Lead Quantity and Quality, You Can Have Both

Marketers know by now that a set-it-and-forget-it or a mass marketing strategy will almost never work – not if you want a high return on investment anyway. But what is the opposite of that then?

Marketing today means getting the right message to the right person at the right time. But it’s implementing a marketing automation program that can strategically deliver content to make that happen – and deliver both lead volume and lead quality.

Take a look at how our partners at Caterpillar did just that.

A Global Leader Leverages Marketing Automation

Caterpillar Marine is a global leader in Marine Power System products and Global Dealer Network support. In order to start driving more leads, a marketing automation campaign was launched to support lead generation and nurturing. But, it’s what comes next that was key to increasing Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL).

Shortly after launch, the marketing team worked with Simantel to leverage insights to better inform their content strategy. In fact, Cat Marine experienced an 82.5 percent increase in MQLs sent to the sales team from 2016 to 2017.

This increase is largely due to effectively integrating content marketing with marketing automation. While this seems like a no brainer, there are still brands that consider marketing automation an IT function, rather than a function of their marketing department.

And what we found with Cat Marine is what works for readers one month, may not suit them the next. That is why setting up programs that enable brands to be agile is key.

Bringing Together Marketing and Sales

Customers aren’t the only ones who win when marketing automation is employed. Cat Marine saw better alignment between their marketing and sales teams. Not only did they experience an increase in lead volume, but they also found a consistent increase in “accept” status of the leads being sent to their sales department, when looking at 2017 compared to 2016.

The visibility into how leads were viewed by the sales team also armed the marketing and product management teams with a better understanding of what content they need to focus on revising, refreshing or rethinking altogether.

This alignment between sales and marketing is something that customers don’t see, but expect. Customers assume their sales rep knows what marketing materials they are receiving, just like they expect the marketing materials and promotions to reflect their conversations with their sales rep.

Why Invest?

So why should brands invest in a marketing automation plan? Because it’s not only valuable to your customer, but also critical to take your brand to the next level when navigating the waters of the single customer view. Marketing automation helps customize online marketing based on behavior and deepens a brands online relationship with their customers.

Where do you start you ask? That’s a question that doesn’t have just one answer. It depends on insight into customer personas, brand positioning within the marketplace, your business goals and whether your business is B2B or B2C, among other factors.