Facebook has announced that users can select custom URLs (also known as vanity URLS) from 13th June 2009. If you are using Facebook as one of your social networking tools for marketing and lead generation, please take!
Many social networking sites provide custom urls. For example, Twitter and MySpace provide this feature for a long time. Using a custom URL is very user friendly and easy to remember. Twitter.Com/MyName is much more easier to use and recollect, than Facebook.com/profile.php?id=2654801.
Here is the catch: if the Fan pages do not have more than 1000 fans, then custom url feature will not be available! Also the fan page must have been created before 5/31/2009. Once the URL is selecte, it cannot be changed.
Here are some more basic rules: Facebook usernames will be available in basic text forms, and you can only choose a single username for your profile and for each of the Pages that you administer. Your username must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop (”.”). While usernames are currently available only for Romanized text, we’re looking at how we might support non-Romanized characters in the future.
Facebook is also asking people with a trademarked or protected name to email them here to avoid the obvious issues.
Please go this page on Facebook for a detailed FAQ.
Most of the small businesses and entrepreneurs can find many prospects (or leads) in their own backyard -their past customers. They often forget the customers once the sale is made, payment is processed and product / service is delivered. While the profit margins may not support pampering of the customers and engaging them on constant basis (as done by few large customer centric businesses), tapping their shoulders once in a while in this virtual world is not a cost-prohibitive exercise.
Starter: Email Marketing
The moment “customer engagement” is mentioned, many of us jump to the conclusion that newsletter communications with Email Marketing is the only cost effective way. While there is no denying that email marketing is a great tool in the hands of customer engagement managers, we have to remember that email marketing is an one way street. Information is fed by the marketing organization to the customers. Email Marketing Campaign Analytics data does provide an insight into the customers’ interest and engagement. Metrics such as email open rates, click rates and unsubscription rates helps to understand whether the customers are reading the email communications and the level of interest.
High Pedestal: Social Networking Media
However there is no way to have a conversation with them. Social Networking and Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Forums and Blogs stand taller than email marketing in the conversation aspect. You can hear their feedback, comments, opinions and complaints by listening to the customers’ conversations in the social media, if you have a good presence in these communities. With a plethora of social networking media crowding the current market place, it is often difficult to catch the conversations in all corners of the Web 2.0.
Direct Dialog: Online Surveys
Remember that we are talking about your past customers, not some unknown, futuristic consumers or generation X or Y crowd. You have all the information about these customers in your database, you had positive experience in dealing with them, you made money out of their purchases, and you have their permission to talk to them – or to tap their shoulders. Then, why do you need spys in the social networking communities or use one way communications? In fact, most of your customers would love to interact with you.
Enter Online Survey solutions and Customer Feedback Management systems. You can reach directly speak with them and request them to provide their feedback. You can segment the customers based on their profile (already available with you) and ask the right questions – relevant to them. Online survey planning, survey questionnaire design, data collection and results analysis takes only few minutes! And it costs (almost) nothing!
Interacting with customers with online survey tool takes many names:
- Customer Satisfaction Surveys
- Patient Satisfaction Surveys
- Website Usage Feedback Surveys
- Online Shopping Experience Surveys
- Incident Response Satisfaction Surveys
- Employee Performance Feedback Surveys
- Product Satisfaction Surveys
- Warranty Service Experience Surveys
- What Else Can We Do For You Serveys
By whatever name you call it, it all means the same – getting feedback from your customers, engaging them with product updates, and preparing them for the next sale!
The surveys can be made of simple one question poll, or 5 question quick survey or 30 question deep conversation. It depends on the customer segment, purpose of survey, relevancy of the survey, and customers’ interest in taking up the survey.
Don’t Over Do It
This rule applies for any marketing strategy – whether it is the (hated) telemarketing, email marketing, social networking posts or online surveys. Make sure that the right sized surveys are sent to right customer segment (target), at right time with right content. Do it right, the customers will keep coming back to you.
Voice of the Customers
Surveys (or reserach?) show that surveys are the most preferred medium / source to obtain information from the market. Here is some statistics from the 2009 Voice of the Customer Survey conducted by 1 to 1 Media:
Satisfaction Surveys – 44%
Focus Groups – 14%
Call Recording from Contact Center – 11%
Customer Advisory Board – 11%
Pulse Surveys – 4%
Net Promoter – 3%
Branded Online Community – 1%
Social Media Sites – 1%
Other Sources – 10%
Go ahead and leverage the online surveys to hear the voice of your customers and make some more money! Online Survey solutions come in all sizes, shapes and colors nowadays. You do not need any software to install or get trained. Go online, subscribe to a survey solution and design and deploy a survey in few minutes. Do spend sometime in analyzing your customer lists and suitable survey topics before hitting the go button. The software solutions provide real time survey data analysis and reporting for you to see the results as soon as your customer clicks the ‘Done’ button.
We all know that the most difficult aspect of Lead Management process is keeping the prospect engaged, especially when the sales cycle is long. In B2B (Business to Business) scenarios, keeping the leads’ interest in your products or services over a period of time consumes lot of efforts and resources for the businesses small and big. Obviously, the most effective way is for the field sales person keeping in touch with the prospect’s primary contact either in person or using telephone and email. However it may not be the most prudent way of utilizing the sales resources as these in high demand in terms of cost and time perspective.
Email Marketing
In B2C (Business to Consumer) scenarios, though the sales cycles are smaller, most of the lead followup and management processes are handled online. Allocating time and resources to engage the leads on an going basis is not easy for marketing professionals, small businesses and entrepreneurs. Here is where the practice of email marketing comes into use as a lead nurturing tool. Done right, email marketing can be a great tool in the hands of the marketer to inform, educate and engage the prospective customers. The cost of email marketing is significantly less when compared with modes of traditional marketing such as direct mails, telephone calls and in-person visits.
However, most of the internet / online marketers tend to overdo the email marketing and end up losing the prospects totally by poking the subscribers often. The leads will simply opt-out from the subscription list and terminate the relationship prematurely, even if they have genuine interest in your products or services. Remember the three Rs: Right Message, Right Frequency / Timing, Right Target Audience! If you don’t figure this out correctly, you will end up losing the leads, though your intentions are good!
Step into Web Surveys
Marketers are finding out that online survey is a great addition to the online marketing toolbox. Web based surveys can be used not only to inform the prospects, but also to seek opinions / feedback from them. Hence this is a great two way communication tool between you as a marketer and your lead, as the potential consumer of your offer.
Again, this is closely tied to email marketing, as the surveys are administered and taken via the internet. The survey invitations also delivered through email invites. Hence, exercise caution while deciding the audience, deciding the survey subject, designing the survey questionnaire and delivering invites.
As mentioned above, you can learn a lot from the survey responses and fine tune your services accordingly. Online surveys can be a great method as a special purpose tool for Lead Nurturing.
Integrated Lead Management Tool
LeadPro, a leading lead tracking and management software tool, has developed and integrated an Online Survey tool with its Lead Management and Email Marketing suite of marketing automation solutions. The major advantage of using an integrated solution is that you don’t need to keep importing and exporting lead data among several tools. The email list management feature is used for survey panel / target audience list management. The same lead lists in the database can be used for sending out survey invitations.
Targeting specific segments of prospects is a breeze with advanced filtering. For example, leads at a specific lead stage / activity can be targeted to deliver concise surveys.
Drip Email messages can be used to automatically deliver Survey Invitations as the leads move through the sales process.
The Survey Analytics, which provides access to summary level reports and individual responses, can become a lessons learned knowledge base for improving the products and services.
Web based, online Survey tools can be a valuable addition for marketers and lead administrators, if used judiciously and executed properly.
Lead Distribution – Push or Pull method?
The question discussed fiercely among lead management software / service providers and customers is still about the pros and cons of using Push and Pull methods for lead distribution to the follow-up team. Though most of the lead management software services incorporates both the methods, the controversy refuses to die down; it is not without a reason. Every lead slipped through the crack is a missed opportunity and will hit the top line.
What is Lead Distribution?
For the beginners or users who are just switching from Outlook or spreadsheet based tracking systems to lead management software, it is nothing more than a jargon. If your leads are originated from the Internet – through own websites or third party lead generation services – then your marketing / sales team does not have immediate visibility to the leads. In most of the cases, the leads land in somebody’s email inbox in the organization. Then, the sales team as well as the prospects are at the mercy of that some one!
The centralized, web based Lead Management Software systems (or services) help to aggregate and capture the leads in one central location and distribute the leads to the inside sales team or field sales team. The process of assigning leas to the sales team is referred as Lead Distribution. Another term used is Lead Assignment; yet another term used is Lead Routing.
Methods of Lead Distribution
A popular, widely used method is known as “Push” method of Lead Distribution. In this process, the lead management system distributes (or pushes) the leads to the sales team based on preset rules. Several rules are used by businesses depending on their respective business scenarios. The major criteria used for lead distribution is:
- By Geography (State, County, Metro Area, County, City, etc.)
- By Area Code
- By Full or Partial Zip Code
- By Sales team / area or agent
- By Sales Region / Office
- By Lead Profile (such as demography, authority, budget, etc.)
- By Round-robin rule
Once the distribution rules are set, the lead management system can automatically route the leads to the respective sales agents. Additional validation rules can also be set based on the complexity of the business requirements. For example, if an agent has a higher number of untouched or un-contacted leads, then the lead assignment to that agent can be avoided until the queue comes below the threshold limit.
Pull Method of Lead Assignment
Since there are several limitations in the “Push” method, many businesses have started following the “Pull” method for distributing leads. In this process, the leads are not pushed or distributed to the sales agents. Instead, the agents have to request and pull the lead from the common queue. This is similar to the “Pull” method and “Just In Time (JIT) Inventory” concept used in manufacturing sector.
How to choose the Lead Distribution method?
Most of the modern lead management systems, including LeadPro Lead Management Service, provide both the options to the customers. It is left to the customer to decide and pick the suitable process during the implementation of the system.
There are no hard and fast rules to decide the suitability of one or the other; it depends on the individual business. Even within the business verticals such as Mortgage industry, Real Estate professionals, and Debt, Credit, Insurance and other Financial services, a uniform rule can not be employed. Several factors such as business size, number of leads acquired, sales team size, vetting or lead qualification process followed by the marketing department and the past practices play a major role in choosing the lead distribution process.
A professional lead management consultant could be used to assess the current scenario, analyze the business requirements, blueprint the to-be process and arrive at a suitable lead management process to be followed. The decision should be made on solid business case rather than emotion and subjective judgment. The consultant can be from the lead management service provider or an independent consultant.
Convert Leads via Email Marketing
Everyone knows that Email Marketing is used to generate leads and build lists. However, many do not comprehend the power of using a email marketing tool to increase the conversion rates. Unless leads are converted to customers, there is no meaning in acquiring a large list or buying costly leads through various sources.
Conversion Rates
Research has proved that 70% of leads acquired are either not contacted or poorly followed-up resulting in poor conversion rates. Unfortunately marketers are content with small conversion rates. The reason could be they are so used the direct marketing conversion rates (1% to 2%). In the internet world, the conversion rates can be much higher and the cost of conversion can be much cheaper.
Email Marketing
The prospects can be groomed and nurtured and converted to customers using Email Marketing tool such as LeadPro which integrates email marketing and lead management in one solution.
Email Marketing is not simply bombarding the prospects with email messages to sell products or services. The following factors are critical in email marketing:
- Relevancy of content
- Frequency of emails
- Timing of email
Sophisticated features are available with most email marketing services to target specific segments of prospects and deliver at right times. Blindly setting up automated autoresponders or drip emails without using any intelligence will result in more opt-outs or spam complaints.
Lead Nurturing
Lead Nurturing is a powerful strategy to be used with email marketing. Simple Lead Ranking or advanced Lead scoring methodologies can be used while using email marketing as a follow-up tool. The subscriber behavioral activities such as email opens, click throughs and email forwards can be used to intelligently nurture the leads.
Let us take a look at these strategies in detail in future posts.
