With the ever-shifting business environment of today, it can sometimes be hard to justify taking the time to carefully measure, deliberately strategize and consistently review our marketing automation using online CRM.
In fact, in the digital world, many would say that data is everywhere and the cost of making changes is low…so maybe it is best to “cut” to a theoretical marketing method and then “measure” what works. The comic strip Dilbert has an opinion about this principle.
What Should be Measured First?
Determine the dimensions of your ideal client. Without being really clear about who you want to reach most of your marketing automation can be a waste of money. If you have metrics established in your online CRM, you have a world of valuable data for determining the persona of those clients. It is most valuable to carefully craft a clear persona of the age, gender, goals, position within the company, education levels, etc.
Even in the poorly implemented online CRM software you can find nuggets of information that can guide your clarity about what kind of customer is worth duplicating. The concept of “measure twice, cut once” comes from the carpentry profession. A good carpenter does not waste good building material on estimated dimensions. Running a good email campaign can just as easily waste good time and resources if you have not concisely identified the sales leads you want to reach.
What Should Be Measured Second?
Marketing automation is most effective for the small to medium sized business when both the online CRM and the email delivery system are integrated. That way, you can track the effectiveness of your email campaign in a way that is specific to the individual sales lead. This measurement of response is your constant guidance system for what you need to cut or revise from your marketing automation.
Here is a simplified rundown of how you might set up your email campaign:
1. You have identified your best customers and developed a detailed persona of the sales leads you want to develop.
2. From that persona, you develop a plan suited to reaching that type of person or company. One of the easiest ways to duplicate those profitable clients is to get a list of contacts with the same characteristics as your ideal client persona from an online source.
The best contact source we have found is Lead Ferret for B2B email lists. All their contacts include email addresses and some of them include social media information. You can search by almost any criteria. Simply plug in the persona and see the number of contacts that show up. If you are a SalesNexus client, you can download 500 contacts each month at no cost.
3. Send an email to all the contacts you gather based on the persona. Make the email extremely short and sweet. Do not talk about your company, product or service. Instead, point the reader to a content piece that offers them information that is useful and appreciated. The content piece is not for selling either.
4. Use your online CRM to track who opens the email and who clicks on the link to the content piece. This is your trigger for sales people to call this fresh sales lead to qualify whether they are ready for a sales conversation. If the sales lead is qualified, set an appointment with them.
5. The vast majority of the sales leads will not qualify for an appointment. These sales leads need to be nurtured and educated with an email campaign designed to establish a relationship of trust.
The consumer of today wants to control the entire buying process. Online CRM with marketing automation that use the carpenter’s principal of measuring twice and cutting once has the potential of greatly increasing revenue. This is why it is called inbound marketing. The internet enabled buyer will often call you when they are ready to make a decision.