There continues to be a dramatic shift in how technology buyers educate themselves on new solutions. Once very dependent on sales professionals for the majority of the education process, buyers are now using search techniques, emails, blogs, videos, webinars, and social media for this process.
With digital technology occupying a larger percentage of marketing resources mainstays like direct mail have become less prevalent but have remained highly effective if employed strategically. Mass mailers are not the answer as a more strategic approach will show the highest return on investment. Since fewer companies invest in direct mail campaigns they have become a unique way to grab the attention of your most sought after prospects. Here we’ve identified the essential aspects of a modern direct mail marketing.
The sales funnel has long been an important tool in every marketer’s repertoire. Used as a way to gauge where a prospect is on their path to making a purchase, the sales funnel influences what types of content to distribute to a prospect, how to engage with them, and when to make a live touch. Hubspot has redefined the sales funnel and coined it as “The Buyer’s Journey”. Rather than breaking this up into the traditional top, middle and bottom of the funnel, the buyer’s journey is divided into the awareness, consideration and decision stages. Each stage has unique identifiers and approaches to draw your prospects toward making a purchase. Lead nurturing has become an essential part of marketing. With nurtured leads providing higher conversion rates, it’s important to guide prospects through each step of their purchasing decision. Many prospects place a big emphasis on the relationships they build along their journey to making a purchase. When using a multi-channel marketing approach, there are a myriad of ways to communicate with potential customers. We’ve outlined below how to identify which stage a prospect is in and how to most effectively market to them.
A multi-channel marketing program can be defined as communicating with and attracting prospects through a multitude of online and offline sources. With potential customers having access to an endless amount of information, and dozens of ways to obtain that information, it’s important you employee a multi-channel strategy to ensure your content is reaching its intended target audience. Below we’ve outlined the different aspects needed to run an effective multi-channel marketing program.
Lead nurturing has become increasingly important in today’s information filled world. With so many options for customers to turn to, and so many avenues for them to find solutions, it’s important to keep your product or services in the front of their minds. There are many different types of lead nurturing campaigns, all of which help to guide prospects through the sales cycle. With the varying stages of the buyers journey requiring different types of content, having a platform with the ability to automate these types of campaigns is an invaluable tool to marketers. Hubspot allows marketers to create email workflows that are set to go out depending upon what customers open, click or download.
These workflows create a drip effect for your sales funnel, enabling your marketing team to focus on content that will drive these prospects towards conversion. That being said, each stage of the buyers journey and each buyer persona will require a unique lead nurturing approach. While each of these can be tailored to your specific business and the length of your sales cycle, these are the basic types of workflows your company should look to develop.
