Insights: The Circle of Life: Marketing and Sales By: Zach Batastini March, 2017
Page 2 Circle of Life: Sales and Marketing Introduction For more than half of my life I have been a challenge seeker, problem solver, and an incubator for all sorts of ideas. Originating in the I.T field, I quickly got bored with the monotony of the job and set forth an exploration for a field that would tap more on my characteristics as a person. I Never would have thought that field would be Marketing but have embraced the challenges, problems, and love seeing my ideas come to life! One of the biggest challenges that lived within our organization, and many others, is reporting on the entire life-cycle of a prospect from entry to exit, and all the touches in between. It isn t as complicated as it sounds, just take a look at the steps we as a Marketing Team followed and see how closed-loop reporting can help you. Step 1. Visitor Arrives on Website: Let s Start Tracking! The first visit to your site is the entry point of the closed-loop cycle. Once the visitor initially clicks on your website, a cookie tracks the visitor and the source of that visitor. This allows you to know which campaign or channel the lead started as they progress through the stages of marketing and sales. This applies to any campaign, whether it is print collateral that uses a URL to drive them to your site, an email campaign, or organic search--allowing you to track their original source. So, what does this look like? The example below shows you traffic by channel in SplashBI with the connections to the various marketing platforms that are being used. This data identifies trends and is color coded based on channels including organic search, email, social media, etc. for easy comparison. Having this comparison means that top traffic sources can be identified, and quickly shows those that may be underperforming so that actions can be taken.
Page 3 By making your website your central hub for all your marketing activities, you will be able to easily close the loop. That means filtering all campaigns to your website: organic search, social media marketing, email marketing, referral links, paid search, and as mentioned before, offline campaigns including print or trade show collateral. Why? Because you will then be able to put a cookie on them and track their activity once they visit your site. How do you know where they came from? You accomplish this by assigning a tracking URL at the end of the landing page's HTML address. Most of the analytics systems in the market will give you the basic information on referring websites and the most common search terms for the source, but you need to be more specific. Without the tracking URL, the visitors may appear as if they are coming from direct search, so you won't really be able to measure a campaign's effectiveness. While different systems employ varying versions of the token to add to the URL, here is an example of what a token would look like for a Google Analytics campaign: Example: utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=name By adding this token to the page's URL, this tells the analytics system you use that the visitor came from an Ad on Adwords. If you are using a URL for a print campaign and want to make it simpler for the person to enter, a little tip is to create a vanity URL that redirects to the tracking URL, or just use bit.ly to shorten it. Some systems, like Pardot for instance, will create a shortened URL for you if you have the bit.ly connector installed. While Pardot allows you to quickly generate tracking URLs for your campaigns and integrates with Google Analytics, if you aren't utilizing Pardot you can create a tracking URL in Google Analytics directly. Step 2. Tracking the Visitor Actions While you track where the vistors are coming from, you want to also track the visitor's actions and behavior on your website. Understanding what they are viewing and their actions on your
Page 4 site helps to establish a path, and as you move forward you can utilize this to optimize how quickly a visitor becomes a lead or customer. The important part, and really the trickiest, is making sure you connect the visitor's session once they convert by filling out a form for an offer. Otherwise, you'll end up with two autonomous databases: one with the anonymous visitor's actions and one with the lead information. This is a problem because you won't be able to truly track the conversions from your marketing campaign. To fix this problem, you should utilize software that can quickly bring together the two databases seamlessly and effortlessly, keeping that loop closed. Once the visitor becomes a lead, you will want to see the historical timeline for the conversion as well all the way back to its source. Step 3. Conversion Point: Form Filled The only way sales can close a lead is if you are able to know who they are, so you have to convert a visitor to a lead. You can do this by sending the visitor to a landing page and offering them content in exchange for them telling you a bit about themselves via a form submission. You will collect starting information that will always include at a minimum their email, and other information (industry, phone number, business role, etc.) that can help you know them better and continue to nurture them to a sales qualified lead This is essential in closing the loop because it allows you to tie closed customers back to their original entry source. Step 4. Closing the Deal Once the sale is completed, you still must close the loop. Which visits turned into sales and which marketing channels contributed to the sales? You will identify which campaigns and activities that brought the most revenue as well as which brought the least. This information and tracking means you not only know the full loop but you can use this to optimize further or even for other sources. To do this, it just means looking at all your acquired leads that sales could close, and connecting them back to the original marketing campaign initiative. If you follow the four steps outlined in this article, it is very straightforward. The best way to close the loop is using a Business Intelligence tool that can connect the data from your Marketing Systems to your CRM (customer relationship management) system. BI platforms, like SplashBI, help you trace the customer back to the original marketing initiative as well as the entire sales cycle opening the realm of possibilities for insight and growth.
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