieve this you can use Lead Scoring. In short, lead scoring is when you automatically assign values (scores) to leads based on the actions they take on your website like the amount of times they’ve visited your website, form submissions, number of page views, engagement with emails, and so much more. Stay tuned for our blog post on more tips for setting up lead scoring in HubSpot. 

You can see how some of the actions described previously can indicate how “interested” or “warm” a lead is. Therefore, it is a great metric for moving prospects to a new lifecycle stage or even assigning to a different team.

In the example below, we have switched the lifecycle stage from a marketing qualified lead (MQL) to a sales qualified lead (SQL) after they reach a lead score of 20. Also, we switched the contact owner from a member of the ‘Marketing’ team to the ‘Sales’ team.

7. Nurturing Prospects

In between “lead generation” and closing the sale lies the critical middle ground – where lead nurturing is required to move prospects through the funnel:

• 66% of buyers indicate that “consistent and relevant communication provided by both sales and marketing organizations” is a key influence in choosing a solution provider (Genuis.com)
• 80% of new leads never translate into sales and companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost (Invesp)

And depending on your category (ex: enterprise software, government, etc.) the sales cycle may be longer and require even more touches, making nurturing your leads even more critical. HubSpot can help your team automate this in many ways – check out just two ideas below.

Lifecycle Stage

As part of your nurture strategy, it is important to tailor your content and communications to where prospects are at in your funnel (or their lifecycle stage in HubSpot). Your mission should be to use your content to guide your prospects toward eventual conversion. Intuitively, you can infer what some of those content buckets might look life:

• Top of the funnel (subscriber, lead, marketing qualified lead): educational content like blogs, webinars, guides, videos, etc.
• Middle of the funnel (sales qualified lead): educational content + validation content like case studies, demo videos, product descriptions or data sheets
• Bottom of the funnel (opportunity): educational content + validation content + value proposition content like product-specific information, testimonials, reviews, etc.

In the example below, we are leveraging a HubSpot workflow to automatically enroll contacts in an email series when they move from a MQL to a SQL. There are 10 emails in total, that deliver every 3 weeks. This will ensure they receive a consistent stream of content relevant to their position in the funnel with the aim of moving them to the next stage.

Be sure to update your Unenrollment and suppression settings if you use this type of workflow. In the example above, I would want to remove them from my previous stage workflow (MQL) to ensure they don’t receive emails in that workflow any longer.

Vertical Workflows

Using the same idea or logic as above, you can offer even MORE tailored content to your prospects to move them through your funnel. One great example of this is industry. If you sell a product/software that has multiple industry applications – send them content relevant to their industry!

Like above, we are leveraging a HubSpot workflow to automatically enroll contacts in an email series when they move from a MQL to a SQL. However, we are adding another enrollment criteria – their industry. Again, we created here 10 emails in total, that deliver every 3 weeks. Now, the emails we are sending are not only specific to their position in the funnel but their industry as well. So when we email them about a blog – the topic of the blog is specific to the distribution industry, the case study we send them is specific to the distribution industry, etc.

Make sure to set a goal for these (and all) workflows! In this specific example, my goal would be for the contact property ‘Lifecycle Stage’ to move from SQL to the next stage.

Some other ideas for further segmenting prospects beyond lifecycle stage or industry include:

• Company size
• Job title
• Product line they are interested in

8. Engage Neglected Prospects

Don’t let prospects fall through the cracks! You can create a workflow to remind your sales team to reach out to a contact if it has been a certain amount of time since they’ve last been contacted.

In the example below, we have created a task for a sales team member for them to check in with a prospect if it has been more than 12 weeks since they’ve last been contacted. To ensure the sales team is focusing on “higher priority” leads, we’ve also added additional criteria to ensure the prospects meet our qualification minimums.

Similarly, you could attempt to re-engage inactive contacts with an email about an exclusive offer or discount you are offering. For this, you could use a variety of enrollment criteria such as:

• The length of time since their last website visit (ex: more than 6 months)
• The length of time since their last email click/open
• Etc.

9. Important Internal Notifications/Tasks

Is your sales team using the HubSpot activity feed? If so, they may be already getting a wealth of information like when their prospects perform specific activities like opening/clicking an email, visiting your website, filling out a form, etc. With this (potential) overload of information, it may be possible to miss something.

You can use workflows to setup a notification or create a task when a prospect visits a key page or takes a key action. This can ensure your sales team follows up immediately and doesn’t miss anything.

• Create a task for a HubSpot user
• Send an internal SMS to a HubSpot user
• Send notification (in-app alert or mobile push) to teams or users
• Send internal email

In the example below, we have set up an email notification when a prospect views the demo page:

Be sure that the internal notification email template contains as much important information about the lead as possible to make it even easier for the sales team to follow up – at minimum their first name, last name, company name, phone number, last conversion, and a link to the full contact record.

10. New Customer

When someone moves from a lead to an official customer there are a ton of processes that will now need to start. You can use workflows to handle some of that busy work. Here are some common ones we use:

Add them to your customer list – We like doing this for a couple of reasons. First, data hygiene is critical and it is important to have an updated list of your customers. We use this specific customer list to send important company updates like closures, product updates, and more. Second, we suppress the customer list on a lot of our marketing communications. This is a quick and simple way to ensure customers don’t receive the wrong message.

Update Lead Status – Once a contact becomes a customer you can update their lead status to ‘Closed’ to ensure no other sales people try to follow up.

Update Contact Owner – Now that the sales process is complete you may want to move the owner of the account from the sales person to a member of your customer service team. You can do that using a workflow like below:

Send emails – When a contact becomes a customer a number of processes now need to take place. Depending on your product/service, you may want to send a contract, onboarding email, a series of training emails, or even try to upsell a customer at a later point. All of these scenarios are a possibility with HubSpot workflows – you can send an email (or a series of emails) when a contact becomes a customer.

In the example below, a customer success teams sends an email 6 months after the contact becomes a customer soliciting a testimonial and to provide a satisfaction survey. Then, at the 1 year mark, they send an “anniversary” email thanking them for being a customer, etc.

There you have it! These are just 10 workflows that can set your sales team up for success, while saving time. To measure the success of your workflows, make sure you set a goal for every single one! A workflow goal is the ultimate objective of your contact-based workflow. When an enrolled contact meets the workflow goal criteria, they are automatically unenrolled from the workflow.

Looking for More Leads?

If you need help developing content to support these robust workflows, or optimizing your HubSpot for lead generation or sales, contact us. Or register for a free marketing assessment. Your custom consultation includes a complete marketing assessment, in-depth Website/SEO analysis, and marketing plan recommendations that will help you dramatically increase website traffic quality and quantity, leverage a systematic process for identifying marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and converting to sales qualified leads (SQLs), and more.

The post 10 HubSpot Workflows Every Sales Team Needs appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.